“You’re not ready for me,” he growled, but I caught the hint of yearning in his voice. He was cracking before me, the way the ground fractured during the early pangs of an earthquake. The warning that its devastation was coming. That once its wrath was released, there was no going back to how things were before.
Once Arthur let me into his granite heart, I could never leave it.
“Try me,” I taunted, and cupped his cock with my free hand. He was rock hard under his trousers, and he hissed as I squeezed him. I made sure he was looking right at me when I said, “Try your best to destroy me, Arthur. Try your best to break me apart. But I’ll still be here when you’re exhausted, my claws sunk deeply into your flesh as you drag us both to hell.”
“I won’t let you go,” he warned, and shivers ran down my spine at the malevolent honesty of the threat. “You want to rule at my side? Then I’ll never let you leave me. If you walk by my side, you can never ever fucking leave.”
I was making a binding contract with the devil. An Adley’s word is his bond … that’s what Arthur had said in the pit. He was waiting for the verbal agreement to be signed. Waiting for me to finally hand over my soul.
“I am your queen. And you are my king. Your dark kingdom is now ours.”
I removed my bloodied hand from his chest and drew a cross over my heart with my finger. “Forever.”
And that was when he broke. My world shook as Arthur smashed his mouth to mine. He wasn’t gentle—but I had never expected him to be. He was savage and cursed with a wickedness that was born from loss at a young age and a father who saw violence and death and the suppression of feelings as a form of bonding.
But I would love him. All of him—the wicked and the warm. I always had. I had never wanted him to change, only to let me in.
Arthur’s tongue slid along mine and I moaned, grasping his hair. His hands fell to my leathers. He snapped the button, and I heard it drop to the floor. He wrenched the trousers down to my ankles, and I kicked one leg off my feet. Arthur ripped off my knickers and pushed two fingers straight inside me. His lips pulled away from mine and trailed down my neck. He bit down on my skin, and I tossed my head back, my clit pulsing at his roughness.
I pulled on his hair, so hard that he had no choice but to look up. “I love you,” I said, and Arthur stilled. His jaw clenched and his hands moved to my waist, holding on to me tightly. My eyes blurred. “I love you, Arthur Adley,” I said, softer, and cupped his cheek. His skin was boiling, and my chest caved when he turned his head and kissed my palm. It was the only flicker of tenderness he offered. A fleeting expression of softness before the darkness blanketed us both again.
A second later, he pulled out his cock and lifted me against the wall of the pit. With blood smothering us both, he pushed inside me, slamming into me with a savage grunt.
I cried out, clutching his back as he filled me after these many months without him. I had missed him. I realised just how much. Nothing felt like this. No one had ever filled me this way, possessed me this way.
In this moment, I had never been more sure of anything than that Arthur was made for me. As I felt his hands bruising my thighs as he ploughed into me, his wide, muscled body caging me in, I knew I would never go back on my promise. I would never leave his side. There was no longer a choice. I was soldering myself to him.
Melding our souls, splicing our hearts.
I kissed him. As my pussy started to tighten, I kissed him and kissed him as his hips moved faster. His tongue duelled against mine, fucking my mouth just as hard as he was fucking me. “I love you,” I murmured against his mouth, seeing his eyes dilate as the words hit his ears like bullets.
Arthur fucked me until my legs were numb. Until I was him and he was me and the blood and flesh of his victims that marred his skin were spread on my skin as well. His victories mine, and his sins my sins too.
Arthur’s grunts and groans were feral, and I felt tension in my lower back, the building of the orgasm he was tearing from me. I raked his back with my long fingernails, his blood joining the crimson cocktail already tattooing his skin. My pussy clenched, and with Arthur’s unrelenting rhythm, I came hard, screaming my release into the empty mouth of the warehouse lair.