"Wait," he chokes out, his hips twitching upward in a silent, desperate plea.
I smile against his skin. "I don't think I will."
9
CILLIAN
The view from the floor is a revelation of ruin. She looks like a vengeful saint, hair a dark silk curtain framing a face that finally matches the fire in her eyes. I’ve spent years mastering the art of the cold, planned strike, but here, under the weight of her knees and the heat of her gaze, the shadows I inhabit are beginning to burn.
She wraps her hand around me, and the ensuing jolt is about as sweet as heaven. I’m a man of infinite patience, a man who knows the value of the slow bleed, but the way she looks at me is testing everything I know about waiting it out.
Then she leans down.
The first touch of her tongue is a wet, searing brand. I choke on a breath that tastes like her name, my fingers tangling in her hair with a desperation I despise and crave in equal measure. She doesn't hesitate. She takes me into the humid heat of her mouth, a slow, sliding pull that drains the very gravity from the room.
It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt—a dark, liquid gold pouring through my veins, melting the ice I’ve spent a lifetimecultivating. She doesn’t let up, her tongue swirling with a pressure that has my hips bucking off the floor, my heels digging into the rug. The sound she makes, that low, vibrating hum of satisfaction against my skin, is the sweetest violence I’ve ever endured.
My control doesn't just fray. It vaporizes.
I reach out, my hands finding her waist, and I don't ask. I haul her upward, the transition from the floor to the air a blurred rush of heat and friction. I’m on my feet before she can even gasp, my strength a sudden, dark tide she can't stem.
I slam her back against the wall. Her legs wrap around my waist instinctively, her eyes blown wide, dark with the shock of my sudden reclamation.
"You want to play the predator?" I rasp, my voice a growl against her ear. "Then learn what it feels like to be hunted."
I hook one hand under her thigh, hoisting her higher until she’s pinned between the cold plaster and my burning chest. My other hand slides down, a heavy, authoritative weight that parts her legs with a brutal, beautiful efficiency. I find her again—damp, swollen, and pulsing with the aftershocks of the table—and I drive two fingers inside her with a sudden, deep thrust that makes her back arch and her head hit the wall.
I don’t give her the mercy of a pause. My fingers are an invasion, driving into her with a dark, punishing speed that turns her gasps into ragged sobs. I watch the color climb her chest, the way her eyes roll back, the fine tremors taking hold of her limbs as she reaches that ledge once more.
The moment her walls tighten around my hand in a frantic, pulsing clench, I withdraw.
Before she can even draw the breath to protest the loss, I replace my fingers with the heavy, blunt heat of myself. I don't slide in—I drive. One deep, devastating thrust that pins her against the wall and hammers the air right out of her lungs.
The friction is a riot. The sensation of being buried deep in her searing, liquid heat is so intense, it threatens to end me right there.
"Look at me," I growl, my hands sliding up to frame her face, forcing her to see the dark, unhinged ruin she’s made of my composure.
I pull back, nearly all the way, until only the tip of me lingers in her heat, and then I surge forward again. The sound of our skin meeting is the only thing that exists in the world. I’m a man possessed, a creature of shadow finally finding the sun. Each stroke is a heavy, deliberate claim, my hips hitting hers with a force that makes the wall groan behind her.
"Tell me," I rasp, my teeth grazing her ear as I pick up the pace, the friction turning from warmth to a scorching, beautiful burn. "Tell me who owns this."
She’s a mess of tangled hair and flushed skin, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her nails drawing blood through the tension of my muscles. She doesn't answer with words. She answers by wrapping her legs tighter around my waist, pulling me in deeper, demanding every ounce of the violence I’m offering.
The pace turns frantic. I can feel the pressure building at the base of my spine, a dark, heavy tide that’s about to break the last of my dams. I bury my face in the crook of her neck, my breath hot against her skin, as I lose the ability to do anything but move.
The wall is a cold, static ghost behind her, but the heat between us is a living, devouring thing. I have her pinned, my weight a heavy anchor, and for a moment, I think I’ve finally found the bottom of her defiance.
I’m wrong.
Just as I prepare to drive into her again, she finds purchase against the wall with her heels. With a sudden, lithe strength that catches me mid-breath, she shoves. I’m forced to step back to keep my balance, and in that split second of instability, she’s down, sliding out from under me like smoke.
I turn, my blood singing a dark tune, but she’s already moving. She doesn’t retreat. She lunges, her hands flat against my chest as she maneuvers me back toward the heavy velvet armchair in the corner.
"You think because you’re louder, you’re in charge?" she pants, her eyes glowing like embers.
She shoves me into the chair. I hit the leather with a soft huff of air, my legs falling apart, completely exposed. Before I can even think of rising, she’s over me. She straddles my lap, her knees locking me into the deep cushions, her weight a sudden, glorious pressure against my thighs.
She reaches down, her fingers cool and steady as she guides me back inside her. She doesn't rush. She lowers herself inch by agonizing inch, her eyes locked on mine, watching the way my jaw tightens until the bone threatens to snap. The sensation of her taking all of me on her own terms is a different kind of torture—a slow, silk-lined drowning.