The Reaper (Dark Verse #2)

by RuNyx

While he couldn’t see the girl, hidden as she was behind the tall frame of her lover, he knew exactly where she was, just as he’d known all these years.

Had The Predator turned around, he would have

seen him easily. But one of the best hunters in the mob was distracted by the woman.

He was emotionally invest...

It was her first time in his car, a gorgeous black BMW she was slightly envious of if she was being honest.

That tiny piece of jewelry dancing freely between them – the silver that bore the imprint of and had once belonged to his beloved baby sister – said more about him than anything else ever could. So much pain, so much rage, so many scars…

Its very existence in the car told her it was very, very private.

And she realized – just like he’d done at his penthouse that first night of the rain when he’d decreed she would stay at his apartment rather than leave with Dante – he’d let her into his territory. Again. Even after making a choice she could not even begin to fathom.

she would have him again one day—this time as naked as she would be, this time with his flesh against her, his sweat, his scent, his scars rubbing on her as she marked him with hers.

He would be her ruin. And she would ruin him right back.

But now was not t...

A novelty. Because she had fallen down the stairs and he had punished her father. Because she had gone missing and he had walked into the lion’s den and burned it and made it out unscathed.

Having been alone for all her existence, with the knowledge that nobody would break a sweat if she disappeared, the fact that this man—the man who had hated her for twenty years of his life—had broken flesh made her heart clench in a way she’d never experienced before, in a way she could not understand. Only feel.

“She comes with me.”

“It’s not retaliation against you that I worry about,” Dante clarified. “It’s her. For doing what he couldn’t ever do.”

His finger, ghosting over her wound. It wasn’t a light touch. It wasn’t a touch at all. It just was.

That ghost finger, never really touching her, pushed back a strand of her hair and exposed the entire line of her throat and naked shoulder to his perusal.

This… this was… enlivening her. The ghost finger traced the shell of her ear.

And then, the ghost touch stopped at her lips. Fragile purchase lost.

She felt ravaged. On the inside. On the outside. And he’d not even touched her.

And she was soaked.

In a way, she’d never, ever been. Completely, utterly soaking wet.

Panting, she rubbed her clit with her thumb, just once. And exploded. Gloriously.

It was rapture. It was ecstasy. It was delirium.

God, how had this even happened? He’d not even touched her, not made a sound, and yet she’d been dripping wet. It frightened her. It thrilled her. It enlivened her. He enlivened her.

And her heart stilled. He was there. In the darkness.

Leaning against the wall beside the window. Hands in his trouser pockets.

Tie undone, hanging over his collar. And those magnificent eyes blazing on her. He was there. He’...

Blushing till her roots, she held his gaze, her eyes drifting down for a moment towards the big bulge tenting the front of his trousers, before coming back up to his, the knowledge of having aroused him while taking care of herself electrifying her, titillating something reckless inside her.

“He will never let you be, Morana. You both are bound together by things I don’t even think both of you understand. However, the question is do you want him to let you be?”

“Breathe.” She blinked, trying to clear the black away.

Blue. Clear blue. Magnificent blue.

She tethered herself to them, not daring to blink lest she drowned again, not daring to look elsewhere lest that anchor was gone.

Slowly, eventually, she came back to herself. Slowly, eventually, she became aware of everything. Became aware of him. Restraining her. Tethering her. Surrounding her. She became aware of her body still on the stool, of her legs spread apart to accommodate his form between them.

She felt protected. Safe. Untouchable.

“You had a panic attack,”

And that Tristan Caine had, in fact, saved her from her own head.

Morana looked at the bar of chocolate, her eyes flying towards the man extending it towards her, stunned. He was giving her chocolate. Like it was nothing. Just sliding a bar of chocolate over to her before walking away.

“You don’t owe these people a thing.”

“And I sure as fuck don’t. Don’t let them control you.”

“I mean you staying. Any other woman would have been running for the hills by now. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done had you run. Because he would have chased you, you know.”

“I know.” “What are you doing, Morana?”

“what’s between him and me is between him and me. As you told Amara last night, if he wants to tell you, he will. You won’t hear anything from me.”

“But because your heart is in the right place,” she uttered quietly, “I will tell you this—I don’t want to fix him. I want to fix me. And he’s the only thing that seems to be working.” “So,” Dante asked, his voice controlled, hand clenching around the glass, “you’re just using him then?”

“And is he not using me? To fight whatever demons live inside him?”

“His demons dance with mine,” she murmured softly, the truth of that statement seeping into her pores. “That’s all I can give you.”

“prizes one thing above all else—control. Control over his empire, control over his puppets, control over his family. And you know the one person he’s never been able to control?” ‘You try to leash me, I’ll fucking strangle you with it.’

“Tristan Caine,” she whispered,

But the thought, the mere thought of him being someone else’s while he kissed her the way he had, while he had taken her mouth and shared something real with her hurt.

She knew how to swim with sharks without bleeding, and Lorenzo Maroni was a shark on top of the food chain.