As I ease back to find her gaze, her pupils are blown. Dark, glittering pools of raw emotion. The fear banked there should decimate me. Yet it seeps molten into my vessels, an intoxicating summons to this terrible, wretched desire that, once granted a single taste, will consume.
Irrevocably.
“I want your fight,” I say, urgent as I wet my lips. “I’m taking you, Collins. Rough, hard. And you need to fight.”
Holding her immobile, my body a bonded cage around hers, I keep her gaze—a silent, severe warning delivered in mine. Because once I cross this boundary, there may be no return. Not all annihilation births creation from dust and starlight. And if something does emerge, it might be something monstrous and lost.
On the shore beneath the shadow, I fought to save her. I held back the insidious, dark urges clawing at my mind. But this—this is reaching into the unknown, into the void itself, and hoping some semblance of humanity survives.
A torn sound escapes her, and she bites into the cushion of her lip as her gaze searches the rigid planes of my face. Within her storming depths, I watch a spark of her fury ignite, that celestial fire that wants to rage.
“You’re the only one I trust to…” she whispers, her words failing, “to do—this.” Her swallow is audible. “I trust you, Orion.”
A primal desiretears loose, and I hungrily claim her mouth, cutting off her pained concession. The sound that emanates from me is barely human as I kiss her until I’m drowning in her, letting my lips linger against hers until our ragged breaths align.
“Hold on, angel.” My voice breaks as I lace our fingers together. She grips back, muscles tensing and thighs pressing against my hips.
“Collins, take a breath for me.”
With a quick nod, she does, her nails biting into the back of my hand—a fierce counterpoint of pain and pleasure as I thrust inside her.
And we collide, intense and incandescent, like atoms merging in the fiery heart of a star. Fusion at its most elemental, crashing violent and devastating.
“God, you feel so fucking good,” I groan against her mouth. Muscles strained, I mutter a gruff curse, utterly wrecked. “Too goddamn perfect—fuck.”
For one aching beat, I keep myself deep inside her. Then, gripping her hand, I pull back and thrust again—rougher, deeper—shattering myself against her as she releases the softest cry, an erotic note that undoes the very core of me.
Collins goes rigid beneath me, her heartbeat trapped in fear, nails carving crescents into my knuckles. The tension in her body mirrors my own, and I can sense the panic clutching her, locking her in place.
I release a shuddering breath with my next restrained thrust, a low curse working free. “Being frozen hurts far worse, starling,” I whisper over her parted lips, urgently coaxing her as I deepen my strokes, losing myself to the sinfully corrupt feel of claiming her.
For one moment, she’s held captive by that fear, then her body comes alive beneath me. Reactive, frantic.
Violent.
Her body crashes against mine.
My fingers laced through hers, my other hand restraining her wrist to the bed, I rear back and slam into her. A guttural curse rips from my throat, my flesh aflame with friction as I bury myself impossibly deeper.
Each building thrust grows more demanding, more punishing as her body thrashes against mine. Her cries fill the air as her hips surge upward in fierce defiance. And god-fucking-dammit—a savage groan scrapes loose as I feel her squirm and buck, an erotic rebellion making me a damned fiend as I press her deeper into submission, dropping my full weight on top of her.
Her eyes fasten shut, the glistening fringe of her lashes so achingly beautiful as I bear down, mercilessly driving inside her, defiling her with each ruthless thrust. Tearing through her—through me.
And I hold her restrained?—
So she can fight, so she can rail.
So she can crash against me, wave after battering wave, unleashing her turbulent fury.
I let her storm rage. I let her anger surge.
I take it all.
For a shattered heartbeat, my grip on her wrist relaxes, and she pulls free. She brings her balled fist down on my shoulder. Once. Again. Relentless as she strikes out. With her next blow, her hand slips against my sweat-slicked skin, but she doesn’t stop until her strength ebbs, her ragged breath giving way to raking nails, branding me in furious streaks of fire.
“Jesus, fuck?—”
The curse grinds past gritted teeth as pain lights a fuse, and my hand slips around her throat, collaring her with enough pressure she can scream, where her breaths don’t drag.
