“And you never play soft.”
I shouldn’t think of it now, but I do. Seventeen, spiraling, half-drunk on rebellion, dancing too close to a stranger I didn’t even like. I wanted to feel something sharp in a world that demanded I stay polished and composed. The music was loud, synthetic, and forgettable. The boy’s hands were too confident and careless while pressing against skin that wasn’t his to touch.
But what I remember most is Dom.
Across the room, he stood with a drink in hand, a bruise spreading along his jaw, murder alive in his eyes. He didn’t need to raise his voice or posture. The way he moved was enough. One second, I was pretending to flirt. The next, I was in his lap, arm locked around my waist, his other hand clutching my dress as if it were the only tether keeping him from tearing the place apart. The boy I’d danced with vanished fast.
Nobody challenged a Blackwood.
Now, Dom brushes a lock of hair behind my ear, a touch so tender it might fool someone who doesn’t know what those fingers have done. They’ve broken bones and shattered skulls, coaxed pleasure from me with merciless precision, mapped every inch of my body with ownership and reverence, and clung to me like I’m the only thing keeping him alive. And sometimes, I think I am.
“Look at me,” he breathes.
I drag my nails up the column of his throat. “Make me.”
His eyes flash. “Always testing limits.”
“Only with you.” The confession lands before I can cage it.
“You’re the only one who sees me like this. The only one who makes me want to be seen.”
“Kiss me.”
His knuckles brush my jaw. “Patience was never your virtue, was it?”
“I don’t remember you complaining about my virtues before.”
“Thought I’d forgotten how to make you beg, love?” He slips his hand beneath the hem of my dress with the ease of a man who’s done it a hundred times. “You were so eager to show off,” he murmurs. “Now be a good girl and stay quiet while I remind you what happens when you forget that you are mine.”
I swallow the gasp, but my body’s already trembling.
His hand clamps around my waist, not just holding but locking me in place, like he can’t risk letting me slip an inch from him. The other slides lower until his fingers press against my core, slick and pulsing for him. Heat surges through me at the low and feral growls he lets out. “Fuck. Already this wet for me?”
The question sinks into my skin, and then he moves, stroking through the mess he’s drawn out of me as if every flick of his fingers is another piece of proof he owns. My thighs tremble when he pushes two fingers inside and the stretch rips a gasp out of me. He doesn’t slow or let me adjust. Every thrust is deliberate and ruthless, like he’s reminding me this body has only ever been his to master.
I choke back a moan as his fingers dig into my waist, and the rhythm of the club bleeds into the rhythm of him. The Den writhes around us, bodies shimmering in every corner, the air thick with sex and spell-dust. The masking spell Dom casts hums to life, heat and haze wrapping us in secrecy, though I know anyone who wanted to could still hear the broken sounds clawing out of me. And maybe that’s the point. This place feeds on it—on surrender paraded in the open—and he knows I’ll give it to him every time.
His grip shifts, palm curling around my throat, tilting my head back until I can’t look anywhere but at him. My lips part, a ragged cry slipping free as he drives his fingers into me with brutal precision, each thrust a white-hot spark that tears me apart and stitches me back together in the same breath. My nails bite into his forearm, desperate for something solid, but he doesn’t flinch
And then he bends close and brushes his mouth against my temple with softness no one else would ever believe he’s capable of. Itguts me more than the force of his body, because it’s only ever for me. He is only ever mine. The monster. The villain. The contradiction that ruins and worships me in the same breath. I crave him most when I can’t tell which one he’ll be.
“Do you even know what you do to me?” His voice is shaking with fury and need. “Every fucking part of me breaks for you. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, and I don’t even fucking want to. You ruin me, Aria, and I’d let you do it a thousand times over.”
His other hand glides up my body, slipping beneath the neckline of my dress. Fingers splay wide, every inch of the climb a reminder that he owns what he touches. When his palm closes over my breast, he squeezes hard enough to sting, forcing a gasp out of me as pain collides with pleasure in a way only he can orchestrate. His thumb torments my nipple, twisting until I can’t hold back the sound tearing from my throat. I respond without thought, my body betraying me, as if I’ve never known anyone but him.
Dom’s fingers thrust inside me again, curling cruelly, and my knees nearly give. Still, he doesn’t kiss me or give me mercy. He drags his mouth to my ear instead. “Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
“Louder. I want them all to hear.” His grip on my throat tightens.
“I’m yours!” The words shatter out of me, surrender and fury tangled together.
His mouth presses to the crook of my neck. “And I’m yours. Always yours,” he sighs. “Even when I shouldn’t be. Even when I wish to god I could stop, I’d still crawl back and beg for more.”
Then slowly Dom’s slides his fingers free. They are slick and glistening in the red light. He lifts his hand to his mouth and sucks each finger clean, one by one, tongue curling with deliberate filth. His eyes stay locked on mine throughout, like he wants to burn this image into my soul.
“Sweetest little pussy I’ve ever had. I could live off you. Every fucking drop. Don’t ever think I’d let another man close enough to try. They’d be dead before they even got their mouth on you.”
