Slowly he withdraws his fingers and braces himself over me, leaning down to place a kiss on my stomach through the silk. He dips his tongue into my navel, our eyes meeting.
My breath catches.
This is the part where he ruins me. I’ve had his mouth on me in every single way I can imagine, and if there’s one thing I’m certain of: I think I married him for that mouth.
And while it’s promising me hours and hours of bliss, right now I don’t want to be shattered.
I want to be claimed.
“No,” I crunch up, capturing his face. “I want you inside me. Now.”
There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes. “What makes you think you’re giving the orders, Vi?”
I bite my lip. “Please.”
“Beg me,” he whispers, and the low rasp shivers over my skin.
And so I do.
I promise him the world. I promise him every inch of me.
And just as his mouth is skimming down over my hips, I promise him my heart.
Thiago pauses, his teeth grazing my lower abdomen. And then he smiles. “Oh, Vi. I’ve had your heart from the start. You just didn’t know it yet.”
“Fuck me.” I writhe beneath him. “Please.”
And surrender is finally here.
“As you wish.”
His hands drop to his leather trousers, and he eases each button open slowly, then lets his cock spring free. I swallow as my eyes drop to it. He’s enormous, thick and proud, the veins distended all along his marble length. He strips the leather down his legs and then flings it behind him.
He kneels on the bed in front of me, and I can’t help looking my fill. The prince is completely unashamed, and with good reason. Years of bladework have honed his physique until there’s nothing of softness about his body. From his callused hands to his broad shoulders and rippled abdomen, there’s not an ounce of fat on him. His chest is carved of heavy musculature and painted with those dangerous tattoos, although it’s the vee of his hips that captures my attention. I follow the trail of hair down, arrowing south from his navel toward the thick thatch at the base of his shaft.
“Sometimes I think the gods molded you into mortal flesh and set you in this world just for me,” he croons as he captures my jaw and forces me to meet his gaze. A shudder runs through him. “Especially when you look at me like that, with no fear in your eyes, only desire.”
“I’m not afraid,” I gasp. “I’ll never be afraid. Not of you.”
He shoves me onto my hands and knees, one hand sliding along the length of my spine until he’s caught a fistful of my silky hair. Yanking me upright, he finds my shoulder with his teeth as he curls the other arm around me.
“You should be afraid,” he whispers, and there’s a roughness to his voice I’ve never heard before. “Sometimes, I want to consume every inch of you.”
I laugh. “That doesn’t sound like something to be afraid of.”
“Mmm. I think I’ve been too gentle with you.”
Hands slide up my abdomen, and then he’s cupping my breasts and rolling my nipples between his fingers. He pinches me sharply, and I gasp again, but it’s not with pain.
Thrusting forward, he sheathes himself in my willing flesh, and both of us suck in a sharp breath.
“Fuck, Vi. You’re so wet.” Harsh hands dig into my hips, and I know there will be bruises by morning.
He thrusts again, slowly, slowly. And one hand knots my hair around it, drawing me back until my spine arches. It forces his cock to rasp over something deep inside me, something that makes every inch of me knot with tension.
“You’re so beautiful. You’re my promise…. You’re my dream.” His teeth sink into my earlobe. “I begged Maia for one single sign of hope, and there you were. And now you’re here in my arms, and I’m never letting you go, Vi. Never.”
And then he’s slamming into me.
Each thrust drives me forward until I can barely hold on. My fingers claw in the sheets, and only the fist in my hair stops me from ramming into the headboard. His other hand slides between my legs, and I’m begging him again.
Fuck me.
Fuck me harder.
Make me scream.
And by the time he finally lets me come again, he’s fulfilled every single one of those promises, until my voice is hoarse, and my body deliciously bruised, and every inch of me has been claimed.
Moonlight spills over us as I lie in his arms and trace small circles across his chest.
The wings are gone. His eyes are green again.
But as my fingertips graze his skin, I can see swirls of inky dark tattoos forming there, as if his illusions can no longer quite keep them contained. They stir at my touch, like contented cats being stroked, and every now and then I swear I see a set of eyes watching me back.
It’s a little unnerving.
They may stir at my touch, but they’re still dangerous.
“I didn’t hurt you?” Thiago murmurs, tracing his finger between my brows and along the ridge of my nose.
I bite his fingertip before suckling it into my mouth. “I don’t think you ever could.”
“I was—”
“Rough.” I nip him again. “But I liked it.”
There’s something primitive in the way he claimed me. Emotion too raw-edged for words. Need. Hunger. But more than that, fear. He nearly lost me yesterday, and tonight is his answer to that.
There are shadows in his eyes, and he captures my face and kisses me again, leaving both of us breathless and flushed.
“The moment I saw your face in Maia’s vision, I knew hope for the first time,” he whispers. “And every time the Darkness closed over me and
