Page 4 of Married to the Devil

But I’m ensnared by his purposeful motions, frozen. Caught between a want to disturb the heavy air around us and a curiosity to see where this goes.

Consummation. A mating bite. A future together.

His claw falls to the sweetheart neckline of the intricate gown and halts against the fabric, snagging. He pulls against it with intention, and the material parts a thread at a time. The ripping can’t possibly be as deafening as it is, but it fills my senses all the same. He moves slowly as he destroys the dress, his eyes taking in the expanse of skin revealed.

My higher brain functions should argue with his actions and call them wasteful, but my throat is tight. Something heavy pools in my belly as the tender skin between my breasts is bared to the cold of the room and the blaze of his gaze.

The bridal lingerie isn’t spared either. As the fabric is destroyed, I’m freed from the constriction of the garment, though my breaths stay shallow.

The contrast of the leashed violence and the tickle of his sharp claw has a curling, sticky warmth growing between my thighs.

I’m trembling by the time he reaches my belly button. The top part of the dress gapes but has too much structure to fall away.

His palm slides between the fabric and my body, resting on the skin of my expanding ribcage. It’s the first time he’s touched me intimately. The kiss sealing our marriage at the end of the ceremony had been perfunctory.

Thiscontact is a searing press, and a soft sound of surprise escapes between my lips at the suddenness of it. He makes an accompanying raspy purr to my quiet exhalation, but the sound cuts off almost immediately.

His grip moves up to cup my bare breast, and my exhale morphs into a whimper as he squeezes the weighted flesh. I tilt forward, unbalanced by the simple act, and my hands fly to his chest. My pale fingers contrast to his inked gray skin in a way that makes me imagine how he’ll look on top of me. If we can get that far before the lack of blood flow to my brain causes me to faint.

“All soft and willing for me,” he breathes, leaning in so that his words tickle my damp lips. “It doesn’t matter if a lover wrapped you up like a present for me. You’re mine now.”

“I—” I start to question his words that clash with his gentle movements, but he steals the words from me with a devouring kiss.I don’t have a lover.

His mouth and sudden cool flavor distract me from the pull of fabric biting into skin as he releases my breast to rip the dress apart. The sound is as harsh as the cold air as the fabric falls from me to pool on the floor. I break the kiss with a gasp.

Stoneheart doesn’t give me time to adjust to being naked. He grips my hair and brings my lips to his again with a snarl that fries my thoughts and doubts.

He tastes like hunger, and I respond to his desire with my own. He wants me. Needs me. Will tear anything between us apart to get to me. It’s a fantasy too enticing to keep my thoughts above water. My body falls into this seduction of few words and all grabbing hands.

There’s finally an honesty to our actions. I can express how much I want him now that we are bound together. It doesn’t matter that my desire for him after meeting a handful of times is foolish. Each scrape of teeth and flick of tongue entraps me.

I press myself against his exposed chest even as his arm around my waist pulls me in. My hard nipples brush against his thicker skin in a tantalizing tease.

I should be pushing away from the rough grip he has around me, but I moan into his kiss. The chemistry that has haunted me for years is potent. The wild nature of his taste and energy gouges deep into my better sense and rips it apart as succinctly as he’d done to my wedding dress.

Stoneheart lifts me from the ruined dress with ease, and my thighs wrap around him. The scant fabric covering my sex is already soaked, smearing his lower stomach with an embarrassing amount of wetness.

“So wet for me already,” he says against my mouth. He lets loose a growl before my embarrassment can slow my actions, and the sound vibrates through me, causing my thighs to squeeze harder around him, my body shivering in an odd needy response.

I tighten my legs around his hips, but there is no corresponding hurry in his movements, no ready promise in his grip.

I nip his upper lip, wanting to speed this along, and he makes a warning sound, breaking our kiss. I grind my wetness shamelessly against his stomach. Something desperate needing him inside me.

“Please.” I beg. “It’s never been like this.”

His eyes narrow for a moment before he tightens his grip on my hair. The pull on my scalp has my eyes rolling back. The world spins, and he lays me down on a soft surface that I distantly register as the bed.

He doesn’t even wait to pull back the undoubtedly expensive duvet to the more disposable sheets below before licking down my chest. His tongue is longer than a human’s, with a tapered tip, and it makes me wonder what other anatomical differences he has.

“You won’t rush me in taking my prize,” he says against the center of my chest before licking over to suck my nipple into his mouth.

I cry out at the contact, and a delicious heat flows through me as my thoughts become stilted and slow.

That’s me. I’m his prize. It’s odd to be objectified and feel so cherished at the same time.

Stoneheart’s mouth releases my tender nipple. His words come out on a snarl. “Your lover must be lacking for you to be so needy.”

Lover.I almost growl in frustration that we’re back on this subject. The feelings I have for Ben are mixed and based on a few interactions that I mentally locked away when I accepted this proposal.

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