Chapter 23 Tessa
TESSA
His heartbeat still pounds against my palm where I press it to his chest, both of us trembling in the shadowed quiet of his bedroom. The air tastes of rain-cooled night and something more—a shift in the space between us like tectonic plates grinding into place.
Survival adrenaline bleeds into something deeper, hotter. He hasn’t let go of my wrist since we left the courtyard, his thumb tracing circles on my skin, and I feel it: the wild, raw thing inside him finally not fighting.
His kiss isn’t a question. It’s a claiming—slow, deep, deliberate—lips parting mine with a reverence that unravels me.
My back meets the wall as he cages me, all breath gone.
He tastes like salt and storm, and his hands slide down my sides, finding the zipper of my hoodie. The drag is excruciatingly slow.
"All my control…" The words rasp against my throat as he bares my shoulder. "It’s nothing without your fire."
I tug roughly at his shirt, fingers scraping over muscle, desperate to feel him warm and alive.
Fabric tears. He doesn’t flinch. Our clothes fall away between lingering looks and bitten-back moans; his pants pooling on the floor, my jeans tangled around one ankle.
His skin is fever-hot as I press closer, my bare chest flush against the hard lines of his body.
The low growl vibrates through both of us.
He lowers us to the bed, palm cradling my head. Kneeling between my legs, he grips my thighs, opening me wider. My hips arch. He watches me with that predatory stillness for a shaky breath before dipping his head. His tongue licks of wet heat, circling my clit.
My gasp punctures the silence. "Darius—"
"Want to see it," he murmurs against my pussy, the vibration singing along my nerve endings. "This dare… surrender." Another deliberate lick. "It’s mine."
He begins to worship me like that's true, slow and aching and deep.
The pressure builds blistering until my legs shake.
I fist the sheets, tangled in them, a muffled cry lost in the room.
His thumb slips inside me, curved to stroke that spot as his tongue flicks mercilessly.
Climax cracks through me—bright, effervescent, leaving me breathless and aching.
He lifts his head, pupils blown wide, his cock rigid against my hip. The blunt tip presses low.
He pushes in. Slowly. Blissfully slow. I feel every hard, thick inch stretching me. He pauses, fully seated, trembling. His forehead touches mine.
"Not breaking me. Anchoring." His hips retreat, then sink back in, filling me so completely my vision swims. The lazy rhythm builds, each thrust deeper, harder.
His mouth finds the tight bud of my nipple, sucking hard.
I rake my nails down his back, pulling him closer.
Pleasure blends with something else—a shimmering warmth blooming beneath my ribs and spreading like liquid gold, chasing the sharp edges of sensation.
My heart pounds not just in my chest, but echoing in his veins I feel it, feel him—every buried anguish, every guarded thought dissolving into yes. This joining.
My climax crests again, tighter, richer. "Oh god." I claw his shoulders. He drives into me, faster now, wilder, too close. "Tessa." My name is a broken oath. "Yours."
His hips pull back, leaving me hollow, then he’s lifting me clean off the mattress. Air rushes under my thighs as he pins me against the cold wall, my spine scraping stone. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise, my legs locking around his waist.
“Darius, wait—”
“Keep me tethered, Tessa.” He presses my arms flat above my head, fingers threaded through mine. “If I break, break with me.”
He slams into me with the force of a wrecking ball.
The rhythm is relentless—deep, jarring thrusts that scrape pleasure along raw nerves.
His gaze holds mine, pupils devouring irises until only unlit black remains.
The bed disappears below us. There’s only this: breathless impact and the drum of his heartbeat against my sternum. My nails score his forearms.
“Louder.”
The command isn’t spoken. It vibrates in the air, slick against my ear.
I scream into his shoulder as my spine arches, spine singing toward oblivion.
He follows a second later, head snapping back, throat corded.
A harsh cry tears from him, echoing wild notes of pain and release.
I feel it in my own ribcage—a mirrored shockwave cracking through bone.
Then his teeth sink into the join of neck and shoulder.
Blood blooms hot and sweet over my skin.
It detonates.
Gold-fire starbursts explode behind my eyelids.
All oxygen vanishes. The room tilts with a ferocious glow radiating outward from Darius’s skin, etching intricate silver lines that spiral across the walls.
Crimson dust motes shimmer midair. A furious wind lashes my face, vanishing as fast as it came.
He drags his mouth from my flesh.
“Tessa.” His exhale coats my jaw in heat. “You feel it?”
Fire veins through my blood like captured lightning. Something writhes beneath my skin—alive and hungry. My fingers flutter against his cheek. I don’t need his hesitating whisper to know:
He saw it roaring in red cascades: her death-blood spilling between his claws, replaced by this impossible blaze.
“Darius Crane.” I press my forehead to his as the silver trails pulse brighter across the room’s stone walls.
“What did you do?” His pupils reflect fractured galaxies—anger and awe jagged in them.
One hand firms at the small of my back, possessively urgent.
The other palms my throat where the mark throbs in time with his pulse—stark pressure sealing us together wind-up-tight.
This woman he broke his own laws to bite.
The stone tub swallows us in steam. Darius sinks first, pulling me back against his chest, the scalding water a shock that melts into relief against sore muscles.
He wraps his arms around my waist, his chin resting on the crown of my wet hair.
The barest tremor runs through him. Mine, or his? It’s tangled together now.
“Still alive, I see,” I murmur, tilting my head to rest against his jaw, the rasp of stubble familiar against my temple.
His arms tighten fractionally. “Barely.” His voice is gravel, worn smooth. “Collecting bruises?”
I flex an arm, noting the faint imprint of finger-shapes near my bicep where he pinned me. The ones on my hips are hidden beneath the suds. “Oh, just fashionable accessories. You?”
He shifts slightly, water lapping at our chests. “Worth it.” He lifts a hand before me, tracing the jagged silver lines swirling lazily beneath my skin where his teeth sank moments – or was it lifetimes? – ago. The glow pulses faintly, reacting to his touch like embers stirred.
My own fingers find his forearm resting beside my breast. The corded muscle feels denser, humming with a contained energy I’d never perceived before.
It thrums under my touch, echoing the new warmth blooming behind my ribs – something coiled and potent.
Not just seeing the power on his skin, but feeling it resonate inside me. Mine? Ours?
"I'm something different now, aren't I?"
He releases a slow breath, his chest expanding against my back.
He touches the mark again, this time with his knuckles, a rough, possessive caress.
"Nothing should have happened like that.
Nothing safe." His lips brush the damp hair at the nape of my neck, sending a different kind of shiver entirely.
"But this fire beneath your skin now... Tessa, it tastes. .. immense."
"Immense?" I push wet hair back over my shoulder, watching the way droplets catch the low light, refracting tiny rainbows against the steam.
The movement sends ripples across the water, shimmering over the silver tracery on my collarbone.
Strength hums, not aggressive, but deep and unwavering, an anchor in a harbor that was always storm-tossed before.
"Is that billionaire speak for 'terrifyingly powerful'? "
"Billionaire speak," he grunts, a rumble vibrating through my bones, "is usually 'leverage' or 'acquisition'." One large hand cups water, letting it cascade down my shoulder, over the glowing mark. "This feels like... possessing the sun."
The absurdity catches me, breaking into a low laugh. "Possessing the sun? Now who's being dramatic?"
His teeth graze my shoulder, not biting, just marking the spot. A low growl, quieter now, less beast, more claim.
The heat of the water, the solidity of him at my back, the impossible power humming a low note somewhere deep within my marrow – it’s a concoction headier than any champagne.
His arms are iron-clad yet infinitely gentle now.
As his lips move to the base of my neck, tracing the pulse point above the vibrantly shimmering mark, his other hand drifts idly through the water, palm skimming over my legs. The touch is healing, grounding.
"I didn't break," he murmurs against my damp skin, the words a raw confession muffled by my hair and the steam. "You held me to the core."
I press back into him, closing my eyes. "Feels more like you held me.
.." My hand finds his thigh under the water, squeezing.
A spark leaps from my fingertips, lighting the water around his leg with a brief, contained silver flash before vanishing, like a vial of trapped lightning pouring out.
"...and something else. Something potent.
" The surprise is in my voice, but no fear. Just wonder. Just heat.
His answering growl vibrates against my spine. "Potent." His free hand brushes warm water down my back in slow, deliberate strokes.