Enzo
Idrowned in her.
She tasted like anger, wine, and my blood, and the bond opened so wide between us that for one brutal second, I felt everything: the shock of her wanting me, the fury that wanting me hadn’t died under all the secrets between us, the reckless relief of finally having my mouth on hers again.
I should have gone slowly, but I didn’t. I took her mouth like restraint had been a door and she’d just given me permission to break it down.
Her back hit the wall. My hand was in her hair. My body covered hers, and the sound she made into my mouth nearly ruined what little control I had left. She caught my lower lip with her teeth—not gently, not sweetly—and the bite went straight down my spine to my cock.
I was already hard. Painfully. Immediately. Like my body had been waiting for a week with more patience than sense and had now decided that patience was overrated.
“Careful,” I growled against her mouth, but I didn’t mean it. I wanted her teeth, her nails, her fury. Every sharp, vicious piece of her proving she was alive and breathing and mine.
Her fingers tightened in my hair. “I have never once been careful.”
She kissed me again, hard enough to hurt. Her hands slid to my shoulders, nails biting into skin, opening me in thin bright lines I felt and welcomed.
I caught her wrists and pinned them above her head with one hand, holding them there against the wall.
The bond went radiant. She stilled beneath me, but not in fear.
Never fear. Anger flashed first, hot and immediate, followed by something darker when her body answered the restraint before her pride could stop it.
Saints. She was going to kill me. Or I was going to die of wanting her. At that moment, either seemed possible.
My free hand rose to her throat. Slowly enough that she could see it, could turn her head, bare her teeth, do anything at all to tell me no.
She did none of those things.
My hand settled at the front of her throat, not squeezing. Claiming. Her pulse beat wild beneath my palm, and my cock throbbed against the soft heat of her body like every disciplined part of me had become an insult I could no longer tolerate.
“You have run from me for a week,” I said, my voice low enough that it barely sounded like mine. “You have shut me out, slept in the cold, bled in the dark, and put every wall you could build between us. No more. Tonight, you’re mine.”
Her breath caught as I pressed closer, letting her feel exactly what her mouth and her body and her furious little pulse were doing to me.
I took the shape of her mouth like I intended to learn it properly. Like I hadn’t been starving for it in every mile between the bath in that far away village and this room. Like I hadn’t felt her dying in my arms and discovered that the world still had new ways to terrify me.
A sound broke out of her—small, furious. Perfect.
My hands went to the belt of her robe. I didn’t pull it open yet. I caught her gaze first and held it, because when I stripped away the last thing between us, I wanted her to know exactly who was doing it and exactly how badly I wanted to.
Her mouth was swollen from my kiss, her eyes bright. The deep green robe hung around her like my house had dared lay claim to her and she hadn’t yet decided whether to burn it for the insult.
“Enzo,” she whispered, and that was as close to a “please” as I’d ever heard.
I drew the belt loose with one slow pull, and as it fell open, every thought I had left went silent. I’d seen her wounded. Bleeding. Half-dead in my arms. I’d seen her terrifying enough to make trained killers falter. I hadn’t seen her like this.
Clean. Bare. Alive. Mine to look at because she’d chosen to stand here and let me.
Firelight moved over the pale gold of her skin, the sharp line of her collarbone, the soft rise of her breasts, her nipples tightening beneath my stare, the narrow strength of her waist, the curve of her hips, the dark curls between her thighs.
She was smaller than me by enough that every protective instinct I possessed had made a religion of the difference, but there was nothing fragile in her.
Not in the long, lean lines of muscle earned by knives and rooftops and the brutal work of surviving courts that wanted her dead. Not in the old scars silvered faintly across her ribs and thigh.
I wanted to put my mouth on every mark. I wanted to learn every scar by name. I wanted to make a vow against her skin that anything that tried to add another would have to go through me first.
She felt enough of it through the bond that her cheeks flushed.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Never.”
Her lips parted around a breath, and I lowered my mouth to her throat before she could find another protest. I dragged my fangs over the place I had bitten her in the bath.
She shivered hard enough that my control nearly went with it, her hands tightening on my shoulders as I worked lower.
Throat. Collarbone. The hollow at the base of her neck.
Every inch of her giving me a new sound, a new tremor, another piece of proof that she was still here, still breathing, still choosing this.
She said something in dialect that would have gotten a courtier executed, and I smiled against her skin before biting her shoulder.
Not drawing her blood, but a warning all the same.
She stilled for half a heartbeat, as if the whole of her had caught on the edge of my teeth, then melted against me with a sound that nearly put me on my knees.
“I want you,” she murmured in dialect, and the bond broke open around the words.
My cock jerked against her, and her eyes flared because she felt that, too. Good. Let her feel what truth did to me.
I bent and picked her up.
She made a sharp sound as her legs came around my waist, and the heat of her pressed against me through the thin cloth of my sleep pants. My cock throbbed hard enough to make my vision narrow.
The bed was across the room. Too far. We wouldn’t make it.
Dishes shattered against the stone floor as I swept the table clear with one arm and set her on it where our food had been.
She laughed—startled, dark, delighted. The sound went straight through me.
“That sound.” I stepped between her thighs and dragged her to the edge of the table. “Make it again.”
Her lips parted. I caught the back of her neck and kissed her before she could answer.
The table put her exactly where I wanted her. Open robe falling from her shoulders. Knees spread around my hips. Skin warm beneath my hands. My house colors pooled under her like a claim she hadn’t permitted and hadn’t yet decided to punish.
I kissed her slowly, methodically. Until her fingers tightened at my shoulders and her breath started to break. I wanted her wild. I wanted her furious. But first, I wanted her unmasked.
I slid one hand into her hair and closed my fist there, holding her still while I lowered my mouth to her throat.
I dragged my fangs over the place I had bitten her in the bath.
Her whole body jerked as my cock pulsed against her, and this time I let her feel it.
Let her know exactly what that sound did to me.
Exactly how close she’d already pushed me.
She breathed my name again.
I kissed lower. Throat. Collarbone. The hollow at the base of her neck. The first soft curve of her breast. Her hands dug into my shoulders. I caught one wrist, pulled it away, and set it flat on the table behind her.
“Keep it there.”
Her mouth opened. My gaze sliced to hers. She kept it there.
Saints.
The sight of her like that nearly ended me. Nadia Voss, all knives and defiance, sitting bare on my table with one hand braced where I had put it and the other still tangled in my hair like she couldn’t decide whether to obey me or pull me apart.
Fuck, she was perfect.
My eyes still locked with hers, I closed my mouth over her nipple. She arched off the table with a broken curse.
The sound tore a groan out of me. I felt it low, deep, brutal. My hand tightened on her hip hard enough that she would feel the shape of my fingers there tomorrow, and the thought of that—of my mark on her skin when the sun came up—nearly took what remained of my restraint.
I used my tongue, my teeth, my fangs—not biting, promising. Her body went taut.
“Enzo—”
“Hold still.”
“I swear to every dark god—”
I grazed her nipple with the tip of my fang, and her threat dissolved into a sound so raw I had to press my forehead to her skin for one breath. I wasn’t going to take her on this table because my cock was hard and she was making noises I wanted to own.
Not yet. Not until I’d ruined her first.
I lifted my head.
Her cheeks and chest were flushed with her arousal. Her lips were swollen, parted on a gasp. Her hand on the table had curled into a fist, knuckles white against the wood. The other was still in my hair, holding tight enough to sting.
“You smug son of a—”
I dropped to my knees between her thighs, and the words died on her tongue. I hooked my hands behind her knees and pulled her to the edge, spreading her open in front of me.
Her breath caught.
“Hands on the table.”
Her eyes went molten. “Enzo.”
“Hands. On the. Fucking. Table.”
For one heartbeat, she seemed ready to argue. Then she put both hands palms flat against the wood, shoulders back, robe open, chin lifted like obedience itself was a weapon she intended to use against me.
My fangs ached. My cock ached. Every fucking part of me ached.
“That’s my girl.”
Her pulse jumped. She hated that. But she liked it more.
I lowered my mouth to her inner thigh and bit, lightly enough not to break skin. Her hips jerked like she ached for my fangs to slice into her flesh.
Then I dropped my mouth to her center and gave her wet cunt a slow savoring lick. The first taste of her hit me hard enough that my hand shook once on her thigh. Once. Then I tightened my grip and took more. She went silent.
That was better than a scream.