Page 36 of Heresy
This isn't the cold king or the enraged beast. This is a different man entirely—a man drowning in his own ghosts, usingmy body as a lifeline. My gamble has led me here, to a place far more dangerous than simple violence.
One of his hands tangles in my hair, tilting my head back, while the other shoves my skirt up with a rough, desperate urgency. He lifts me effortlessly, sitting me on the edge of the bar, the wood digging into my thighs. My legs part for him, a half-conscious response to the sheer, overwhelming force of his need.
SIXTEEN
A WALK THROUGH HELL
HEX
Her touch is a live wire on my skin. Not fear, not seduction. Just a calm, clinical competence that I don't know how to fight. It’s a foreign language, and it’s screaming at me. Every ghost I carry—Abel's betrayal, Cain's hatred, the weight of the crown—rises up in a tidal wave of pure, agonizing noise. The control I've spent a lifetime building shatters into a million pieces. I am a man drowning, and she is the only solid thing in the storm.
My hand locks on her wrist. A groan is torn from my throat, the sound of a beast breaking its own leash. I turn, pinning her against the bar, the scent of her, of my own blood, of whiskey, filling my head. I kiss her, not to dominate, but to silence the screaming in my own skull. It's a desperate, punishing act. I lift her onto the bar. She is the anchor. She is the eye of my hurricane. The quiet, defiant center of my own personal hell.
I enter her with a single, hard thrust.
A choked gasp is torn from her throat, a sound of pain that the king in me registers as victory, but the man drowning barely hears. I hold still, buried deep inside her, my eyes squeezed shut. I want to be rough, unrelenting, to fuck her like I've fantasized, to punish her for the weakness she's unearthed in me. But mybody won't obey. I stay cautious, my mind screaming,next time. Next time she'll be ready for something that brutal.
Her body is so small under mine, so frail and breakable. God, I could break her. I want to.
But her hands, instead of fighting, tentatively wrap around my neck. Her hips give a slight, involuntary shift beneath me. The invitation, however small, is more than I can handle. My control snaps.
I withdraw and surge in deeper, the movement agonizingly drawn out. Her mouth flies open in a silent gasp. I am maybe halfway inside, and her wet, tight grip is killing me. I need more.
"Kiss me," I growl, the words a raw demand.
She doesn't need a second order. The spirit I saw in the alley returns. She throws herself forward, her mouth ravaging mine, her legs wrapping around my waist. My cock buries itself inside her to the hilt, and I drink in her scream, holding still for a deadlocked moment.
"Did I hurt you?" I whisper against her lips, my own voice hoarse.
"Y-Yes." The word is a broken sob.
"Good," I grind out. "It wouldn't have been right if I didn't."
Tears escape from her closed eyes, such beautiful, defiant tears. I begin to move, deep and slow, rubbing over her clit, soaking in her reactions. It isn't until she is arching against me, her nails tearing into the skin of my back, that I finally let go. The stinging has me going faster. Harder. I bite against the brand on her shoulder, and she grows louder, not in pain, but in something else, something I refuse to name.
I begin fucking her right. Fucking her like I wanted. My fingers bury in her hair on both sides of her head, and I grip hard, slamming into her with everything I have. The screams and spasms that shake her body are the purest, most powerful drug I’ve ever experienced. It sinks its hooks into my obsessionand douses it with something new—something so strong, it's all I can feel.
"You feel this," I snarl, my mouth at her ear. "Tell me you feel this."
"I do," she chokes out.
My toes curl, my body rigid as I drive into her mercilessly. The suction of her mouth on my neck, the raking against my back… it is ecstasy. It has been so long, and she isn't just anyone; she is the splinter, the ghost, the only thing. Years of restraint are coming down to this moment.
"I see you, Vera," I whisper, the words a final, possessive claim. "I've got you."
Her broken cry as her orgasm hits is the final blow to my control. The last wall inside me crumbles to dust. A raw, guttural groan is ripped from my own throat as my release tears through me. My hips buck in a final, frantic rhythm as I flood her, hot and thick, each pulse a separate detonation, a branding iron searing my claim deep inside her.
My vision whites out at the edges. The world dissolves. There is no club, no war, no ghosts—only the scrape of her nails on my skin, the scent of her, the feel of her body convulsing around mine. For this single, terrifying moment, the king is dead, the monster is unchained, and even he is dissolving into the storm.
The storm breaks.The last tremor of my release fades, and the white-hot haze in my mind recedes, leaving behind the cold, gray ash of what I've just done. I can feel the frantic, slick beat of my own heart, the sting of her nails in my back, the wetness of her tears against my neck.
And I am horrified. The vulnerability, the raw, desperateneed, is replaced by a wave of pure, chilling self-loathing. I didn't just lose control. I annihilated it. And I lethersee it.
I have to sever this. Now. I have to put the king back on the throne.
I pull out of her with a single, abrupt motion and shove her away. She stumbles back against the bar, a mess of torn clothing and stunned, tear-streaked confusion. She looks at me, her dark eyes wide and searching, and I see a flicker of dangerous understanding. She saw the crack in my armor.
I can't let her keep that knowledge. I have to shatter it.
