Returning to the chairs, he placed the glasses on the small side table, pouring them to the rim before offering me one. I studied his outstretched hand like it was poison, and he inclined his head, cocking it to the side while he waited for me to accept the drink, with a challenge dancing in his eyes.
I grabbed it, sitting back quickly before holding it to my nose, watching him like a viper. Once I was assured he hadn’t poisoned it, I took a swig and swished it around in my mouth before swallowing, enjoying the slight burn as it went down.
Looking toward the fire, I fought the need to run my eyes down the hard, chiseled body he’d bared. His muscles were well-defined and curved in sharp, contoured lines that my eyes wanted to caress leisurely. His body was sleek, powerful, and covered in midnight-colored tattoos wrapping around his hips and moved up to his shoulders, disappearing behind them.
There was a preternatural grace to his movements and body that drew my stare back to it. When I lifted my gaze to his, I found him studying me as I had done to him. His eyes glittered brightly, sparkling with amusement, most likely from the blush filling my cheeks from imagining that toned, sleek body against mine, moving in sinful ways. Swallowing uncomfortably at my train of thought and the direction my libido walked me into, I blanched. I was eye-fucking the ogre-fart who had just outwitted me.
My gaze averted to the fire, observing him out of the corner of my eye as his jaw clenched. He continued to study my moonlit profile, painted colorful by the moon’s shining light.
Without the moon, I would appear normal and plain. My rainbow-colored hair would turn platinum, while my sparkling eyes would return to a deep azure blue that looked bright because of my skin’s paleness, and had the moon been full, it would have revealed more of my true nature. Unlike his bronzed flesh, mine was much paler and lacking pigment. He should have been anything but tanned with the lack of sunshine in their kingdom.
“You were looking for someone. Who was it?” His question caused my teeth to grind together before my stare slowly slid back to his. “I asked a question, Little Bird. I expect an answer.”
“Suck a dick, asshole,” I chuckled, lowering the hand that held the drink.
Without warning, I tossed the whiskey into his face and rushed toward the door. I didn’t make it there, not even close. His body slammed into mine, taking me to the floor hard and punishingly.
He weighed more than my horse did. Using my leg, I rolled him over hard but didn’t stay on top for long. His body lifted before rolling, holding me beneath him, trapping me with his weight. He stretched my body, forcing my arms over my head with one hand, the other pushed against my throat. It was a dominant move, exerting control that I needed to fight.
My hips bucked his body, and my eyes rose to lock with his. The look burning in his gaze was savage, hungry, and carnal lust all mixed into one cup of oh hell no. Swallowing hard, I shivered beneath the hand pressing against my larynx threateningly. His mouth tightened, and his eyes turned hard as if he didn’t like the fact I had stilled. Had he wanted more fight? I wasn’t done struggling to escape, but his touch had given me pause.
The sound that left his throat was strangled, almost feral. I trembled from need, flabbergasted that beneath his body, mine responded. Bodies were stupid and pathetic like that.
He noticed, and those light blue eyes lowered to my mouth as he smiled cruelly, holding tighter onto my wrist. The hand on my throat remained the same, there to prevent me from fighting him. It was a silent threat of violence that if I so much as moved a muscle, he’d make good on it. How fucked up was it that I wanted to see if he would?
I parted my lips, and he lowered that icy stare to them, dropping his head as if he intended to claim them. I wetted my lips, but his mouth never brushed against mine. Instead, his nose rubbed the soft column of my throat, and I bucked against his touch. Panic thundered through me at the proximity of his mouth to the artery, feeding blood to my brain.
“Hold still, woman,” he demanded, inhaling my scent before he lifted back. The asshole watched me struggling beneath him until something very male and dominant pushed against my apex. “I’d hold still if I were you. Unless your thrusting body is an invitation to soothe the baser needs of your cunt,” he rasped out abrasively, his voice wafting over my skin.
“Get the fuck off of me!” I demanded through the panic invading me, burning with resentment that I was considering doing just that. His smile curved into a wolfish grin that promised to draw blood. “You ogre motherfucker, get off of me now!”
“No,” he growled, watching me jerking beneath him. “You’re rarely out of control of what’s happening to you, aren’t you? You like control, and you have none at this moment, and it burns like acid through your veins, doesn’t it?”
“I’m going to eat your fucking face!” I slammed my head into his, gasping in pain as he released me to grab his nose that was pouring blood everywhere.
I was up in an instant, rushing from the bedroom into the empty hallway. I looked toward the staircase, hearing men’s voices below. Hurrying in the opposite direction, I inched toward the darkness. I began trying doorknobs until finally finding one unlocked, and I slid into the room, softly pulling the door closed behind me.
I lifted my hand to my lips, finding them bloodied from where his nose had connected with them. I stepped back, spinning in the darkness, and screamed as I was picked up and slammed against the wall. My head bounced off the plaster and fell forward to slam into his chest. Baby blue eyes sparkled with exhilaration until I pushed against him. Not with strength, but with the magic of the moon that entered the room at that exact moment, and I forced myself into his mind.
I was no longer in the same room. I was within him, seeing from his eyes, witnessing something from his past. My eyes slid around this new room filled with darkness where he was naked, his body glistening with the silver moonlight that lit the woman’s face that he was pleasuring. I watched her beautiful features soften as her lips parted, his name escaping in a whisper while he pounded against the flesh in which she’d let him sate his unending hunger.
“Torrin,” she uttered in lust, her voice a melody he ached to hear.
“Shut the fuck up and come for me,” he demanded, unable to get deep enough or feel enough. “I need to feel your pain,” he admitted, needing her pain to find his pleasure.
The hunger was eternal, and not even she could sate the need he felt. Torrin pushed her legs up further, and I watched her eyes light with pain at the sheer size of his cock. His mouth lowered, claiming her lips to devour the noises escaping her lungs.
Pain.
Torment.
Terror.
Torrin was the monster who delivered her pain and pleasure. He enjoyed the look of terror that flashed through her pretty eyes while his body thrust and jackhammered into hers without mercy. Tears slid from her eyes, and Torrin moved faster, harder, pushing his hand down on her throat while she gasped for air. I felt his need to taste her pain. Worse than that, I felt his need to give her pain. He wanted to leave her covered in marks on her beautiful skin that would welt, standing as a reminder that she’d been his.
Torrin gave her pain when he sought pleasure. He didn’t relent, couldn’t. I watched him fuck as a beast possessed. The need to seek the hunger’s edge driving him to madness as her moans turned to whimpers and then cries of pain instead of the pleasure he’d wanted to give her. Unsatisfied, Torrin pumped his hips a few more times and started moving slower, easing the pain to bring her pleasure.