Page 65 of XV (Fifteen) (War of Roses 1)

“I told you to look at me.” His nails pierce the flesh of my hips in a warning. “Look at me, Little Rose.”

I hear the threat of punishment in his voice. Still, I shut my eyes tighter. It’s an act I’d never perform with Robert. I’dneverdisobey him. I’d never tremble at the brutality as anger takes over his movements, driving him even deeper. Into my head. Into my goddamn soul.

I’d never relish the violation.

But Mischa makes me speak a new language composed of frantic, whispered words.

“Please…p-please—”

“What?” He pauses, still buried to the hilt, leaving little room to suck in enough air to speak. “Please what?”

What?Those words won’t come. I have to show him. My trembling fingers poorly convey what I want—need. They brush my breast in a timid stroke.

“You want me to touch you?” Mischa wonders, barely intelligible. “Beg me to.”

I just nod, smothering my moan into the sheets as his thick, callused fingers graze my skin beneath the plunging neckline of my dress. He doesn’t touch me. He violates me, clenching flesh and squeezing to the point of bruising. It hurts, drawing a gasp from my lips. It…feels.

My nerves can’t resist him the way years of abuse trained them against Robert. His warmth sinks into my skin, his callused flesh grating over mine and melting any hint of resistance. The pinpricks of pain meld with the friction of him still inside me, churning my insides to mush and melting every sane thought in my head.

Mischa grates out something that isn’t English, capturing my nipple between his thumb and his forefinger, guiding it to a stiff point. Then even words cease to matter. Our language becomes a series of groans and gasps smothered into silk and skin. His fingers roam without care or reason, fanning over my rib cage, plunging through my hair, and grasping strands so hard that my eyes water.

“Look at me.” His teeth find my earlobe, grinding it between them. “Fuck.Look at me.”

I do. And the sight of his face, hard with determination, steals my breath away.

He looks too powerful. Too real. Too raw, hungry for me.

He crushes me with his last thrust, refusing to shift his weight even as he empties himself into me. I’m trapped beneath him, forced to bear every lethal pound. It’s almost as if he’s trying to drive Robert out through his presence alone.

I try to hang on to that familiar monster. I try…

But, with every passing second, his evil is harder to grasp, like smoke chased away by a raging inferno.

And, without his protection, I’m devoured whole.

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