After three tries, he doesn’t move—but my body does. Disobedient, it has me lurching closer like a moth to a flame even as the words I spit at him echo with painful clarity. Still broken. Still bitter.
“I hate you. I hate you. Fuck you...”
“Fuckme?” a cold voice demands as he hunches over me frombehind, slamming one of his hands against the tile in front of me. “I could kill you.”
To prove it, he tightens his grip on my throat, caressing my windpipe.Crushingit. I see stars. My lungs heave for air, but death doesn’t even have the chance to touch me before he lets go.
“Coward,” I tell him.
“Bitch,” he snarls back.
I gasp as something pinches my shoulder to drive in the insult. Hard. Unforgiving. Teeth?I can’t decide before his fingers find their way down the back of my pants and graze that space between my legs. When I don’t react, he slides one inside—harshly—gritting out a curse at the way I feel—already wet for him, greedily grasping at the digit. Shame and regret don’t matter at this moment. My hips jerk, driving him deeper while my nails scrape at the cold linoleum.
This is the only language we know how to speak. Fingers. Skin. Nails. He thrusts his hand, and I lunge forward to bite the arm he has braced against the floor. He deepens his touch... I bite harder. Grunting from the pain, he doesn’t let up. He’s searching me the same way he did the night with Donahugh, seeking out any trace of another monster. I know before he gives up that he won’t find any. If only he could do the same thing to my head—rip Vinny out and leave me hollow. My old tormentor rages from the grave, bellowing in my ear...
“You think,” the devil starts, drowning him out and everything else. “You think I was watching overEspi?”
I don’t like the note of confusion in his voice. If he wasn’t guarding Espi’s door, then why...
“I don’t care.” I shake my head, consumed by the hand he still has between my legs. I look up and find three tiny puncture wounds in the flesh of his forearm bared beneath the sleeve of his dark T-shirt. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth, but my throat rushes to swallow it down rather than spit it out.
Whore,Vinny would cackle.You deserve to be used like one.
But the cadence of Lucifer’s breathing makes it harder to hear him. Harder to care. Harder to focus on anything but the searing burn of hellfire. Without warning, he touches me again...and, like a true addict, I can’t resist the promise of one last high. My hand finds his, the nails digging in until he retaliates and clutches my thigh so tightly that he breaks the skin. More blood spills, coating his nails and catching on the air like the opening notes of our own fucked-up melody.
I assume he takes my gasp for permission, because the next second, he manipulates me like a rag doll, stripping off the pretty, comfortable clothing Espi picked out for me. My pink sweater hits the counter. My black stretch pants bunch up around my ankles. I hear his jeans come undone. I feel the slick heat of him against my inner thigh, but the bastard waits until I reach back myself and slide my hand along his length before he mounts me, shoving himself deep.
The searing friction ricochets through every nerve ending, but I need him deeper. Harder. Faster. More, more—God, I needmore.I writhe until he gives in and rides me like an animal right here before the sliding glass door. Any nosy neighbor with good vision could see us. Hear us.
And I don’t give a damn.
“More,” I rasp. “More, more.”
He pivots, swiveling his hips to spark a carnal friction that makes me bite my tongue. It’s too much. Not enough, even as my knees are rubbed raw while he lunges to find his own primal rhythm.
We’re animals.
But I don’t even start to ride that dizzying trip to the edge of insanity until he flips me over, pulling out. Only to wrench my legs apart and slide back in. Slower, this time. Deeper. Harder. His eyes find mine, glowing in the shadows, reinforcing with every thrust just who really owns my soul. I can almost see theletters of his name flashing across my vision like stars. D A N T E...
The brand on my chest is on fire. The blood in my veins simmers. When the fire finally spills over, I can only gasp, digging my nails into his shoulders so fiercely that they break the skin.
Spent and slick with sweat, he gives me five seconds to catch my breath before rolling from on top of me. With my gaze on the ceiling, I expect him to walk away. Instead, he merely waits until my vision clears before rising onto his hands and knees, dragging me closer by my ankle.
It’s a familiar scene as he hunches between my splayed legs like a wolf, lowering his head. One brush of his tongue and I croak out the language he made me fluent in.
“Fuck, Fuck—” My voice dies off when he lashes at my throbbing skin, taking his time, heedless of the mess. Lapping. Sucking. Devouring.
Any disgust I might feel is too weak to truly register. I’m riding the high again. By the time my voice returns, I’m already over the edge, and his name spills out like a curse and a prayer.
His lips are still wet when he breaks away, and his mouth finds mine. I should cringe away from the pungent taste his tongue carries when he slams it past my lips—but I don’t care. I kiss him back. Bite him back. I dig my nails down his arms, leaving my mark until he takes me again.
Harder. Faster. Meaner. Rougher.Deeper.
We may never be fully adept at the art of verbal conversation...but our bodies have mastered it.
I’m sore when he pulls out the final time and paints my stomach with his release. He doesn’t bother to rub it in this time. He doesn’t have to. When he collapses down beside me, we both know who really owns whom.
But even this moment can’t erase three months of suspicion.
