wet strokes, the savory taste of her filling his mouth and driving all else from his mind. She pulled him closer and rocked against his face, her own desires as insatiable and demanding as his.
Another moan escaped her lips, her fingers tightening in his hair. “You’re… still… a… monster…”
Yes, he was a monster. Dark and depraved. Wicked.
Savage.
He growled against her flesh, her warmth radiating across his lips. Why had he denied himself the pleasure of such divine seductions?
No more. She was his.
His to command. His to fuck. His to claim.
His fangs descended, the exquisite burn driving him harder, and he grazed them over her clit, flicking it with his tongue until her thighs quaked and her blood rushed to the surface, darkening her pale skin. And then, certain she was teetering on the edge, he plunged inside her once again.
“Oh, fuck! Dorian! God!” She shattered for him, as she always did, with a wild bucking of hips and hot, breathy moans, his name on her lips like a curse, like a prayer, like the last words of a woman who’d looked upon the face of death and no longer feared her imminent demise.
Dorian rose to his feet, drunk on the taste of her, dizzy with lust as he unzipped his pants, fisted his cock, and pushed it between her bare thighs. “Tell me what else you want from your monster, love.”
“More,” she whispered, fisting his shirt. “I need—”
He claimed her mouth in a deep kiss, his own still glistening with the evidence of her desire.
She bit back a whimper of pleasure and arched her hips, but before he could give her what she wanted—before he could fuck her against the wall, so hard and deep he left no lingering doubts about his claim—a whispered curse and a dramatic clearing of the throat shot across the darkness like a warning.
“Dorian,” Gabriel called from the shadows, his tone laced with annoyance. “You’re needed in the study.”
Dorian stilled inside her. Never before had he so longed for his brother’s swift demise. “Now?”
“It cannot wait.”
“Fuck,” he whispered, burying his face in the crook of her neck.
Charlotte sighed, a chill rattling her limbs.
Dorian was still hard, still aching with need, but the dark spell that had ensnared them both had finally dissipated, the sparks between them fizzling like fire in the rain.
He pulled away from her, and they reassembled their clothing in silence, Charlotte’s cheeks dark, her eyes veiled.
“I’m… sorry,” Dorian said. “For the unfortunate interruption.”
She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. Then, in a weary, defeated voice, she said, “My sister and I are going back to the city tomorrow, Dorian. I won’t budge on that.”
He nodded, knowing there was nothing more he could do to convince her to stay, short of taking her prisoner. “I’ll have Jameson take you home whenever you’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
“But… Charlotte?” He waited for her to meet his eyes again, then said, “My brothers and I will be keeping watch over you and Sasha as needed. I don’t trust your uncle or Rogozin, and just because we haven’t heard from Duchanes since the attack doesn’t mean he’s not still a threat to you.”
Dorian held his breath, expecting her to fight back, to hit him with one of her feisty Charlotte-isms.
Do it, he thought. Break through my walls, shatter my chains. All I need is one solid hit. Just fucking do it…
But Charlotte only sighed, resignation filling her eyes. “I guess that’s probably a good idea.”
A good idea. Yes, very practical. Perfectly reasonable.
Perfectly fucking awful.
Dorian didn’t want good ideas. He wanted bad ones. The ones that left them tearing at each other’s clothes, pulling hair, sucking and biting and tasting…
“Goodnight, Dorian.” Charlotte yawned.
“You’re going to bed?”
“You’re… needed elsewhere. And I’m wiped. Today was a long day, and I want to get up early tomorrow—try to beat rush hour.”
With nothing left to say, Dorian walked her back inside and watched her disappear up the stairs, forcing himself to stop thinking about the taste of her, the feel of her, the uncomfortable bulge in his pants—a constant hazard in her presence.
For all his talk, Dorian knew the truth, right down to his soft fucking heart.
She was the one who owned him.
And once again, he’d let her slip away.
Chapter Twenty
The meeting was brief but grim. Gabriel had been asked to deliver a message from Malcolm, who’d been staying in the city since their argument and still wasn’t speaking directly to Dorian. Three dead humans had just been discovered in the service alley behind