Page 18 of A Heart So Savage

But he’s not the one who just lost his virginity, is he?

She felt battered. Bruised. Her body must be covered in bite marks and scrapes from Kingston’s beard-scruffed chin. She frowned when she saw the wounds on her fingers.

She’d caused those with her own teeth during a moment of intense, bewildering madness.

My God. What the hell is wrong with me?

“Let me go.”

Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It was hoarse and rough. Broken but strong. She sounded so strange, even to her own ears.

“Over my dead body,” Kingston replied lazily, letting go of her throat. A second later, he wrapped his arms around her waist and helped her sit up. Her arms automatically encircled his neck, holding onto him for support.

Still buried inside her, his cock already twitched impatiently for another round. Fighting back a sniffle, Ava’s vision swam, the room swirling as she gathered her bearings. The dead animals within her line of sight watched her, their stares cold and impassive.

Like those stuffed creatures, she was a trophy now. Maybe Kingston would mount her head on the wall, too. Give him something to admire and brag about while playing games on his bloodied, ruined billiard table.

“Let me go, Kingston.” Her tone was stronger this time. Sliding her hands down from around his neck, they now curled into fists, pressed into his chest.

Minus the coat he’d tossed aside earlier, he still wore all his clothes. He’d destroyed her without even removing his expensive Italian leather dress shoes.

Leaning back, he smirked. “But I want you again, Ava. This time, I’ll bend you over this table. Or maybe over the balcony railing just outside the terrace doors.”

Ava hit his chest with a balled-up fist. “No!” The refusal exploded from her before she could bite it back.

Kingston’s eyebrows soared. “No?” He repeated softly. His jaw hardened. “That’s a word no longer available to you.”

Ava glared at him. Maybe the loss of blood was making her reckless. Maybe that’s what happened when a girl’s virginity was torn apart. Maybe losing that tiny bit of membrane meant the emergence of a backbone.

But it also meant ignoring the warmth seeping through her bones. It was a lassitude that drained her of any semblance of true resistance. She wanted to curl up beside this man in a bed heaped high with cool, silk sheets and fall into a slumber so deep she would never need to face her body’s betrayal.

Slowly, Kingston pulled out of Ava while she winced. Tucking himself back into his pants, he did not bother fastening them as he picked up his coat from where it lay in a heap on the floor. Silently, he rummaged through the coat’s inner pocket, withdrawing an expensive silk handkerchief etched with his initials.

Ava slid off the billiard table, excruciatingly conscious of her nudity. When her attention helplessly navigated to the vee of his open trousers, her legs wobbled.

Even satiated, Kingston was huge. His cock was barely constrained, the bulge of it twitching the longer she stared.

Dragging her gaze away, tremors shook her while she stood there, an arm crossed over her breasts. Silly of her, actually. This man had seen every inch of her and used his mouth as an exploration tool. She was probably suffering something like aftershocks, but a bigger concern was making itself known. Specifically, between her thighs where his cum was dripped from her body and slowly dried on the inside of her thighs.

Ava steeled herself as he carefully folded the handkerchief into a neat square. Would he shove the bit of silk into her mouth and start again as he’d already threatened?

Why did that possibility make her knees buckle with anticipation?

She trembled, blushing furiously when Kingston nudged her knees apart. With excruciating care, he cleaned her flesh. A hiss escaped her at the sting, but she allowed it. What choice did she have in the matter, anyway?

“I’m trying to be gentle.” Cobalt blue eyes, the Devil’s eyes, bored into Ava’s. “I’ve never fucked a virgin before so my experience with the aftermath is nonexistent.”

“Well, I’ve never been fucked before,” she snapped without thinking. “Now we truly have something in common.”

The corners of Kingston’s eyes crinkled slightly, apparently amused by her impetuous response.

“We are more alike than you think, Ava.”

“No, we’re not.”

Kingston’s mouth tipped in a smile. He continued wiping her so tenderly that Ava’s eyes almost fluttered shut. It really did seem that he was trying not to hurt her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, now that she was becoming accustomed to his brutality.

“We’re both addicted to this. The way we make each other feel. This fire between us. You may hate me, but we both know that doesn’t matter. You want this. What I do to you. You need it.” He kissed her softly, his lips moving over hers but barely making contact as he spoke. “And I crave you with every goddamn breath I take.”