Page 70 of Ashen Souls

He stepped back, leaving me suspended in a maddening limbo.

“Not yet.”

“You see,” he said, straightening, his eyes never leaving mine. “Your body doesn’t decide when this ends. I do.”

My breath scraped through my lungs as the ruined high crashed into an aching thrum.

He didn't make me wait long. His hands slid to the backs of my thighs, pushing my knees wide and driving them all the way up until they were pressed flat against the sides of my head. He folded me open completely, exposing every inch of me to his gaze. A shiver racked my body as he lowered his head. His tongue traced a slow, wet stripe from my entrance to my clitoris, and back again, tasting, exploring. My hips bucked off the mattress, a cry escaping my lips.

But instead of giving me the deep, rhythmic strokes I craved, he changed tactics. He caught my peak between his teeth, delivering a punishing nip.

My clit swelled, but he refused to relent, keeping me trapped in his biting hold. He plunged his fingers back inside me, fucking me. A new wave of pleasure gathered in my lower belly. I was soaring, my muscles locking as I hit the very edge…

And then he stopped again.

I screamed when he pulled away, leaving my body convulsing with an empty ache.

“Why?” I gasped, glaring up at him through tear-blurred vision.

He only offered a devastating curve of his lips. “Look at you.” His eyes swept over me. “Spread out on my bed. Wrecked for me. If only you could see what I see.”

“Daeren.” My voice broke. “Please. I can’t…”

“Please what?” he asked. “Please touch you? Please let you come? Please ruin you for anyone else?”

All of it. All of that. I swallowed hard.

“All of it.”

“Greedy girl.” A low chuckle rumbled from his chest. “I like that.”

“I can’t take this anymore.”

He didn’t touch me.

That was the cruelty of it.

“No one else is allowed,” he said, calm as ever. “To lay a hand on you. To think they can claim what was never theirs.”

I shook my head, tears burning in the candlelight. “Daeren…”

“You already know the truth,” he continued, his eyes holding mine without a shred of mercy. “I want to hear it.”

The quiet between us strained, heavy as a held breath.

“Say it. Say who you belong to.”

My chest rose too fast. Too shallow.

“I’m begging you,” I whispered.

His stare darkened. Satisfied. Patient.

“Say it,” he repeated. “Say you are mine.”

The words lodged in my throat. I hated them. I wanted them. I feared what they meant.

And still…