Page 23 of Mate of a Monster

I’m here to ruin her the way she ruined me.

I slam her into the wall, and her eyes roll back as the stone knocks the air out of her lungs.

My other hand curls around her jaw, feeling the lipstick under my thumb, the structural precision of her bone structure. I could stop. I fucking should stop—

My body has already made the choice.

I crush my mouth against hers, dragging her closer by the jaw, and the little growl she gives me vibrates against my tongue as I push past it.

Her teeth sink into my bottom lip hard enough to split it, and the copper bloom of my own blood floods the space between our mouths. I groan into her, a sound that comes from somewhere primal. My hands tear the leather of her gown and the rips along her ribs widen. The slashes at her thighs become gaps. I peel her open because the dress is a fucking nuisance and I need to get past it.

“You ran,” I say against her mouth, blood smearing our lips.

Her nails rake down my bare chest, five lines of fire from collarbone to stomach.

“And you chased,” she replies, breathless. “What does that make you?”

I slam her into the wall again, and she scratches my forearm open from elbow to wrist. I barely feel it through the heat. My blood runs down my arm and drips onto the stone.

“Witch,” I say, low.

“Monster,” she says back, and is that pride I see?

I drop to my knees.

The stone is warm under me, almost feverish, and I don’t think about it. I think about the torn leather hanging off her hips, the skin underneath, the way her stomach contracts when my breath hits it. I shove the ruined fabric aside with both hands, grip her thighs hard enough to feel muscle tense under my palms, and put my mouth on her.

Because she doesn’t get to run and then pretend I don’t exist.

She doesn’t get to slip through my fingers and sleep soundly while I’m left with her scent rotting through my skull. This isn’t want. This is extraction—pulling her out of me the only way I know how, and if I have to go through her to do it, she should’ve run faster.

My tongue drags through her, slow, and she tastes like a fucking nightmare. I press deeper, harder, fingers digging crescents into her thighs while her back arches off the wall and her whole body bows toward my mouth like I’m the thing she was running to this entire time.

Her hand fists in my hair. Pulls. Hard enough that my scalp screams and my eyes water and I want more of it. I want her to rip it out by the roots. I want her to hurt me the way I hurt her. I want the scales balanced in blood and bruises and the sounds she’s making now, ragged and furious and climbing.

“I hate you.” She pants above me, her hips rolling against my mouth, her fingers twisting tighter. “I hate you, I hate you, I…”

I suck hard and her words dissolve into a sound that isn’t language anymore.

Good. Shut up. Stop talking. Stop making me—

Her thighs shake against my hands. I feel the moment she gets close, feel it in the desperation of her grip, her breathing fracturing, and I pull back just enough to press my mouth to the inside of her thigh, teeth grazing skin, tasting the salt of her sweat. She makes a sound that could gut a man.

“Say my name,” I growl. “Say it and I’ll finish what I started.”

“Fuck you.”

I bite down. She jerks.

“Legend.” It comes out strangled, furious, soaked in everything she doesn’t want. Fucking me. “Legend, you fucking—”

I give her what she wants because it’s the only way to shut her up.

My mouth crashes down on her, starving, lips sealing around her clit. No bullshit or words. I drag my tongue through her wet slit, tasting her arousal. Her thighs clamp around my head, her hips jerking up to meet my mouth, and I growl against her, the vibration making her whole body shudder.

She comes with a broken scream, her back arching off the stone, her fingers twisting in my hair hard enough to rip strands free. My name tears out of her—Legend—raw and ragged. The pressure behind my sternum explodes, a white-hot surge that blinds me for a second. My vision swims with gold, with heat, with the taste of her still thick on my tongue.

I don’t stop. Can’t. My mouth works her through it, lips and teeth and tongue relentless, drinking down every shudder, every gasp, every desperate sound she makes. The cavern swallows the noise, amplifies it, sends it back at us in waves—her voice, my name, the wet, filthy sounds of my mouth on her, the ragged edge of her breathing.