Page 46 of Devil’s Reign

The question cuts through the haze, sharp and sobering. I watch her carefully, my grip tightening in her hair. She thinks she can bargain with me like some common criminal. She doesn’t know I’d give her the world if she asked the right way. But I let the steel back into my voice.

“If I don’t come, you don’t get your answer.”

She hesitates, nervous energy crackling off her. Then she nods—a quick, determined jerk of her chin, her cheeks still flushed.

I release her hair and turn away, needing the distance before I do something reckless. Like telling her to forget about our little bargain and to get on that bed with her legs spread wide for me instead.

My cock pulses unbearably as I cross the room and drop into the armchair.

I lean back, legs parted, watching her from the shadows, waiting.

25

MELANI

I’m not sure if this is the dumbest decision of my life or—no, it’s definitely the dumbest. The hormones have finally eaten through every bit of common sense I have left.

The wanting I woke up with hasn’t faded. It keeps tangling up my thoughts, blurring the line between recklessness and resolve. But I can’t back down, not if there’s any chance this gets me closer to the truth about my brother.

My legs feel like water as I cross the room towards Vanya, my eyes locked on the way he sprawls back in the chair, waiting as if he owns me already. He tracks every step I take, and with each one, my body betrays me a little more. Heat pools low in my stomach, and my thighs press together on instinct, as if I can somehow hold back what’s already happening. But I can’t.

“Get on your knees,” he says quietly when I stop in front of him, his voice rough. Then, sharper, when I move too quickly, “Slowly.”

The word scrapes over every nerve. My head spins as I lower myself to the floor, my knees sinking into the rug. I tilt my head back just enough to look up at him, only to find that same relentless gaze waiting for me, its weight pinning me down.

I melt under him. He’s in complete control, and it’s so fucking hot I don’t know what to do with myself. My thighs ache from the effort of staying together. My mouth goes bone dry.

I reach for his zipper with trembling fingers, but his hand closes over mine before I can touch it. He keeps his eyes on me as he does it himself, deliberately slow, like he wants me to burn watching. The soft rasp of the zipper sliding down is deafening in the quiet room. He pulls himself free, and the sight of him steals the air straight from my lungs.

He doesn’t guide me to him as I expect, just offers his dick to me, like a test. He doesn’t think I’ll go through with it. My lips twist. Wrong.

I lean in, heart pounding so hard the rhythm pulses through my fingertips. Heat floods me as I wrap my hands around him. He’s burning hot, the flesh smooth except for the deep ridges of veins running along his length. A bead of white gathers at the tip, and my mouth waters.

Tentatively, I dip lower. My lips brush over the head, my tongue darting out to taste the drop. His cock twitches in my hands, his breath hissing out between his teeth. The reaction—that small, involuntary crack in his control—lights me up from the inside out.

Another bead forms, and I seal my lips around him and suck gently, my nerves jangling with each slow, exploratory movement, each one teaching me something new about him. About the power I have, right here on my knees, that I didn’t expect to feel.

A groan rumbles out of him, deep and raw, and the sound resonates through the floor of my belly like a struck chord. My thighs press harder together, the ache unbearable now, but I don’t stop. I sink lower, taking him deeper, testing to see just how much of him I can handle. His hand fists in my hair, tugging and guiding my head the exact way he wants. I let him lead me. Then I tighten my grip on the base and drag my teeth lightly over his flesh. The sound that rips out of him soaks my pussy even more, and I suck harder, sliding my lips up and down his length, loving the way he throbs against my tongue.

He uses his grip on my hair to try and pull me back, but this time I fight it. I want him deeper, thicker in my mouth, his taste filling me. I want him to come on my tongue. I push forward, taking him until he brushes the back of my throat and I gag reflexively—but the half-growl, half-curse it wrings from him makes it worth it.

My hand slips into his pants, going lower to cup his balls, rolling them gently in my palm. His whole body jerks, his curses spilling out harsher, more desperate, and I know I’ve pushed him closer than he wants to go. I feel the exact moment his control snaps—his body tensing like a coiled spring, his hand clamping around my arm as he yanks my head back. He slips out of my mouth with an obscene pop from the suction I’d created, and the sound makes him groan like it physically hurts. My lips are wet, swollen, my chest heaving as I look up at him. His eyes are wild, darker than I’ve ever seen them, his breath ragged. Good.

In a blur, he’s on his feet, towering over me. The next second, I’m lifted in his arms, carried to the bed like I weigh nothing at all. My stomach flips with every step he takes. Then the mattress hits my back, and I barely register the ceiling before he’s pulling the leather cuffs from the nightstand drawer. My pulse spikes at the sight of them, my body clenching before my brain has even caught up. He grabs my waist and flips me onto my stomach, pushing me face-first into the mattress. My arms are wrenched behind my back, the cuffs snapping shut around my wrists.

I should resist. Some distant, sensible part of me knows that. But that part is very far away right now, and my body has already made up its mind.

His chest presses to my back, his breath burning hot against my ear. “I’m going to fuck you now,” he growls. “Shake your head if you don’t want me to.”

The words rip me open. My thighs fall apart on instinct. “Do it,” I moan, my voice already wrecked. “But in exchange⁠—”

His hand cracks against my ass before I can finish. The sting explodes through me, sharp and scorching. I gasp into the mattress, the sound muffled by sheets that already smell like him.

“The only deal we made was for you sucking me off,” he says roughly. “I’m not negotiating for this.”

The bed shifts as he starts to move back, pulling away from me. Panic slices through the heat so fast I see white. No, no, no. Not again. I can’t handle being left empty and aching again. I twist against the restraints, my head snapping back to glare at him over my shoulder, voice breaking into something between a growl and a plea. “Don’t you dare leave me hanging again, Vanya.”

I’m not thinking about bargains or my brother anymore. All I can think about is him—inside me, taking me, finishing what he started. What he started the moment he ran into me at Zvezda. The showerhead couldn’t compare. The pause that follows feels endless.