Page 88 of The Devil's Canvas

I don’t ask. I flip her over in one smooth motion, one hand on her hip, the other braced beside her head as I press her down into the sheets. She moans when I thrust back into her from behind—deep, full, perfect—and I feel her stretch around me like she was meant to take this.

The sound she makes goes straight to my spine. I snap my hips forward again—hard, rhythmic, claiming. The bed jolts beneath us, the headboard knocking against the wall in time with every thrust. She cries out, gripping the sheets, her body trembling but pushing back into me, hungry for it.

The slap of skin, the creak of the bed, the soft, wrecked sounds she makes—it’s all for me.

“Fuck, Lia,” I growl, my hand sliding up her back to tangle in her hair. “You feel like heaven and hell and everything I was promised and never got.”

She turns her face to the side, breathless, dazed, wrecked. “Don’t stop.”

I won’t.

My pace pounds into her a deliberate, punishing rhythm. I want her to feel this in her bones, in the way her legs won’t hold her tomorrow, in the way the Mark will pulse long after the last wave fades. I want her to remember this—not just as sex, but as mine. Ours.

Her hand reaches back blindly, searching for me, and I catch it, lacing our fingers tight as I drive into her deeper, harder.

The bed bounces beneath us, the room echoing with every sound of it, and I don’t care who hears. I want Hell itself to know what’s happening here.

This is the aftershock of her transformation. This is what it means to be bound.

And when she comes again, screaming into the mattress, I lose myself right behind her—thrusting deep, spilling into her with a groan that shakes something loose inside me.

We collapse together, breathless, tangled in each other’s skin and sweat.

She’s draped over me, skin flushed, lips kiss-bitten, her hair sticking to my chest like she’s melted into me—and maybe she has. Her breath is still a little uneven, but her grin is unmistakable.

I run a hand down her back, slow and lazy, and kiss the top of her head. “So,” I murmur. “That was subtle.”

She laughs against my chest. “You say that like you didn’t beg.”

“I grunted artistically,” I say, deadpan.

She hums. “Oh, is that what that was?”

The bond hums low between us—satisfied, quiet. Finally still. But my pulse is not. And neither is hers.

She shifts slightly, brushing her thigh against me again—deliberate.

I arch a brow. “You planning something?”

She glances up at me, eyes gleaming with post-orgasm mischief. “Thinking about a second round.”

I blink at the ceiling. “Of course you are.”

“I’m newly immortal,” she says, already sliding over me again. “You can’t expect me to not test my stamina.”

I sigh, dramatic. “This is how I die. Again.”

She grins. “Don’t worry, demon. I’ll go slow. This time.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ophelia

Wewereupallnight—and I’m not tired. Not even a little.

Which… is unsettling.

I stretch, blink at the ceiling, and glance at Julian, who’s just lying there next to me like a damn statue. Watching me.

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