Page 267 of Fractured Allegiance
I grin, though it feels more like a snarl. “So was riding me like you meant to tear the bed in half.”
She huffs a laugh, quick and sharp, but there’s a fracture in it. Her hand slides across my chest, fingertips tracing one of the claw marks she left, smeared red and raw. She watches her own hand like she doesn’t recognize it, like she can’t quite believe she marked me.
“You’ll regret this,” she whispers.
I seize her chin, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “No. You will, if you think you can run from it.”
She doesn’t flinch. Her eyes burn, stormy, but she doesn’t try to shove me off. She just looks at me like she’s weighing how much of herself she lost in this room—and how much she’s willing to lose again.
Her body twitches against mine, another spasm of aftershock pleasure rolling through her. I groan low, my cockthickening inside her again. She feels it, smirks, and rocks her hips deliberately, squeezing around me just to prove she can still take control.
“You’re insatiable,” she says.
“For you,” I correct. My voice is rough, final, carved in stone.
For once, she doesn’t argue. Her lips curve faintly, the smirk stripped of venom, something almost softer in its place—but not safe, never safe. “We’ll see.”
I roll us, pinning her beneath me again, my weight pressing her into the mattress, cock sliding deeper inside her with the movement. She gasps, fingernails biting into my shoulders, but she doesn’t push me off.
I drag my mouth down her throat, teeth scraping, my hand locking her wrist against the pillow. “No, Lydia. You’ll see. And you’ll fucking beg me not to let go.”
Her laugh is shaky, almost broken, but she arches into me, her body betraying her every bit as much as her silence does.
For the first time, she doesn’t pull away. She stays.
And I know—whether she admits it or not—her fracture is mine to keep.
Chapter 25 – Lydia - No More Masks
I wake pinned beneath him.
Not violently—just thoroughly. His arm locks across my waist, his chest a solid wall against my spine, his breath slow and even at the nape of my neck. He's still asleep, but his body hasn't let go.
The room smells like us—sweat, sex, something raw I can't name. The sheets are ruined, twisted into knots, damp where our bodies pressed together. My hips ache. My throat stings where his teeth scraped skin. Between my thighs, I'm sore in a way that makes every small shift a reminder of how hard he took me, how much I let him.
I should slip out. Get distance. Rebuild the walls before he wakes up and sees too much.
But I don't move.
I stay exactly where I am, his arm heavy across me, and I don't know if it's because I want to or because I've forgotten how to leave.
My hand rests against the mattress, fingers twitching with the need to push him away, grab my clothes and slip out of here. It would be so easy to turn, grab it, remind him that nothing in this world comes without a leash. But the thought drifts away as quickly as it comes, because the truth is worse: I don’t want to.
I want to feel his arm locked around me a little longer.
The bastard sleeps like he’s earned it. His breath fans against the back of my neck, steady, too steady for a man who burned through me like he meant to tear me apart. I hate the calmness it brings me. I hate the thought that I might sleep better knowing he’s pressed against me, a wall of muscle and obsession wrapped around my ribs.
I tilt my head just enough to look at him over my shoulder. His face is rough, unshaven, a faint scar cutting across his jawline, another along his eyebrow. Lines fan from his eyes, not weakness but years of watching too much, carrying too much. He doesn’t look soft even in sleep. He looks like a wolf that simply closed his eyes because there was nothing left to kill.
And still, my body reacts. My chest tightens, my stomach knots, my thighs rub against each other under the sheet.
I should slip free. I should run. But I stay pinned.
Just then, I feel it, the subtle shift in his body, the way his chest firms against my back, the change in his breathing. He’s awake. He’s been awake, maybe the whole time, just waiting for me to move first.
His arm doesn’t lift. His hold doesn’t ease. His mouth is close to my ear when he finally speaks, voice rough from sleep but steady as stone. “You’re awake.”
I turn slightly, enough to catch him in the dim light. His eyes are open now, sharp and clear, blue-gray locked on me like they never left. There’s no grogginess, no drift. Just focus. Always focus. His lips tilt faintly, the kind of smirk that feels like it’s been waiting all night.
