Page 60 of Shattered & Returned

What was fucking wrong with me?

I lowered my gaze to his hands, those skilled, powerful, and beautiful hands that had mapped my body like sacred ground. The same hands that might have strangled women wearing my face.

“Way to darken the mood,” I murmured instead. “I guess romance isn’t your strength.”

He chuckled, his thumb grazing my lower lip. “You want pretty words?” His smile turned feral and sexual. “I’ll give you pretty screams instead.”

His mouth claimed mine in a searing kiss, fingers working on my bundle of nerves with cruel expertise, stoking the fire between my thighs until I trembled. His bruising kiss grew more possessive, consuming me. He tasted of storm and smoldering embers, of power so old it predated names. Every drag of his lips was a demand, every flick of his tongue a conquest.

I molded my body to his, arms locking around his neck like chains. We were already fused hip to chest, yet some desperate part needed him closer still. Knew this hunger was devouring me whole.

And still, I couldn’t get enough of him.

He’d awakened something feral in my blood, something that thrilled at his teeth on my throat, his hands mapping me liketerritory to be claimed. When he looked at me with those green eyes, when his caress left me gasping, morality blurred to ash.

Let this be my ruin.

His long fingers curved around my neck and squeezed, cutting off the air with just enough pressure to make my vision fracture at the edges. My body arched toward him in a shameless plea.

“You crave this, my flower,” he murmured against my pulse, his rich voice laced with roughness.

My body was on fire. My thighs clenched, every nerve alight. The dangerous pressure should have terrified me. Instead, it evoked a hunger so deep it felt like coming home.

“Enough?” His fingers flexed, just shy of brutality.

The confession tore from me, my shame lacing with desire. “N-need more.”

A paradox—I had asthma, yet I was certain Nero choking me wouldn’t trigger it.

A merciless smile ghosted his sculpted lips. “More what, little flower? More of this?”

The crack of his palm against my rear split the night, pain blossoming into liquid fire that left me gasping for the next strike. Next fix. The next wave of pleasure.

Pain got me off. It always had, though I’d never confessed it, least of all to Mom. Her horror would have been unbearable. The sting of flesh somehow eased the deeper ache that haunted me—that eternal, nameless loss carved into my marrow.

“Do you think I’m twisted? Like something…broken?”I whispered, my face closed off.

His fingers stilled. For a breathless moment, I feared I’d broken the spell that bound us. Then his eyes met mine, icy green, reflecting the same torment I felt.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,”he said, voice rough.“I understand better than you think. If you need a monster to blame, here I am. I’m the one who craves your pain.”

Maybe I’d gone too long without human touch, without connection. Maybe now, only the sharpest edges could make me feel anything at all.

He gathered me against him as if I was precious to him. His mouth traveled down my throat, teeth sharpening mid-kiss.

Then—

Piercing pain bloomed where his fangs breached skin, piercing the sensitive junction between my neck and shoulder. My gasp morphed into a moan as pleasure lanced my wanton body.

“I taste both your agony and your ecstasy,” he murmured against the bite mark. “They belong to me now, little flower.”

His fingers closed around my nipple, not caressingbut claiming. A sting flared through my breast, firing the nerves within. Pain rushed through me, unleashing a delicious feeling that made my back arch. I pressed myself further into his merciless touch.

“You bloom so beautifully in agony, little flower,” he murmured, his voice rough with hunger. His other hand slid between my thighs.

“More,” I begged.

His fingers glided through my slick heat, circling but not entering. “Is this what you truly want?”

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