Page 97 of Owned

I bit back a gasp as they trailed across my skin and left shivers in their wake.

He pulled his mouth away from mine to trail kisses over my jaw and down the column of my throat. “Are you sure?” he murmured against my skin. “You’re not—”

I lifted my hands to his hair and held him against me, guiding him toward my breasts. “Don’t tell me I’m not strong enough.I will be.”

My mind was fragmenting under the weight of too many thoughts; the grimoire was relentless as it hammered into my consciousness—a discordant rhythm that threatened to tear me apart.

I arched into Valen’s touch instead and forced all logic and fear aside.

“I don’t want to hurt you—”

Laughter clawed at my throat, but I swallowed it.

“You can’t hurt me,” I murmured. “And you know it.”

Valen pulled back just a little to look at me, but I didn’t want to give him a chance to argue with me—or to say something stupid that might ruin everything.

Instead, I reached down for the hem of his black t-shirt and pulled it up over his torso and over his head.

His tattoos twisted in sinuous patterns over his shoulders and across his chest. Leaves and vines like the ones that clungto the side of the mansion… and the ones in the garden that haunted my dreams.

He leaned in to kiss me again, but I reached down for the button of his jeans.

“Avril—” his protest was soft, and I sat back on my heels.

I pushed a hand through my hair and winced as my fingers rubbed over a patch of dried blood.

Gods, I must have looked…

“What?”

Valen’s jaw flexed.

He wasn’t going to leave, was he?

He stood and I could see the hard outline of his cock against his jeans.

“He’s not leaving,”the grimoire murmured.

No, he wasn’t.

He undid the clasp on his belt and I reached for it and pulled it out of the loops.

He chuckled as I flexed the length of leather between my hands.

Bastian had beaten my ass raw with his belt… and I’d loved it. Every second of that exquisite torture was burned into my mind.

But I didn’t want torture tonight.

Not from Valen.

I threw the belt onto the floor and he smiled as the metal buckle hit the hardwood.

He kicked off his boots, then undid the button fly of his jeans and pushed them down over his hips in a smooth motion.

Fuck, he was so beautiful.

Lean and muscled.

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