Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,82

he breathes. “Jesus fucking Christ, I shouldn’t want you.”

“Why? This—us—isn’t hurting anyone.”

“It’s going to hurt you.”

“Because there’s someone—”

“There’s no one,” he grits out, “there hasn’t been anyone in three years. It’s how I wanted it. No distractions. No new addictions. And then you—” He slips a finger under the seam of my knickers and plunges it deep within me, wrenching a gasp from my lips. “You are the last woman I should want. You, who apologizes for your mistakes. You, who feels empathy for a man you barely know. In ruining you, I’ll find salvation for myself and goddammit, Rowena, tell me to stop.”

I don’t tell him to stop.

I couldn’t, even if I wanted.

Hooking my calf around the back of his leg, I grip the arm that he’s locked over my lower stomach and grind myself down on his hand. He thrusts his finger, slowly, like he did with grinding his hand against my clit—and I whimper a small protest. He doesn’t give me what I want. In and out, in and out. Slow glide after slow, damnable glide, until my legs are a quivering mess and he’s forced to hold me upright. Only then does he slide in a second finger, stretching me, while his thumb finds my clit and presses down.

I’m a woman without a single addiction—and then Damien had to show me the stars.

“I don’t want to live like I’m already dying,” I hear myself gasp, “so ruin me, Damien. If that’s what you need, if that’s what you want, then ruin me.”

A strangled noise reverberates in his chest, and with my cheek pressed to his pectoral muscles, I feel its resonation all the way down to my toes. His lips find the crown of my head, and instead of remarking on my lack of hair or the scar that I’ve felt with my fingers, he husks, “You’ll ruin me, too, Rowena. Fucking hell, you’re going to ruin me.”

I tense around him, my lips parting on a hard pant, and then he begins to drive his fingers inside me in earnest. A hard thrust followed by his thumb grazing my clit. A third finger that makes me cry out even as I circle my hips against him and seek everything that he’ll give me.

And he does.

Damien kisses my throat, dragging his mouth up to my jaw. His velvet baritone is a dark, illicit melody in my ear, urging me on, telling me to let go. It’s heaven and hell and the more that I’ve craved for years, and it’s all that I need to come apart. Legs shaking beneath me, throat quivering as I gasp for air. I’m spinning again, the way I do in my nightmares when I can’t escape the flames, but now there’s only this.

Only him.

Only us.

“Tell me,” I say, when the stars finally dim, “tell me what you want.”

His fingers grip my thigh, still wet from making me come, and I fight the blush that burns across my cheeks.

And then, quietly, “Get on your knees for me, Rowena.”

There’s not a single shred of doubt within me as I lower myself to the floor at his feet. I want Damien in a way that I’ve never wanted anything or anyone else in my life. There’s freedom in submitting—when it’s submission to a man who gives as much as he takes.

Only I suspect that it’s not me who’s being tamed here but him.

My hands link around his calves and, for a moment, I merely breathe. Air seesaws inside my chest and I roll my shoulders backward. The denim is coarse beneath my palms, the man beneath nothing but hard muscle. And then I begin to move, my hands gliding up, up, up, until I have to rise to my knees so I can reach the button of his trousers.

Above me, Damien’s breath audibly catches.

Enflamed by his reaction, I dance my fingers across the zipper and tease my way up to slip them beneath the hem of his shirt. The rigid abdominal muscles spasm, and I swallow a small smile.

I may be on my knees but it’s not me who trembles.

Wanting to rattle him to his core, the way he’s done to me, I make short work of pulling down the zipper and parting the material. A quick tug on the waistband pulls the fabric down over his arse then further to his thighs. He stands perfectly still, like he’s half-terrified that I might leave him with his trousers down, and then he comes to life