Zodiac Academy 7: Heartless Sky

I stood out in the crisp winter air with my breath fogging before me and my wet hair dripping onto the oversized black hoody I was wearing.

Geraldine had caught sight of me slipping out of the sleeping quarters and had wailed something about the masculine clothes I’d put on not being fit for a queen. She’d rushed off, vowing to find me something more suitable for royalty and Max had chased after her, leaving the route to the exit free, then I’d headed straight towards it.

It had been a bit difficult to navigate my way through the throng of rebels who were all waiting to be allocated their own sleeping space in the tunnels to the south of The Burrows, but I’d managed to throw a little shadow over myself and keep my head ducked low as I slipped between them before finding my way back to the tunnel which led to the grandfather clock.

Of course there had been a group of five rebellion guards outside the farmhouse, but with a few choice words and a dark scowl, I’d managed to convince them to let me escape for a few minutes.

I’d been a prisoner for too damn long. My mind hadn’t been fully my own, clear of shadows and bonds and the will of the fucking stars for so long that I’d almost forgotten what true silence sounded like.

I may have lied to the rebellion guards when I’d promised not to go beyond the fence which ringed the farmhouse where The Burrows were concealed, but I hadn’t gone much further. The barn was still safely within the wards surrounding it to protect us and I really needed to be truly alone with my thoughts for just a few minutes.

I sighed as I took in the deep silence out here, leaning my back against the rough wood of the barn door and looking at the stunning view beyond. It was the dead of night, but the full moon was bright and cast the world in silver tones which made the sweeping mountain range look unearthly beautiful with its coating of pure white snow.

My feet were bare and the snow bit at the exposed skin, but a rush of Phoenix fire coursing through my veins banished the sensation fast enough.

I blew out a deep breath, watching it fog and sail away as I focused on thoughts of Lionel and smirked to myself as I considered many colourful ideas for his agonising death without once feeling the urge to save him from that fate.

My fingers trailed over the smooth skin of my arm which had once been branded by the Aries mark that bound me to him, and I closed my eyes as I wondered for the millionth time how the hell it was possible that the Guardian bond had been broken.

And that wasn’t the only bond that had been broken today either…

I hadn’t let myself think about it much yet, but I knew I was in for a world of freaking out when I really accepted that the Star Crossed bond was gone too. The mirror in the bathhouse had been dimly lit, but even so, I’d stood staring at my newly green-again eyes for several long minutes. All the while my heart had raced a million miles a minute, but I’d refused to so much as consider the possibility that our curse could really be gone.

Because if I let myself believe that, only to find out it wasn’t true, I wasn’t sure I could survive it.

I needed it to be real. Needed to be able to touch and kiss and caress him as much as I wanted without a single thing standing between us. And yet the idea of that terrified me too. I’d let myself feel all the things for Darius Acrux which I’d always sworn I’d never allow myself to feel, and that had been fine when there was no real chance of us ever actually being together. But now… I was a barely functioning fuck up of a girl on my best days. I was snarky and abrasive, stubborn to the point of self-detriment and damn rude more often than not. I was the girl no one wanted. Unloved came easy to me. But Darius had made it more than clear to me that I wasn’t the unwanted girl to him. In fact, if there really wasn’t anything keeping us apart anymore then I was pretty certain he wouldn’t want us to be apart ever again.

And the thought of that lit me up from the inside out and made me wanna dance naked in the rain, screaming that he was mine and cutting any bitch who might dare to glance his way… But it also scared the fuck out of me.

I didn’t know how to be someone’s everything. I was pretty sure I wasn’t even my own everything. Without Darcy I was just some jaded bitch who consistently fucked up and didn’t apologise for it. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that if there was nothing keeping Darius away from me anymore, he’d figure that out all too quickly and then he wouldn’t want me at all. How was I supposed to accept that if I let myself fall for him any more deeply than I already had? How was I supposed to survive him if he finally drew back the curtain and realised the Fae hiding behind it was nothing but a scared, little girl with no clue how to be the woman he wanted me to be?

I took in another deep breath and closed my eyes as I tried to centre myself, forcing my mind away from the fire in my limbs which reminded me all too clearly of the Dragon I kept daydreaming about and allowing myself to drift in a little bit of nothing for a while as I tried to clear my thoughts.

But as the dark pressed in on me, it was impossible not to feel myself returning to that room on Christmas Eve where Lionel had strapped me to a chair and set his twisted pets against me.

Bile caught in my throat as I relived the feeling of Clara driving that blade into my stomach over and over again, of my blood spilling hot and fast across my skin as my screams filled the air and Vard forced his way into my mind.

“Who do you love, Roxanya?”

Over and over again those same words hissed into my ears as I thrashed and snarled and bled out all over the plush carpets of the room which should have belonged to my father. But this time I hadn’t given up the answer they’d been trying to force from my lips. I hadn’t said the words Lionel was trying to command with his torture as he watched my suffering with heat and lust in his eyes. He might have been getting off on my pain, but I’d refused to relinquish control of my heart to him.

“Who do you love, Roxanya?” Lionel demanded as Clara withdrew and the agony in my flesh threatened to consume me once again. But they wouldn’t let me pass out. Any time I did they just healed me and started again, feeding me potions to replenish the blood I’d lost and making sure that this cycle of horrors could go on and on indefinitely.

My head bobbed and Lionel caught my chin in his grasp, his nails biting into my flesh as my own blood slid across my skin and he forced me to look at him.

“I can make it stop,” he purred, his gaze sliding down my body and drinking in the sight of my wounds, the cuts and burns which marked me and branded me as his plaything. But I wasn’t. I was Roxanya Vega, daughter of the Savage King, sister of the most powerful and beautiful woman I’d ever known, child of the greatest Seer of all time. I wasn’t born to bow to him. I was born to rise.

“I love him,” I hissed between my teeth, ignoring the flare of fear which tried to ignite in my core as I thought of Darius, the son of this monster and the man who had stolen my shattered heart irrevocably. I didn’t care how much Vard tried to force me to believe the worst of Darius. Because I’d seen the worst of him, the best of him and everything in between and he was my perfect match in every way. So they couldn’t twist my mind or heart against him anymore and I was done with the lies, done with pretending I was weaker than I was. I’d broken free of their command and I wouldn’t fall prey to their bullshit again.

Lionel growled, smoke spilling between his teeth as he bared them at me and acceptance finally dawned in his gaze.

“Love,” he scoffed. “So be it. Keep your love for my defiant son if it means so much to you, sweet Roxanya. But know this; I will use your love to break you, I will take it and make it mine and create a tether around your throat with it which won’t ever come loose. Today I will taste your heartbreak and you will watch as I enforce my dominance over you and the man you profess such feelings for. You will be the prize I hold above him and the threat which makes him compliant. And he shall be the same for you. I do not need your love to own you. I only need the object of your desire at my mercy.”

I lurched forward suddenly, my forehead cracking against the bridge of his nose as I jerked against my restraints and he jerked back, the full force of his fist colliding with my skull so hard that I lost my grip on reality and fell into the abyss.

I swallowed thickly against the memories, trying to ground myself in reality and the fact that I had truly escaped him this time. There was no Guardian bond tying me to him, no threat hanging over the heads of anyone I loved. Nothing at all to ever draw me back into his company, aside from the promise I had made to see him dead at my feet with my sister at my side.

I pushed my hands into the pockets of the enormous grey sweatpants I was wearing and ignored the shiver that ran down my spine from banishing my fire magic and just stood there, embracing the quiet calm of the place and focusing on the fact that we were safe. Free.

There was a hole in the left pocket of my sweatpants and I pushed a finger through it, running it over the scarred skin there as I tried not to relive the pain I’d felt as Lionel burned the tattoo from my flesh. Someone better trained than me could no doubt heal away the scars he’d left me with, but I hadn’t looked for anyone to do that yet. I was fairly certain that healing it wouldn’t fix the tattoo and I hated the idea of it being gone so much that I’d rather keep the scar and pretend it just lay beneath it.

“Is it totally conceited of me to hope you might be waiting for me?” Darius’s voice called out from the dark and my eyes fluttered open.

“Yeah,” I agreed on a breath as I drank in the sight of him standing before me in the half unbuttoned black shirt and smart trousers he’d worn to marry Mildred, my heart racing with the speed of a stallion and my throat thickening as I took in the very real man who was somehow standing a little way down the hill before me. “But I think I’ve always been waiting for you, so maybe you’re right.”

“Even when you hated me?” he murmured, stepping closer so that the light of the moon shone on his black hair. He kept coming, closing in on me and making that thrashing organ in my chest grow wings and beat them hard as it soared from nothing other than the sight of him. He closed in on me with his huge body and I had to tilt my chin up to look at him as the distance between us fell away.

“I still hate you,” I lied, and a smile touched the corner of his lips before he stepped closer again, the air between us thickening with expectation.

“The bond is broken,” he growled, stepping nearer still and making goosebumps speckle my skin with nothing more than his proximity.

His eyes were so dark that in the dim light I couldn’t see any difference in them, but I needed to know if it really was true, so I twisted my fingers and cast a Faelight into existence beside him which flared and lit his features in an orange glow.

The light glinted off of his deep brown eyes and my breath caught as I hunted for the black ring surrounding his irises and found it missing.

Darius’s gaze burned into mine as he devoured the sight of my clear, green eyes too and for the longest time we just stood staring at each other, trying to adjust to the fact that our fates had suddenly altered and all the things we’d been aching for were right here for the taking.

“How?” I whispered, afraid to break the silence as if I thought the stars might be listening, ready to steal this gift as fast as they’d offered it.

Darius hesitated for a beat too long, his brow pinching as he expelled a short breath which fogged the air between us. “Gabriel took me to an ancient palace that has long since been forgotten by our kind. There was old magic there and I convinced the stars to change their mind about the bonds,” he said in a rough voice. “It looks like they agreed.”

“Agreed to what?” I murmured, my heart beating so hard that I could barely make out the sound of my own voice over the tumultuous pounding.

Darius’s brow lowered and he reached out to cup my cheek in his palm, sucking in a sharp breath as the heat of his skin met the freezing coldness of mine.

“Why are you so cold?” he demanded, pushing the warmth of his fire magic into my skin as a shiver which had nothing to do with the temperature ran through my body. My flesh hungered for him with the desperation of a soul who had been starving for his touch for far too long and my body reacted to his instantly, my spine arching, nipples hardening.

“Fire makes me think of you,” I said.

“And that’s…bad?” His voice was rough and his dark eyes seemed to look right into my soul as he demanded that answer from me and I was unable to deny him it.

“Only because I know I can’t have you. Or couldn’t have you, I guess…”

I glanced up at the quiet sky with the stars twinkling far overhead and my thrashing heart only picked up the pace as I realised they weren’t doing a single thing to force us apart. No storms or earthquakes or Griffins flying by and taking a shit on top of us. Nothing.

“Darius,” I breathed as he leaned forward, about to close the gap between our lips but my hand landed on his chest. “If you kiss me now, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to let you go again. So if this isn’t it for you, if you can’t handle my stubborn, selfish ass then please just walk away. Because I can’t have you for this moment if I don’t have you for every moment after it-”

“I’m yours, Roxy,” he growled against my lips. “For every single second I have in this world, I’m all yours. And after that I’ll still be yours, wherever I end up after I’m gone, I’ll belong right here with you.”

His mouth met mine and silenced any other objections I may have been about to make, and I melted into his kiss as his lips moved against mine.

A moan escaped me and his tongue pushed into my mouth, caressing mine as he kissed me slowly, savouring every second of it now that we could. The stars weren’t going to force us apart, there was no reason for us to rush and the way he was kissing me said he had no intention of doing that.

I wound my arms tight around him and the Phoenix in me rose up to the surface, driving against his body in a demand which I followed without thought as the creature in me took control and dove beneath his skin, burning a path inside of him as it sought out the shadows and forced them out of him in a trail of blazing power which left us both panting in each other’s arms.

“Holy shit, Roxy,” Darius growled against my lips. “How-”

“I’m done letting Lionel or his shadow bitch or anyone else control us. They can keep their fucking shadows – we won’t be tied to them by their damn power anymore.”

Darius gazed down at me like he was seeing something in me for the first time and I raised my chin as he pushed his fingers into my hair and studied my face with a hungry, aching look.

“You’re incredible,” he said softly, drinking me in and making my skin tingle with the intensity of his gaze as he leaned forward to capture my lips with his once more, making my knees quake and butterflies erupt in my stomach.

“Let’s head back inside,” I murmured, pulling back just enough to look up at him and running my fingers over the rough stubble that coated his jaw. “The others have been freaking out over you and I can find some proper clothes and-”

“Gabriel will tell them I’m here,” he said dismissively. “And I like what you’re wearing just fine.”

I breathed a laugh as I ran my hands up the front of his shirt and my fingers tangled in the dark material. I was wearing some shitty old man clothes, had wet hair and a bare face and was most definitely looking my worst, yet I got the impression he actually meant that.

But as he gazed at me intently, a lump rose in my throat and I tightened my hold on his shirt, remembering why he was wearing it.

“You and Mildred,” I murmured, the thought of the two of them together after their wedding burning a line of bile down the back of my throat. “Did you…” I trailed off, unable to ask the question and knowing it was unfair of me to feel so cut up over the idea of him consummating their union. But fuck, I’d been a ball of anxiety ever since he’d left that chapel and I needed to know almost as badly as I didn’t want to find out. I understood the pressure he’d been under, I knew the position Lionel had forced him into so I would find a way to get over it if he had, but the thought of it just made me want to burn the entire world down and rip Mildred’s fucking face off.

“No,” Darius growled, disgust flickering over his features. “And I wouldn’t have even if Gabriel hadn’t saved my ass. I had a plan to use an illusion to make her think she’d been fucked and then I was gonna just…well I have no fucking idea really, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not married.”

“You’re not?” I frowned in confusion and he smirked at me as he shook his head slowly, reaching past me to shove the heavy beam locking the door behind me aside.

“No,” he confirmed. “Thanks to your brother. But maybe we can get into that later? The point is, I’m not married, you’re not bonded to my father, and we’re no longer Star Crossed.”

“Oh,” I said, mentally berating myself for not coming up with something better to say in response to that.

“Yeah,” he replied, pushing the door at my back open. “Oh. And just in case it wasn’t clear, baby, I’m not going to be anyone’s but yours. So maybe you and me should get hitched and I can show you what a real wedding night looks like?”

A crazed laugh slipped from me and I shook my head as I began to back up, hooking my fingers into his belt and tugging him into the barn after me.

“Can we just start out slow?” I asked, trying not to freak the fuck out at the idea of marrying him. “We can see if we can go a week without beating the crap out of each other and think about marriage in like twenty years or something?”

I expected him to laugh but his gaze darkened as he let me pull him inside the barn and for a moment, I could have sworn I saw pain registering on his features. But before I could focus on it, he pushed the door closed behind him and darkness fell around us as my Faelight was left outside.

“Whatever you want, Roxy,” he growled and I gasped as his hands wound around my waist.

My pulse raced at the idea of that, but before I could get too caught up in the fantasy of a future with him, his grip on my waist tightened and he walked me backwards, his mouth against mine and his kiss so brutal it almost hurt. But it was the best kind of pain I could imagine.

My back collided with something and before I knew what was happening, he’d lifted me up and was perching me on a wooden platform scattered with stalks of straw as the scent of it rose up all around us.

There was a hole in the side of the barn behind me and the moonlight poured in through it, gilding us in silver and highlighting the strong lines of his cheekbones and jaw. He was so freaking gorgeous that it made my breath catch, like some mythological demigod come to shatter hearts and steal virgins from their homes. But this deity wasn’t here to ruin me, he’d come to worship at my altar and the depth of the feelings in his dark eyes had my entire body trembling with a need I was certain could only ever be satisfied by him.

His fingers slid beneath the hem of my borrowed hoody and his skin burned hot against mine as he dragged it up and off of me, taking his damn time to reveal my body to him before tossing the black fabric aside.

A growl spilled from his lips as he found me bare beneath it, my nipples hard and chest heaving.

“You’re more than I deserve, Roxy, but I’m not selfless enough to give you up,” he said in a dark tone. “So I’m going to take my time with you tonight. I’m going to mark each and every inch of your flesh with my touch so that you can’t even wash the feeling of me from your body.”

“Big claims, big man,” I taunted, my gaze trailing over his broad frame, drinking in the strong lines of his tattoos which peaked out from his collar and the firm cut of his muscles that pressed against his clothes. “You’d better make good on that promise.”

Darius smiled darkly and I bit my bottom lip as we just looked at each other, bathing in the fact that we were alone and the stars weren’t going to do a damn thing to stop us from being together. I wouldn’t need to fight them with my magic or give any of my attention to anything other than him and I intended to brand his flesh with my touch just as surely as he had promised to do to me.

“Take it off,” I commanded, narrowing my eyes at the remnants of the suit he was still wearing. “I don’t wanna look at you wearing some outfit you were destined to marry another woman in.”

His eyes flashed hungrily and I watched as he slowly began to unbutton his shirt, revealing his tattooed skin to me inch by inch.

I watched him with my heart in my throat, running my tongue over my bottom lip as he peeled his shirt open and shrugged it off of his broad shoulders, so I was left looking at the ink that decorated his skin as my whole body clenched with need.

I gave up on trying to be patient and leaned forward to grasp his belt, slipping the leather from the buckle and running my fingers over the tattoo that marked him as mine where it curled across his hip.

“Even if it had been a real wedding, you know that I will only ever belong to you, right?” Darius asked, watching me as I unbuttoned his fly and I paused as I pushed his trousers down to fall at his feet.

Some mocking jibe was on the tip of my tongue, some deflection or joke, anything at all to detract from the seriousness of his words which were so hard for me to accept, but as I looked up into his dark eyes, I found I couldn’t speak the words.

Instead, I reached out slowly, laying my hand on the hard ridges of his abs and running it up his powerful body until it laid over his heart.

“Mine,” I said roughly, possessively, meaning it with every ounce of my being.

Darius’s lips curled up at the corners, a predatory light seeming to blossom in his eyes as he leaned down to kiss me, the heat of his mouth and force of that kiss stealing the breath from my lungs.

He kissed me like the world was ending and I was the only solid piece of it left in existence. The movements of his lips against mine were a desperate, primal claiming which demanded I be his now and forever, and I willingly gave in to that demand.

Darius’s fingers hooked in the edge of my waistband and I moaned into his mouth as I lifted my ass to let him tug the baggy old sweats down. I was half mortified to be reunited with him looking my absolute worst, but Darius didn’t seem to even notice the masculine clothes, lack of makeup and general state of me. He was kissing me like I was the most beautiful creation on the planet, and I was nothing but a slave to his desire as he swept me up in it.

The sweatpants gave little resistance as he tugged them off and Darius groaned as he found me naked beneath them, running his hands around the curve of my ass as his thumbs circled over my hip bones.

But as his hand slid lower and the rough skin of the burn scar Lionel had left me with grazed against his thumb, he pulled back suddenly, his fingertips moving over the damaged flesh as a deep growl escaped him.

“I’m going to rip him apart piece by piece,” he snarled ferociously, his fingers moving over the scar where my tattoo for him had been and the warm flood of healing magic fell from his palm to better mend the damage. “He showed me a recording of what he did to you. I can’t stop replaying it in my head, over and over again, the endless sounds of your screams ringing in my skull, knowing he did that because of how much he knew I wanted you… I’ll fucking destroy him for this, but I can’t undo it and that kills me.”

I watched him as smoke poured from his lips and his eyes shifted to Dragon slits while his muscles trembled with rage. He was a dangerous creature, violent, strong, ferocious. His father’s son. A monster just like I’d always known he was from the very first moment I’d laid eyes on him. And if I was a smarter girl, maybe I should have been afraid. Maybe I should have taken the chance to run from him now that the Star Crossed bond wasn’t making me pine for him. But there wasn’t a single piece of me that wanted that anymore, and as Darius finished healing my skin and made a move to step away from me, I caught his wrist in my grasp and refused to let him leave.

“Roxy,” he warned, his voice a growl that made a shiver race down my spine and set my hair standing on end.

“Darius,” I growled right back, my fingers digging into his flesh as he tried to move away from me.

“Everything that man did to you,” he began, his eyes dark with pain and hatred. “Especially everything since he realised how I felt about you, it’s because of me-”

“No,” I denied, glancing down at my thigh and tugging on his hand to make him touch me there again as I found the tattoo miraculously intact once more. The mark I’d chosen to give myself, showing the whole world how I felt, showing him how I felt, without needing the stars to grant me it or try to deny it. That was what counted. “Lionel is his own man. And you’re yours. He might have tried to justify his cruelty by claiming it had something to do with keeping you in line, but that’s bullshit, and we both know it. He did it because he’s afraid of you, Darius. He knows you’re the better man, he knows you’re stronger than him and he knows that if he didn’t use tricks and cruelty to control you that you’d destroy him. Don’t ever let him make you feel like you’re responsible for any of the things he’s done.”

“He made me in his image,” he said darkly. “And I’ve proved more than once that I’m no better than him.”

My hand cracked across his face before I’d even realised I intended to do it and Darius snarled as he turned the golden slits of his Dragon eyes onto me.

“You are better than him, Darius. And you might be a monster, but you’re my monster now and I want you just the way you are.”

We locked eyes for an endlessly long moment and suddenly his mouth was on mine again, the taste of smoke coating his tongue and the heat of the fire in his limbs enough to burn against my frozen skin.

I ran my hands up and over the broad slope of his shoulders, my fingers digging into his flesh as he loomed over me, dominating me with his huge body, his hands braced against the wooden platform either side of my hips.

My thighs parted as he stepped between them, my aching core desperate for more of him as he pressed closer and the hard ridge of his cock ground against my wet heat.

I grasped the back of his neck so tightly that I could feel my fingernails cutting into his skin and a growl of desire rumbled through his chest where it pressed to mine.

He dropped his boxers, kicking them away from us with his pants and catching hold of my knee as he hooked my leg around his waist, his solid cock grinding against me and making me whimper as it drove against my clit for a far too brief moment.

“I love you, Roxy,” he growled, drawing back and cupping my face in his free hand, making me meet his gaze as his dick found my core and he slowly began to sink into me.

“I love you, Darius,” I gasped in reply, my breath catching as the feeling of him stretching and filling me stole all of my focus.

A groan of pure pleasure escaped him as he took his sweet time filling me, his grip on my knee tightening as he held me exactly where he wanted me and sheathed every solid inch of his cock inside me.

Once he was fully seated within me, we fell still, our ragged breaths colouring the space between us, clouds of vapour emerging from our lips as the heat of our fire-touched skin met with the frigid air.

We stared at each other for several long seconds, drinking in the feeling of us being alone, together, united at long fucking last without a star in the sky lifting so much as a twinkly finger to try and part us.

And then he began to move.

I cried out as he rocked his hips, his cock driving into me in the most delicious way as my throbbing pussy squeezed tight around him, sending shockwaves of pleasure radiating through my body.

I remained upright, my nails digging into his shoulders as I clung to him and moved my hips in time with his, kissing him hard and demanding he give me all he had.

The wooden shelf I was perched on creaked and groaned beneath the savage thrusts of his hips and splinters drove into my ass as I clung to him, panting his name and begging for more.

Darius gripped my hair in his fist and yanked on it, forcing me to arch backwards in his hold and baring my tits to him so that his mouth could descend on one of my nipples as he continued to fuck me so hard I saw stars.

“More,” I gasped, closing my eyes as he held me in that position, focusing on the feeling of him owning me as I drove my heels into his ass and my fingers raked down his chest.

Darius snarled at the challenge in my voice and he tugged on my hair and my knee simultaneously, forcing me to bend even further backwards until his dick was slamming into that magical fucking spot inside me which promised the most beautiful kind of oblivion and I was coming for him with a cry of ecstasy which almost drowned out the sound of shattering wood as the shelf I was perched on gave way.

“Fuck,” Darius cursed as he fell on top of me amongst the broken boards and my back slammed down on a pile of straw which had been stacked there.

A laugh tumbled from my lips as he fought to push his weight off of me and I shoved his shoulder, encouraging him to roll onto his back as I moved to straddle him.

My smile widened as I looked down at him, bits of straw clinging to his sweat slicked abs like we were taking part in some kind of sweet romance fantasy and he’d just stolen my virtue in the barn while my daddy wasn’t home.

“I love that fucking sound,” he murmured, reaching up to pluck a piece of straw from my hair as I took his cock in my hand and began to slick my fingers up and down it.

“Yeah?” I asked, tipping my head to one side as I pushed up onto my knees, ignoring the prickle of the straw as it scratched against my skin and sinking down onto his huge dick once more, making him groan. “Well I love that fucking sound.”

“Is that right?” His big hands gripped my ass and I let him guide my movements as I began to ride him, my pussy already aching for more even as the aftershocks of the pleasure he’d delivered to me still lingered in my flesh. “Well I love the sound of you coming on my dick, Roxy. I love feeling you squeeze me tight with that slick pussy of yours and cry out with a pleasure so raw I wanna fucking bottle it. I love it so much that I’m gonna get you to make that sound for me a hundred times before the sun rises today to make up for all the orgasms I didn’t get to give you while we were cursed.”

“A hundred?” I mocked, but my voice cut off with a gasp as he thrust his hips up hard and stole my goddamn breath. “Shit, you’re so fucking big,” I complained but the cocky look on his face let me know he didn’t believe I was really complaining at all.

“Yeah, Roxy, a hundred times. I might as well aim for the stars, seeing as those bastards kept us apart all this time.”

I laughed again, the noise an almost manic sound as I tried to take in this new reality where we could actually just be together as his thrusts got harder and his thirsty gaze moved to my tits as they bounced for him.

“Show me how you touched yourself when you were wishing I could do it,” he growled, no doubt in his mind that I’d done just that, and I moaned instead of complaining as he continued to fuck me hard from below, refusing to let me dominate him despite my position on top of him.

I moved my hand to my clit and started working it for him like he wanted, my other hand teasing my nipple as his fingers dug into my ass and he fucked me even harder.

I was moaning again, the sound so loud I knew that the stars could hear every moment of this and the thought of overcoming their bullshit decision on our fate made me even hotter as I felt myself drawing closer to the edge.

Darius watched me with such clear desire that I couldn’t look away from him for a single moment and as he commanded me to come for him, I did, pleasure radiating through me as my pussy tightened around his cock and begged him to join me in our release.

He groaned as he fought it, flipping us over once more and pinning me beneath him as he fucked me down into the pile of straw, his mouth claiming mine in a brutal kiss which swallowed my cries of pleasure as he chased his own release with a savage intensity which had every inch of my flesh coming alive for him.

I met every thrust of his hips with my own and when he finally came with a roar which betrayed his Order form, I couldn’t help but shatter for him once more too.

My pussy throbbed and pulsed around him and he crushed me down onto the bed of straw as we fell apart in each other’s arms, panting and shaking in the aftermath of it.

Darius rolled onto his side and tugged me with him so that I was laying over his chest, my head pressed to his heated skin as I listened to the heavy thump of his heart while we caught our breath.

“Nothing is going to tear us apart again now,” I breathed into the silence, vowing it on the stars who had cursed us.

Darius hesitated before he replied and I turned my head to look up at him, feeling tension in his arms as they tightened on me.

“This is the only place I ever want to be,” he said as he reached out to brush a lock of dark hair from my eyes. “Right here with you.”

I smiled up at him, hardly able to believe that this was real. That I could feel so fucking happy so soon after feeling so damn helpless. But there was something about being in his arms which just made me feel like I was where I belonged at long last. And I wasn’t planning on letting that feeling go any time soon.

“We should probably go inside and see the others,” I said reluctantly but Darius shook his head as he turned to press me down onto my back in the straw again.

“I’m pretty sure I promised you a hundred orgasms and we’re only up to three.”

“I think it’s physically impossible for me to have that many orgasms in a row,” I joked but the look he gave was all insatiable lust and I got the feeling he really did plan on trying to make that happen.

“Only one way to find out, baby. So why don’t you just lay back and let me feast on you until you’re coming all over my face? Because once I’m done devouring you, I plan on living out every damn fantasy I’ve had about you since the moment we met. And believe me, there’s a fucking lot of them to get through before dawn.”

“Dawn?” I gasped as he pushed my thighs apart and lowered his mouth to my core, looking up at me with those dark eyes while he hovered just above my pussy, making me shiver with the desire for him to close that distance.

“Worried you can’t keep up?” he taunted and I narrowed my eyes.

“I’m more worried that you can’t,” I tossed back before fisting my hand in his dark hair and pushing his head down so that he could make good on that promise and within moments I was writhing and panting beneath him once more as he brought me to ruin all over again.