Ten
Ten
HER
I’m yanked out of bed by a heavy hand. Reacting on pure instinct, I throw a fist into my attacker’s body. He grunts as I connect with whatever part of him I hit, but my focus is on the grip he still has on me. Grabbing his thumb, I wrench it back as I twist my arm to free myself.
His other hand wraps around my neck and shoves me back down onto the mattress. His body quickly crushes me, and for a second, primal panic consumes me. But then his lips are on mine, and familiarity washes through me. I know this mouth, the roughness of these hands as he gropes at my breasts.
“Varius?” I rasp in the darkness of my room, my pulse spiking as he presses a hard thigh between my legs.
He has been avoiding everyone since he got back from Aleric’s, but I’ve felt his rage and pain through our bond. I tried to go to him, to knock on his office door while he was locked in there these past two days, but he never gave me permission to enter. So I’ve been forced to wait until he came to me.
“Do you want to talk –”
He sucks my tongue into his mouth, forcing me to shut up. His fingers tighten around my throat, making it fucking clear what he wants from me.
My body, not my words.
Pressing his thigh harder into me, he snarls, “Fight me.”
A shiver rushes down my spine. I don’t hesitate. Don’t dare disobey by asking questions. Couldn’t even if I wanted to, my flight-or-fight response kicking in as if I’m really in danger.
I wrench my mouth away from his; he moans as he licks the side of my face. I swing my fist into his side, aiming for his smallest rib. He grunts and releases my neck to grab both of my hands. So I send fire down to my fingers, but he snuffs them out with the large palms of his when he crushes my hands into fists.
I cry out, the thrill of submission exciting me even as I worry that I’ve burned him with my flames. But he doesn’t seem to be in pain. Or, at least, he doesn’t seem to notice it, his attention back on my mouth as he forces his tongue inside mine.
I bite him, and he hisses. He pulls his tongue back, but it’s just to speak. “Harder,” he rasps before plunging back between my lips.
My teeth close fast, but before I can do more than brush his tongue, he’s released one of my hands to grab my jaw. He forces my mouth to stay open, my teeth just scraping his flesh as he takes what he wants.
With my free hand, I swing for his rib cage again. He stops kissing me as he grabs that hand and pins it back over my head. Wrapping one large palm over both of mine, he holds me firmly so I can’t move.
I stare up at him, my chest heaving, my body shaking at the thrill of his conquest.
Staring at me, darkness swirling in his eyes, he trails one hand down my naked body. Goosebumps flare everywhere he touches, and I arch up into him when he gets to my breasts, my nipples so sensitive they hurt.
“You like that, don’t you?” Varius growls as he cups me. “Such a naughty little thing. I bet I can make you come just from playing with these.” He pinches my nipple, and I cry out.
Leaning his face to my neck, he licks the full length of it as he continues to play with my breasts. His fingers stroke and cup and knead and pinch. His mouth licks and sucks and bites and kisses. I writhe beneath him, growing hot as my orgasm starts to build. My chest tingling with way too much sensitivity, I squeeze my thighs together. But my legs are still wrapped around his, and so I rub myself on the hard muscles of his thigh.
“That’s it,” he growls as he nibbles on my neck, his hand still feathering back and forth across my breasts, teasing one, then the other, never leaving them alone. “Show me how you’re mine.”
Whimpering, I rub my pussy lips against his thigh. The area soon becomes wet, and I close my eyes as I chase the high he’s giving me. His mouth trails down my neck in little kisses, and with every touch of his lips, I suck in a harsh breath. The anticipation of him reaching my breasts grows, and by the time he gets to them, I’m a complete mess, my orgasm so damn close already.
I glance down at him, watching as his lips trail across the top of my breasts. My nipple hardens, begging him to take it in his mouth. His breath feathers across it as he blows on it, teasing it, teasing me, teasing my godsdamn orgasm as it’s ready to explode.
“Varius, please,” I beg as I tremble beneath his body.
“Please, what?” he asks, a bite to his words that vaguely registers in the fog of my brain. There’s a dangerous edge to him tonight, a monster beneath the lust, and for a second, I pause, but then his thigh presses harder against me, turning on the button that switches off my brain, and I moan.
“Please put my nipple in your mouth.”
Parting his lips, he does exactly as I say, but he’s opened his mouth too wide, and his lips aren’t anywhere close to my aching nipple. I try to twist my body to feel the touch of them, but he just lifts his head back up. I whimper.
“Not like that,” I rasp, shaking my head. “Suck on it. Let me come. I’m so close, Varius. Please.”
His lips latch onto my other breast, and I arch off the bed. He pinches my other nipple in between his fingers, then releases my hands to touch my pussy. His thigh moves out of his way while he strokes me. I shudder beneath him. My eyes squeeze shut tight. My breaths come out shorter and shorter, harder and harder. Until I’m –
He pulls away.
Jumps out of bed as I’m left crying in frustration. “No,” I whine. “Please come back. I was so close. I need –”
I start to cup my breast, but he grabs my arm and yanks me out of bed.
“Run.”
Cursing, I jerk my arm away from him and bolt out of my bedroom. If I can just get far enough before he catches me, I can finish myself off…
Running through the house, I yank open the door to the outside, then head for the woods, hoping to lose him in the dark. I can hear the heaviness of his footsteps as he chases me though. Can sense just how close he is.
My pulse spiking, I run faster, pulling on everything I have. The trees start to fill in the space around me. I dart left and right, switching directions like a terrified rabbit being hunted by a wolf. And still he stays on my tail.
Frantic, I jump for the branch of a tree, thinking to lose him if I climb, but just as my hands wrap around the bark, he barrels into me. The skin is torn from my palms. The air is slammed out of my lungs on impact. The primal fear that was tickling my senses now full on attacks it, and I throw my elbow at his face.
He fends me off as I fight him. My pulse spiking, my body flush with too much adrenaline, I curl my legs up to shove him off. He grunts as he stops them from wrapping around his neck, then again as he shoves them down and forces them apart.
I cry out as a tendon in my thigh blares with sharp pain but not enough to worry me that he’s snapped it.
Ignoring my hands, he kneels between my thighs, his boxers now gone –taken off before he chased me, perhaps– and grabs his cock. In one quick, hard thrust, he fills every inch of my pussy.
I moan as I place my fingers flat on his chest, knowing he still isn’t comfortable with leaving me ‘armed’ when he is vulnerable. A witch cannot use their magic without their fingers to safely conduct it, shape it into what they want. And with the darkness swirling around him right now, I know he needs that safety net more. Lifting my hips, I take him deep with every rocking of his.
He wraps his fingers around my throat as he fucks me. He thrusts into me so hard, my body makes an indent in the ground. Leaves crunch, and twigs snap around us. My pants turn into screams. I stop trying to match his rhythm as my entire body arches up, that orgasm he denied me right on the edge once more.
Choking me, he growls, “Don’t you fucking come.”
He thrusts in slow and hard in just the way I like, and I whimper, then cry, then bite my lip, my head jerking side to side as my entire body shakes, trying to obey. To be the good girl he wants me to be.
His fingers tighten around my throat. My air is cut off as he pounds into me. Pleasure and terror mix together, but my orgasm doesn’t come. I fight it back. I lock it away in my lungs that can’t breathe.
Our hips slap against each other.
The crickets chirp around us.
The full moon glitters through the trees, but slowly, it starts to fade away as the darkness rushes around me.
My eyelids flutter.
And then I’m suddenly allowed to breathe.
I gasp in air as he slams into me balls deep, hitting the back of my cervix, bruising it, claiming it, marking it as his. He grabs both my arms and pins them back over my head. He leans and bites all the flesh he can reach, from my wrists to my elbows. He wraps his fingers back around my throat.
I jerk beneath him, each bite making me hotter. I love it when he marks me, when he tells the entire fucking world that I’m taken. His.
Varius fucking Shadow’s.
As his teeth dig into my arm hard enough to make it bleed, I cry out. He sits up and hauls me onto his lap. He guides one of my hands down to my pussy.
“Burn the hair off,” he growls as his hips pump into me.
I freeze, the demand shocking me. He’s always loved my curls, has even punished me for shaving before. The worry from earlier comes back, that there’s real danger in the air tonight.
A desperation.
A darkness.
A madness.
Whatever happened at Aleric’s meeting, I don’t think it’s caused this.
He almost seems mad at me? Like he’s punishing me.
My heart plummeting, my spine shivering, I look into his eyes.
A monster glares back at me.
It’s dangerous to fall in love with a dangerous man.
The hand he has on my throat suddenly feels too hot.
He squeezes me.
I panic.
He loosens his grip, allowing me to breathe.
But that panic doesn’t get washed away by the flooding of air into my lungs. It’s gripping its claws in me tight.
“I love you,” I say as I burn the hair off my pussy, hoping I can appease him with my submission. With my love. That whatever has caused this darkness inside him can be fixed with a simple reminder that I’m his. His to take care of, to protect, just like I will him.
The sulfuric smell of burning hair reaches my nostrils. My magic warms my pelvis. His cock jerks, and so I rock my hips, taking him in deep with every thrust. I keep my fingers flat on his shoulders, unthreatening as I ride him in slow, deep penetrations.
My eyes dip to his lips, wanting him to kiss me, to show me that everything between us is fine. But his eyes are on my pussy. On the words emblazoned there.
Property of Varius Shadow
“I’m yours,” I whisper, my hands seeking his. I entwine our fingers, giving him control of my magic, making myself vulnerable despite knowing he is on the crumbling edge of a dark crevice.
But he needs this. I can see it in his eyes, in his harsh breathing. He has always been so alone, betrayed so many times, he’s learned not to create connections. Not to give them a way to hurt him. He’s learned to be wary even of the people he loves. Never able to trust them fully because no one has ever stayed in his corner through thick and thin.
But I will.
“I’m here,” I murmur as I lean forward to kiss his lips. Gentle. Tenderly. Lovingly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He tenses beneath me for half a second, his muscles rigid beneath my body.
Then he’s fucking me like I’m a sex doll, as if he just needs to move. Burying his teeth into my neck, he bites me hard. His cock slams into me. He releases my fingers to grab my hips and move me. Up and down. Up and down. Up and fucking down.
I ride him on ragged pants despite the pain in my cervix, trying to give him whatever he wants. Whatever he needs in this moment, so he can step back from the edge urging him to jump. To run away from the relationship cornering him on the ledge.
I know he’s just running scared, so uncertain with what it means to love someone so much, it’s terrifying. He needs reassurance that this is right, that this relationship isn’t scary despite the big leap we’ve just taken – bonding before we’re even married. Before we’ve even known each other for a year.
So I hold on as he uses me. Punishes me. Hates me for making him feel this vulnerable, for breaking through his walls and seeing him in all his rawness.
His hands squeeze my hips tight. He lifts me up. Slams me back down.
And then he’s coming inside me on a roar of emotion that squeezes at my heart and lungs and throat.
I thread my fingers through his hair, holding him to me.
He brings his head down and kisses me. It’s rough. Wild. Desperate.
I kiss him back, my tongue dancing with his, letting him feel every inch of me to know that I’m not going anywhere. That I’m here. For him. For us.
“I love you,” I murmur.
His lips rub against mine. Our breaths mingle.
Then he pushes me off him and says, “Run home, little monster.”
I hesitate for the barest of seconds, watching his face, but then I’m gone. Running through the woods on shaky legs that drip with his cum. I reach a hand between my thighs, then bring it to my lips. Sucking his taste off my fingers, I moan.
The snap of a twig behind me makes my pulse jump. The sound of him chasing me makes me hot, and I wonder if I can even make it to the house. Or if I’ll collapse in a heap of arousal and exhaustion, my lungs no longer willing to suck in air.
But soon, the house comes into view, and with the last drop of energy I can wring from my tired legs, I run up the side of the building below his room, latch onto the ledge of his window, and pull myself up onto it. My core clenches as I balance on an inch-wide ledge, the anticipation of a fall making my adrenaline spike. But then I’m pushing up the window, having unlocked it with my magic, and rolling inside Varius’ room.
I barely make it back to my feet when I feel him behind me. His arms wrap around my waist and lift me. Pivoting, he throws me onto his bed.
I bounce, my jaw slack as I pant, my eyes hot on his toned, naked body standing in all its glory in front of me. My mouth waters. My chest heaves.
And then he’s on me, shoving my thighs apart as he buries his face between my legs.
Arching on a cry, I grind against him as he eats me out. Wrapping his hands around my legs, he rolls onto his back so I’m above him. I sit down all the way, riding his face until I’m quivering in pleasure. Then he lifts me off him and spins me around. One thick forearm on my back pins me to his stomach, my face right in front of his throbbing cock.
I reach forward and grab it. My fingers can’t reach each other, he’s so big. But I squeeze him tight and lean forward as much as I can without coming off Varius’ mouth. My tongue flicks out along his head, tasting him for the first time.
He groans into my pussy, and the vibration of it causes me to gasp. Moving his arm up from my waist to the back of my head, he guides me onto his cock. I take as much of him as I can, but just his tip is stretching my lips too much. I gag around his head, and he jerks into me, sliding past my lips to go even deeper.
I struggle to breathe as my saliva runs down my chin to wet his balls. But I don’t stop, bobbing and jerking my head, trying to please him as he pleases me.
His tongue flicks between my lips, building me up until I’m close to coming again. Wanting him to be inside me when I do, to connect us in that most primal of ways, I wiggle my hips in a request for him to release me. To let me move.
His hand on the back of my neck applies more pressure for another few seconds, and I take him as deep as I can. Then he’s releasing me, and I’m climbing up his body until my pussy is hovering over his cock. Grabbing the thick-veined beast, I rub it between my lips, which are wet with my arousal and his cum and saliva. He slides against me. His hands squeeze my hips, urging me on.
Holding him tight with one hand, I slowly lower myself down on his cock until I’m fully penetrated, fully his.
Moaning, I start to ride him. He’s inside me so damn deep. My hands on his knees, I lift myself up and down his gorgeous cock. His fingers dig into my hips as his breaths come out faster behind me. My pants growing shallower, I squeeze my eyes shut as pure ecstasy courses through my body.
“Fuck, baby, you feel so good inside me,” I pant as my thighs tremble from the pleasure. My fingers squeeze his knees as the entire area where we’re connected becomes soaked with my arousal. “I love your cock so much.”
Shuddering, I squeeze my pelvis muscles, gripping him tight. I’m so fucking wet, I’m sliding up and down him in a sloppy mess. I groan every time he hits me just right.
“Fuck, baby, fuck me harder,” he groans as his fingers knead my flesh. But he doesn’t force me. Doesn’t move me himself. He waits for me to do it. To listen. To obey. To give him my submission.
Whimpering, I fuck him harder.
And harder.
Until I’m riding him so fast I see stars. Until my limbs no longer seem to know how to work, they’re so exhausted, so poised on that edge of ecstasy.
He sits up behind me, his cock hitting me at a new angle, and I cry out in utter pleasure. One of his hands reaches around me to rub my pussy, applying pressure just the way I like it. The other tightens around my throat.
His breath tickles my ear. His teeth latch onto my lobe. “Don’t you fucking come,” he growls as he tightens his hand around my neck.
He removes his hand from my pussy to force my head to turn to the side so he can kiss me, then puts it back, his fingers stroking me slowly as his other hand grips me too tight. His tongue dives inside my mouth, stealing the last of my air. Taking my breath and making it his. I try to kiss him back, to keep riding him as he needs me to, but all the oxygen has left my lungs, and my limbs are becoming too heavy. My brain too sluggish, then too loud as it screams at me that I’m dying.
That he’s killing me.
That the person I love is too dangerous a man.
No.
No, he loves me.
He’s just scared of the vulnerability I make him feel, but he loves me.
He won’t hurt me.
As the last of my consciousness starts to fade, I rub my lips against his, mouthing, “I love you. I am here…”
I will always be here.