Page 112 of Arrow

His breath hitched. Just barely, but I heard it, and his entire body went rigid. He stared down at where his hand disappeared beneath my dress, watching me take what I wanted from him.

“Harlowe.” My name came out rough, almost broken. His free hand gripped my hip hard enough to bruise, holding me still even as I tried to move against him. “You need to think about what you’re doing.”

I met his eyes, saw the war happening behind them—the control he was clinging to by his fingernails, the violence he was holding back. The hunger in his gaze made my pussy clench around his fingers. He looked like he wanted to devour me. The only thing keeping him from tearing my dress off and fucking me right here was some last thread of restraint.

“What?”

His fingers curled inside me, found that spot that made me moan.

“Tell me to stop,” he begged, but his hand was already moving. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

I should have ended this before we crossed a line we couldn’t uncross. But rationality had left the building, and all that remained was this aching, desperate need.

So I didn’t.

Shifting closer, my hand slid down his chest to his belt. “No.”

The car slowed, gravel crunching under the tires. We were at the manor.

Arrow pulled back, breathing ragged, his hand still between my legs. He looked at me like he was memorizing every detail—my swollen lips, my flushed cheeks, the way I was trembling under his touch.

“This isn’t over.”

Straightening my dress, I fought to catch my breath, trying to remember how to be defiant when my body was still screaming for more.

When we finally halted by the manor’s entrance, Arrow peeled himself from his seat and circled to my side, opening the door. He leaned over me, both hands splayed on the door frame, so I was bracketed in his shadow, but he waited for me to climb out on my own.

My heel caught at the last step.

Arrow caught my waist, set me hard on the gravel, and, in full view of the security and the midnight hedgerows and the house packed with invisible eyes, brushed my hair off my neck and pressed his mouth to the bloodred A on my throat.

God, the wet heat of it.

It was just a kiss, nothing else, but in that second, I heard the universe split in two—the world before Arrow, and the world after. When he pulled back, there was a perfect ellipse of his bite on the glossed skin.

My entire body thrummed, equal parts terror and sublime hunger, as Arrow led me up the stairs and guided me down a dark corridor, his arm curled with the practiced ease of a predator who knew exactly how this would end but still wanted to watch me try to escape.

At his bedroom door, he paused, before he tugged me through in a rush. The door slammed. I wasn’t aware of moving, but suddenly, my spine was against the oiled walnut of the closet, and Arrow’s mouth was on mine. Any last shreds of ceremony liquefied between us.

He hoisted my thighs onto his hips, squeezing until I thought he’d grind bruises straight through to the bone, and braced me against the closet door so hard I could feel coats jump on their hangers behind me.

There was no question of who the predator was, but he kissed me with a reverence I’d never experienced before. Lips rough, then soft, then testing, as if mapping every inch of my mouth for evidence of old wounds. His hands ran up the sides of my dress, following the long seam from hip to breastbone, then ripped it down off my shoulders in one quick motion, leaving the fabric to puddle at my hips.

Arrow stopped, suspended between wanting and violence, his eyes silvered out by the dark.

“If you say no, I’ll stop,” he said, which was a lie.

I said nothing.

Pulling him in by the collar, tasting the inside of his jaw, I let him see how wide open I was under my dress.

“Fuck,” he breathed, staring between my legs. “Look at you. Soaked for me.” His fingers gently brushed against the wet spot on my underwear. “This pretty cunt has been dripping for me all night, hasn’t it?”

He bit my neck, right where he had hours before, and I yanked his hands up to the chain, daring him to try and choke me out.

Arrow, too skilled to be baited, took the chain in both fists and wound it tighter, not enough to cut off air but enough to drag my neck into the space between us, skin pulled taut while he worked his mouth down my collarbone, drawing a thick wet line from jaw to breast.

“You’re going to scream my name until your throat is raw.”