Page 125 of Wicked Tides
“I have not forgotten what you are, Dahlia. It’s who you are that intrigues me. No. It’s more than that. Perhaps I am damning myself for saying it, but you’ve captured me. Whether it was with your hypnotic dreams or not. I am a traitor to myself for admitting it.”
His words took me aback. My body just kept yearning to be near him when I should have kept running. My heart missed a beat and I remembered how good it felt to kiss him. I wanted to feel that again. I wanted that bliss over the pain and violence that plagued me. Over the hate and anger. Over all the things that I thought made me who I was.
But a reprieve from it all was the last thing I deserved.
I was being ripped down the middle.
I turned away to make another retreat when he reached out and clutched my arm, spinning me to face him. Before I knew it, he was crushing his mouth to mine.
I wanted it so badly. I needed it, but still, I denied myself and I tried to push him away. He held fast, instead pulling me closer. Hisfingers bit into my thighs and he hoisted me off the ground. I struggled from his grip and landed on my back beneath him on the cold grass. Relentless, Vidar continued to kiss me, his tongue pressing into my mouth as if he’d forgotten my teeth could bite it off.
I turned my head to the side with a snarl. “Get off! You should want me dead.”
He shoved his way between my legs, sliding the thin, damp skirt of my dress up my thighs. I bucked as he pressed his lips once more to mine. His tongue darted into my mouth again and a wave of hot excitement washed through me, making my core pulse with need. I continued to fight him, sinking my teeth into his bottom lip until he bled. Vidar drew back, growling at the pain, but the sight of blood on his mouth sent another delightful flood of anticipation through my veins.
“You discover I’ve been assaulting your dreams and you hunger for my body instead of my death,” I panted. “You truly have gone mad.”
I drove my thumb against his shoulder where I knew he’d been shot. Vidar roared and sat up on his haunches, out of my reach. Blood blossomed on the fabric of his shirt where I’d irritated the wound, but he did not relent. He grabbed my knees and drew me against him until he was once more pressed between my legs. Heat fluttered through me at the sight of him covered in his own blood. Yet, he was still overpowering me.
His strength over me was thrilling. So thrilling I lost myself in trying to test it.
I reached for the fallen knife, driving it toward Vidar’s ribs. He caught my wrist, slamming it down and pinning it above my head.
“You cannot fool me, Dahlia. I do not even believe you’re fooling yourself.”
By Lune, the way his cock hardened against me in our struggles made me ravenous. I pressed my heels into the ground and lifted my hips to meet him. His other hand collared my throat and squeezed, trapping me in place.
“I’m done dancing with you,” he said against my mouth. He gripped me tighter until I could not breathe. “It is you I crave.”
He ground his hips against me, stroking his swelling desire between my legs. Then he released the pressure on my neck and I gasped, letting my breath out on a moan. More tears gathered in my eyes as I lifted my head, licking my tongue across his bleeding lip to get another taste of him.
“Then lay claim to me, Vidar,” I said, breathless. “Or something else will.”
What that something else was had haunted me since birth and it could not be explained as one thing. The sons and the madness they wrought. The idea that I might one day want to end it all against the tip of my blade and be the coward so many thought I was. The dread of being alone when I had never truly wanted to be. It all clashed together into a dark, empty creature that had been clinging to my back my whole life like a parasite, feeding off my soul.
But Vidar silenced that creature. When we were fighting. When we were kissing or fucking. When we were wondering how to end one another. He stole my thoughts from it all and he blinded me to the things I did not want to carry anymore.
Tears spilled over onto my cheeks and I trembled, savoring the taste of the man—the hunter—who’d twisted me into such a mess. I did not want his mercy. Perhaps I never had. I wanted his ruthlessness and his brutality.
I ground myself against him, lifting my head to take him in another kiss and he reciprocated with vigorous need. He released my wrist and in turn, I released the knife, using my freedom to wrap my arms around him as he forced a hand between my legs.
I was wet with anticipation, a detail that did not escape him as he parted my lower lips and stroked me. I twitched at the shock of pleasure and tore at Vidar’s shirt, searching for bare skin. When I found it, I couldn’t help myself. I was ravenous, dragging my nails against the flesh of his arms until I felt him hiss at the pain.
He forced two fingers into my heat and I gasped, my head falling back and breaking our kiss.
“Tell me now what it is you want,” he rasped. “Do you want to run? Do you want to kill me and be done with it?”
“I want you,” I confessed. “Against all reason, I want you.”
His mouth moved to my neck as he thrust his fingers into me again. Impatient, I sunk my teeth into his shoulder, nearly breaking the skin. When he drew back, I rolled him off of me and moved quickly over him, straddling his hips. My loose dress slouched off one shoulder as I sat up astride him. Seeing him beneath me woke something I did not know was there and a primal, possessive beast roused from within. I pressed my hands to his chest and curled my fingers, my nails biting into his skin. Vidar groaned through his teeth, his hands grasping my hips.
“You are mine,” I muttered. “You know you are.”
I shimmied down enough so that I could unlace his pants and reached inside, exposing the thick, hard length of him. I wanted nothing more than to put him in my mouth and suck him to completion, but I recalled what he said to me in the pool. Looking up, I caught him staring at me with a brow raised. Teasingly, keeping my eyes locked on his, I licked a slow, torturous trail along his cock before moving myself over him again and poising my entrance against his tip. Vidar, hands on my hips, watched himself disappear as I sunk down on his length.
I hungered for the stretch. For the sense of fullness. Forhim. We both moaned when he was fully seated inside me and I began to move, trying to savor the sensation. Vidar, now the impatient one, reached up and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me down to him. Our lips met and he locked me in his arms as he pumped his hips upward. Harder. Faster. When our mouths parted, I was sobbing, my body burning with desire. Vidar clutched at my dress, pulling the whole thing over my head. Once my breasts were free, he was quick to lay claim to one with his mouth. His teeth closed over my nipple and I cried out, jolts of pain and pleasure blossoming inside me.
Vidar, thirsting for control, rolled me onto my back and thrust into me without restraint. Every rock of his hips drove him painfully deeper, but I welcomed the agony. The intensity. It made everything else disappear. I wrapped my legs around him, clutching him tightly as he ravaged and claimed me. When I felt that edge coming, I began to speak in tones I hadn’t used in a long time. Tones that I knew Vidar would sense despite that he could not understand the words.
