Chapter 1: Claimed: The First Stretch
The room was warm, thick with the smell of sex and sweat and the vanilla candle she’d lit hours ago. A single lamp glowed amber in the corner, painting long shadows across the rumpled sheets of the king-sized bed. Jace traced the line of Stephanie’s spine, his calloused fingertips following the dip and curve of her back. She shivered, turning her face into the pillow.
“Tickles,” she murmured, her voice husky.
He didn’t answer, just bent and pressed his mouth to the knob of her vertebra, tasting salt on her skin. His other hand slid around her hip, palming the soft curve of her stomach, pulling her back against him. He was already hard again, his cock nudging the cleft of her ass. She arched into the touch, a low sound escaping her.
“Again?” she breathed, a laugh tangled in the word.
“Can’t help it.” His voice was a low rumble against her ear as he shifted over her, his weight settling in the cradle of her thighs. He gathered her messy blonde hair in one hand, gently pulling it to the side to expose the nape of her neck. He kissed her there, where her pulse fluttered. “You feel too good.”
She turned her head, found his mouth with hers. The kiss was slow, deep, a languid exploration that quickly turned hungry. He could taste the wine they’d shared, the sharpness of her need matching his own. His hand left her hair, skating down her arm to intertwine his fingers with hers, pinning her hand gently beside her head.
He broke the kiss, his green eyes dark in the low light. “Look at you.”
“Look at you,” she shot back, her brown eyes sparkling even now, full of that challenge he loved. She rocked her hips back, taking him inch by incredible inch.
A rough groan was torn from his chest. He released her hand to grip her hip, his fingers digging in. “Fuck, Steph.”
“That’s the idea,” she whispered, pushing back again.
Control, always a thin leash for him, began to slip. He leaned over her, his inked chest pressing against her back, the dragon on his shoulder blade seeming to writhe in the lamplight. He used his weight to anchor her, his other hand coming up to cup her jaw, tilting her face back toward his.
“You want it like this?” he asked, his voice gravel.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
She swallowed. “I want it. I want you. Just like this.”
That was all he needed. He shifted, guiding himself to her entrance. She was dripping wet, hot, and he pushed in with a single, relentless thrust that stole the breath from both of them. Her back bowed, a sharp cry muffled by the pillow.
“Oh god, Jace.”
He was buried to the hilt, his own vision hazing at the sensation. He held himself there, trembling with the effort, letting her adjust to the overwhelming stretch. He bent his head, his lips against the shell of her ear. “Tight little cunt. Taking me so deep. You feel that?”
She could only nod, a strangled sob of pleasure catching in her throat.
He began to move, a slow, devastating roll of his hips. Each withdrawal was agonizing, each drive back in a conquest. His hand fisted in her hair again, not to hurt, but to possess, to hold her right where he wanted her. The sounds were filthy, wet, obscenely perfect.
“That’s it, baby,” he growled, his pace increasing. The bedframe tapped a steady rhythm against the wall. “Take it. You’re made for this. Made for me.”
Her words were a broken stream. “More… please, I need…”
“You need what?” He slammed home, grinding deep, making her see stars.
“I need you to fuck me. Harder. Please, Jace.”
He snarled, the last of his restraint incinerated. The pace became punishing, a brutal, piston-like drive that had her screaming into the sheets. His hips snapped against her ass, the slap of skin on skin echoing in the room. He was everywhere—his scent, his strength, the sheer size of him splitting her open. She was fracturing around him, her nails scrabbling for purchase on the headboard.
“Come on,” he urged, his breath scorching her neck. “Let go. I want to feel you come on my cock.”
He reached around, his fingers finding her clit, swollen and desperate. Two rough circles and she shattered, her body clamping around him in violent, pulsing waves. Her cry was raw, unfiltered, his.
The sight of her coming undone, the sensation of her milking him, was too much. His thrusts turned erratic, brutal, chasing his own release. He drove into her one last time, deep, as deep as he could possibly go, seating himself fully with a triumphant, guttural grunt as he spilled into her, his own shout lost against her skin.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. He collapsed over her, careful to keep most of his weight on his arms. She was limp beneath him, her fingers loosening their death-grip on the headboard to weakly stroke the damp, ink-streaked skin of his forearm.
He nuzzled her neck, placing a soft, utterly tender kiss just below her ear—a stark contrast to the carnality of moments before. “Okay?” he murmured.
She hummed, a contented, drowsy sound. “Mmm. Never better.”
He withdrew slowly, both of them wincing at the sensitivity, and rolled to his side, pulling her with him. She curled into his chest, her leg thrown over his hips, her face tucked under his chin. He dragged the tangled sheet up over them, his hand making slow, idle circles on the small of her back.
Outside, a car alarm whooped once and went silent. The candle flame guttered in a draft. In the dim sanctuary of their room, they drifted, anchored only to each other.
In the dim sanctuary of their room, they drifted, anchored only to each other.
The peace didn’t last. It rarely did.
Jace came home the next evening with a storm locked behind his teeth. Stephanie heard the door slam, the keys thrown onto the counter with a violent rattle. She was kneading dough at the kitchen island, flour dusting her forearms.
“Hey,” she said, her voice cautious. She didn’t need to see his face. The air around him was sharp, electric with contained violence. “Rough day at the shop?”
He stood in the doorway, his shoulders blocking the light from the hall. The intricate black tattoos on his arms seemed darker, like storm clouds. He didn’t answer right away, just stared at her with those piercing green eyes, now black with fury.
“Some rich fuck,” Jace finally said, the words clipped. “Wanted a full sleeve. Started lecturing me on technique. Tried to touch the needle while I was working. Told him to get the fuck out.” He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture tight with frustration. “Then he called you a name.”
Stephanie’s hands stilled in the dough. “What did he call me?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Jace pushed off the doorway. The controlled way he moved was more frightening than if he’d shouted. “I wanted to put his head through the plate glass window. I wanted to break every bone in his goddamn hand.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.” He stopped in front of her, his gaze burning over her face, her throat, the apron tied around her waist. The raw need in his eyes wasn’t for sex. Not purely. It was for obliteration. “I walked away. I came home. To you.”
She understood. This was the price of his control. The energy had to go somewhere. It always came to her.
“Okay,” she whispered, wiping her hands on a towel.
He was on her before the towel hit the counter. His mouth crashed down on hers, a claiming, a punishment for the world. He tasted like coffee and rage. He lifted her onto the island, sending a bowl of flour crashing to the floor in a silent, white cloud. He didn’t notice. His hands shoved her thighs apart, his fingers hooking into the waistband of her cotton shorts and panties, dragging them down her legs in one rough pull.
“Jace, wait—”
He didn’t. He was beyond words. He fumbled with his belt, his jeans, his briefs, his cock springing free, already fully hard and angry. He spat into his palm, pumped himself twice, and notched the thick, blunt head of his cock against her. She wasn’t ready. She was dry, tight with surprise.
He pushed.
A sharp, burning cry tore from her throat. Her nails dug into his shoulders, scrambling against the ink. “Jace, it hurts—”
“I know,” he gritted out, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath searing. He didn’t stop. He pushed again, a ruthless, tearing inch, stretching her unprepared flesh. “Take it. Take it for me.”
He was inside, a brutal, invasive pressure. Tears sprang to her eyes. She struggled, her body clenching in protest, trying to push him out. He held her hips immobile, his grip iron, and sank the rest of the way home with a low, animal groan.
She gasped, a ragged, wet sound. The pain was a bright, shocking line. But beneath it, familiar. His. The struggle was part of it. She forced a breath out, then another, willed her body to soften, to open. She had learned this. How to take him when he was like this. How to make room for the storm.
“There,” he murmured, feeling the minute surrender in her muscles. He began to move.
It was a harsh, mechanical rhythm. No tenderness, no art. Just deep, punishing drives. The slap of his pelvis against her bare skin was loud in the quiet kitchen. Each thrust shoved her back on the cold granite. She braced her hands behind her, her arms trembling.
He fucked her with a single-minded intensity, his eyes locked on where their bodies joined, watching himself disappear into her again and again. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked wildly.
“This cunt,” he growled, his voice ragged. “Mine. He doesn’t get to talk about you. He doesn’t get to fucking look at you.”
“Yours,” she panted, the word a sob. The pain was transmuting, melting into a terrible, overwhelming fullness. Her body was adjusting, slickening, forced to accept him. A low heat coiled in her belly, shameful and inevitable.
“Say it again.”
“Yours. Only yours.” The words broke on a particularly deep thrust.
He snarled in satisfaction, his pace becoming even more ruthless, a relentless piston. One hand came up to fist in her hair, yanking her head back to expose her throat. He bit the column of it, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to mark. Enough to claim.
She was coming apart, her cries turning from pain to something else, something desperate and pleading. The coil snapped. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and unexpected, her inner muscles convulsing around his driving cock in fierce, rhythmic clenches.
“Fuck, yes,” he hissed.
The force of her climax seemed to feed his own, pushing him closer to the edge. He felt that familiar, tightening pull low in his belly, the urgent need to spill into her hot, clenching cunt. But a harder, darker impulse overrode it. This wasn’t about release. Not yet. This was about punishment. About possession. About burning the whole fucking day out of his system.
He slid out of her abruptly, the sudden emptiness making her whimper. Her body was slick with sweat and her own arousal, trembling from the aftershocks.
“Up,” he growled, his voice shredded.
He didn’t give her a chance to comply. His hands grabbed her hips, spinning her roughly on the granite countertop so she faced away from him. He shoved her forward, her torso flat against the cold stone, her ass lifted in the air. Flour puffed up around her, dusting her skin and the dark ink of his hands.
“Jace—”
“Don’t.” It was a command. He kicked her legs wider apart, the stance brutal and exposing. He gripped the base of his cock, thick and purpling with denied release, and rubbed the leaking tip through her slick folds, a taunting, circular pressure that made her shudder. He notched himself at her entrance, still loose and wet from her orgasm, but he didn’t push in. He just held there, a promise of violation.
“This is what you do to me,” he said, the words low and venomous. “You make me this. A fucking animal. Now you take what you made.”
He drove into her in one brutal, deep plunge.
The cry she let out was muffled by her own arm. It was a different stretch this way, deeper, hitting places that made her vision blur. He didn’t pause, didn’t give her a second. He set a punishing pace from the first stroke, each snap of his hips slamming her forward on the counter. His hands clamped on the swell of her ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh, spreading her wider for his use.
The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of flesh, his ragged grunts, the shaky rattle of her breath. He fucked her with a focused, ruthless anger, every thrust a negation of the client, the insult, the whole goddamn world outside this room.
“You think this is just a fuck?” he panted, leaning over her, his chest hot against her back. His mouth was at her ear. “This is me rewriting the whole shit day. Erasing it. With you.”
His pace quickened, becoming almost frantic. One hand left her hip to fist tightly in her messy bun, pulling her head back, arching her spine. The angle changed, and he hit a spot that made her sob, a mixture of pleasure and overwhelm so intense it felt like pain.
“You’re my perfect little fucktoy,” he rasped, his control fraying, his rhythm becoming brutally uneven. “Take it. Take all of me. Gonna ruin this sweet cunt for anyone else.”
He was hammering into her now, the kitchen filled with the violence of it. She was boneless beneath him, reduced to sensation, her cries pitching higher with each lung-searing drive. He was everywhere, his scent, his strength, the unyielding force of his body using hers. She could feel him throbbing inside her, feel the tension coiling in him like a spring, yet he held back, fucking her through another shaking, reluctant crest that left her dripping down her own thighs.
He was breathing like a bull, sweat dripping from his chin onto her back. He was so close. She could feel it in the fevered pump of his hips, the raw, animal sounds tearing from his throat. But he stopped.
Buried to the hilt, he froze. His whole body was a wire pulled taut. A tortured, gritted groan vibrated through him. He held her there, impaled, trembling with the effort of stopping.
After a long, suspended moment, he slowly pulled out.
He leaned against the opposite counter, his chest heaving, his cock jutting out, hard and angry and gleaming. He looked at her, still bent over the island, flushed and used and his.
“Bedroom,” he said, the word a dark promise. “Now.”
He didn’t touch her as they moved down the hall. The space between them crackled, a live wire of unmet need. Stephanie walked ahead, her body aching, every step a reminder of his possession. She heard the heavy fall of his boots right behind her.
The bedroom was as they’d left it—the rumpled sheets, the guttering candle now a pool of wax. The air was still thick.
Before she could turn, his hands were on her. He spun her, backed her up until her legs hit the edge of the mattress. She fell sitting, looking up at him. His face was a mask of hunger, all sharp angles and shadow.
“Lie back,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
She did, scooting until her head found the pillows. He followed her down, a predator claiming its territory. He didn’t kiss her. He stared, his green eyes tracing her face like he was memorizing it, or like he was looking for cracks.
He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing them up and out, spreading her wide. He knelt between them, his gaze dropping to where she was open, wet, and swollen from his use. A low sound rumbled in his chest.
“Look at you,” he muttered, almost to himself. “All fucked out and still ready for me.” He ran a thumb through her slickness, circling her clit with a brutal, perfect pressure that made her hips jerk. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” The word was a breath.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’m still ready for you.”
He pushed two fingers inside her, curling them. “Prove it.”
She arched off the bed, a sharp cry tearing from her throat. He worked his fingers in and out, a mimicry of what was to come, his eyes locked on hers. He was testing her, seeing how much she could take, watching her fall apart under a simple touch. It was humiliation of the most exquisite kind.
“Please, Jace. I need you. Not your fingers. You.”
He withdrew his hand, bringing his glistening fingers to his mouth. He sucked them clean, his eyes never leaving hers. The obscenity of it sent a fresh wave of heat through her.
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of her head. The ink on his arms danced in the faint light. He nudged his cockhead against her, once, twice, a taunt.
“Say it again.”
“Fuck me. Please. I need your cock. I need you to fuck me so hard I forget my own name.”
A grim smile touched his lips. “That’s my girl.”
He drove in. This time, there was no resistance, only a devastating, deep slide. She was so open, so ready, that he sank to the root in one smooth, shocking stroke. Her mouth fell open in a silent scream. He was so deep she felt him in her throat.
He didn’t move. He stayed there, buried, letting her feel every inch, every pulse. His breath was hot on her face.
“Mine,” he growled, and began to move.
This was different from the kitchen. This was slower, deeper, more intentional. Each withdrawal was agony, each return a conquest. He fucked her with a relentless, measured pace that was somehow more overwhelming than his earlier fury. It was a claiming, not just of her body, but of her breath, her thoughts, her will.
He wrapped one hand in her hair, anchoring her. The other hand gripped her hip, his thumb digging into the bone.
“You take me so fucking good,” he rasped, his rhythm never faltering. “This perfect, tight cunt was made for my cock. Tell me you know that.”
“I know it,” she sobbed, her hands clutching at his biceps, feeling the muscles coil and release with each thrust.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You. God, Jace, you.”
His pace quickened, the bedsprings crying out in a steady rhythm. The slap of skin, the wet, sucking sounds of their joining, filled the room. She was close again, the pressure building in a sweet, intolerable coil. He saw it on her face.
“Not yet,” he commanded, slowing almost to a stop.
“I can’t—please—”
“You can. You will. When I say.” He pulled out completely, leaving her empty and clenching at air. A broken whimper escaped her. “On your knees.”
She scrambled, turning over, presenting herself to him. He palmed her ass, squeezing hard.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, dark and possessive. He guided himself back to her entrance and pushed in, a slow, relentless re-entry that stole the breath from her lungs. This angle was deeper, somehow more intimate. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her back onto him with each thrust, his other hand fisting in her hair again.
The control was absolute. He set a pace that was both brutal and reverent, pounding into her, his groans syncopated with the creak of the bed.
“I could die like this,” he grunted into her shoulder. “Buried in you. Only thing that’s ever made sense.”
His words unraveled her. The coil snapped. Her orgasm ripped through her without permission, a violent, shaking wave that clamped down on him. She screamed, the sound raw and endless.
The feeling of her pulsing around him shattered his control. With a final, savage roar, he slammed into her, holding deep as he came. His release was hot and endless, spurting into her, his body shaking with the force of it. He collapsed over her, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his face buried in the sweaty mess of her hair.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing fading into the quiet.
Slowly, carefully, he rolled off her. He didn’t go far, just onto his back beside her, an arm flung over his eyes.
The silence stretched. Stephanie’s body felt liquefied, used, profoundly at peace. She turned her head to look at him. The harsh lines of his face had softened. The anger was gone, spent, leaving behind a hollowed-out exhaustion.
She reached out, her fingers brushing the intricate ink on his forearm—a series of interlocking gears and roses, a monument to some old pain. He flinched, but didn’t pull away.
“Tell me,” she said softly.
He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. The candle finally died with a last wisp of smoke.
“He called you a gold-digging whore,” Jace said, his voice flat and empty in the dark. “Said you were only with me for the ‘bad boy aesthetic’ until something better came along.”
She let out a slow breath. “And you believed him?”
“No.” He turned his head, his green eyes glinting in the faint light from the window. “I wanted to kill him for thinking it. For putting that idea out into the universe about you.” He swallowed, the sound loud. “Sometimes I look at you… and I can’t believe you’re here. With me. This fuck-up.”
She moved then, curling into his side, laying her head on his chest. His heart thudded a steady, slowing rhythm against her ear. “You’re not a fuck-up. You’re mine. And I’m not going anywhere.”
His arm came down, wrapping around her, holding her so tightly it almost hurt. He pressed his lips to the top of her head. The kiss was tender, a stark contrast to everything that had come before. It was the real apology, the only one he knew how to give.
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, a reminder of the world that waited, sharp and chaotic. In here, there was only this: the salt on their skin, the shared heat, the quiet testament of their breathing falling into sync. He had poured his darkness into her, and she had held it, transformed it, given him back a moment’s peace.
It was enough. For now, in the deep, settled dark, it was enough.