Page 54 of Shattered Ice
“Keep wearing it.” A possessive command. A decree. The thought makes my legs shake.
My nails rake down his back. I tug at his hoodie. He yanks it over his head in a single, violent motion, then peels away his t-shirt, muscles coiling. His bare skin is a revelation—hard planes and scars, a blue-black bruise blossoming on his ribs, a raw map of his brutality. I trace it, my thumb gentle, but he catches my hand and presses it to his mouth, biting the base of my palm until the sting makes me moan.
I tug at his jeans, but my fingers shake too much. He relents, shoving his pants down just enough for his cock to spring free. The sight of it—thick, flushed, already leaking—sends a bolt of terror through me, but also a feverish, reckless want.
He catches my hesitation, his eyes gone nearly black. “Scared?”
“No,” I lie. He grins, wolfish and hungry.
“Good.” He slides his hand down my stomach, fingers brushing against my panties. “You’re soaked,” he says, his voice thick with awe, a conqueror claiming his prize. I think I might die from embarrassment, but he just watches my face as he traces lazy circles over the fabric, barely brushing my clit. I squirm as pressure coils low and tight in my stomach.
“Adrian, please.” His name is a plea, a prayer.
He makes me say it again and again until the word blurs, my voice stripped of all argument, left only raw with wanting. He holds my gaze the entire time. Then, with a deliberate, predatory patience that feels almost cruel, he hooks his fingers in the waistband of my jeans and strips them away. The cold, scratchy carpet prickles against the soles of my feet as I stagger, disarmed.
He drops to his knees—an act that should feel like supplication, but in his hands, it’s domination. He spreads my thighs wide, fingers digging into the muscle. He surveys what he’s done to me: nearly naked and trembling, panties soaked through with the proof of my need. His eyes are bleached by lust, his jaw clenched so hard a pulse ticks just below his cheekbone. With one languorous motion, he traces the seam of my underwear with his knuckle, from my hipbone to the throbbing ache between my thighs. He hooks a finger in the elastic and tugs. I suck in a breath, mortified and exultant all at once. Even the air feels illicit, a cold current on skin usually hidden.
Adrian leans in, presses his mouth to the inside of my knee, and shudders a laugh against my skin, low and triumphant. He kisses a path up my thigh, closer and closer, until the anticipation is agony. When his lips finally brush against me, I yelp. He flattens his tongue and licks me once, hard and blunt, then again, lingering. Every nerve ending sizzles. I claw at the shelf behind me, splintering a bit of wood, half-hoping I’ll tear the whole library down around us.
“Hold the shelf,” he says, his voice gravelly, rough with restraint. “Or I’ll make you beg for it.”
The command sends a thrill through me. I grip the shelf tighter, the weight of his gaze heavy on me. I brace myself, every muscle vibrating. And then he begins in earnest—ruthless, methodical, relentless. His tongue traces wicked patterns that make my hips jerk; his hands lock my thighs in place, holding me open, helpless. He alternates between feather-light flicks and deep, hungry pulls, keeping me always on the verge, never letting me tip over until he decides I’ve earned it. My body betrays me in new ways: the keen of my voice, the buckling of my knees, the blurring of my vision. He fucks me with his mouth as if it’s the only contest he cares about winning.
When I finally shatter, it’s with a cry so loud I slap a hand over my own mouth, the sound a mangled sob—part agony, part euphoria. The aftershocks leave me shaking, my legs quivering so badly I have to brace both arms against the shelving to stay upright. He doesn’t give me time to breathe before he starts again, slower this time, as if to savor my reactions. Everything is too much: the burn of the carpet on my knees, the scrape of my bra against sensitive nipples, the heat of his hands sliding under my ass to tip me closer. I try to resist, but he growls and pulls me closer, burying his face between my legs like a starving man.
The pressure builds again, impossibly fast. The pleasure hits in a rolling, endless wave that leaves me gasping, tears stinging my eyes, something inside me breaking loose that will never fit back where it belongs. When I sag forward, spent, he presses a final, almost chaste kiss to the inside of my thigh before rising. The scent of me clings to him, wild and unmistakable, his lips swollen and slick. He tips my chin up and kisses me, slow and reverent, as if I’m something holy.
“You’re mine,” he murmurs, his forehead dropping to rest against mine. A benediction. A vow. A line drawn in blood.
I shake my head, desperate for some scrap of dignity. “No. I’m not.”
But my voice is a whisper, and my body is already betraying me again, my hips canting forward, needing more.
He laughs then, a broken, elated sound, and pulls a condom from his back pocket like it’s the punchline to a joke we’ve both been inside from day one. He doesn’t bother undressing completely, just shoves his jeans low, puts the condom on, and lines himself up to slide into me. The force rattles the whole bookshelf, sending a hail of dust from the ancient spines above. I feel split open, too tight, but he waits, panting, his hands gentling on my hips until my body adjusts, until the heat of him becomes as inevitable as a heartbeat.
He presses his forehead to mine, holding my gaze. “Say you’re mine, Clara,” he murmurs, his voice raw. A plea, a command, a desperate invocation. “No one else gets to break you, Clara. No one else gets to even try. Say it.”
I bite my lip, a futile, last stand against the inevitable.
He fucks me harder in retaliation, each stroke deeper, the only sound the sharp slap of skin on skin and my helpless, stifled sobs of surrender. He reaches up, threads his fingers into my hair, and wrenches my head back to bare my throat, a primal, possessive gesture. His teeth find my pulse.
“Say it,” he demands, his voice cracking with the strain of his control.
I finally break. The final casualty. “I’m yours,” I whisper, the words torn from me in a ragged sob. A final, inevitable surrender.
He groans my name, a broken, guttural sound, his control shattering, and comes hard, holding me up as I shiver through the aftershock. Our bodies tremble with the force of his possession, our collision, the inexorable ruin between us. We stay like that for a long minute, pressed together in the cloyingsilence of the dusty aisle, breathing each other in. This isn’t a merging of souls; it’s a collision of wreckage.
I am the first to move, shoving at his chest with trembling hands, a pathetic attempt to reclaim the autonomy he has stolen. I right my clothes, my hands shaking so badly I can barely manage the buttons, wiping tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. As I fumble with my shirt, he plucks my favorite pen from where it fell on the floor and slides it into his pocket without looking at it.
I don’t look at him, a fragile shield against the truth of what just happened. “That doesn’t mean anything,” I say, the lie tinged with ash, a final attempt to reclaim a heart that is no longer mine.
He zips up his jeans, his eyes never leaving me, a steady, unyielding gaze. “Sure it doesn’t,” he replies, smiling slow and feral, a king surveying his new territory.
I walk away. I can feel him trailing after me, silent as a hunter, a brand on my soul, a chain forged in my surrender. The only evidence of our collision is the silent accusation of books at our feet and the scent of vanilla and sweat thickening the air. A testament to his victory, a symbol of my ruin.
Chapter 32
Adrian
