Page 402 of Hate Mates

I thought I had been the one cursed, the one left unsatisfied after all these years. But it wasn’t just me. It washer.

I take her chin between my fingers, tilting her face up to meet my gaze. “Say it.”

She hesitates, her lips trembling.

“Say it, Vivienne.”

Her lashes flutter, and then, so softly I almost miss it, she breathes, “There’s only ever been you.”

Something inside me snaps.

A growl rumbles in my chest as I crash my lips against hers, devouring the confession, claiming it with my tongue, my teeth. She gasps into my mouth, but she doesn’t fight me this time. Her body melts against mine, her hands gripping my arms, her nails sinking into my skin.

I lift her without thought, pressing her harder against the cave wall. My hands roam over the curves I have not touched in years, the body that belongs to me, that has always belonged to me.

I drag my mouth down her throat, savoring the way she shudders under me.

She is mine.

She always has been.

And tonight, I will claim her again.

Chapter Five

VIVIENNE HAWTHORNE

His scent overwhelms me—dark, rich, something purely him. My body betrays me the moment he presses against me, caging me in with nothing but his sheer presence. I should be fighting harder. I should be resisting.

But I can’t.

I don’t want to.

His lips crash into mine, claiming, devouring. I moan into his mouth, my hands finding the hard ridges of his chest, his shoulders, feeling the raw strength beneath my fingertips. He growls, a deep, possessive sound that makes heat pool low in my belly.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs against my lips, his voice rough, hungry.

I am. But not from fear.

He knows.

His hands roam over my body, slow, teasing, torturous, like he wants to savor every second of this. Like he wants to remind me exactly who I belong to.

“Orion,” I breathe, my fingers digging into his skin.

He lifts me in one swift motion, and my legs wrap around his waist as he presses me against the cave wall. The cool stone at my back does nothing to soothe the fire raging beneath my skin. The need. The ache.

His mouth moves down my neck, his tongue flicking over my pulse before his teeth scrape the sensitive skin there. I arch against him, gasping, my body demanding more.

“Still so sensitive,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my throat.

My nails rake down his back as he grinds against me, the hard length of him pressing exactly where I need it most. I whimper, desperate, shameless.

“I need—” I can’t finish. I don’t have the words.

He chuckles darkly, dragging his lips down to my collarbone, his hands slipping beneath my dress, pushing it up.

"You were impatient back then, too."

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