Requiem of the Soul (The Society Trilogy 1)

My forehead sags against the door as I consider what needs to be done. I'm still trying to find my anger when the knob turns from the other side, and the door opens to the sight of a startled Ivy.

She gasps when she sees me and immediately turns to flee back to the sanctuary of her bed. But the predator in me captures her around the waist before she even makes it two steps, dragging her back into my arms.

She trembles as I turn her in my grasp, my fingertips gliding over the silky material of her nightgown. Her head falls forward, hair shielding her face from my eyes as she tries to hide from me.

"And where exactly do you think you were going, Mrs. De La Rosa?" I whisper into her hair.

"Nowhere." She tries to yank away from my grasp but fails. "I heard a noise out there. I didn't realize it was you. If I had, I would have just barricaded the door."

I close my eyes and inhale the sweet scent of her shampoo. "Is that any way to greet your husband?"

"You are my husband in name only," she declares.

"So much fight in you." I stroke her hair back away from her face and clutch her jaw in my hand, forcing her gaze upward. "I am glad to see you have not been broken yet."

The words sound like too much of an admission, and I can see the confusion in her eyes when she peeks up at me from beneath her lashes. "I thought that was exactly what you wanted."

"That is the least of what I want," I threaten, guiding her body back into the room until her legs hit the bed behind her.

"I am tired." She closes her eyes and shudders as I lean into her, grazing her neck with my lips. "Please. I don't want to fight."

"Then don't." I seize the opportunity when her eyes are closed to force my lips to hers, startling her.

Her lips fall apart, and her eyes fly open as I kiss her deeply, curling my arm around her waist and bunching the fabric of her nightgown in my fist.

My other hand moves up to cover her eyes, obscuring her vision as I tilt her head backward and give in to the temptation to devour her lips, if only for a moment.

She's breathing hard against my chest, nipples scraping against her nightgown, body arched so beautifully, I could witness her like this for an eternity and never be satisfied.

As I deepen the kiss, her hands come up to mine, nails digging into my skin. She wants me to believe she doesn't like this, but her body tells me otherwise. And when I release my grip on her waist to slide my fingers down between her thighs, she jolts at the touch.

She's breathless and gasping for air when I finally let go of her mouth and dip her head back even farther to kiss her throat, nipping at the fragile skin.

"Santiago," she croaks.

I'm teasing her, even as she tries to squeeze her thighs together around my fingers. Taking her tonight is out of the question, but I am compelled to touch her simply for her pleasure. A notion I don't want to examine too closely. It is only a momentary weakness. That's what I tell myself when I turn her around and hoist her body up onto the bed, yanking her hips up and forcing her facedown into the blankets as I kneel behind her.

"Santiago," she begins again but abruptly falls silent when my nose glides along her slit.

She nearly jolts out of her skin, sucking in a sharp breath as I hold her hips in place and really taste her for the first time. The first lash of my tongue produces a cascade of goose bumps along her skin, and the second has her fists curling into the blankets.

She bites back her sounds, trying to swallow them down as I force her legs wider apart, taking pleasure in the vulgarity of her spread wide open for me. One hand clutches the flesh of her ass, holding her in place as the other skates up beneath her, groping her breast through the silk. She is already wet for me, the faint groans of her restrained pleasure muffled into the bed as I eat her like a man starved.

It occurs to me that this isn't right. It isn't my place to provide her pleasure. But I can't seem to stop now that I've started. I want her sounds. Her weak, trembling thighs squeezing around my face. Her almost silent pleas as I bring her closer and closer to a different kind of destruction. The kind that is dangerous to us both.

She tries to fight the inevitable, even as her body tenses past the point of breaking and the first crest of pleasure starts to rumble over my tongue. Her shoulders collapse into the bed as it overtakes her completely, spasms wracking her body as I draw it out to the point when she can no longer handle it and begins to shake her head.