CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Grief Meets Skin
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Grief Meets Skin
“Do your worst,” I choked, glaring up at him through the blur of my tears.
I didn’t flinch, and I wouldn’t.
If I were going to shatter, I’d make sure he felt every goddamn crack.
His face didn’t change. No twist of surprise or anger, just that infuriating calm that made it feel like I was drowning alone, like he’d always be the one above water, watching.
His thumb dragged across my cheek, smearing the tear that dared to fall.
“Careful what you ask for, Dolcezza,” he murmured, and the rasp of it made something coil inside me, something I hated. “I never do anything half-hearted.”
He leaned in, close enough for our breaths to tangle. And I hated that I felt it again, the spark that lit behind my ribs when he touched me; that slow, traitorous way my body reacted even when my soul recoiled in disgust.
Why did he always feel like fire and gasoline?
No. Not fire. Fire warned you as it crackled, blazed, and screamed its danger into the night.
He was the warmth in a winter cabin, so deceptive and silent it lulled you into dropping your guard, shedding your clothes, letting your fingers inch too deep, too close to the iron stove until skin met heat and pain rattled too late.
He was comforted by cruelty.
The man who made you forget the world was cold until you remembered why you’d built walls in the first place.
And still… Still, my body leaned toward him like frostbite limbs searching for anything that resembled warmth, even if it came with a cost.
It wasn’t fire that scared me. It was the undetectable burns.
I shut my eyes as his hand slid over my ribs, up the line of my spine with strange possessiveness like he was trying to lay claim to broken pieces.
He pressed his body against my back, grinding his hard cock against my arse. His hands slid up my sides, roughly palming my breasts through the tattered remains of my dress. He squeezed them hard, pinching my nipples between his fingers.
“You’re not the only one grieving,” he growled in my ear, his hot breath making me shudder. “Grief doesn’t belong to the pure. You forget who taught me loss.”
That made me flinch. I blinked at him, stunned. “What…”
Before I could ask, before I could even process what he meant, he pulled me into him with a force that stole the question from my lips. All that remained was the scent of him, smoke and sin, curling around me like the fog in the graveyard.
His lips moved over mine with savagery that scared the death around us like he’d been here before. Like he knew every inch of me more than I did.
The screams stayed lodged in my throat, behind my ribs, as my hands curled into his coat instead of shoving him back.
What was the point anyway?
I was tired. Tired of the pain, the silence, the ache in my chest that never let me breathe. Tired of pretending I was whole and Arian’s death hadn’t hollowed me out.
So I let him touch me. I let him kiss me like he wanted to erase the man he buried and fill the void with himself.
Maybe I wanted to be ruined.
Maybe I wanted to give in, just once, and make the monster bleed with me.
And maybe… if I surrendered now, I could drag him into the abyss I’d been drowning in for weeks.
He cupped my face again, thumb brushing my jaw, and it angered me more than his brutality. “Get on your knees, Dolcezza.”
I didn’t want to. I stared at him with every ounce of courage. Hoping he’d see the things swirling in my head.
He stepped back, watching me with a cruel, expectant glare. When I hesitated, he reached out and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back.
“Don't make me fucking tell you twice, wife,” he growled. “You want to mourn for that bastard? You want to remember his name? Then you fucking do it on my cock.”
He let go of my hair, shoving me forward. I stumbled, catching myself on the edge of the tombstone. Zagreus watched me like a hawk as his eyes gleamed with dark pleasure.
“I can't wait to see you swollen with my kids,” he groaned, palming himself through his slacks, and I swallowed the lump. “Can't wait to see your belly big and round, full of my cum. You'll look so fucking good, my wife, my woman, carrying my seed.”
He reached out, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him. His thumb pressed down on my lower lip, pushing it out of my mouth. He leaned in close, his stormy eyes boring into my scared ones.
“Forget him,” he rasped. “Forget his name, forget his face. The only name you need to remember is mine. Zagreus Vitale. Say it.”
He squeezed my chin harder, his grip turning painful. He was not asking – he was commanding.
My lips trembled. Strangely, it was not the fear; it was long gone. What I felt now was more dangerous. A poison that numbed the pain and warmed the parts of me I thought had died.
His hand hovered by my throat, and I… I let my head fall back. Exposing my neck. My surrender wasn’t innocent. It was a deliberate survival instinct.
“Zagreus…” I whispered his name like a sin. Like a spell.
Something primal shifted in him. His lips twitched, and he stared at me before he groaned lowly as he pushed me down, as my back arched over the stone of Adrian’s grave.
The grave was cold, but Zagreus’s mouth was fire.
He kissed me again, like he hated me this time. Bit down hard on my bottom lip, then sucked it like nectar. Hands tore what little fabric remained between us, and I gasped.
I hated how I’d become this.
Not Adrian’s soft-spoken girl. Not the widow. Not the innocent.
But his.
Zagreus Vitale’s. The monster who was now my husband.
“Pray to me with that voice,” he growled against my throat, dragging his tongue along the vein. “I’ll answer every prayer, Dolcezza. I’ll give you everything.”
His hand slid between my thighs. Roughly parting them and cupping my womanhood, which I swore was still sore. And my body arched.
After a few strokes, I heard the unzipping of his pants, and before I could process, he plunged into me like vengeance.
Like a storm, I had no choice but to encounter it.
And all while my eyes locked on Adrian’s name. My heart didn’t break. It changed, morphed, and hardened into the same stone.
Because grief wouldn’t give me freedom, Zagreus would.
Because survival didn’t come clean, it came filthy.
He held me down as I shook. As I cried and came and cursed and forgot who I was.
“Pray at my altar, Dolcezza,” he growled, fucking me deeper and choking me as I rocked with his brutal thrusts. “Worship me with your screams.”
I tried to hold back. But the way he plunged deeper with every thrust, my insides clenched shamelessly.
I tried to keep Adrian’s name on my tongue. But Zagreus didn’t fuck like a man.
He fucked like a god starved of worship. Like I was the lamb and the sacrifice, altar, and offering all in one.
And I gave in, body first, mind second, and my soul somewhere far behind.
He licked the sweat from my collarbone, nipping the skin until I gasped. “Is that grief, or pleasure when your cunt clenches when I fuck you?”
My knees scraped the dirt, my nails dug into the grass around the headstone. Adrian was right there. Dead and cold.
But the man above me was alive and warm.
I was pathetic. Depraved and unhinged.
“You don’t cry for him,” he whispered against my ear, thrusting slower now, but deeper. “You cry for me. Say it. Let the grave hear it.”
I choked, swallowed the sob, and moaned instead. A sound, obscene, and unholy.
“Say it.”
“I cry for you,” I gasped.
“And moan for me too, Dolcezza. Say my fucking name when you come.”
“Zagreus!” I whimpered.
He grinned like the devil tasting sin for the first time. “That’s it. Bleed my name from your lips like a psalm. Like the only god you’ll ever need.”
“Stop!” I trembled, coming all over his thick cock, tearing into me. Splitting me open in two.
“Make me,” he moaned into my throat, pinching my breasts. He gripped my jaw, forcing my eyes back to the name on the stone. “Look at him when I come inside you.”
I whimpered. And he groaned, lowly and viciously as he spilled into me, thrusting deeper and staying there as he dropped his forehead against mine.
“Mine,” he said. “Even the dead know it now.”