Page 61 of The Beautiful Dead

Because he craved it.

Even if he sometimes refused to admit it.

He needed me like I needed him. Like sin needed the devil. Without one, the other wouldn’t survive. Still, he fought me. Not with his body—I had claimed that a long time ago—but with words. With brittle little insistences that he could leave. That he had a life outside of me.

It was frustrating.

He drove me to the edge of insanity.

My fingers wrapped around his wrist, dragging it to my lips and pressing a slow, biting kiss to the delicate skin. His pulse stuttered beneath my mouth before I pinned him down, his wrists trapped above his head.

Then I moved over him, pressing my weight onto him, letting him feel it. Feel me. Letting him know he wasn’t going anywhere.

“What time does your class start?”

He hesitated. “Ten.”

“Plenty of time.” My lips curved against his skin.

“Domino—”

I silenced him with my knee, sliding it between his thighs, pressing down against his hard length. He sucked in a breath. A beautiful, broken sound.

His cock throbbed against my leg, heat pulsing through the silky soft skin. His fingers curled into the sheets, his body betraying him even as his mind tried to deny me.

My lips twitched. Pathetic. Gorgeous. Mine.

My eyes devoured him—the way pale skin stretched over muscle, the faint tremor in his limbs. My bruises bloomed in purples, blacks, and yellows, claiming marks. Every inch of him invited destruction, and I had never been one to resist temptation.

I was a lit match over gasoline, and Remi was already burning. The world could go up in flames around us, and we wouldn’t notice.

“Stay,” I whispered, running my lips over the sharp jut of his collarbone, dragging my tongue down the center of his chest, circling the tight bud of his nipple. Tasting him. Claiming him.

“I—”

I didn’t let him finish. With one swift movement, I flipped him onto his stomach like he weighed nothing. He gasped as I yanked him onto his knees, his spine curving in a perfect, submissive arch.

“Why do you always try to make this so difficult?” I murmured, fingers sliding over the ridges of his ribs.

I reached for the nightstand. His body tensed. He already knew. Anticipation buzzed across his skin like static zapping into me. The knife was cool in my hand as I pressed the flat of the blade against his spine, trailing it downward.

The smallest tremor. A sharp, shuddering inhale. I could hear his heart pounding, the rhythm erratic and wild—the sound of prey before the kill.

“You like this, don’t you?” I whispered.

Remi swallowed. “You know I do.”

I hummed, turning the blade, dragging the sharp edge along his ribs, just enough pressure to make him gasp. Not enough to cut too deep. Just enough to pull the blood to the surface, to tease.

But I wanted more. I wanted to break his skin. To paint his body with red, to taste him, to feed his essence back to him and watch his wrecked, broken expression when I did.

“You can’t leave if I don’t let you.”

His breath hitched. “Ah.”

I slid the knife lower, teasing the sharp tip over his stomach, pressing just beneath his navel. He shuddered in the cage of my body. The arch of his back deepening—a desperate, instinctive plea—his ass pushing back against my cock, slotting it between the firm cheeks. A strangled, pained whimper spilled from his lips.

He needed this. Needed me.

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