I grab her wrists, pinning them against the cold, wet stone wall of the lagoon. The contrast of her pale, trembling skin against the black rock is so fucking beautiful I can’t breathe.
“Don’t look away,” I command, my body slamming into hers, crushing her against the stone. I lean in, my teeth sinking into the slope of her shoulder, biting down until I taste the copper of her skin. I want her marked. I want her looking like a fucking map of my obsession.
I move my hand down, my palm sliding over her belly, feeling the frantic tremor of her muscles. She’s sobbing, her head falling back against the rock as I trail my mouth down to her breast, my tongue dragging over the ‘K’ I carved.
“Look at me, Scar,” I rasp, my hand diving between her thighs.
She’s a wreck—sobbing, pleading, her breath coming in ragged, broken hitches—but when my fingers find her, she’s slick. Drenched. The heat coming off her is enough to burn the world down.
“Fuck,” I groan, my forehead thumping against the rock next to her ear. I sink two fingers into her, deep and punishing, feeling her internal muscles clench around me in a traitorous welcome. “You’re fucking dripping for me. You’re sobbing about how much you hate me while your body is begging me to ruin you.”
I haul her away from the wall, dragging her over to a flat, moss-covered rock that juts out into the black water. I flip her over, her stomach hitting the cold stone, her hips elevated as I loom over her.
“You think he ever made you feel like this?” I hiss, my hand gripping her hair to pull her face around so she has to see the feral hunger in my eyes. “Did his polite, expensive fingers evermake you hum like a goddamn wire? No. Because he’s a man, Scarlett. And I’m the thing that’s going to make you forget he ever existed.”
I grind my thumb into her, watching her back arch, watching her fingers claw at the moss as she lets out a high, broken moan that sounds like a confession.
“Tell me,” I demand, my voice a low, lethal hum. “Tell me who you belong to.”
I don’t give her the mercy of a quick end. I want the slow burn. I want her to suffer through the realisation that even while she’s weeping, her body is a traitor to her mind.
I’m hunched over her like a scavenger, my chest heaving against her spine. I reach around, my hand diving back between her legs, my fingers hooking into that ruined, drenched heat. The sound of it—the wet, rhythmic sliding of my skin against hers—echoes off the obsidian walls of the lagoon like a slap.
“Look at you,” I growl, my thumb finding the hood of her clit and grinding into it with a brutal, steady pressure. “You’re begging me to stop with your mouth, but you’re fucking screaming for me down here.”
“Kai, please… ah!” Her head falls back onto my shoulder, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as I circle that sensitive nerve until she’s vibrating. “It’s too much… please…”
“It’s not enough,” I rasp.
I spin her around on the rock, forcing her onto her back. The moss is slick under her skin, her hair splayed out like dark silk against the black stone. I loom over her, my shadow swallowing her whole. I grab her breasts, my hands bruising the pale skin as I haul her chest up to my mouth.
I don’t just kiss her. I claim her. I take one nipple into my mouth, my teeth grazing the tip before I suck her deep, my tongue swirling in a frantic, starving rhythm.
“Fuck, Scar,” I moan against her skin, the vibration of my voice making her entire body shiver. “You’re fucking soaking my hand. I can’t even get a grip on you, you’re so wet for me.”
I move to the other side, licking a path across her sternum, right over the ‘K’ that’s weeping a fresh bead of red. I taste her—the salt, the iron, the jasmine—and it’s a fucking drug. I suck her other nipple until she’s arching off the rock, her fingers digging into my hair, pulling me closer even as she tries to push me away.
“You like this, don’t you?” I pull back, my face inches from hers, my fingers still working her, sliding in and out of her with a relentless, punishing pace. I’m stretching her, prepping her, making sure she’s wide open for the wrecking ball I’m about to swing. “You like that I’m a monster. You like that I don’t ask. You like that I just take.”
I sink a third finger into her, a sharp, invasive stretch that makes her eyes snap open, her pupils blown so wide there’s no colour left. She lets out a jagged, high-pitched keening sound—the sound of a woman who’s finally broken.
“Say it,” I hiss, my thumb grinding harder, faster, until she’s on the verge of a cliff worse than the one we just left. “Say my name while you’re cumming on my hand. Tell me who owns this.”
“Kai…” she sobs, her hips bucking against my hand, her voice a wrecked, beautiful ruin. “Kai, fuck… it’s you. It’s always been you.”
I let out a low, guttural roar of triumph. I pull my hand back, dripping with the evidence of her betrayal, and I smear it across her lips like a brand.
“Good girl,” I whisper, my hand going to the button of my jeans. “Now I’m going to show you exactly what happens to girls who try to marry ghosts.”
I don’t give her a second to breathe, a second to think, a second to remember a world where I don’t exist.
I grab her hips, my fingers bruising the soft flesh, and I flip her over like she weighs nothing. I shove her face-down into the mossy surface of the rock, her chest flat against the stone, and I haul her backside up until she’s arched like a bow.
“Look at this,” I growl, my voice a dark, fractured thing. “Look at what you were going to give that pathetic prick.”
The sight of her—bare, trembling, and drenched in the moonlight—is enough to make my vision go red. She’s perfect. A goddamn masterpiece of ruin.
“Fuck, baby,” I rasp, my hand coming down in a sharp, stinging slap against the curve of her ass. The sound cracks through the silent lagoon like a gunshot. “You look so fucking good like this. It’s almost a waste to hide you in the dark.”
