For a beat he only watches, the way a volcano watches a village. Then he steps forward and his fingers curl under my chin. His palm tilts my face up so I cannot look away. Heat, power, raw strength flood the small space between us.
“You don’t have to say anything more,” he murmurs.
And then he moves.
I am not surprised by the lack of gentleness. Bastion doesn’t do soft. He does brutal and he does gorgeous. His mouth crashes against mine in a slap of heat and force. The towel is gone as if offended, ripped free by large hands with no thought of decorum. He hauls me to him, body to body, and I get only a second to register the warmth of him before he throws me onto the bed. My back slams the mattress. My legs dangle and the world tilts, but I do not reach for balance. I am not interested in balance.
He drags his teeth across my skin and the bites bloom into stinging constellations. He does not ask; he takes. He manhandles me like a prize and the word prize is too small for how I feel caught and owned and wanted.
“You need to be fucked, don’t you, little Hellcat?” he rasps, and the way he says my name is a thing of hunger.
“Yes,” I gasp, because the truth sits in my mouth and tastes like sin. “Please.”
He chuckles dark and it is not amused in the light way. The sound is low and dangerous and there is no tenderness in his look. He flips me onto my stomach with a palm that keeps meflat like a hand over a trapped animal. “Hold on tight,” he growls into my ear as if threat and comfort could be siblings.
And then he takes me. Not gentle. Not measured. His hips snap forward with a force that steals my breath. He drives into me hard, pushing until pain and pleasure braid into something so sharp I cannot name it. I scream, nails tearing at sheets, and he laughs like a god pleased with the world.
He tangles his fingers in my hair and yanks until my head falls back. I am his ragdoll and I love it in a way that feels like confession. He will not ease. He will not ask for mercy and I will not give it. My body becomes a place where his power is shown in blunt instrument strokes.
“Oh fuck, Bas!” I scream, and the sound is a bright flame on my tongue. He hisses and curses as an orgasm rips through me, a lightning strike that leaves me raw and open. Before I can find the pieces of myself he lifts me, and flips me onto my back.
He grins wicked and his golden eyes hold something feral and proud. My beautiful brute. “I’m not through with you yet, Hellcat.” His voice is thick with hunger. “I want to see your face while I fuck you.”
It is a demand and a promise and I moan at it, something animal and grateful slipping out of me. He spreads me again, drives into me with a force that is almost violent, each thrust a punctuation that makes the room tilt. He growls and grips my thighs as if he can shape me into whatever he wants. “Hold those for me,” he orders. I obey, wrapping my arms around my legs.
“Good girl,” he growls, and the syllables hit a place in me that makes me crack open and pour myself out.
When the words hit they release a storm. I feed from him with a ferocity that shames me in the way it heals me. I take and take until his body is a map I have memorized and his pleasure is the language I breathe. He gives without question—his power,his hunger, his heat. I drink him in until the ache that has been living under my ribs since morning loosens like a knot.
He rolls onto his back and pulls me with him, and still he does not stop. He uses me like an offering and consumes me like worship. Each time I think I cannot take another, he gives again and I am remade on his body. He ruins me and rebuilds me and ruins me again until my limbs go boneless and hesitate between pain and profound satisfaction.
Bastion’s groan vibrates against my spine and his arms tighten around me. He chuckles, low and satisfied. “Tired, little Hellcat?”
I cannot answer. Words would be clumsy instruments for the softening that has already turned my thought to fog. I sink into his weight, into the cavern of his chest, letting the warmth dull the edges of everything I fear and everything I want.
A sleep that is heavy and unwaking takes me, pulled into the dark by the gravity of his body. In it I am full, and in it the hunger either sleeps or waits in a soft place. For a while there is nothing but the echo of his breath and the smear of heat on my skin and the knowledge that for this hour, at least, someone has filled the emptiness with something fierce and enough.
When I wake, if I wake, the world will have its teeth bared. I know that even in the soft between-sleep. Zepharion is out there like a shadow with a name, the bond hums like a wire in my bones, and Deimos watches everything with a patience that holds knives. But in this swollen hour, with Bastion’s arms still around me and my body finally quiet, I let myself be undone. For now, that surrender is a small rebellion.
THIRTY-THREE
The moment we step into the first store I know I’ve made a mistake. The fluorescent lights feel like interrogation lamps. The racks of clothes smell like fabric softener and stale perfume, a world away from the iron and smoke I’m used to.
She moves through it like a queen walking a battlefield, fingers sifting, eyes hunting. Lillien is in her element, tipping hangers with the sort of concentration I usually reserve for ripping a man in half. She flips through fabric and color with an intensity I respect and a patience I do not possess.
I follow behind her, carrying the bags as they pile up. They get heavier by the minute. Money means nothing to us. It’s easy to make, easier to take, and easier still to spend. But patience is not something you can buy. It’s something you either have or you don’t. I don’t. I shift the weight of the bags and try not to grind my teeth.
“How much longer, Hellcat?” I grunt as she shoves another bag into my arms.
She grins over her shoulder, eyes bright and dangerous. “Are you tired, big guy?”
“No,” I mutter, settling the burden across my forearms. “Just questioning my life choices.”
She giggles, a sound too small and too human for my liking. It would be cute if I were not already wound tight enough to snap. Still, I let her move through the ordinary. She needs it. Normal feels like a medicine I do not trust, but still she drinks it. She may be a demon now, but she is still a young woman who loves shopping, and that thought is ridiculous enough to make something in me soften.
But then she starts in on me.
First, it’s the bikinis. She steps out of the dressing room twirling in a tiny red two-piece that looks like it was designed to start wars. She watches me, eyebrow cocked, the smirk on her face saying she knows exactly what she is doing.
