Page 53 of Whispers of Ruin

The sound of our bodies colliding fills the room. My fingers trace the sharp edges of his mask, desperate to see more, to feel more. He pauses, his breath catching. Clearly, my touch has struck something under his skin.

“Please,” I whisper, trembling with an untamable need. “Let me have this. Just once.”

His jaw tightens. I see it—the war behind Xan’s eyes. That pull between instinct and duty, desire and control. His longing is written all over him. Still, he hesitates. Because to lift the mask is to expose more than his face—it’s exposing the man beneath the monster. I slide closer, until my body melts against his, until mybreath mingles with the perfume on his neck. I tilt my face up, eyes never leaving his.

“You don’t understand, Xan…” I soften, smoky with emotion. “Ineedthis. Ineedto feel your mouth against mine like I need air. After everything—after what you have done to me,forme—I want to know the taste of the man who destroyed and rebuilt me all at once.”

He swallows hard, his hands twitching at his sides, torn.

“I’ve kissed lies my whole life,” I continue, bolder now, letting my fingertips graze the bottom of his mask, “but I know yours would be the only truth. And I want to drown in it.”

Still nothing.

I let my lips ghost along his jaw, just below the leather.

“Let me worship you, Xan. Let me know you, not the mask. Just for this moment, I beg you.”

A beat. Another.

Then, with an intense growl, he lifts it—just high enough to set his mouth free. And God, when his lips finally crush into mine, it is not just a kiss—it’s a storm. One I begged for. One I welcome.

His mouth crashes into mine with a force that steals every thought from my mind. No gentleness softens his kiss—only urgency and hunger held back for far too long. His lips are scorching, sculpting mine with a centuries-deep hunger for this contact.

His hand grips the side of my neck, tilting my head just enough to deepen the kiss, his thumb pressing into the hollowbeneath my jaw. I melt under his touch, every nerve set ablaze as his tongue claims the corners of my mouth with punishing precision. He kisses as if it is the only language he has ever known, and I understand every word.

I cling to his shoulders, fingers digging into the tense curve of his muscles while our breaths tangle, hot and reckless. I swear I can taste every unspoken thing he has never dared to say. Every truth buried beneath leather and silence.

He doesn’t pull away out of doubt—only to breathe. But even then, his forehead rests against mine, his lips hovering just above mine.

“I swore myself I would never do this,” he murmurs, “butyou,little fox… you make it fucking impossible.”

“I don’t want you to resist me,” I say back, my hands sliding to cup his face beneath the mask. “Not when this feels like everything I’ve ever needed.”

He kisses me again. Slower this time—more devout. He’s savoring the sacredness of the moment, because he knows this kiss is a line neither of us will ever come back from.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he asks. “I can feel it… your pussy throbbing around my dick for more.”

Again, all I can do is nod, my voice lost in the tightness of my chest, in the delicious ache building inside me. My hands fist in his hair—anything I can hold onto as I feel myself slipping away. He angles his hips just right, and the friction becomes too much.

“I’m about to come baby,” I cried out softly. “And I want you to come with me, inside me. I want to feel every drop of your cum flooding my thighs.”

Xan lets out a soundless chuckle between his ragged breaths.

“I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way little fox,” he hisses.

A shock of pleasure surges, and I cry out loud as the orgasm tears through me with an intensity I never experienced before. My body bows into his, clenching, falling apart completely in his grasp. He follows with a guttural moan, deep and animalistic, burying himself to the hilt as he releases his precious cum into me, holding me so tightly it feels like we might fuse together. As we were never meant to be anything but this. My chest rises and falls in erratic waves. His body is still wrapped around mine, though it is the chaos he has left inside me that holds me prisoner.

I am supposed to feel used, to feel ashamed, even afraid. Still, all I feel is… alive. Split open and stitched back together by the hands of a man who knows exactly where every fracture lies. Julian never touched this part of me—not really. He danced around it, tried to mold it, shame it, silence it.

But Xan? Xan did not ask for permission to enter the dark. He kicked the door off its hinges and made a home in it.

And Godhelpme… I want him to stay.

Xan groans, still catching his air, then glances down at me with a smirk that could cut glass.

“Look at you, little fox. Fucked-out and glowing—I guess I just gave you a whole new definition of pleasure,huh?”

He leans down, pressing a slow, claiming kiss just beneath my jaw.

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