"What do you want me to suck, little fox?"
The question hung in the damp air between them, heavy and unhurried, with a lazy smile curling at the corner of his perfect mouth.
He was feigning ignorance and being deliberate about it.
he knew exactly what she wanted. He simply wanted to hear her say it again.
Lexianna ground her teeth until her jaw ached.
In a boardroom, she would have fired him on the spot. Had security drag him out by his collar. Written a strongly worded memo about the experience afterward.
But there was no boardroom here. There was only the jagged stone wall at her back, his dying-star eyes watching her with infuriating patience, the agonizing pulse between her legs, and her own chest, heavy, aching, leaking sweet nectar into the freezing air like a betrayal she couldn't negotiate her way out of.
Was this even healthy?!
Desperation was a ruthless negotiator. It didn't care about her pride.
She swallowed her dignity whole, and it tasted like ash.
Her hands trembled as she slid her palms under the swollen weight of her bare breasts. The friction of her own skin against the painfully sensitive flesh punched a sharp gasp out of her throat. Goosebumps ghosted up her arms. She pushed them up, an offering she resented making, the translucent liquid catching the violet moonlight like something obscene and beautiful.
She met his eyes and refused to look away.
"Please suck my breasts, Lord Arkin."
A smile touched the corner of his mouth.
Not kind. Not warm. The slow, devastating curve of a predator watching the trap snap shut. He could smell the desperation rolling off her skin in waves, all sun-drenched pineapple and wounded pride.
And because he knew he had won, he slowed down.
Every movement became deliberate. Measured. Excruciatingly calm.
His large hands came up and wrapped around her wrist pinning them back against the stone on either side of her head. Removing her hands from the equation and his meal entirely. Taking possession of what he had apparently decided was already his.
Inwardly, he was furious with himself. A fox. A damn fox had him salivating like a pup. He locked that thought behind his teeth and let none of it reach his face.
Lexianna yanked against his grip on reflex, not from fear but from the bone-deep habit of never being the one without the leverage. His hands didn't shift a fraction.
What the fuck was he doing? She thought as she struggled against his hands.
His tail curled around her waist, lifting her onto her toes, closing the last inch of distance between her chest and his mouth.
He paused there.
Just his breath against her skin. Watching the rapid rise and fall of her ribcage. Watching her nine tails curl helplessly around his ankles like they'd already surrendered on her behalf.
She hated them for it.
Then his tongue moved. One slow, deliberate swipe across her left nipple. The relief was so immediate and so violently complete that her eyes rolled back before she could stop them.
A choked groan, humiliating as it sounded, scraped its way out of her throat. The crushing pressure fractioned back, the poison retreating wherever his warmth touched, like it recognized something in him that her pride refused to.
She knew she shouldn't have reacted that way.
She couldn't help it.
Outwardly, Arkin remained perfectly composed. Dark. Unbothered. A statue of absolute authority.
Inwardly, the Wolf was losing his goddamn mind.
The taste exploded on his tongue. Impossibly sweet, tropical sharp, completely out of place in this barren Wasteland pit. The moment the nectar slid down his throat, the erratic, berserk energy that constantly raged in his demonic core went dead silent.
It was a miracle. A drug. A cure wrapped in silver fur and defiance.
He wanted to tear her open. He wanted to drain her until there was nothing left but her bones.
But he held it back.
He locked the beast down with sheer willpower. Because watching this vicious, sharp-tongued little fox unravel under a measured pace was more intoxicating than giving in.
He took her peak fully into his mouth.
Lexianna's spine arched off the stone like a drawn bowstring.
He didn't rush. A slow, rhythmic pull that drew the pressure out of her flesh beat by beat. His teeth scraped lightly against the swollen peak, a warning and a promise, before his tongue soothed what he'd bitten.
Fuck, why was he so good with it...
When she tried to push deeper into his mouth, chasing the relief, trying to force him faster, he simply pulled back.
Just enough to deny her.
"Patience," he murmured against her damp skin.
The word vibrated straight down her spine.
Internally she was screaming as she watched his lips stained with her milk.
Telling me to be patient, with your face soaked with my juices should put you behind bars!
She wanted to bite him.
His mouth moved to her other breast, granting it the same unhurried attention. His free hand released her wrist and began to wander, her ribs, waist, the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, lingering just long enough to unsettle her before moving on.
Never once touching where the ache had become unbearable.
She hated that he knew. She hated that her hips were shifting on their own, seeking friction he was actively withholding. She hated being a passenger in her own body.
She had always held the leash. Set the terms. Dictated the time line.
"Haa~ fuck," she gasped, the words dissolving into a whimper as he pinched her clit and rolled her nipples, precise and merciless, wringing sounds from her she wouldn't be documenting anywhere.
His hand moved back, wrapping fully around her breast, kneading the heavy flesh in a firm, possessive grip that coaxed more nectar forward. He swallowed and for just a moment his composure cracked, a dark, ragged groan vibrating in his chest, before he pulled away from her chest entirely.
He then captured her lips.
It wasn't gentle. It was hungry and slightly messy and completely without apology. He tasted like strawberries and the sharp sweetness of her own pineapple essence. His tongue swept through her mouth with the same unhurried ownership he'd applied to everything else.
She kissed him back.
She hated that she kissed him back. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders hard enough to leave marks, which was the only revenge available to her at present.
Her tails had wrapped around him entirely now, pulling his hips flush against hers. Through the silk trousers she could feel the hard, unapologetic evidence that his composure was considerably more fragile than he was performing.
Good, she thought, with dim, desperate satisfaction.
The heat in her core reached a fever pitch. The poison was a distant memory. The pit was irrelevant. She braced herself, breathing ragged against his mouth, her whole body coiled tight with anticipation waiting for the moment he would finally close the remaining distance and end this.
And they would go their separate ways.
But then he stopped.
Not abruptly. Not with a flinch or a stumble.
Deliberately. Like he had always planned to stop exactly here.
He broke the kiss. Removed his hand from her breast. Stepped back half a pace.
The cold air of the ravine rushed in immediately, hitting her wet skin everywhere he'd just been.
Lexianna blinked. What just happened right now?
Her silver eyes took a moment to focus. She felt like someone had pulled the plug mid-current, strung tight and vibrating with nowhere for it to go. she stared up at him, dazed, furious, and humiliatingly transparent about both.
Arkin looked down at her. His eyes were completely lucid. The hunger was still there, burning behind his irises like a furnace, but the leash was firmly in his hand.
"We are not finishing this here," he said quietly.
Lexianna blinked, dumbfounded. What did he mean by not finishing this here?
Anger flared hot and immediate in her chest, crashing straight into the desperate, hollow ache throbbing between her legs. She opened her mouth to curse him, to demand he finish what he'd started, to tell him exactly where he could redirect his controlled, measured, infuriating—
He reached down.
In one fluid motion, Arkin lifted her clean off the ground, settling her against his broad chest like he had already made his decision and her opinion was none of his business. His heavy fur coat shifted, draping over her bare, shivering form, cutting off the cold.
His scent wrapped around her completely. Warm. Steady. Infuriating.
The darkness consumed her, just as a dark mist curled up from the ground swallowing the jagged rocks, the violet sky and the entire wretched pit until there was nothing left but darkness and the sound of her own heartbeat.
Lexianna pressed her face into his chest. Her fingernails found the lapel of his coat and held on.
Shit, I walked straight into his trap.