Page 40 of Duchess

My gaze roamed her body, knowing I owned it, every ridge, every curve, seared into memory and fed into my fantasy. Each breath she took, each shift of her body along the soft sheets, made it worse. Made it better. I let the tension build in me until I was shaking, my breath ragged, teeth clenched to keep from groaning her name as I smeared my precum along the base of my cock.

I didn’t rush it. No. This was a ritual, a desecration of her body. A punishment.

Instead, I reached over and gripped the waistband of her panties, pulling them down until her pussy was exposed.

I groaned, leaning over to nudge my nose into her folds, taking in a deep breath of her scent. My cock jerked and my hand stroked in time with her breathing, slow and hypnotic, as if her body was the rhythm and I was merely keeping pace with a song only I could hear.

I let my tongue slide over just the lips of her bunny. Slowly burrowing it’s way inside her, finally gliding over the silky part of her. Tasting her juices for the first time.

My strokes grew harder and rougher while my mind filled with dirty images of her beneath me, on top of me, tied to my bed, and begging to be ruined all over again. I wanted to mark her, brand her, bind her in ways she didn’t even know she craved. The obsession curled through me thick with need and coated in vengeance. I managed to stand up over her as I came with her name on my lips, silent but searing, spilling across my palm and hitting her plush tits. It was as if the act itself sealed something sacred between us. And as I stood there, heart pounding, staring down at the woman who had no idea what I’d just done, what I’d become for her, I knew I’d never be the same.

I took a step back, my chest still heaving, jaw tight with everything I felt and couldn’t say. I adjusted myself, yanked the belt back through the loops, disgust clawing its way through the lust. I hated how deep this ran. Hated how I still wanted her after everything.

I reached into the inner pocket of my coat and pulled out the coin. It was a heavy piece of gold, old and worn, stamped with the crest of my family. It had been passed down through generations. A symbol. A curse. I stared at it for a second too long before I dropped it onto the pillow beside her head.

Then I pulled out the note I’d written in the car, the ink still fresh, scrawled in my brutal, impatient hand. I slid it beside the coin, right where she’d see it when she woke.

Finders keepers, sweetheart. I always find what’s mine.

Then I walked out of the room. Not giving a fuck who saw me.

Chapter 13

Duchess

The dream had sunk in deep, dragging me under this darkness made of lust and pain and everything I never wanted to admit I craved. There was no easing into it, just the rush of heat, the slam of sweaty loins, and the weight of him, Caleb, pressing me into the cold, unfamiliar wall of a place that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but him.

His mouth crushed mine with the kind of hunger that split me open, his tongue forcing past my lips like he had every right to take it. His hands were everywhere, fisting in my hair, gripping my ass, hauling me higher until my legs locked around his waist, my body begged without words. I screamed as his cock filled me, thick and punishing, each thrust shaking the air from my lungs until I was choking on the pleasure, on the filth of it all.

I didn’t just moan his name, I screamed it. Again and again, as if it were a chant, a plea, or maybe my own personal curse. His teeth sank into my throat, roughly, and meant to hurt. His fingers bruised my hips as he held me in place and fucked me like I was the one thing standing between him and his destruction. And I loved it. I hated that I loved it. I hated that I gave myself over so easily, arching into every slap of his hips,clawing down his back like I needed to mark him just as badly as he marked me.

Every inch of me responded to him, to the danger, the violence, the heat. It wasn’t just sex. It was surrender. It was annihilation dressed in sweat and skin and a kiss that still burned long after it was over.

And even in the dream, I knew it was wrong.

But that didn’t stop me from begging for more.

A scream ripped from my throat, sharp and loud, echoing off the walls like a fucking gunshot as I shot up off the pillows. My chest rose and fell in fast bursts, heart racing, drenched in sweat.

I blinked through the haze, disoriented, my body still pulsing with the aftershocks of arousal and shame. My sheets were tangled around my ankles, twisted like I’d been fighting for my life or begging for my release. My tits were bare, and a white substance lay on them. I slowly slid my fingers through the creamy substance, completely grossed out. My panties were wrapped around my ankles, and I figured I had pulled them down at some point during the dream.

I hated how good he still made me feel. Hated the way my body betrayed me every damn time. Caleb Killic had ruined me with a kiss once, and my dreams had never let me forget it.

"Fuck," I muttered, rubbing my hands over my face, trying to erase the way my skin still tingled where Ithoughthe’d touched me.

That’s when a glint caught my eye.

A single gold coin rested on the pillow beside me.

My breath caught, frozen in my throat. I knew that coin. I’d traced its edges once with my fingers, listened to him tell me about its weight, its meaning, how no one outside his family ever touched it. It had been a quiet moment between us, rare in this lifetime of hate. The Killic crest glinted in the low light, bold and unmistakable.

I sat up too fast, my head spinning.

There was a note folded next to it, written in the same sharp, brutal hand I remembered from the back of old invoices and secrets that we weren’t supposed to talk about, scrawled on restaurant napkins.

Finders keepers, sweetheart. I always find what’s mine.

The panic hit me like a blow to the gut.

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