I stroke myself slow, deliberate. My palm tight. I don’t close my eyes. I don’t need to.
She’s all I see, all I want. No one else will ever touch her again. Not even look at her. Not unless they want their fucking eyes carved out. I move closer to the bed, gritting my teeth as the pressure builds.
“You belong to me,” I murmur, voice low and rough. “No one else lays a hand on you. You’re mine.”
I stroke harder. Faster.
“You’ll never flinch again. Never cry because of someone else.”
My hand tightens. My abs tense.
“When I mark you, it’s not just for me. It’s forthem. So they know what happens when someone thinks about taking what’s mine.”
I come with a groan, thick white streaks landing across the small of her back, her hips, the sheet beneath her.
My mark. My brand. My vow.
She stirs faintly in her sleep, a soft sigh escaping her lips. She is safe, but the heat in my chest doesn’t go away. I won’t sleep. Not until I know Thom Dryden isdealt with. Not until Sarah is safe. And that means one thing: She never leaves this house again.
Sarah
I wake with heat pressed into my back and the lingering scent of him in my lungs. For a second, I don’t move.
I just lie there, blinking into the morning light filtering through the tall windows, trying to remember what time is, who I am, what day it might be.
But my body remembers. God, does it remember.
I ache in places I didn’t know could ache. My thighs are sore, my core tender, and my skin is sticky with sweat and… something else.
I shift slightly and wince. There’s a strange, slippery sensation across my lower back.
Confused, I push the sheet aside and reach back with trembling fingers. When I bring them forward again, they’re glistening.
My breath catches. I know what this is. Heat floods my cheeks. He came on me. At some point while I was sleeping. Not in me.Onme.
My lips part, a shiver rolling down my spine. I should feel embarrassed. Violated, maybe. But instead…
I feel something else.
Possessed.
Chosen.
My body burns with the memory of his hands, his voice, his mouth between my legs in the shower. And still, somehow, it wasn’t enough for him.
I rise slowly, the soreness deep and pulsing. Every step to the bathroom is unsteady, my legs still shaky from how thoroughly he ruined me.
What is happening to me? Tous?
This is more than sex. More than lust.
It’s something darker. Hotter. Like I’m being swallowed whole. Wrapped in him like a second skin.
I dry off with shaking hands and pull one of the shirts he left behind over my head. It smells like him. Like cedarwood and sin.
I step into the hallway just in time to hear his voice from downstairs.
Deep. Sharp. Controlled.