A dark chuckle sent a shiver down my spine.
Strange cracking sounded.
My head rose as I was carried toward the bed to find ice crawling over the doors—sealing them. More crawled over the balcony doors.
“No one but me is allowed to hear your cries, pet.”
Then I was set on my feet, my legs wobbling as Florian ripped open my robe. He groaned and pushed me backward onto the bed. I blinked up at the candles in the chandelier as he ordered, “Open your legs.”
I surmised he was in no mood for teasing.
I did as I was told while he removed his pants, his stare plastered between my thighs. He rubbed his bristle-bordered mouth, cursing roughly. My own dried at the sight of all he was, my eyes unable to decide where to feast first.
I didn’t get the chance to decide.
Muscle clenched everywhere, my legs gripped above the knee when the king climbed onto the bed.
His hold was bruising, but I forgot about the pain when he lifted my core to his mouth and rubbed me over his lips and nose. He groaned, then licked me, and that desperate entity inside me who’d been starving for what felt like eons ruptured at only the fifth languid swipe of his tongue.
I moaned as he hummed against me in approval.
Then he lowered my shaking legs but leaned forward and wrapped them behind him. His cock pressed to my entrance. He gave no other warning, no soft reassurances like those I’d read in books. He was incapable right now. Possibly always.
He eased inside my body in one slow yet determined thrust.
My back arched. My muscles seized.
My body bucked and screamed in refusal.
But Florian captured my hips and held me still, his cock deep inside me as waves of agony spread like fire. Breathless and trapped, I whimpered without sound.
My eyes opened to find the king’s gaze crawling over me with unmistakable delight. “Sweet creature, am I hurting you?”
He knew he was. I still further pleased him by saying, “Yes.”
“Good.” His gaze fell to where we’d joined, pain locking my limbs. “You’re broken now, butterfly,” he said, still staring as he slowly withdrew from my body to the tip. His smile was feral satisfaction. “Your blood marks my cock.”
He pushed back inside me, and a scream scraped my throat.
His neck rolled, muscle cording as a guttural groan trembled his giant frame. Then my hips were released and he was looming above me.
His elbow indented the bed beside my face. His wrist pressed to my cheek as his hand covered my mouth. The other caught my hands and held them above my head. He withdrew again, then entered me in a hard thrust, his hips grinding.
He groaned, loud over the sound of my smothered cries.
His head lowered aside mine, his every low and gritted word heating my ear. “My defiant, daring creature. Look at what you’ve done.”
My thighs quaked as my feet dug into his smooth ass. My body curled up against his in search of both reprieve from the burn of his cock and more friction. He slid out, and though I tensed against the scalding ache, a different heat delivered relief when he sank back inside me.
“Are you proud?” He licked my pulse, teeth nipping. “Does it make you feel good to disrespect and torment me?” He kissed the skin he’d bitten, rumbling, “To rake your tiny claws over my chest and watch me lose my fucking mind?”
My heart clenched. I shook my head, attempting to talk—to tug my hands free—and failed.
“I think it does.” His slow thrusts gained more speed, more bruising power. “What am I to do with you now, Princess? It seems you were created solely to test me.” Another groan. “And to take me.” His teeth pierced my skin with his words. “But only me.”
I bucked against him once more, but the pain receded when he sucked the wounds his canines had given.
Alarm prodded at my hazed mind.
He was feeding from me.
It left as quickly as it came as every ounce of pain began to fall away like water pushed over a cliff.
Warmth, so swift and drugging, flooded from my scalp to my toes. It was akin to standing in the sun after feeling cold for an eternity. I shivered and moaned. My legs tightened around his waist and my head tilted to give him better access to my throat.
“Good little pet,” Florian crooned and lapped at my neck. “By the time we leave these rooms, you will hunger for me as much as I do you. And butterfly…” He circled his hips with a grunt. “We won’t be leaving for days.”
I gasped when he stole his warmth from me and rose.
I was pulled off his cock, his hooded eyes watching himself slowly leave my body. His chest heaved heavily, once, twice, while a glowing sky blue overtook his eyes. Then he lowered his head at the same time he lifted my legs from behind my knees, helping himself to my center.
“Florian…” I was about to warn him of the blood.
But of course, that would be redundant when it was blood he desired.
His tongue flattened and dipped, seeking every drop of my broken virginity. I orgasmed almost instantly and with violence, pain flaring and soothed by his tongue. He kissed my clit, then sucked it, and forced my thighs to stay open when I attempted to close them.
It was too much.
And not nearly enough.
He pushed his cock inside me as soon as my ass met the bedding again. “You’re so fucking swollen, butterfly.” My head was caged within the bulk of his arms, his bloodstained lips trailing over my jaw with his rasped, “Squeezing silk.”
Remembering that my hands were free, I clutched his head while he moved in and out of me, wanting his teeth in my neck again. He sensed as much as I held him there, and chuckled, the sound primal and throaty.
The sharp puncture of his canines stilled my limbs, but when he suckled, I was once again given that unearthly bliss.
A bliss that matched the sparking pleasure from the movement of his hips.
“Come on my cock, Tullia,” he ordered and licked at the blood I felt trickling toward the bedding. He groaned, tongue dipping into my clavicle, and began to fuck me harder.
My fingers clenched his hair, and my thighs shook.
He rose as I spasmed around him. “Fuck.”
I moaned and met his thrusts.
He gripped my throat when my back arched and my eyes closed. To the corner of my mouth, he demanded gruffly, “Eyes on me.”
His thrusts sharpened, learning where to strike to prolong the rapture racing through my veins and hitching every breath. His eyes were still aglow, his lips parted. His hand slid up my neck, his thumb rubbing my lower lip.
I caught it with my teeth and sucked.
His eyes flared. He stilled, then pounded into me three times before his head tipped back. His shoulders and throat corded with veins and muscle, his entire body shaking as he released with an animalistic sound inside me.
At that moment, I feared the consequences again, but for a different reason. As his thumb left my mouth and our gazes locked, I knew that even if I survived him, I would never recover from him.
Florian’s chest heaved with another violent, exhaled curse.
Then he fell over me and pressed his mouth to mine, hard and fleeting. His nose skimmed my cheek, his lips dragging down my chin to my chest.
Reclaiming his hair, I stared at the ceiling and licked my own blood from my lips.
Panic and thickening desire broke through my skin in a light sweat as he sucked my nipple and rotated his hips, the shudders of his body gentling. “It feels worse,” I thought aloud, fear entering my needy bones again.