Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly 1)

A growl works free, and I capture her wrist. I bring her hand to my throat and squeeze her fingers to my jugular. “If you’re going to tease, you better be willing to back it up.”

A deviant glint ignites her eyes. “You’re serious.”

“I’d suffer any torture willingly if it came at your hands. My sick matches your sick.” I move her fingers to my mouth and suck the pads, tasting her fevered arousal. “Touch yourself,” I command.

She does. Arcing back, she pushes those delicate fingers to her clit, rubbing and ratcheting her desire higher. I groan at the feel of her heated flesh sliding over me. Torture doesn’t begin to describe how punishing the feel of her is. Her mounting orgasm grabs hold, and her thighs grip me, her muscles clenching for release.

Wild and unfettered, with zero control tying me down, I rise up and hook an arm around her lower back. I anchor her to me, swallowing her gasp, as I sink into her. Our gazes connect. Every torturous second I hold still inside of her is an eternity.

Her nails slice into my back, and that simple action triggers her body to flex around me, detonating an explosive response. I slam into her. Gripping at the dirt behind me, I thrust into the perfect center of her, unrestrained. Her breathy cries fall close to my mouth. I taste her pleas, answering each one with another unguarded thrust.

The feel of being inside her annihilates every single belief I had before her.

This is heaven. The only heaven I care to witness.

She’s my truth now—the rules ours to make.

She peaks, I peak. Our bodies rise and lower in tandem, cresting higher, falling farther. The emotion thrumming our bodies almost unbearable. The desire to inflict and experience pain is damn near overwhelming. It’s too much. Feeling is too much. It’s maddening.

“Hurt me,” she pleads.

A violent shiver riots through me.

When pain is the only emotion you’ve ever known, it’s all you crave. It lets you know you’re alive.

My hands are touching, roving over every delicate region of her flesh. I scrape my fingers down her skin, marking her body with dirt from my hands. The abrasive grit of it rubs between us as we fuck. There’s nothing tender in this moment as every ravenous desire demands to be sated. We’re filthy. Fucking like two insatiable, wild animals that are starving for each other.

I bite down on the firm peak of her nipple, and she throws her head back, welcoming the sharp pain. Too many ways in which I can hurt her assaults my thoughts, tearing at my weakening control.

I cup her shoulders from behind, forcing her to arch and bare her tits to me. As I drive into her, the need to be deeper seizes my sanity. “It’s not enough.”

“Fucking make it enough, Grayson. Hurt me.”

I growl and force her onto the ground, dragging her leg over my shoulder and slamming our hips together. Her fingers splay over the hard slab of muscles along my stomach as I rut into her. The need still demands more.

Her petite body fits seamlessly against me, begging me to manhandle her into any position I want. With a low growl, I flip her over and slip a hand beneath her pelvis, angling her beautiful ass up. Then I grab her wrists and anchor them to her back.

The position makes her vulnerable and bared, my cock throbbing as I ease up behind her, my heart thundering. I push inside her to the hilt. Her body bucks at the pressure, but then she’s undulating those sexy hips, begging for more.

“Fucking hell,” I breathe as I thrust deeper, forcing her wrists toward the middle of her slim back.

She releases a throaty curse, her core pulsing and tightening around me. I’m a

starved animal with no remorse, my desire to fill her and take her all at once unfurling in the sweetest agony.

I fuck her violently. I fuck her brutally. Against the cold, unforgiving earth, under the open night sky, I make love the only way I know how to the woman who’s dominated my being since I first tasted her.

As the most shattering pleasure claims me, I’m lost. Her name a chant ripping free.

She comes shamelessly. She comes with abandon. She comes so hard she nearly pushes me out, but I crash back into her, breaking against her wave.

For a few tender seconds as London and I come down, ethereal bliss suspends the pain, and I fall against her, heaving strenuous breaths, sweeping my mouth over her so I can consume every bit of her and this moment.

Euphoria.

She frees herself of my weight and pushes me to the ground, where she curls on top of my body. “Peace,” she whispers.

I wrap my arms around her. I’ve never felt peace before. I cradle her to me, allowing this foreign emotion to own me the same way she possesses me entirely. We lie like this beneath the canopy of red until her breathing evens out.