“Daphne,” a rough voice brushed against my neck, pulling me back by the hips. “You are in so much fucking trouble.”
four
Daphne: Blasphemy
Wolfe nudged between my knees, holding me in the doorframe.
“There are over five hundred naked women at this party,” he breathed, snaking his hand along my throat to tip my chin into the busted glow of the club light. “And just like always, I cannot keep my eyes off you, Daphne.”
The words swept across my ear, causing everything to feel hot and sticky.
“Why the fuck can’t I quit you?” Wolfe spun, crowding me against the center of his chest, and I stuttered, catching his usual scent of salt and wintergreen trickling into my mouth.
“Wolfe?” I asked, feeling the universe darken.
“Yeah, Daph?” His fingertips roamed, rounding my hips and rolling over my ass with a tight squeeze.
“Nine,” I rasped hot against his lips, dipping my tongue in just enough to taste him. “I want nine.”
It would never be ten, even though I knew that was what he wanted, what he had been waiting for since the day we began this little game. But I couldn’t give him that last piece of me. It already belonged to someone else.
“Fucking hell.” He turned the knob, shoving me into the dank alley littered with the stench of secondhand rain and backwater trash. Seattle always smelled wet, her lungs one step from blue-tinted pneumonia.
I moaned when he slammed me against the brick wall, loving the way the sharp edges scratched my skin in tiny, burning lines.
My phone chimed, but Thay,or Threx, or thatself-satisfied bastardcould fuck off. He didn’t get to find me. Not now.
Or maybe he should.
Maybe it was his turn to watch.
Wolfe knew how to fuck me, the nuance of my angles and all my glittering breaking points. What each breath meant, and how to draw it out of me. He understood my body in ways that I forced myself not to think about, and Thay knew it. He smelled it on me after the first time Wolfe broke me open, but of course, he didn’t say a word. Just watched while I pressed my thighs together every time Wolfe entered the damn room.
“Fuck, I miss you.” Wolfe’s fingers dropped to his belt, splitting the air with the sharp swipe of leather. I panted when he draped it behind my neck, sliding it slowly across my skin.
I missed him, too, but Wolfe had made it implicitly clear that the most we would ever be was complicated, and that no longer worked for the person I was attempting to become. I would never forget the day I walked in on him with some Underworld groupie, her wrists bound to the bedpost while he took her from behind.
“Can I help you, Daphne?” he had said, turning his head just enough to watch me blink.
At first, I thought it was about Thay, because let’s be honest, you didn’t get me without him. But it wasn’t. After months of sleeping on Wolfe’s chest, it was nothing more than a brutal reminder of who I was and where I stood in his world.
Wolfe liked to pretend he didn’t have a heart. Leaders of the Underworld couldn’t afford them, but I’d heard enough heartbeats to know the truth. He beat for me. And while mine beat for Thay, I loved Wolfe, though I’d never said the words out loud.
“Sure about thatnine, Pretty Girl?” he asked, taking the end of his belt and threading it behind my neck.
My lips parted, the slightest breath catching on my approval.
“You know the rules,” he said, leaning close, and I smiled.
I was safe with Wolfe. All I had to do was say stop, and he’d fuck me like the princess I was, getting off on that thin line where darkness and light liked to play.
“Yes,” I breathed when my phone buzzed again. And again.And…
Wolfe’s eyes went wild while he pulled my cell out of the hidden compartment inside my dress and shoved it into his pocket.
“You’re here with me now.” His eyes darkened, watching the way my breath hit my lungs, making my breasts do all sorts of naughty tricks.
I nodded, suddenly all too aware of the collar he’d placed around my throat and the sparkling need for him to pull.