Page 42 of Ruthless Desire

Before I can think better of it, I'm tugging it open, the silver handles cold beneath my clammy palms. The drawer glides soundlessly, revealing its illicit treasures like some profane jack-in-the-box.

My breath stops, shock and disbelief rooting me in place. Because there, nestled against blood-red velvet, lies my vibrator. The one Dante stole that first fateful night, tearing it from me with a predator's snarl and a promise to hoard my pleasure, mold my desires to match his own.

And coiled beside it like a glistening viper - the power cord. The cord he taunted me with, a wicked gleam in his onyx eyes as he ground his hardness into the caged heat between my thighs.

Anger fills me, potent and purifying. How dare he lay claim to this - to me - with such audacity? Such arrogance, as if my body is a conquered land and he is the invading force?

I snatch up the vibrator before I can think better of it - a small rebellion, a pathetic attempt to reclaim some scrap of autonomy. It thrums to life in my palm, its wicked buzz a profane hymn in the darkness.

I should put it back. Shut the drawer, flee this unhallowed ground before I'm discovered, before Dante senses the intrusion and comes to investigate. But I don't. Can't. That sick, seductive impulse still drives me, the inexorable tug of a dark tide I'm powerless to resist.

Pulse pounding, I bunch up the hem of my nightgown, baring skin to the chill air. The vibrator's smooth tip grazes my inner thigh, sending sparks skittering through my treacherous nerves. A broken moan claws up my throat as I press it to the damp lace shielding my core, lost in a haze of sensation too intense to be pleasure, too agonizing to be pain.

"Well, well, little raven. Caught you in quite the compromising position, haven't I?"

The dark velvet voice shatters my fugue, icy dread dousing my veins. I whirl, knees like water, to face the figure looming in the doorway.

Dante.

He stands wreathed in shadow, a sliver of light from the hall throwing his cruel beauty into stark relief. A slow, wolfish smile curves his lips as he takes in my trembling form - nightgown rucked up, vibrator still buzzing feverishly against my sex.

"I-I wasn't... I didn't mean..." The words die on my tongue, shriveling to ash under his scorching onyx gaze.

"Didn't mean to what, Natalie?" He stalks closer, each precise step eating the distance between us. "Didn't mean to sneak into my private space like a wanton little thief? To defy me, yet again, by presuming to pleasure yourself without my express permission?"

Tears prick my eyes, equal parts terror and treacherous arousal. God, what is wrong with me? To be so weak, so depraved, that his mere presence sets me alight even in the midst of my fear?

"Please, Dante, I–"

"Hush." The command cracks like a whip, stealing the air from my lungs. "I don't want your mewling excuses. I want your surrender. Your compliance. Your complete and utter devotion to my will."

He's on me before I can blink, caging me against the desk with the coiled strength of his body. One elegant hand wraps around my throat, tipping my chin up, forcing me to meet the fathomless darkness of his eyes.

"Everything you are; belongs to me," he murmurs, madness and obsession swirling in those ebon depths. "Your pleasure, your pain, your every quivering breath...is mine to dispense as I see fit. No more of these feeble attempts at rebellion. No more denials of the sweet suffering only I can bestow upon you."

He leans in, lips a hair's breadth from mine, his grip compressing just shy of true airlessness. The threat - the promise - of annihilation hovers in the space between us, electric and undeniable.

"This was your last warning, solnyshko. Displease me again, and I won't be nearly so lenient."

The world hazes at the edges, narrowing to the branding heat of his touch, the intoxicating scent of whiskey and danger and man. I should scream, should fight, should claw his eyes out and flee this incubus' embrace.

But my limbs are molten lead, my will an ephemeral thing unable to withstand the magnetic pull he exerts on my psyche. Some secret part of me craves this dark defilement, yearns to lower myself before his altar and accept my twisted communion.

Dante must read my tormented submission in my blown pupils, my quick, shallow breaths warming his palm. His lips curve in dark satisfaction, a conqueror surveying his spoils.

"Good girl," he purrs, the praise slithering down my spine like a caress. "You're learning, slowly but surely. Learning to accept the inevitable, to crave the exquisite torments only I can inflict."

His free hand trails lower, skimming my hammering pulse, my collarbones, the swell of my breast. I bite my lip against a whimper as he palms the sensitive flesh, rolling the pebbled peak between cruel fingers.

"Please," I gasp, no longer sure if I'm begging for mercy or release. "Dante, I can't..."

"Can't what, little mouse?" He plucks at my nipple, a sharp sting that arrowing straight to my core. "Can't resist my touch? Can't deny the sick thrill that grips you, even now, at being at my mercy? At knowing I hold the key to your unraveling, that I can shatter you with pleasure more thoroughly than any pain?"

As if to punctuate his point, he plucks the vibrator from my nerveless fingers, running the buzzing head over the curve of my breast. I choke on a moan, my nails scrabbling uselessly at his shirt, all coherent thoughts fleeing in the face of this maddening torment.

"Look at you," he marvels, something like awe warring with possession in his gaze. "So responsive, so hungry for my attention. You were made for this, solnyshko. Made for me, to be filled and used and reshaped into my perfect, poison plaything."

Shame burns through me, hot and caustic, warring with the tumult of need streaming molten in my veins. How can I want this, want him, after everything he's done? After all the ways he's violated and demeaned me, stripped me of agency until I'm little more than a doll dancing on the tangled strings of his obsession?

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