“I—” he starts, but the word dies. His eyes are glassy, a dark storm of things too dangerous to be called safe.
“You were there,” I whisper. “You tried to?—”
“Don’t,” he cuts in, his voice wrecked. “Don’t say it like it was kindness.”
“What?”
“I didn’t save you to save you, Raven. I saved you because he wanted you more than he wanted me.” His jaw tics, a violent, repetitive motion. “I couldn’t fucking stand that. I didn’t care if you were innocent. I wanted to ruin what he loved. Just like he ruined me.”
The silence that follows is a blade. I don’t pull away. I don’t sob. I just look at him. And something breaks in him. He shakes his head and collapses into a hollow, haunting laugh.
“You’re still here,” he whispers. “You should hate me.”
“I should,” I say, my throat raw. “But hate is easy. And nothing about this is easy. You didn’t ruin me, Damien.”
“You chose me,” I whisper. “Even if it was twisted.”
His breath is sharp. Torn. “I never stopped.”
Then his mouth crashes to mine. No warning. Just years of hunger buried beneath fire and blood. His kiss is a punishment, and I meet it with my own desperation, raking my nails downhis chest as he drags me back into the pew. The wood creaks, a groan of protest as he pins me.
This isn’t about comfort. This is possession. This is him sayingminewith every breath.
“I remember your mouth,” he growls against my throat. “I remember thinking about it every night they locked me in that room. I wondered if you’d look at me the same way after I ruined you.”
“You didn’t ruin me,” I gasp. “You made me feel real.”
He freezes. Then laughs—low, bitter, broken. His hand slips beneath my dress, finding the heat he’s already mapped out in his mind.
“You don’t get it, little spider. I’ve never wanted anything to last. Until you.”
He yanks my panties down, spreading me open with a growl of pure, unadulterated starvation. When his mouth drops to my thigh, I don’t breathe. I burn.
“Stay open,” he snarls. “Take it.”
He flattens his tongue and licks a stripe up my slit, feral and unholy, cursing into the silk of my skin. The vaulted echoes of the church swallow me whole as he sucks bruises into the soft crease of my thigh, then bites—hard, just enough to make me yelp, make my hips jump.
I can barely see the stained glass behind my eyelids. All I know is the sound he makes, half-starved, half-reverent, as he spreads my thighs wide enough to make the wooden pew creak and gets his mouth on me—tongue shoving into me, nose buried in the mess he’s making. He eats me with a devotion that feels like damnation. My legs tremble. I grab the back of his head, grind my hips against his face, feel the obscene slide of wetness and spit, the stubble burn on the inside of my thighs.
He growls when I clench, like he’s proud of how filthy I am, how eager. His fingers dig into my ass, kneading, spreading, thepads of his thumbs slick with my arousal as he pushes one just inside. I choke on a moan, the sound scattering up to the rafters, and he laughs, low and cruel, before sucking my clit so hard my breath stops.
“God can’t hear you here,” he rasps, voice muffled by my cunt. “But I can. Louder.”
He alternates between relentless licks and sharp, perfect nips. Heat streaks up my spine. My eyes roll back as I arch, heels digging into his shoulders, desperate for more, for everything, for his hands and mouth and cock splitting me open in this place where I’m not supposed to want it. My orgasm shudders through me, ragged and ugly, too much, not enough. I sob, clutching at his hair.
He doesn’t slow. He keeps licking until I’m shaking, until my thighs try to snap shut and he forces them wider, holding me open and helpless. When I whimper, “Please, please, fuck me,” he grins into my flesh.
He stands and I taste myself on his lips when he kisses me. He hikes my dress up to my waist, bends me over the pew, then—without ceremony, without warning—drives into me. No prep, no patience, just the hot, thick press of him splitting me raw, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal thrust.
I yelp, but his hand is already at my throat, pinning me to the worn wood, holding me steady as he fucks me. The rhythm is punishing, desperate, each snap of his hips slamming my body forward and into the curve of the pew, making the whole ancient thing groan and shudder.
“You belong to me now,” he hisses, lips at my ear, teeth nipping my earlobe, the heat of his breath sending shivers down my back. “You’re mine. Say it.”
“Yours,” I gasp, every word punctuated by the slap of our bodies, the slick slide of his cock inside me, deeper than anything I’ve ever felt.
I scream into the rafters of the chapel, coming apart in a place built for saints while I surrender to a sinner. When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are black.
“On your knees, Raven. I want to see how much you remember now.”
