Page 52 of His Savage Ruin
I curl my fingers inside her, finding that spot that makes her whole body jerk and her breathing cut off completely. Her inner walls grip me so tightly it's almost painful, slick heat coating my hand and wrist. "You're going to come for me now."
"No—I can't?—"
"Yes, you can." I press my thumb firmly against her clit, feel it throb and pulse under my touch. "Come for me right now, Alessia."
She shatters. Her body convulses violently, inner muscles clenching around my fingers in rhythmic waves that I can feel all the way up my arm. She cries out—tries to muffle the sound in my neck but can't quite manage it—and the noise echoes off the marble walls the same way Romeo's scream did just minutes earlier.
I work her through it carefully, keeping my fingers moving at a steady pace until the violent trembling in her thighs starts to ease and her breathing begins to even out into something more regular.
When she finally goes still, slumped heavily against the wall with all her weight on my hand still between her legs, I pull my fingers free slowly. I bring them to my mouth and taste her while she watches through dazed and unfocused eyes.
"Mine," I say again, and this time she doesn't have the strength left to argue with me about it.
I straighten her skirt carefully, smooth the fabric, fix her hair. Make her presentable even though we both know what just happened.
"Go to our room now," I tell her. "And think about Romeo and his missing finger every single time you start to forget who you belong to."
She stares at me for a long moment without speaking. Her lips are swollen and bruised from my kiss. Her cheeks are flushed dark, her eyes too bright and slightly glazed, and her legs areshaking so badly I'm genuinely not sure she has the strength to walk.
But she does. She pushes herself off the wall with visible effort and walks away from me without saying a single word.
I watch her go. I watch the way she holds herself together with pure will until she rounds the corner at the end of the corridor and disappears from my sight. Only then do I look down at my hand, at the way my fingers still glisten with her.
I don't wash it off. Not yet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Alessia
I make it to the room before my knees give out.
The door closes behind me and I lean against it because my legs are trembling so badly I have to grip the doorframe to stay upright. I can still feel where he touched me, where his fingers pushed inside, the wet evidence of what he did soaking through my underwear and making my skin feel hot and sticky.
The worst part is I let him. Even after watching Romeo's finger separate from his hand.
And that terrifies me more than the blood Romeo left on the floor.
But it's his parting words from yesterday that cut deepest, echoing in my mind like a curse:What happened between us...it doesn't change anything. You're still my prisoner. This is still war.
After he'd been inside me. After he'd claimed my virginity with reverent hands and whispered praise. After I'd given him something I can never get back—he'd looked at me like I was nothing. Like our intimacy was just another transaction in his ledger of control.
The memory makes rage burn hotter than shame in my chest.
I push off the door and cross to the washstand. My hands shake when I try to pour water from the pitcher. The glass chatters against porcelain and water sloshes over the rim, splashing my wrist. I set it down before I drop it.
In the mirror above the washstand, I barely recognize myself. My cheeks are flushed. I look like exactly what I am—a woman who just came undone for a man who is a monster.
My stomach turns. I grip the edge of the washstand until my knuckles go white, breathing through my nose until the nausea passes.
Romeo lost his finger because of me. Because in this house, I'm not a person—I'm a possession that needs protecting, marking, claiming in front of witnesses so no one forgets who I belong to.
I start pacing. I can't help it—there's too much energy trapped under my skin, too much anger and shame. I walk from thewindow to the door to the bed to the window. Ten steps each direction. My body won't settle, won't let me sit still long enough to think clearly.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the blade coming down. Hear the wet crunch of steel through bone. See blood spraying in bright arcs across marble. Romeo's scream still echoes in my ears.
But underneath that memory, threading through it like poison, is the feeling of Matteo's fingers inside me. The way my body clenched around him. The sound I made when I came, echoing off the same walls that had just carried Romeo's screaming. God, how much I wanted him to claim me fully!
I pour water again. My hands are steadier this time but when I bring the glass to my lips, I can barely swallow. The water sits heavy in my stomach.
