Page 24 of Bathed in Blood

“The spines were backwards.”

“It’s my bedroom.”

“It’s a crime against books.”

His eyebrows rise at that. In the matter of a step, he’s gone from trudging into a room to stalking. My eyes find the blood on his collar as he undoes his shirt, willing myself to not look at his chest.

I fail.

“Perhaps you preferred the room downstairs, princess.”

“Perhaps I preferred the place you took me from.” It’s a lie, one that feels like ash on my tongue.

He cocks his head at that, almost too much, and he leaves it that way as he rounds me, stalks me. “Is that so? Missing home then?” His voice is velvet but hidden in the folds of fabric is a razor blade, one determined tocut.

I take a step back, anticipating the comfortable dread to pool in my stomach, something to snuff out the heat. It never comes. My core clenches around nothing, my thighs pressing together as my back hits the now mostly empty bookshelf. My body’s sense of betrayal doesn’t surprise me. I learned too early on to take pleasure when it’s offered, but somehow, this situation feels deceptively different.

His green eyes are no longer tired, the only evidence of the worn man from seconds ago lingering in the bags under his eyes. “Perhaps we should make a trip back, see if their cocks have decomposed yet. Perhaps they’ve even bloated a bit.” The smell of liquor hits me as he comes close enough to tower over me. “Might feel good, being filled to capacity for once.” The words leave him in a growl, my heart beating so violently in my chest, it feels like it will never calm. His words flame the anger that has been building in my soul for years now, long before I bartered myself to the Sullivan brothers.

I don’t recall making the decision to hurt him, only that the moment my hand rises to strike, he catches it halfway to his face. “Fuck. You.” The words leave my lips like an omen, a curse.

“Yes, I’d quite like that.”

The next moment is crushing lips and teeth, a passion I’ve had inflicted on me more times than I can count, but this time?I’minflicting. It’s a kiss meant to consume, to erase all others. One that for the first time, I give willingly.

11

Fist

Fully Alive by Flyleaf

After twelve hours spent tracking down the remains of the Sullivan brothers, I had looked forward to sleep. The last thing I’d expected upon my arrival home was to be kissing the Blood Princess. Kissing doesn’t seem quite enough to describe the way she savagely takes my mouth. My cock and heart ratchet to attention, every pulse in my body screaming to double the violence, the intensity. Blood whooshes in my ears as she gives herself over, her small body melting into mine.

The need to dominate forces a sinew deep throb to my cock, but I match her instead. I let her push and pull, nip and wither.

I let the princess tell me what she needs. Again, in the same 24 hours, I find myself the sponge, absorbing the cast offs of her pain, her violence. I take it all willingly, greedily, a starving beggar in the streets. She’s a tool, not a fucking lifeline. Yet, from the moment she led me to that SUV, I’ve clung to her like one.

“Take me,” she gasps against my lips.

All I can muster is a groan, hitching her trembling legs around my hips, grinding into her as she wraps around me, fusing tomy frame like she’s always been there. This tiny, broken thing decimates me with a roll of her hips. When her back meets the bookshelf with a slam, my hand snaps out, steadying the thing, bracing against it.

“Do it,” she taunts, goading me, her tongue urging mine in needy little swirls. When my hand grips her rounded ass, squeezing it, the slight wince I feel pulls everything into blinding, cursed clarity.

I try to ignore it; fuck, I really do.

“Princess…” I warn, because I don’t fucking care.

I don’t.

I really shouldn’t.

Her cunt grinds against me, offering every piece of bliss I’ve ached for since the moment I saw her, and I pull back. My cock weeps for the loss of pressure as I carry her to the bed. Each pass of her nails on my back does far more than my princess bargained for—it marks me, claims me for her. She claws, nips, and goads me into exactly what I what.

What I need.

To obliterate her.

She gasps as I lay her back on the bed, my hand clasping around her hip. Fuck, she’s gorgeous, with her knotted red hair, wide golden eyes looking up at me like I just wrote the lines of her favorite book. “Easy, princess. You’ll tear your stitches.”

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