Page 37 of Hostile King

Feathery puffs of air caress my skin, so the hairs on my nape rise up like pillars to support me from his delicious torture.

“You’re wrong,” he mutters into my mouth, the rumble reverberating through me.

Using his solid torso, he cages me against the broken mirror where this singular explicit moment multiplies into hundreds of visible mistakes. I almost choke when he deepens the pressure and slides his tongue down my throat, unable to help himself. He devours me like he’s dying of thirst and I’m an endless flow of water.

It's a divine force of nature, an animalistic instinct born from dark desires. A need for him to conquer and for me to sanction it. I writhe against him, caged by his masculine body with no way to escape and secretly hoping he’d never stop trying to tame my temper.

Our tongues clash. I liquify from his roaming touch and turn glacial at his attempt to win me over—because he let go of me at the plantation while I tried to hold on. He had consented to a wedding, even days after we parted company.

He could have changed his mind. Chased me with an apology. Hunted me for a future together. Instead, he had planned a family function with his beautifully flawless fiancé.

Ensuring Mikel stays out of the picture is his way of proving he’s the lawless drug lord who can have it all—a wealthy kingdom, gorgeous wife, a young mistress. But it won’t be me who takes that role.

“You made your decision. I’d rather die alone than live in your wife’s shadow.” My body weight pushes into his, pitifully unbudging him.

I gasp when he captures my scarred lip with his teeth and grazes the plump flesh. The wicked scent of his liquored breath makes me shiver.

“Her shadow isn’t impressive enough to cover a woman like you,” he mutters into my mouth, his lips clinging to mine.

Our toxic kiss is my undoing.

My pulse skitters with familiarity. His musky cologne conjures fiendish memories, and a telltale grunt of sexual gratification rolls to the echoey corners of my heart. It’s his closeness, the hazy heat of attraction that makes the need unbearable. I’m battling the desire to give in to him while searching for a shred of self-discipline to serve my pride.

It's reckless to enjoy the sparks and even more unwise to stand up to him. But I do. “Why are you doing this, Tomás?” I inhale him into my lungs. “You have everything you could ever want.”

Without tenderness, his forehead butts into mine. His nostrils flare and his lungs expand, chasing the oxygen we both share.

“Carina…” his voice rasps with possessiveness.

In the silence of the room, amid sharp edges and a chill of air-conditioned air, he locks his torrid gaze with mine, snakes a firm hand to my ass, and roughly scoops my pelvis into his groin like he needs the closeness to exist.

“You’reall I want.”

I blink up at his tortured expression, dazed and drunk on the sizzle of his taut torso tight to my breasts. Something whispers through the lonely avenues of my lost soul and sends out a bright flare to guide me home. Home to him.

“Don’t lie to me,” I say breathlessly. “This isn’t a game where you control all the pieces and make a move when it suits you.”

My skin burns hotter than lava. The flesh aching for his control. Irrationally, I sink my fingers into the short lengths on top of his head and brush my sensitive lips across his. Desire flames through me.

The untamed need is worse than physical torture. It’s more ravenous than an eternal starvation, more misunderstood than the endless grip of a childhood depression, and more salacious than the indecent urges I’ve encountered with him to date.

Down the corridor, there’s a ballroom filled with dangerous men and women. Yet here we are, spellbound and confused in sinful feelings. Feelings that shouldn’t have evolved and have no place in this dynamic.

His solid erection grinds into my core. I shiver with my own arousal. But it's the vision of crimson stains tarnishing his tense chest, a temporary tattoo to ignite mayhem, that sends me into a spin. The imprint of life covers the very place where his thumping heart pounds like battle drums.

I’m suddenly aware of how he hadn’t reached for my throat or fallen victim to the merciless blackout curtain that cuts off the light—he’s in control—albeit threadbare.

The tempest within my soul relents, my flesh and bone melting into the only man who knows exactly what I crave. He senses it, reads the change from defensive to compliance.

“You’re right, this isn’t a game, Carina…” he growls. “…but fuck I love how you challenge me. Nothing about this is a lie. Not the goosebumps on your neck, the quick rise and fall of your breasts, or the wetness coating the inside of your thighs. You want me to stuff my dick inside your sweet pussy and fill it full of my cum—and I want to lick it out, because I’m addicted to the taste of you and me together.”

I shouldn’t groan when he skates his expansive hand to my thigh and bunches the silk to find bare skin beneath, but my body responds to him even now. Even when I know it’s wrong to give in to his demands while another woman thinks she’s claimed him. Even when I envy her role in his life to the extent I could cry.

Except her warm blood isn’t decorating his skin. Her perfect lips aren’t tasting his. Her long legs aren’t parting to allow his fingers to enter her.

My body trembles as he works between my legs, my clit throbbing like a hellish heartbeat caught in his trap. Our bodies collide, mine too eager and his incapable of stopping.

With every greedy moan that slips free of my throat, he matches it with a sexy deep groan. My insides clench, craving more of him.

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