“You okay?”
“Yes...” My throat aches and my voice is a rasp. The echo that reaches my ears tells me why; I must have screamed. I stare down at the mark he made. I feel it deeper than I’ve ever felt anything in my life, pulsing and volatile. “I’m fine.”
His brand is an angry red against my skin, bleeding in some places. The mark will scar. Once again, another man’s name stains me, but this time, I put it there. I don’t know if Lucifer’s surprised when I lunge forward, sealing my mouth against his. If he is, he hides it well by lashing his tongue against my lips to pry them apart.
We kiss in hungry, violent, greedy snatches. Impatient, Lucifer tugs me into the narrow hallway and flattens me against the wall. He’s panting, his cock practically thrumming with the need to be inside me. I reach down and palm it, stroking until he grits out curses with every breath. Guiding him closer, I stare dead into his eyes as he muscles his way between my legs and enters me in one hard thrust. My heels dig into the backs of his thighs, my legs holding him tight with every hungry, fierce roll of his hips.
He’s rough. Brutal. I’ll feel him inside me for weeks after. Months. It’s still not enough. My nails bite into his shoulders, goading him on until he’s grunting with each thrust.More. More. Harder.He slams into me, crushing me into the wall, and an icy splash of pain in my core tells me that the devil stayed true to his promise.“Icould make your cunt bleed.”He stiffens when he realizes and tries to pull out, but I sink my teeth into his shoulder before he can. I bite down hard until he stiffens, becoming steel inside me.Mine.
Grunting, he rides me without a shred of mercy, driving himself into me and wrenching himself back out—only to plunge in even deeper. Harder. Faster. I hover on the edge of pain and sanity until, with one last thrust, he breaks me open.
I wail against his skin, memorizing every growl and groan he smothers into the side of my throat. It’s a more potent tune than any I could caress out with my bow or any complex suite. This is a melody I could never play with my cello or any other instrument—only my soul. Only like this, bare flesh against bare flesh, with nothing but blood and pain to eke each brutal, violent note out. The devil makes his music in screams, burning flesh, and rent, ruined skin.
And I’m drunk on it.
“Say it,” I gasp out. My hand shakes as it finds his punishingly gripping my waist, and I urge it up to brush the stinging flesh of his brand. “Say it,” I beg him, my saliva mingling with the blood I managed to draw with my teeth. “Say it...please.”
You are mine.Those words Vinny loved to boast for my benefit. They’ll make for the crescendo of this twisted melody. I need to hear him say it. Ineedto. I bite him again when he doesn’t comply quickly enough and the devil howls, twitching inside me.
“You,” he growls, ramming into me so hard that I see stars. “You...Yours.”
Yours.I can only moan in confusion. It isn’t the right thing for him to say.
I’m yours.
Mine.Fire burns white-hot, scalding my spine and reducing my body to ash. I can only cling to him and scream as an orgasm rips me into pieces. Lucifer is careless with the ruined parts of me. He fucks his release into me and then goes limp with the final thrust, pinning me to the wall with his weight alone.
I don’t know how long we stay like this. Minutes? Hours? The only thing I’m aware of when he finally withdraws from me is an agony that cuts me deeper than any pain I’ve ever experienced before and has me sinking down to my knees. It has nothing to do with the throbbing in my bleeding, abused core or the callous way Lucifer shoves himself off me and then staggers in search of his pants.
One single realization obliterates what’s left of my heart, leaving scorch marks on my soul: As long as Vinny is alive, none of this fucking matters.
Not one damn bit.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dante
There’s toomuch of her blood to just wipe off on the sides of my jeans. I need a shower. I need to scour the bitch from my skin. I need...I need to fucking kill her.Now.
I find her slumped against the floor, her eyes vacant and distant. No one’s home. She doesn’t even react when I pick her knife up from the floor and come toward her with it drawn. The little bitch has flown off again, terrified by whatever she saw even as she rode out her climax and drenched my cock in her release. She looked at me...and she sawhisface.
I don’t know whether to strangle her or let her fucking suffer. Let her see the fucking bastard who truly owns her. Let her get high off the fact that he can’t touch her here. Let her fuck her way through the rest of her life while she tries to pretend that he doesn’t haunt her every step.
Or maybe I should put the little bitch out of her misery now? I am ananimalafter all... Baring my teeth, I trail my gaze over the rest of her, ignoring the way my cock lurches, still fucking semi-hard. I reach for her with one hand while adjusting the knife onthe palm of the other. I don’t think before I cut. One hard jerk of my wrist...and there is no blood. No screaming. No death. There’s only a lock of ebony hair in my fingers, still warm with the heat of her. It even fucking smells like her. Growling at the realization, I tuck the shit into my pocket and aim for her again. This time, it’s her arm I grab, but for some reason, I don’t cut. I drag her upright instead, watching her head loll against the wall and her vacant body grasp for anything within reach to help her find her balance.
I consider dropping her when the little bitch starts to clutch at my forearm. Her nails scrape my skin and every little pinprick sensation bolts down directly to my cock. She turns my entire body into her little plaything, stoking a lust I learned in childhood to suppress and control. Lust makes men stupid. It makes them fucking weak.
Fucking her makesmeweak.
My hand drops the knife, and the fingers find her throat. Those hazel eyes watch me, flickering with only a hint of life, as I press hard, sealing her windpipe off. Five minutes, I decide. She’d likely be dead in one, but five would make it slower. Five would make her suffer. For five fucking minutes—her very last—she’ll see my face instead of his. I press harder, and the pain makes her fly back into her body. Slowly, her eyes register me, and she realizes what I’m doing. How I’ll do it. That her death will be drawn out painfully over every last fucking second. She understands it...and if she could, she’d fucking sigh.
It’s about damn time.
I let her go to gasp and wheeze on the air, and while she sways, I throw her over one shoulder. When I reach the bedroom, I pitch her onto the mattress and leave again. In the narrow bathroom, I find a washcloth and wet it beneath the sink. The creature glowering into the mirror is a stranger. Some sick, stupid fuck with some bitch’s name carved into his chest. He doesn’t even have the nerve to seem ashamed by it. Hell...I think the sonof a bitch even got off on the pain of those five little letters being etched into his skin. Thirteen years ago, Dino tattooed my “new” name on me himself. Kitten, the scared little fuck who one day grew claws.
“You don’t just let any bastard with a needle touch your skin,”he told me.“I’d rather let a bastard kill me than ever ink me without my goddamn permission. This.”He pointed to his throat, where his own name inked the flesh.“This is your armor. Whatever you put on it should adorn your fucking soul. Those dumbasses who get pussies or birdies tattooed on their arms? Deep down, that’s all they really are. Cartoons and fucking scared little birdies. Every scar and mark you wear with fucking pride, or you don’t let the shit touch you at all.”
I let that little bitch cut me. I let her draw her mark onto my skin. Ilether.
