Wicked Vows (Cross Brothers #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

MARLOWE

Damian loves making me wait like this, bent over my desk, palms braced, skirt hiked high around my hips.

He tells me to wear it for easy access, and I do every time.

Because I crave the way his hands claim my skin and the moment when control slips from me and settles in him.

It's not just want; it's something darker, something buried deep inside me that only stirs when he's near. I can never get enough.

The room holds its breath with me. Only the soft hum of the old vents whispers through the room, sending cool air over the backs of my thighs. Then, click, the lock turns, sharp and clean. My pulse stumbles in the silence it leaves behind.

I don’t move. I stay where he told me to, exposed and trembling, heart slamming against my ribs with a hunger only he satisfies. I sense him watching me. The weight of it prickles across my skin. His breath catches, shallow and sharp, and the sound triggers a deep, curling need.

He doesn’t speak—only the whisper of his steps behind me, the soft drag of fabric as he shrugs off his jacket.

The rougher sound of sleeves rolling up his arms, the slow ritual of him getting ready.

My body knows the rhythm of this now—the ritual of his hunger, the reverence of his touch.

Anticipation tightens around my ribs like a band. I can barely breathe.

His hands find me. Firm, rough palms press against the curves of my ass.

Fingers spread me open, baring me to him: raw, wet, aching.

He groans behind me, low and rough. The sound is barely human, more feral than man.

“Look at you,” he says, his voice heavy with want.

“Dripping for me, and I haven’t even put my cock near you yet. ”

Heat flushes my skin. It’s the knowing that gets me, the simple thought of him inside me, smooth and thick. That’s all it takes to make me ache. How he owns every inch of me. How I let him.

He leans in, one hand still holding me wide, the other trailing a slow line from the base of my spine to the slick center of me. His fingers brush against me there, featherlight, teasing.

“So ready for me,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.

“You want to be ruined, don’t you? Bent over like this, waiting to be filled.

Owned.” His words slide over me like silk and smoke, dark and delicious.

“You always act so innocent in front of everyone else,” he says, dragging his fingers lower, sliding one knuckle deep into me, slow, deliberate.

“But here, like this? You’re filthy. You’d let me do anything. ”

I gasp, thighs trembling, body clenching around him. He pulls his finger out, slick with proof. Behind me, he groans again, deep and broken. “Goddamn, Lo,” he rasps. “I’ll never get enough of this pussy.”

He kneels behind me. Warm breath fans low as his mouth brushes over me with reverent precision. He tastes me like I’m the first meal he’s had in days. Each flick, each stroke, each groan crackles through me like fire.

My fingers curl against the desk, knuckles straining.

He licks deeper, harder, dragging his mouth through me like he’s carving his name into my flesh.

His grip tightens as he pulls me closer to his mouth, like he can’t get deep enough, can’t take enough.

His mouth devours me with the kind of focused hunger that borders on worship.

He tastes me like I’m salvation.

Every flick, every pass of his tongue pulls a sound from my throat. I try to hold them back, but he always finds a way to make me lose control. He moans into me again, this time with a ragged edge, fingers digging into the backs of my thighs like he needs to mark me.

Hot spikes of pleasure build in tight, coiling waves. My knees begin to shake. My breath hitches, ragged and uneven, and when I whisper his name, it comes out raw and desperate.

His tongue circles tighter, then slower, then faster, coaxing the heat from me until my thighs shake. I’m right there, right on the edge, teetering, ready to fall. I’m so close I can’t think.

And then he stops.

A breath catches in my throat and I gasp. My hips chase the friction, desperate and clumsy, but he’s already gone. Air ghosts across my wet skin. Then comes the familiar sting—a quick slap, just enough to make me whimper, just enough to make my cunt clench around nothing.

His fingers drag over the curve of my ass, slow and reverent.

Another blow of air makes me tremble, my nails digging into the desk.

He leans in, his breath hot against my inner thigh, but he doesn’t touch where I need him.

Not yet. He inhales slowly, like he’s breathing me in, tasting the heat in the air between my legs.

“So fucking delicious,” he murmurs, his voice velvet-wrapped gravel. “You’re aching for it, aren’t you?”

I nod, frantic, but it’s not enough. He needs to hear it. “Please,” I whisper, my voice cracking from the strain of holding back. “I need your mouth back on me.”

His lips graze my thigh, soft, devotional, like a kiss offered to something sacred.

“I’m ruining you for anyone else,” he says, dragging his tongue in a slow line just beside where I throb, barely touching, just torturing. “No one will ever make you tremble like this.”

My body quakes, suspended between heaven and hell, his voice the tether keeping me sane.

“Say it,” he commands, his hands gripping my ass, holding me open. “Tell me whose you are.”

“Yours,” I gasp. “I’m yours, Damian. Please.”

That earns me a sound: a low growl that starts deep in his chest. Then he buries his mouth back between my legs.

This time, there’s no teasing. He works me over with unrelenting precision, tongue and fingers together.

Every movement has purpose. His grip anchors me.

His hunger consumes me until I’m breathless and writhing.

Each motion is intentional, like he’s mapping every nerve and memorizing it.

His hands never stop moving—gripping, spreading, guiding—anchoring me to the edge of destruction.

My moans melt into cries. My thighs shake uncontrollably. I can’t hold back anymore. I’m coming apart.

“Let go,” he rasps between strokes. “I want to taste you when you fall.”

But just as the wave crests, right as I’m about to fall, he pulls back again. A broken sound escapes me, raw and helpless. My hips chase the pressure, desperate for the contact, but he holds me steady.

He hums behind me, dark and satisfied. “So fucking pretty like this. Shaking. Needy. Begging for me.” His thumb traces lazy circles over my inner thigh, maddening in its gentleness. Then another sharp smack lands on the curve of my ass, sending a shock through me.

“Beg,” he growls.

“Please,” I gasp, my voice nothing more than a whimper now. “I need you. I need your mouth. I need to come. Damian, please, please…”

He exhales a hot breath onto my slick, swollen folds, and I jolt like it’s a touch.

“You taste like sin,” he murmurs, reverent again, dragging his tongue in one long, slow stroke. “And I want every drop.”

One of his arms wraps around my thigh, locking me in place.

His other hand slides beside his mouth, two fingers thrusting deep while his tongue works my clit.

The stretch, the pressure, the sheer precision—it’s too much.

I cry out, the sound high and wild, echoing off the walls of the tiny office.

My whole body tightens, coiled so tight it feels like I might shatter.

I come fast and hard, my body convulsing against him, everything splintering into light. His mouth stays on me, tongue flicking through the aftershocks, coaxing every last tremble, every last drop of pleasure from me until I’m nothing but trembling limbs and shaking breath.

When I finally sag against the desk, boneless and undone, I feel his mouth press one final kiss to the inside of my thigh. “Mine,” he whispers.

Then I hear the unmistakable sound of his belt sliding free, the soft hiss of fabric and metal.

He rises behind me, slow and towering, his presence swallowing the space.

I barely have time to catch my breath before his hands are on me again, gripping my hips and dragging me upright.

My spine arches, chest heaving, legs trembling as he turns me to face him.

His eyes are molten, dark with hunger, jaw clenched like he’s barely holding himself together. My ass hits the desk, papers crinkling beneath me, and then his mouth is on mine—fierce, consuming, all tongue and teeth and possession.

“Lie back,” he rasps against my lips.

I do.

My hair fans across the desk as he lifts one of my legs, hooks it over his shoulder, and pulls me to the very edge.

I gasp as his cock presses against my entrance, thick and hot, already slick.

He grips the base and slides it through my folds once, slowly, coating himself in everything I just gave him.

Then he thrusts inside me in one smooth, devastating motion.

A strangled cry tears from my throat as my body takes him in completely. My hands claw for purchase against the desk, but there’s nothing steady to hold on to but him.

He sets a brutal rhythm, hips snapping forward, the slap of skin on skin echoing off the walls. My leg shakes where it rests on his shoulder, my breath ragged, coming in high, desperate gasps.

His hand slides under my ass, lifting me higher, angling me just right so every thrust hits that perfect spot inside me. His other hand grips my breast, thumb brushing my nipple until it pebbles tight beneath his touch.

“Look at me,” he growls, his voice thick and ruined. “I want you watching me when you fall apart again.”

I meet his gaze.

It’s too much.

His stare pins me to the desk, his cock wrecks me from the inside, and his mouth—God, his mouth—is back on my skin, biting at my collarbone, my neck, my jaw.

“You feel that?” he pants. “This is mine. All of it. You. Every fucking inch.”

My hips lift to meet his thrusts, a sob breaking from my throat. Another orgasm builds, fast and hard, dragging a cry from deep in my chest. I reach for him, needing to anchor myself to something real before I fly apart. “Damian,” I whisper, legs shaking, pulse pounding.

“Come for me,” he growls into my mouth. “Show me who you fucking belong to.”

And I do.

I come with another cry, muscles locking around him, body writhing as the pleasure explodes again—hotter, messier, deeper than the last. He follows with a broken curse, slamming into me one final time as he spills inside me, his body trembling, breath hot against my neck.

We stay tangled like that, chests rising and falling in sync, his weight pressing me into the desk like he never wants to let go. I could stay like this forever.

We’re still tangled together, sweat cooling on my skin, when a floorboard creaks in the hallway.

Damian’s head snaps up. So does mine.

He pulls out of me with a whispered curse, grabbing for his jeans.

My body clenches at the sudden loss, the ache immediate.

He moves quickly, silent, reaching for the hidden safe in the office cabinet.

There’s the soft click of the lock, then the unmistakable glimpse of polymer and steel in his hand.

Why is he going for his gun?

My heart stumbles.

He doesn’t say a word. Just checks the magazine and tucks the weapon against the small of his back, that wild, feral look already flaring in his eyes. It’s the look he wore the first night I met him. The one that promises destruction. Then he’s at the door, unlocking it quietly.

I don’t breathe. I’m too stunned. It’s been months since anything bad happened. Since the last gunshot. Since the blood. Since I was dragged away in the dirt and forced into a game of life or death by my own family.

Why the hell is he freaking out over a noise?

What is he expecting?

Is there something he’s not telling me?

I stand slowly, muscles still shaky. I smooth my skirt back down over my hips, grab my underwear from the floor, and slide them on. I wipe between my thighs with a tissue from the desk drawer—something he usually insists on doing. But he jumped out of me like we were under attack.

He comes back in a minute later, shutting the door behind him. His shoulders drop. A hint of relief. “False alarm,” he mutters.

I don’t smile. I just stare at him, my voice low and steady. “Why did you react like that?”

He looks up. “Like what?”

“What’s going on, Damian? Why did you jump off me like that?

Just from a noise?” My pulse hammers in my throat.

Something is off. I can feel it. The energy between us shifted the moment that floorboard creaked, like a switch flipped behind his eyes.

My chest cinches tight, like the air turns to glass, and with every breath I wait for his answer, it slices thinner than the last. “Damian?” I ask again, quieter this time.

He inhales through his nose and looks at me.

Steady. Calm. Too calm. He exhales slowly and runs a hand over the back of his neck, like he’s trying to shake something off.

“I heard the neighbors talking earlier,” he says, rubbing at his neck again, half-embarrassed.

“Said there was a break-in a few doors down. One of the bars.” He doesn’t quite meet my eyes.

“I’m just being overly protective. I’m sorry. ”

I blink. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”

He shrugs, like it’s not a big deal. “It was nothing, probably some kids. But I didn’t want to take chances.”

It sounds logical. Reasonable. The kind of answer that other people might be willing to accept. But it doesn’t feel right to me. I study him. The line of his jaw. The unblinking steadiness in his gaze. He looks like he’s telling the truth.

Still, something in my gut twists. I’ve played enough poker to know when someone’s bluffing.

His tells are small—too controlled, too measured.

He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t shift. But that’s the point.

He’s too still. Too careful. Fuck. He’s lying.

I don’t know about what. But he is. And that terrifies me more than whatever sound pulled him off of me in the first place.

I nod anyway, because I don’t want to push.

He leans in to kiss my forehead, and I let him, but the gesture feels hollow. A knot tightens in my chest, sharp and cold. This man, the one I trust with my body, just lied to me. And if he’s lying about something as simple as a noise in the hallway, what else is he hiding?