He slid inside me, slow at first, but I wouldn’t give him the luxury of gentleness. I wrapped my legs around his waist, nails biting into the flesh above his shoulder blades, daring him to go harder, to take what he wanted and leave me raw.
He obliged.
Our bodies collided with a violence that was almost holy, the headboard rattling, drywall cracking beneath the thunder of our need.
I arched up, teeth grazing the cord of his neck, and he moaned loud enough to shake the windows.
My anger braided with arousal, a double helix of need and hate, and I rode it until my body dissolved, until the past and present and every future pain blurred into a single, shattering scream.
I pressed my thighs tight to his hips, tears mixing into the sweat at our hairline, surrendering to lust because it was the only violence left to me.
I wanted to be filled, bruised, devoured; I wanted to erase everything and start over, to be reborn in the friction and the heat and the noise of it. His hands were everywhere, and so were mine, clawing, pressing, desperate for proof of life.
I rutted into him, not for pleasure to burn away everything that had come before. His breath hitched at my ear. “Amelia, God… you’re amazing.”
I almost laughed. Amazing.
That was one word for it.
He pinned my wrists to themattress, but I twisted free, flipping us so I was on top, riding him with wild, reckless urgency. I didn’t care about his pleasure, only that I could make him lose himself, make him ache the way I did.
I wanted to split myself open and bleed out all the bad; I wanted him to see what Caiden had broken in me, to see the chaos that I had become.
My body knew what it wanted even if my brain was still somewhere else. Off at the graveside, off in some funhouse mirror where Lillian’s dead hands clapped approval at every savage motion.
He watched me with awe and pleasure written on his face. His hands reached up and fondled my breasts, his fingers twisting and squeezing as he allowed me to unravel and take control.
He tried to meet my gaze, brown eyes shining with something too soft, too tentative, and I hated it. I hated him for not hating me, for not seeing the monstrous thing I’d become.
He gripped my waist, steadying me, as if he was the anchor and I was the storm. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and I almost spat in his face.
I pressed my palm to his mouth, fingers digging into the stubble of his jaw, daring him to speak again. He bit the pad of my thumb, just shy of drawing blood, and the pain startled a harsh moan from my lips.
Harder, I thought, I want it to hurt. I wanted the marks, the memories, the proof that I could still be touched, still be moved.
I clawed at his chest, dragging red lines down to his stomach, and he only bucked harder, hands frantic on my ass.
“Fuck, Amelia,” he groaned, and I let the word ricochet in my skull like a gunshot.
I rode him until my thighs burned, until my lungs ached with the force of my sobbing breaths, each one more ragged than the last.
I clenched around the throbbing heat inside of me, letting it consume every fiber of my blood.
I let Dante pin me again after a few minutes. He wildly thrusted into me, his chest hammering against mine.
He came with a violence that belonged in war, not love, his muscles spasming under my claws as he jerked himself onto my stomach.
The wave of relief—of obliteration—hit me so hard I blacked out for half a second, the room tilting, his arms the only thing keeping me from falling through the mattress into some abyssal pit where Lillian waited.
After, we lay in the dark, both of us panting.
I stared at the ceiling, counting the cracks, not speaking.
Dante drifted to sleep almost instantly, the way only boys with unbroken hearts could. I listened to his breathing, the steadiness of it, and hated him for it.
I wanted to punch him awake, force him to feel every terrible thing inside of me.
The anger returned, black and bottomless. Overpowering the grief that I should have been feeling. Rage became infused into my bones, as if it was all I would ever be.
