Chapter 11 #3
Watches how I open the antiseptic, how I wrap the gauze, how I press it to his skin with careful, shaking hands.
“Why’d you come here, Dax?” I ask quietly. “Was it to start a fight? Or was it just to break me again?”
“I came here to drink.”
His jaw clenches.
“Didn’t know you’d be wrapped around another man.”
“I wasn’t wrapped around him.”
“He was three seconds away from having your tongue down his throat.”
“So what if he was?” I snap, meeting his gaze. “You made it clear I was a fucking mistake, remember?”
His silence is a confession.
Because he remembers.
He remembers every single word.
“Thought you were a hallucination that night,” he says, voice rough. “Didn’t know you were real until it was too late.”
“And now?” I whisper.
He looks at his hand.
At the blood.
At me.
“You’re too fucking real.”
The air shifts.
My breath stutters.
Something fragile fractures between us.
I tape the last of the bandage, toss the kit onto the chair behind me.
“You could’ve killed him.”
“He touched you.”
“So fucking what?”
Dax leans forward so fast I gasp—but he catches me with both hands, one on my knee, the other curled in the hem of my dress like he’s anchoring himself.
“You don’t get it,” he growls. “You don’t see what I see.”
“Then tell me.”
And he does.
With his mouth.
He crushes his lips to mine, the kiss a collision of fury and longing and regret, and the world outside that locked door falls away.
He slams his mouth to mine like he’s punishing himself for ever walking away, like every ounce of guilt and anger and regret is pouring straight through the kiss with enough force to erase that blonde from his lips, to scorch the memory of the bar, the blood, the rage, all of it, until the only thing left in the world is this — just this — just us — just a kiss that tastes like ruin and hunger and something neither of us has the strength to name.
And I kiss him back.
Because I’m tired.
Tired of pretending I don’t want him.
Tired of pretending he didn’t dismantle me with one touch and a nickname.
Tired of pretending my entire body doesn’t melt the second he says it.
“Butterfly…”
He breathes it against my mouth like a confession, like a prayer, and I swear I could break open right here on the spot.
“Say it again,” I whisper, voice trembling against his lips.
His eyes flash — a dark, fierce lightning I feel all the way to my bones.
And he does.
“Mine.”
The word isn’t spoken — it’s claimed, dragged from somewhere deep in him and pressed into me with the weight of a brand.
His mouth crashes onto mine with the desperation of a man who’s lived off rations and is suddenly handed water, like he’s been starving since the day we met and I’m the thing he knows will finally kill him — and he’s begging for it anyway.
A sound escapes me, a broken, breathless moan against his lips, and my fingers tangle in his hair, tugging because I need to feel something solid, something real, something that tells me this isn’t another cruel hallucination.
“Dax…” I gasp, the word barely formed before he’s dragging me onto his lap, hauling me in with a roughness that feels like truth.
One hand grips my ass, anchoring me firmly against him, the other curling around the back of my neck like he’s holding on for dear fucking life — like he thinks I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip even slightly.
“I should stop,” he grits against my jaw, voice raw and ragged with restraint, “but I fucking won’t.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper, breath hitching, the words trembling between us like an electric wire pulled too tight.
His breath stutters — a sharp, fractured inhale — and then he’s moving.
Something shifts in him, something sharp and certain and inevitable, and the atmosphere around us seems to tilt, the room narrowing to the heat of his hands, the weight of his body, the dark, dangerous look in his eyes that says we’ve crossed a line there’s no going back from.
The air thickens.
The walls hum with the distant bass of the club.
My pulse stumbles.
His fingers dig into my hips.
And everything — absolutely everything — begins to fall.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, slamming me back against the wall with a thud that knocks the breath out of me — his mouth never once leaving mine. His thigh slides between mine, grinding up, and my body betrays me, hips chasing him, already soaked.
“Fucking hell, Cassandra,” he rasps, voice a hurricane. “You’re always this wet for assholes who call you names and start bar fights?”
“Only the ones who call me butterfly,” I pant.
His eyes snap to mine — and that’s it.
That’s fucking it.
He yanks my head back by my hair, baring my throat, and I swear he growls.
“You think this is a game?”
“I think you’re losing,” I whisper, even as I’m trembling under his touch.
His mouth crashes to my throat.
Open. Possessive. Fucking brutal.
“You think that little dress lets you walk around untouched? That I’m gonna let other men look at you, breathe near you, talk to you.”
He bites my collarbone, just enough to mark.
“I’ll kill every single one.”
My panties are ruined.
He reaches down and tears them aside like they’re in the way of something urgent—which they are. His fingers find me, hot and wet and already clenching around nothing.
“Christ, baby. This pussy’s so fucking sweet.”
My head hits the wall, breath gone.
He sinks to his knees before I can speak.
Before I can think.
Oh my fucking god.
His mouth.
His fucking mouth.
Tongue dragging through my folds like he’s trying to memorise me. Like he wants to carve me into his taste buds. Like I’m something holy and he’s ready to sin.
“Dax—” I choke, my hands flying to his hair as he groans deep and sloppy into my cunt.
He pulls one of my thighs over his shoulder and spreads me wider.
“Fuck, you taste so real,” he mutters against my clit. “You taste like you were made for me. Tell me you’re real, butterfly.”
“I’m real,” I whimper, already falling apart.
“I don’t believe you.”
He sucks my clit hard, then flattens his tongue and drags it slow, deep, sinful.
“Prove it.”
“Dax—”
“Say my fucking name while I taste this sweet cunt.”
I chant it like a prayer, my body going liquid as his tongue fucks me open, every movement filthy, reverent, desperate.
“I’m real,” I sob, fingers fisting his hair. “I’m real, Dax—oh my god—”
“You’re mine,” he growls, mouth slick and coated in me. “Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
He stands in one fluid motion, his mouth shining with me, and crashes his lips back to mine. I can taste myself on him. I can feel his cock pressing hard against my stomach.
And he just breathes.
“Fuck, butterfly…” he whispers, voice wrecked. “I should’ve never tasted you. I’ll never stop now.”
I don’t know if I’m breathing or begging.
I don’t know if this is possession or prayer.
I just know I want him everywhere.
“Dax,” I whisper, my hands slipping beneath his shirt, nails scraping down the hard lines of his abs like I need to mark him. “I want you.”
His jaw flexes. His eyes burn.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I’m not asking,” I bite out. “I’m telling you.”
His groan is low. Dangerous. The kind that hits between your legs before it ever reaches your ears.
He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head, his body pressing mine back against the wall, his cock like steel against my stomach.
“You wanna play with fire, butterfly?” he whispers, voice pure filth. “You think you’re ready to burn?”
I nod.
He shakes his head.
“That’s not good enough.”
“I’m ready,” I whisper again, even though I’m shaking. “Set me on fire.”
And just like that—he lets go.
Not of me.
Of restraint.
He spins me around and presses my chest to the wall, my breath catching as he rucks my dress up with one hand and yanks down the straps with the other.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs against the shell of my ear, kissing just below it, slow and deliberate. “But you’re not running.”
“No.”
He peels the dress down, and when the air hits my skin, I feel exposed in a way I’ve never felt before.
Not just naked.
Seen.
He steps back for half a second, and I hear his breath punch out of him like a curse.
“Jesus fuck.”
I turn my head just enough to glance over my shoulder.
The way he’s looking at me…
Like he’s about to ruin me just to rebuild me.
Like he needs to.
Like it’s the only way he knows how to love.
He drops to his knees behind me again, hands sliding up my thighs so slowly it’s cruel, and then his mouth is back.
No teasing this time.
No warm-up.
Just his tongue buried between my thighs, his hands gripping my ass like he’s starving.
“Dax—” I cry out, my body arching, grinding down into his mouth like some desperate little sinner.
He groans so loud I feel it in my spine.
“Fucking perfect,” he growls, spreading me wider. “You don’t even know what you do to me. You taste like sin and summer. Like fucking heaven.”
I’m shaking.
He’s relentless.
His tongue flicks, then flattens, then plunges inside me like he’s trying to fill the ache he created.
“Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m—fuck—Dax—”
He reaches up and pinches my nipple, and I scream.
“Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I choke out, eyes fluttering shut as the orgasm builds like a thunderstorm.
His tongue slides from my pussy all the way up my arse, I squirm with the slow flick of his tongue and freeze when he slides his tongue over my hole.
I’m instantly thinking, no, no not there. He pushes his tongue through the tight hole and….oh god, why does this feel good?
“Fuck,” I cry out.