Page 2 of Dark Restraint

“Tell. Me. No.”

I don’t realize his other hand has released the chair until he grips the front of my dress. His rough knuckles press against the delicate skin of my breasts, sending a jolt of pure need through me.

Understanding dawns, bringing with it conflicting emotions of fear and desire. “We shouldn’t.” I’m protesting for the sake of protesting, but it’s the truth.

My father may look the other way when it comes to how Asterion watches me, the strange almost friendship that has cropped up between us, the way we seem to gravitate toward each other again and again. But he won’t forgive this. If we cross this line, he’ll slit Asterion’s throat. I’m afraid to think of what he might do to punish me. “We can’t,” I force myself to say.

“We can. What’s one more betrayal?”

“Asterion—”

“Tell me no.” The rumble of his voice makes me press my thighs together. “Or I’m going to rip this dress off you.”

Now’s the time to do exactly that. If I say no, he’ll stop. Asterion may be a monster in so many ways, but not with me. Not like this.

What’s one more betrayal?

I don’t tell him no.

He pauses for one beat, and then another. I expect him to rip my dress down the center, to send the line of vintage buttons flying. Instead, he thumbs open the top one. And then the next. And then the next. Exposing me, inch by agonizing inch. All without moving away or putting any distance between us. It’s just as well; if either of us had a chance to think this through, surely common sense would reassert itself. We would remember who we owe everything to. Me by blood, him by circumstance.

By the time he bares me to the waist, I’m shaking so hard that I rattle the metal chair against the gravel. Asterion drags his knuckles up the center of my body to catch my chin. He still has ahold of my throat, still not doing more with his grip than claiming me. Now, finally, he moves back so that he can capture my gaze. “You’ve been mine from the moment I saw you. Your father might have been dangling you in front of the Olympians like a particularly tempting fruit, but we both know the truth. You are mine, Ariadne.”

My stomach flips and I want to hate what he’s saying, to reject yet another man claiming to own me. I’ve never belonged to myself, not from the moment I was born. I never had a chance. No matter what else is true, being claimed by Asterion will change everything. “You’re wrong.”

He drags his thumb roughly over my bottom lip. “I’m not.” He reaches down without breaking my gaze and shoves up the bottom half of my dress. “But if I am, then tell me no.” He slips his fingers beneath the band of my panties and wraps his fist around the fabric. “Because if you don’t tell me no right now, I’m going to take what we both know is mine.”

No one has ever touched me like this. Other people my age interested in sex have done plenty of exploring, whether it’s out in the open or in secret. My brother certainly has, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. Not me. Not Minos’s precious, innocent daughter. According to him and people like him, my value hangs on a hymenal thread. I think it’s bullshit, but when it comes to my life, I’m not the one who holds the power.

Except… Right now it feels like I am.

I may be shaking and overwhelmed, but there’s a fine tremor in Asterion’s hand where his knuckles press to my pussy. All it will take is one word, two little letters, and this all stops. What is power, if not that?

I reach up with a tentative hand and fist the front of his shirt. Agreeing to this will damn us both, but I’m not sure I care. We were damned the moment my father decided to bring us to this place. Any deaths that happen today are only the beginning. That blood is on my hands by proxy. “You didn’t kill anyone today?”

“I didn’t.”

Maybe I’m a fool for believing he did that for me. So be it. I drag in a breath. “Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t ask me again. He rips my panties from my body with a violence that makes me jerk. And then his mouth is on mine, his fingers tightening around my throat ever so slightly as he marks me with his tongue and teeth.

I may have been a passive passenger for most of my life, but I’m choosing this. I’m choosing him, even if it’s only right here, right now. It can’t be forever. But I don’t say that as he breaks our kiss to pull off his shirt and shove down his pants. His cock is big enough to make a thread of fear dampen my desire, but Asterion drops to his knees and buries his face in my pussy before I can decide if I really do want to say no.

The first drag of his tongue through my folds makes my brain short out. I’ve read about this. I’ve bought toys that are supposed to mimic this. What a joke. There’s nothing like the feeling of his tongue on the most intimate part of me. His fingers dig into my hips, pulling me several inches off the edge of the chair so that I can spread my legs wider for him. I don’t make a conscious decision to shove my hands into his hair, to lift my hips and seek more, but my body has overridden my brain. His broad shoulders make a perfect perch for my thighs, and he licks me as if he’ll never get enough.

What we’re doing is strictly forbidden, and we don’t even have the decency to do it under the cover of night. The sun bears witness to my orgasm cresting, to Asterion pressing his palm to my lips to stifle my cries as I come all over his face. He gives me one long lick, and then another. There’s a pause, as if he might keep going, might not stop until I’m coming again. As if he might never stop.

But then he turns his face to my thigh and bites me. Hard. I shriek against his palm, the pain getting mixed up in pleasure. It confuses me. That feeling only gets more complex when I look down to see blood. He bit me hard enough to break the skin. A lot.

He rises and wraps a giant fist around his cock. “You might have been tempted to forget this. Now you won’t.” He angles his cock to my entrance and looks at me, tracking the tear that leaks from the corner of one eye. Asterion shifts his hand away from my mouth long enough to say, “Tell me no. Tell me no right fucking now or I’m going to take this virgin pussy and claim it as mine. Forever.”

“That’s not how virginity works.” I don’t know why I say it. My thigh is one throbbing ache, and no matter if I’m already feeling empty and yearning for more pleasure, I can’t pretend my orgasm has washed away all the reasons we shouldn’t do this. His bite made sure of that.

“It is with us.”

Some instinct overtakes me, and I dart forward to set my teeth into the space between his thumb and forefinger. He watches me as I bite down, his dark eyes intense. Instead of pulling away, he presses his hand more firmly into my mouth, against my teeth. At the same time, his cock breaches my entrance. He doesn’t go fast, but there’s no time to adjust to the sheer size of him. It hurts. Oh fuck, it hurts.

“You can take it.” He slips one arm behind my hips and pulls me closer, pushing himself deeper. “Leave a mark, sweetheart.”

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