Page 25 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

"Tonio! Yes, oh yes!"

My name – not Antonio, not Beast, butTonio– torn from her throat as she comes undone feels like victory and damnation twisted together. I want to bury myself inside her, claim her completely, but even with how wet she is, I don't have the lubricant she needs. Despite everything, I won't hurt her. Not like this. Not when her fear at the hospital is still branded into my memory, not when I remember how brave she was through her pain.

Something tightens in my chest, another weakness I can't afford.

Instead, I claim her mouth again, letting her taste herself on my tongue. Her legs wrap around my waist as she grinds against me, the friction against my cock both heaven and torture.

She clutches the pillow with one hand – until with a swift movement, she reaches beneath it and presses something cold and sharp against my throat. The shard we found in her room digs into my skin, not quite drawing blood. The fury I felt earlier is nothing compared to the ice flooding my veins, though my cock remains traitorously hard against her heat.

"Will you finish what your father couldn't, Bella? Are you going to kill me?" I laugh, the sound bitter as poison. "Once a viper, always a viper. You betrayed my mother. Now you can betray me. Murder me too."

She doesn't speak, but her hand trembles against my throat, tears gathering in eyes that have haunted me for months. Something deep inside me twists at the sight, but I push it away, focusing on the cold press of metal rather than the warmth of her body beneath mine.

"Come on, Bella," I taunt, voice rough with challenge and something darker. "Aim for the jugular if you intend to end this."

Her gaze doesn’t leave mine as we both hold our breaths.

Chapter fourteen

Isabella

Mythunderingheartthrashesin my throat, my temples, tearing out of my chest as we both hold our breath. And yet, even as my fingers tremble holding the icy shard pressed against his skin, his dark gaze locks with mine and I can't look away.

I don't want to look away.

His eyes are challenging me. Dark as midnight. Dangerous. But there's a hint of something else there, too. Something that makes the shard feel heavier in my grip.

My mind races with possibilities as I finally manage to take a sharp inhale. What do I do? Do I press further? Do I let go? Do I make demands he won't fulfill or do I wait until he calls his men and throws me back into my dark and moldy room? The shard found its way to my hand out of self-preservation, a reflex born from confusion dancing with fury after he made me come apart,moaning his name so loudly I'm surprised the entire fortress didn't crumble around us.

His words still resonate in the back of my head, banging and clanging like those hospital monitors I grew to hate. "You're a viper. Like your father." As if I planned all of this. This wasn't a master plan. Sex dreams usually aren't part of anyone's revenge strategy.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so tragically pathetic.

For a moment, in my dreams, we had turned back time. He wasn't spreading his poison in my veins. He wasn't bent on revenge.

And I... I had never uttered a word to my father about his mom.

In my dream, he marched into the ballet studio with his broad shoulders and that half-grin that used to make my heart perform its own dangerous dance.

"Bella," he growled, standing so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body as my back was flushed against the barre. My pulse hammered like a trapped hummingbird. Not like after a performance or the exhaustion of rehearsing, but a rhythm created by him and him only. The Antonio effect, I liked to call it. Antonio who always sent a flurry of butterflies waltzing into my chest when he entered a room, who protected me against Henrik, who jumped into a pool once with his clothes on just to make me smile.

"I've been wanting you for so long it fucking hurts," his voice thick with need as his finger reached out and traced down my jaw, making everything in me tighten like the moment before a grand jeté. "Your laughter. The way you always try to find a silver lining, including in me. The way you dance. So damn beautiful. I've been wanting to taste you, ballerina mia. Will you let me taste your sweet, tight cunt?" He asks and before I can answer, he continues, his voice dropping even lower, rougher. "You haveno idea what you do to me, do you, dear stepsister of mine? I can't think straight when I'm around you. You're the air I need, the fire that makes me feel alive. Only you."

At his words, heat pooled low in my belly, my thighs tightened and my treacherous heart sped up because I had imagined this very moment countless times, imagined him as the hero of my own personal romance novel, imagined how it would feel. But nothing compared. Nothing in all those hidden books that got me through chemo compared to this.

In my dream, I had no scars and he hadn't been burned by my father but he was already magnetic and powerful, moving like a panther toward his prey. And I was his willing prey. When his midnight eyes dropped to my lips, caressing my body before lifting back up to capture my gaze, my throat dried up like during those endless hours of treatment. I couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't move. And yet, my body responded, aching and waiting.

His rough calloused fingers moved from my jaw down to the column of my throat and it's not electricity that sparked between us, it's fireworks that set every nerve of my body ablaze with need. "I've imagined how you'd take my cock, too, deep inside of you," he hissed between gritted teeth before tilting my chin up and at his touch, his words, his promises my nipples tightened almost painfully, straining against my pink top. "But first, oh first, I'm going to devour you."

And as his mouth crashed into mine, his thumb traveled down my neck to my chest and a guttural sound escaped him like he, too, had been waiting for this very moment. My lips parted open and his tongue claimed every inch of my mouth, setting even more nerves ablaze until all I could think of was the taste of him, like expensive whiskey and dark promises.

When he inched away, I had to catch my breath but there was no time, no need because he was the air I needed.

"Do you feel how much I want you?" His voice resonated deep within me and the evidence of his desire pressed hard against my stomach. I rolled my hips instinctively needing him closer, eliciting another groan from him that felt like it vibrated through my entire body. "I'm going to make it good for you." His voice was thick with need. "I promise you... until all you can do is moan my name."

And in my dream, those words weren't a prelude to heartbreak. They were a prelude to pure pleasure, but it wasn't enough.

I needed more.

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