Page 89 of Reforging Onyx

“I almost lost you today,” he said, cataloging every fleck of color, every striation in the Rayne witch’s eyes. Recording them. Memorizing them. “My beautiful, wild tiger. Slaughtering your enemies and then returning to me.”

The words were reverent, dripping with desire.

“You didn’t almost lose anything,” Onyx muttered. “Ambrose wasn’t a threat. And don’t get it twisted. I only returned because I didn’t have a choice.”

Dominic snarled softly at the name. “Ambrose—” he dragged the name out “—was a fool.” He leaned in again, his teeth scraping lightly over Onyx’s jaw. “Ambrose would have chained you up, and then skinned you, piece by long piece. Over… and over. While you screamed and begged. And then healed you to do it again.” The words were soft, almost loving, despite the horrific picture he painted.

He placed a gentle kiss where Onyx’s jaw met his throat.

“Why?” Onyx shifted in Dominic’s embrace. “What would’ve been the point of taking me to do that? To get to you? How would he even know that might bother you?”

“Why?” Dominic echoed, the words silky. “Because you’re mine. He would’ve taken you—” every few words were punctuated by another gentle kiss along the throat that Dominic exposed further by tipping Onyx’s head back with a handful of hair “—and defiled you. Because you belong to me.”

His hand left Onyx’s hair to start traveling down his body in a slow, lazy path to his hip, fingertips tracing the lines of Onyx’s muscles.

“Because you are mine.”

He’d been half-hard just from the vampire blood that was still raging in his veins, and his proximity to Onyx and the close intimacy of his touches was making him harder.

“It didn’t happen, and I’m here,” Onyx said, squirming beneath the touch.

“Yes,” Dominic agreed in the same silken tones. “You are. And tomorrow we can go back to the dance and the games, but right now, I am going to have all of you.”

His thumb traced slow circles on Onyx’s hip.

Onyx’s breath caught. “No,” he said flatly. “Don’t make me wish I’d killed you, Dominic.”

Dominic’s hand closed around Onyx’s cock and started to gently stroke him, making his breath catch in a hiss, and he watched as Onyx bit his lip to keep from making a sound. “You cannot say that you don’t know exactly where all of this is leading, Onyx Rayne,” he murmured. “You cannot claim that you are not aware that I will be inside of you again, soon. You want the things that I promised you; you have been talking yourself towards them more every day.”

He pulled back just enough to look at Onyx’s face again, gaze dropping immediately to Onyx’s lips.

“You cannot say that you don’t know that this is inevitable.”

“Inevitable doesn’t mean now,” Onyx replied, shaking his head. “You might think I’m yours, but you gave your word that you would wait until I was ready. I’m not ready.”

Dominic scoffed softly. “You are ready,” he disagreed. “You have been ready for some time. You know the pleasure that I can bring you.” He continued to slowly stroke Onyx’s cock. “That I have brought you in each step of the journey. I haven’t lied to you. You know that.”

“I’m not,” Onyx insisted, his voice unsteady. “And I don’t want it. I don’t want you inside of me.”

Dominic’s lips brushed lightly over Onyx’s. “If you wish to lose yourself in the pleasure, you can have a dose of aphrodisiac. It will help override the last of the fear.”

“No,” Onyx replied sharply. “I’m not afraid.”

“You are,” Dominic whispered against Onyx’s lips. “You’re afraid of many things. And with the drugs, you’ll have something else to blame when the pleasure overtakes you. Something else, so that it isn’t you responding to my touch, is it? It’s just the aphrodisiac.”

“I said no.” Onyx's breathing came more quickly. “I don’t want it. I don’t want you.” He tried to pull away, but his back was already against the wall.

“That’s not entirely true, is it?” Dominic's strokes on Onyx’s cock sped up more. “You do want the pleasure; you just don’t want to want it. You wonder, sometimes, when each time I touch you and you come harder than before, how much of the pleasure that you remember was real. The times when you came so hard it felt like you were shattering. Wrapped up in the bliss of the potion.”

“You aren’t… You aren’t going to let me say no,” Onyx whispered, and there was a touch of betrayal in his voice.

“Tomorrow,” Dominic murmured against his lips with the faintest note of regret in the words, “you can say no again. Today, you almost slipped from my grasp. Today, the thread of fate trembled, and I felt the breath of Atropos on the back of my neck as you considered whether or not you would become my Sword of Damocles after all. Today, I need to reclaim you.”

“I should’ve killed you,” Onyx said almost inaudibly.

“Next time,” Dominic said just as softly, “you will.”

Chapter 37