Chapter 24

TWENTY-FOUR

Angelo

Enough pressure for long enough on the carotid arteries on both sides of the neck can render a person unconscious. I learned the trick in a martial arts class. I practiced the skill on the kids in my school until the principal sent my father a letter to complain about my violent and invasive behavior.

That night, my father gave me a hundred-euro bill and a gun. I already knew how to shoot. Owning a weapon of my own was just a formality. I was eleven years old. I've shot many bullets since then, but none of them was aimed at killing. Up to now, my father has always been pulling the trigger, a task that has now fallen on me.

But I don't want to think about the business, tonight, not when I've claimed my woman with a strange need to both consume and protect her. Not when she's naked and the night has too few hours.

Sabella sleeps peacefully. Her dark hair is splayed over the pillow, the silky waves and neat curls from earlier tangled. Her long lashes brush her cheeks. I take in her features—the fine set of her cheekbones, the straight line of her nose, the plumpness of her lips, and the beauty spot just above the corner of her mouth.

I take my exploration lower, noting the faint bruises my fingers left on her neck. I don't regret the roughness because that's part of me. I can change it as little as I can stop wanting her. The marks, however, I do regret. I caress the arch of her neck and trace the delicate line of her collarbone. She's like a bird, her bones as frail as a dove's. Her breasts are small and pert, her nipples a beautiful shade of peach.

Not resisting the urge to touch, I let my hands get to know her too. I've felt her up in the bathroom, but I can touch her until sunrise, and it won't be enough. Her skin is soft and warm. The muscles underneath are toned. She doesn't stir when I brush my hand over her abdomen. Only her stomach quivers under my palm.

I cup the triangle between her thighs and thread my fingers through the dark curls. That inexplicable urge to be rough overcomes me again. The desire isn't born from violence. It comes from an urge to caress something so fiercely that a touch can't be a gentle brush of fingertips. It has to be a hug that cuts off air, a kiss that bites, a grip that possesses. I close my fingers harshly, pulling hair and digging my nails into warm, damp skin. I want this part of her so much that if I don't check myself, I'll crush her like I'll burst a juicy ripe orange in my fist, mashing it into a delicious, sticky mess and covering my face in it as I fall on the feast like a starving beast.

Wiping away the sting of my touch, I stroke lower. Between her legs. She's warmer there. Wetter. Her hips are beautifully curved. Her ass fits perfectly in my palms. Her slender legs will look so pretty when she wraps them around my waist. How flexible is she? Will I be able to arrange her thighs over my shoulders and fold her double as I surge inside her, going deeper and harder until I've found all her secret spots? No doubt she'll look stunning, no matter in which way I bend her. Over my lap. On her hands and knees. Riding me. She'll be a picture that makes me hard from any angle.

She's perfect.

All mine.

Every inch of her, inside and out.

Moving down her body, I rub her feet. She has a dancer's feet—narrow with a high bridge. The arches are pronounced. She was made for wearing heels or walking on her toes. With the pink polish on her toenails, her small foot in my big hand is overwhelmingly feminine. I pull away the covers and push her legs wide apart. Just as a precaution, in case she wakes too soon, I use the belts of the twin robes in the bathroom to tie her wrists to the bedpost. I don't want her to hurt herself in a panic.

Lying spreadeagled, she's a sight to behold. I can look at her all night, but my work isn't done. I get my razor and shaving gel from the bathroom, set a towel underneath her ass, and get busy.

First, I trim the curls with hair scissors, and then I shave her pussy clean. I don't mind body hair. I don't have a particular preference, but the view is as hot as hell. She's exposed for my observation, presented for no other purpose but my looking pleasure.

And I do look. She's swollen from our fucking, red and plump, ripe for the picking. After wiping the shaving cream away, I pat her skin dry and learn her shape by tracing the outline of her pussy lips with my thumb. I part her with no more than the tip of my finger, revealing the button at the top of her slit that triggered her orgasm.

But feeling and looking aren't enough. Burying my head between her legs, I inhale deeply. She smells like soap and musk. Like woman. My woman. Unable to resist tasting her again, I lick her from top to bottom. This time, I'm unrushed. You taste more when you swallow slower.

I like that no one but me has had his tongue inside her. I like the way that little button swells in my mouth when I suck. I like how her inner muscles grip my finger when I sink it up to the knuckle inside her. I love to touch every inch of her, love how she feels all over her body, but I'm fucking addicted to how she feels inside. The wetness that coats my tongue makes me delirious. I growl around her, biting down as the knowledge that I turn her on, even in her sleep, drives me insane. I'm like an animal with her. I want everything.

If she could come in her sleep, I'd bring her to a climax right now, using my fingers, teeth, and tongue. Does she feel pleasure in her unconscious state? She's slicker, her arousal like nectar on my lips. The way her body reacts to my touch pleases me beyond measure. I was made to coax orgasms from her, and I'll do so by honorable or unscrupulous means. By any means necessary. She was made to give me her pleasure.

I haven't had my fill, not by a long shot, but I force myself to stop. To sit back. To look at her. Naked, like this. Naked everywhere. Fuck, she's beautiful. So pretty. So stunning. No longer innocent because I took that. I'll take everything. All of her.

Mine.

I'll prove it too. To her. To me. To the world.

Getting up from the bed, I go to the bathroom and light the decorative candle. The light is softer, kinder. I leave it on the nightstand and flick off the overhead lights. The wax smells like vanilla. It's romantic. She'll sleep better like this.

I pick up the ring and study it in the gentle light of the flame. The emblem is fitting. It suits our family and what we stand for. The gold is twenty-four carats, the purest you can buy. Its melting point isn't as high as iron's. Gold is a soft metal. It needs to reach two hundred and sixty degrees Celsius to inflict a third degree burn that will leave a permanent scar. The temperature in the center of the flame is one thousand four hundred degrees. I hold the head just long enough over the flame, still burning my fingers.

The band of the ring scorches my fingertips when I kneel between Sabella's legs. Carefully, I press the flat side that's glowing red on the mound of her pussy, just above her slit. Ten seconds are enough. When I pull away, she's wearing a circle with two wolves facing each other, their intertwined bodies eternally locked together on her skin.

Branded with my mark on her pussy, she's not only ethereally beautiful. She's utterly perfect.