by Lana Grayson
Rose’s eyes watered. I braced for her to run.
She leapt at me instead. Tossed her arms over my neck.
Fucking kissed me like a woman belonging in Sorceress and as desperately as a girl finding her prince charming.
I wasn’t a prince.
I didn’t know the meaning of the word charming.
If she expected me to slay a dragon and jam a glass slipper on her foot, Rose was fucked in more ways than one.
I wasn’t the hero she needed. Or the stately protector. I was the sword. The edge of chaos and the siphon of blood. I crushed. I maimed. I raided.
I took.
If she wanted a knight-in-shining armor, Rose was already lost. What help could I offer? I’d only terrify her.
I wasn’t Prince Charming.
I was the Warlord. The Cursed. The Anathema.
And she was the trophy of my endless conquests.
Rose had no idea what to expect from me. She couldn’t handle my strength. My ferocity. She might have twisted on my lap like a little ballerina, but nothing prepared her for the hell I’d unleash upon her body. I promised Heaven, but what I needed was straight torment. Hot. Fierce. Unyielding. I’d break her, right her, and shatter her again if only to prove exactly what I needed.
Exorcist might have kidnapped her. He might have beaten her. Threatened her.
But she was mine.
Mine to destroy under the weight of my body, and mine to rebuild through the promise of my pleasure. She was mine to frighten. Mine to comfort. Mine to use to root out the rat in Anathema, and mine to shield from the dangers, the hatred, the corruption of a club straddling the edge of domination and destruction.
I fisted the leather of the jacket. Someone else’s clothing covered her and offered comfort.
Never again.
I unzipped the jacket. I might have torn it. I didn’t fucking care. I pitched it across the room, far from the flushed skin and delicate curves of a woman too tempting, too forbidden to be real.
Daughter of one of Anathema’s original, un-fractured officers.
Sister of two of my ranking members.
Bait to lure out a traitor.
And I needed to strip her of what remained of her clothes. Her fear. Her self-doubt. I’d taste her and praise her and desecrate her all in one thrust, and she’d scream my name in utter gratitude for the opportunity to serve.
She didn’t dance for me now. Didn’t have to. Her body ached and trembled without any music. She didn’t try to cover herself, simply let the dark curls cascade over her smooth skin. I tempted the wrath of the scarred demon tattooed into my flesh, and I prayed for the binding tribal straps covering my arms and chest to contain the wild part of me that wanted nothing more than to ravish the woman. To sink my teeth in her neck. To bite and claw, thrust and claim.
Her breasts dusted with freckles.
Fucking freckles.
Christ, I was a monster, but at least I’d feast well tonight.
I pushed her. She fell on the bed with only the slightest little chirp. A melodic little surrender that I would earn from her lips once more. Her hair crested behind her head, wild and feminine.
In thirty-three years, I never saw anything as beautiful as her surrender. Everything, from her pale skin to the swell of her breasts to the tiny little waist that hid my ultimate conquest behind a plaid skirt, belonged to me. She didn’t need the school girl getup to look innocent.
She was innocent.
Every part of her. Her heavy eyes. The parting of her lips. The shallow breaths she stole now that I pulled from her kiss and let her imagine where else my lips would claim. I grabbed the skirt in my fists and tensed. The material ripped.
“I—” Rose’s fists dug into my bed. “I got that from Lyn.”
“She’ll get over it.”
White panties.
Just perfect little bikini panties that covered my prize and revealed just how much I’d win from conquering her.
She trembled, and the little goose bumps along her smoothed legs danced as her thighs pushed together. It didn’t protect her. Wouldn’t protect her. She pulled the panties tight over the mound they struggled to hide. The neatly trimmed curls that the little virgin would never admit she actually touched. It’d mean she had anticipated this. That she wanted this.
That she wanted me.
I didn’t need to spy the damp cotton between her legs to know what she wanted.
Rose needed to be fucked. Every inch of her body surrendered to my touch, and her resistance submitted to my demands. She blushed like a schoolgirl at Sorceress, and she fought to escape Anathema, but she wasn’t a wilting flower or enlightened prophet.
Rose was a woman. And she’d be mine.
I gripped the elastic on her panties before she decided to shield herself with another bullshit layer of self-doubt or regret or whatever the hell freaked her out while giving me the best goddamned head I ever experienced. She tensed as the material rolled over her legs. I debated on ripping the cotton. Ruining it. Preventing her from ever protecting her body from my desire ever again.
But it wasn’t like I could think when she laid naked before me.
Presented to me.
Offered.
She trembled like a fucking lamb on an altar, except she had no idea what I would do with that sacrifice. How greatly it would please me. How terrible the desecration would be.
No matter how pure she was, how perfectly innocent that sweet crest between her legs remained, the darkness that existed within me would coil inside her. Every demon she avoided and every monster she denied.
It’d be a sweet debauchery, even if I’d be damned for corrupting someone so delicate and naive.
She kept her legs closed. Mistake. She didn’t want to tempt my anger. She had right to hide what was mine, and she couldn’t deny the pleasure I’d deliver. I grunted and spread her legs. Rose pinched her eyes shut. I slapped her thigh. Right below where she still wore a bandage to cover a gash earned from Exorcist.
“No,” I said. I settled between her legs, edging her thighs apart. Her delicate little slit peeked at me. Slick. Tempting. Delicious. “You’re going to watch this, sweetheart. No pretending. No fighting. Just me tasting every fucking inch of you.”
Rose flushed so hard even the damn folds between her legs radiated heat. She stared at me, wide-eyed, hands gripping the bed. Her eyes widened as I lowered my head. They watered when I dove within her slit.
Her body was a fucking religious conversion, and I baptized myself the only way I understood.
Velvet softness. Sweet cream. A shallow gasp.
Then, nothing I expected.
Her hand in my hair, tugging, pulling, pushing, and falling limp.
“You...you don’t have to...” Rose arched as I shut her up with a curl of my tongue. “I don’t...I don’t...”
“You don’t want this?”
Another flick. She flexed hard enough to bounce her tits nearly to her chin.
“I don’t know.”
I ignored her. “Little fucking liar.”
I preferred a liar over a tease, and I wasn’t about to let her take away the sweetest damn pussy I tasted in her fit of embarrassed chastity.
Rose didn’t understand her own body. I licked, she muffled a groan.
I swirled, her legs tensed. I nibbled, and whatever choke she held on her engine burned away.
She arched to the ceiling, and I pressed a hand against her belly to pin her to the bed. Not that I wouldn’t have chased.
Fuck, did I want to chase.
Over the bed. Onto the floor. I’d push her against the wall, take her on her knees, and rut her from now until fucking eternity just to hear that whimper as I seized her pleasure. Bound her within my power over her crumbling body. She wasn’t getting away. I wasn’t letting go. And my prize wriggled against my mouth beyond what acrobatics my tongue offered.
“I...” Rose’s hand dug into my hair once more. “God. Never knew.”
She cried out a note more beautiful than anything she sang at her gig.
Her body spasmed against me. Hard. Quick. Again and again as she rode me like a stolen motorcycle and delivered herself to her own damn salvation.
My cock screamed at me. Pinned within my jeans. Trapped far from the clenching heat that earned a quick release from my kindness.
But that’s the kind of charitable man I was.
The first one would always be free.
The ones that followed would be rammed from her willing body without the gentle pretense. I didn’t demean myself between a woman’s legs out of the goodness of my heart. Seemed the gentlemanly thing to do to get the women hot, bothered, and receptive to the fucking of their lives.
I hesitated between Rose’s thighs.
I had what I needed. The girl was ready. Begging. Gasping in hard-wrought relief and shaking from what must have been the first orgasm she earned beyond the wiggling of her own fingers.
So why the fuck did I lose myself in the touch of her velvet again?
“Th—Thorne...”
Rose shifted her hips. She offered as much as she longed to hide. I wondered why the hell I let her use my goddamned name. Wasn’t often I fucked anyone who knew it. Was less often I’d even respond to it.
Calling my name earned a slap across the ass, a fistful of yanked hair, and a knife-threatened order to forget the word and replace it with a Sir if the bitch couldn’t go fifteen minutes without talking.
She whispered my name. She shivered and begged and I nearly came with her.
Dangerous fucking woman.
The goddamned virgin still had my hair. She jerked my head away from that perfect softness. My temper raged as hard as my cock. I grabbed her wrist, but she threw herself at me. Her arms wove over my shoulders, and she pressed those freckled curves against my chest. Her breathing panted.
My name. Gratitude. Confusion.
Confession?
I had no fucking idea what the hell was happening.
Within seconds I had gone from hunter to prey. Rose quivered under me as a delicate princess and shifted into a starving minx within one quick lick and the jerk of my cock.
She kissed me. Gripped me. Stared at me with gentle, wide eyes.
Jesus, I was lost.
“I want you.” Her whisper wasn’t a plea. She spoke it like she didn’t believe it. Like she couldn’t believe it. Like she wasn’t allowed to believe it. “Thorne, I want this.”
I groaned against her, my fist in her hair. Even my grip didn’t deter her. Didn’t slow her down. The kid burned so fucking hot I thought she’d exhaust herself before she even spread her fucking legs. I tossed her onto the bed. She grabbed at me before I unzipped my jeans.
“Christ, Rose.”
“Please, Thorne.”
God, the tremor in her voice. Like she thought I’d stop. Like anything in this world short of the devil himself rising from the depths of Hell would stop me from taking what she offered willingly. Desperately.
She needed me.
And she had no idea what the fuck I needed her for.
Stealing the innocence of an overwhelmed girl was hardly a stain on the grimy blackness coating my soul.
Rose offered more than a slick slit for me to rut. She wanted passion. Excitement. A night to remember. A reason for her to scream beyond the constant threat of a gun to her temple.
And I needed her to rat out her brothers so I could protect my club.
Rose fell back. She bit her lip, but her legs parted for me.
She smiled.
Jesus Christ, that smile.
An innocent, come-and-get-me, am-I-doing-this-right, please-don’t-let-anyone-hurt-me smile.
Anathema could protect itself for the night.
The girl under me deserved it more.
She deserved just one fucking night where she didn’t need to worry or cry. Where she’d tangle in my arms instead of curling lost against the very edge of the mattress. Where the worst thing that would happen to her would be the limit of my dark lust.
And Rose desired that lust.
That darkness.
“I want this,” she whispered again. She arched, and her tits ached for a slap, a bite, or a gentle kiss to the tight little buds. Too many options and too hard a cock to decide. “Thorne, please. Take me?”
Like she had to ask.
I jerked my jeans down and gripped her hips. The denim didn’t restrict me, but she stared at the vest. My name. The insignia which seared through the cut and onto my chest.
Her hands curled over my arms. Her eyes found mine.
And she offered her hips.
I expected to hurt the little virgin. She tensed, preparing for it too.
I sliced through her, but Rose’s arch wasn’t a fight against my intruding cock. She stretched for me. Ached, but I forced within her with no resistance or agony.
Only tightness. Wetness. Deliberate and uncompromising pressure.
Rose stared at me. Speechless. No sound passed her lips.
Unacceptable.
The diva wanted fucked? She wanted me bad enough to jump me. Grip my hair and ride my face. Steal her own pleasure while seducing me with her innocence?
First, she was going to whimper.
Then sing.
Then scream.
And the melody on her goddamned lips would forever belong to me.
I moved within her. Rose’s nails dug into my skin. She gasped.
“It feels...” Her words were lost in breathless whisper. “Good?”
If I had to explain the point of fucking, Rose wasn’t ready for what else I planned to do to her. Then again, I hadn’t met a woman who didn’t learn her place in the world real quick with a cock shoved nine inches deep. Rose was no exception. She lost herself within three complete thrusts. I had her.
Her body flushed a captive pink. Her eyes fluttered closed. Her fists gripped the bed, the sheets, my arms, the cut. Anything and everything that ground her to the world.
I batted them away from me. She didn’t need to be grounded. Hell possessed her, stole her mind and ignited the vixen within. She accepted the pleasure I offered and spread her legs for the most dangerous man in her life.
It wasn’t a surrender of her virginity. She needed to be fucked, and her broken whispers yielded to more than simple revelation.
The pleasure excited her. It also surprised her.
But not virgin shock. I fucked, and her groans pitched higher. She murmured a brutal honesty in the breathless murmurs.
She thought it would hurt.
I didn’t know why, but I could guess.
The pitted rage seared through my brain.
I saw red. I suffocated in bliss.
I tensed with an urge to punish whatever bastard had hurt her. Rose’s tender voice prevented my grip from bruising her creamy skin.
I swore to protect her. She whispered her gratitude for everything I did. Anything I did. Every touch. Every thrust. Every last ounce of pleasure she forced me to give.
The night wasn’t for me, and I knew of no better reason, no more deserving woman, to reward with my cock.
Her body tensed under me, clenching me until I struggled to breathe. Her eyes widened beyond whatever astonishment clouded her mind. She stared at me, her voice lost once more to the consuming breaths that did nothing to ease the strain in either of our chests.
She reached for me and I fell over her. My jeans scoured her thighs. She didn’t care. My cut pressed into her chest. She pulled me harder against her. Those wonderful hips rose, and she wrapped her legs over me.
Rose deserved a warm bed and a devoted lover. College and a gig and guitars. A bedroom not tucked within the upstairs of a bar. She deserved none of the nightmar
es she tried to hide.
But some things she’d never hide. Blood stained everything. It didn’t matter if it was drawn or if it wept from the body. Bleed enough, and even bunny-eyes and chestnut curls were lost to the shadow.
In that moment, her pain cleared. The blood faded. Rose gripped me like I was her damned savior as I delivered her deeper into the hell she tried to escape. I thrust into her as her voice sang my name. The sweetest damn melody reserved for her darkest tormentor. Her body trembled in beautiful agony.
It was more than a man could stand.
More than what could tempt a demon.
Exactly what someone needed to betray the unsheltered heart of someone who needed the most protection.
We came together, a pleasure I didn’t deserve. I lost myself, offering pump after pump of my seed inside a body too pure, too perfect for such intent. She encouraged. Whispered my name. Wrapped her legs tighter around me so I wouldn’t escape.
Like I had a choice.
Not with my damned conscience, not with my unyielding cock, and not with Rose whispering endless gratitude and lusted nonsense under my aching body.
I rolled away. Rose was on me again. Kissing. Murmuring. Touching. Begging.
The cut weighed heavy against my shoulders. I gritted my teeth and ripped it off. Rose shivered and sighed. She thought I stripped for her. To be closer to her. Warm against her.
Fucking compassionate.
I stripped for one reason and one reason only.
I’d fuck Rose without the shadow of Anathema over my body.
She had me until I put the vest back on. Then I’d betray her in the blood of one of her brothers.
And she’d be the one to deliver him to me.
I woke with an empty bed and a raging hard-on.
Both problems.
Both easily fixed.
Rose escaped from my bed without waking me. She was slicker in more ways than one. Normally, I’d be pissed if a woman crashed in my bed after I finished with her.
Every tensing, pulsing, furious muscle in my body wanted nothing more than for Rose to stay in my damned bed.
But she left.
Fucked me raw, sucked me dry, and seized every fucking drop from me during the night. Then, when I finally collapsed, she did it again.