62. Julian #3
Slowly I slid the tip of the knife to the collar of her shirt.
"Don't move," I teased, a dark wicked smirk pulling at my mouth as her chest heaved beneath the steel.
With an effortless flick of my wrist, the edge bit into the fabric.
The sound of splitting cotton filled the quiet room.
I didn't rush. I dragged the blade down the centre of the shirt, the icy tip lightly grazing the valley between her breasts, just deep enough to make her gasp, her nervous, excited giggles vibrating against my chest. The fabric peeled open like a wound, exposing her soft skin and the small, cursive lines of her nevermore tattoo on her ribs.
Sage whimpered, her hips twitching up against mine in an instinctive plea for friction, but I pinned her thighs down with my legs, refusing to let her have it.
"Let's see what else needs to go," I murmured, watching her pupils blow completely black with desire.
I brought the knife down to her shorts. I slipped the tip just under the waistband, the flat of the blade pressing firmly against her lower belly, keeping her frozen in a mix of terror and ecstasy.
She swallowed hard, her giggles dying out, replaced by a needy, whimpering pant as I sliced straight through the heavy denim zipper, parting the thick fabric one slice at a time until she was completely bare beneath me, entirely exposed to the starving beast she’d just unleashed.
I flipped the knife in my grip, sheathing it back into my sleeve without breaking eye contact. The playful teasing was over. The cold steel was gone, replaced by the suffocating, burning heat of my bare palms clamping onto her waist.
We tore through that house like a storm, completely unhinged, fucking from one room to the next because a single position, a single space, wasn’t enough to burn out the fever in our veins.
I hauled her up against the hallway wall, her legs locking around my waist as I drove into her tight pussy with a punishing force. The impact rattled the wall, sending photo frames crashing down around us, glass shattering loudly against the floor. Neither of us cared.
Before Sage could even catch her breath, I pulled her away from the ruined wall, carrying her against my chest as I marched into the dining room and slammed her down right onto the centre of the timber dining table.
Crystal candlesticks toppled over, rolling across the wood, wax spilling and flames snuffed out in the chaos as her bare back slid over the smooth surface.
When our bodies joined again on that table, and she sank fully, taking me back inside her, the breath was knocked right out of my lungs. It wasn’t just physical. It was spiritual. An explosion of energy—a shockwave of raw, crackling passion that fused my soul directly back to hers.
Sage braced her hands against the hard, scarred planes of my chest and began to move. She fucked me back with a desperation that incinerated every dark corner of my mind.
I reached up, my hand wrapping firmly around the delicate curve of her jaw, tilting her face down so she was forced to look directly into my eyes. At the same time, my free hand slid down between our bodies, my fingers finding her drenched warmth and deliberately teasing her clit.
She let out a ragged gasp, her eyes glazed over.
I kept her locked beneath my gaze, my thumb working her ruthlessly, driving her straight towards a cliff.
Her breaths turned into fast, shallow pants, her internal muscles clamping down around my cock so tightly it made my teeth grind.
She was right there. Her back arched off the timber, her head tossing back as the first tremors of a climax began to ripple through her.
Right as she gasped my name, on the edge of coming, I abruptly gripped her hips and pulled out of her.
"What—no, please," she sobbed, her hands frantically clawing at my chest, trying to pull my weight back down into her empty, aching heat. She looked up at me with a begging desperation.
"Look at me," I commanded, my voice dropping to a low, lethal crawl. I tightened my grip on her jaw, forcing her to hold my gaze. "I didn't give you permission."
She whimpered, her body trembling violently on the table from the unfulfilled tension.
"You are only allowed to come when I command it. Do you understand me, Sage?"
"Yes," she choked out, a tear of frustration slipping down her cheek.
"Good girl."
I drove back into her all at once, burying myself to the hilt, making her cry out as the friction ignited all over again.
For the next twenty minutes, I took her completely apart, playing a cruel, controlling game with her body.
I would build her up, using my hand and the punishing pace of my rock hard cock to bring her to the very edge of sobbing ruin—only to freeze, holding her perfectly still right at the peak until she was begging, losing her mind, and vibrating with the overwhelming need to come.
Over and over, I edged her, pushing her deeper into a helpless, maddening haze where my voice was the only thing anchoring her to reality.
“Tell me, Sage,” I rasped, my words vibrating against her lips as I finally let the pace turn relentless again, driving her crazy. “Tell me you’re mine. Tell me your mind, your body, and your soul belong to me.”
“Yours,” she gasped, her fingernails biting into my shoulders, drawing blood I didn’t even feel.
I leaned in until our breath was a single, shared heat, my hand sliding from her jaw to wrap firmly around the back of her neck, anchoring her to my claim.
“Tell me there isn’t a single inch of you—not a memory, not a dream, not a whispered prayer—that doesn’t have my name carved into it.”
She was a complete mess now, her back arching against the table as she looked at me with those eyes that were no longer the ocean on a beautiful summer's day, but a raging storm I had created.
“Everything,” she choked out, her voice breaking. “Every thought, every breath… it’s all yours. I’m yours, Julian. Please. Please…just let me come.”
I leaned down, my teeth grazing the shell of her ear as I gave her the release she’d been starving for. "Come for me, Sage. Now."
She shattered immediately, a beautiful, high-pitched cry of pleasure echoing into the high ceilings of the estate.
The electric tension coiled tighter and tighter, the pleasure building into an agonising, suffocating peak as the final waves of her climax ripped through her.
She moved faster, her breath coming in ragged, beautiful sobs, losing herself in the rhythm of our bodies.
I held her jaw, grounding her to me, absorbing every single sound she made as if it were oxygen.
When she finally collapsed against my chest, I buried my face in her neck, my own control breaking as I followed her over the edge, pouring every ounce of my century-long devotion into her.
We stayed like that for a long time, the quiet music still playing in the background, our chests heaving together in the aftermath of the collision.
I wrapped my arms securely around her bare back, holding her tighter than I had ever held anything in my existence, vowing silently to the dark forest outside that Cain would never touch her again.
But as the adrenaline ebbed, the shirt I’d discarded earlier left me exposed. Sage shifted in my arms, her gaze dropping to the ink just above my heart. Her breath hitched, a small, curious sound that made my entire body lock.
“Julian?” she whispered. Her fingers reached out, cool and delicate, tracing the raised lines of the carved tattoo I had been so careful to hide from her. “Who… who is June?”
Instant panic, flooded my veins. My heart hammered against the very name she was touching, the beat frantic and betraying.
“I—it’s…” I started, the words dying in my throat. I was the one who always had the answers, the one who curated her world yet I was stumbling over a broken truth.
“It was… a promise. From a long time ago. Someone I… I couldn’t save.”
The lie felt like poison on my lips. I looked down, watching her iris—that turbulent winter sea—search mine for a truth I wasn’t ready to give. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, as I scrambled to find a way to bury the secret deeper.
When the quiet became too loud, Sage let out a soft, tired exhale. She withdrew her hand, the loss of her touch feeling like a brand.
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, as I scrambled to find a way to bury the secret deeper. I watched her closely, and for a split second, I saw it—a sharp, unmistakable flicker of jealousy ignited in the depths of her eyes.
A dark amused laugh nearly tore from my throat.
She thought there was someone else. She was looking at her own name, etched into the skin above my heart, and mourning a ghost she didn’t realise she was. My little angel thought she was competing with a memory, never dreaming that she is the only woman who has ever had the power to mark me.
Mind, body, and soul. She was the beginning and the end of my world, yet here she was, retreating from a memory of herself.
“It’s fine,” she said softly, her voice laced with a sudden melancholy. “You don’t need to talk about it now. It’s been a long day. Let’s just go to bed.”
She turned away, but I stayed frozen for a heartbeat longer. I had survived the collision, but the look in her eyes told me the wreckage was only just beginning.