Chapter 2: Claimed Anew: The Prince's Second Ruining
The world had narrowed to the slick, desperate rhythm of their bodies. Malik moved above him, a study in controlled ferocity, each thrust a punctuation mark in a sentence Gavriel couldn’t read. The pleasure was a white-hot brand, searing away thought, but somewhere in the molten core of it, a new impulse sparked.
Gavriel’s hands, which had been gripping the silk sheets, flew up to clutch at Malik’s hips. “Wait,” he gasped, the word ripped from him.
Malik didn’t stop. His pace was relentless, his eyes half-lidded and distant.
“Malik, wait.”
This time, the name, the raw plea in it, caught him. Malik stilled, buried deep inside him, his body a tense bowstring. A faint sheen of sweat gleamed on his chest. He looked down, his green eyes sharpening back into focus, searching Gavriel’s face with an expression that was purely, genuinely startled. Annoyance flickered there, but underneath it, something else—curiosity, thrown off its axis.
“What?” The single word was breathless, a rarity for him.
Gavriel’s heart hammered against his ribs. He didn’t have a plan, only a sudden, visceral need. “You,” he managed, his voice rough. “I want… let me.”
He shifted, wincing at the movement, and Malik, with a fluid grace that seemed instinctual, withdrew and rolled onto his back beside him. The cool air hit Gavriel’s feverish skin. He pushed himself up on trembling arms, looking down at Malik, who watched him with an unnerving stillness. The power dynamic, so absolute a moment ago, now hung suspended in the thick air between them.
Hesitantly, Gavriel reached out. His fingers brushed Malik’s stomach, tracing the defined lines of muscle, then lower, wrapping around him. Malik was hard, velvet over steel. Gavriel’s touch was clumsy, unpracticed.
A soft, bitten-off sound escaped Malik’s lips. It wasn’t a moan of passion, but something more profound—a surrender of control. His eyes widened, just for a fraction of a second, before his lashes fluttered closed. “Oh,” he breathed, the sound almost lost.
Encouraged, Gavriel moved, swinging a leg over Malik’s hips to straddle him. The position was new, dominant. He could feel Malik beneath him, completely at his mercy. For a suspended moment, they just stared at each other. Gavriel saw his own reflection—flushed, uncertain, alive—in Malik’s dark pupils. He saw Malik seeing him, truly seeing him, not as a conquest but as a person in this moment.
Slowly, Gavriel ground down against him, a slow, experimental circle of his hips. The friction was exquisite, a different kind of heat. Malik’s hands came up to grip his thighs, his fingers pressing into the muscle, not guiding, just holding on.
“Go on,” Malik whispered, his voice stripped of its usual lacquer. It was raw. “Take it.”
Gavriel lifted himself up, reached between them to guide himself, and sank down. The feeling of fullness, of being the one in control, was dizzying. He watched Malik’s face as he entered him. Saw the sharp intake of breath, the way his lips parted, the genuine, unguarded shock of pleasure that shattered his composed mask.
Malik moaned. It was a loud, unfiltered sound that seemed to surprise even him. His head tipped back against the pillows, exposing the long, elegant line of his throat.
Emboldened, Gavriel began to move. It was awkward at first, an uncoordinated rise and fall, but he found a rhythm. Malik’s hands slid up to grip his hips, his thumbs digging in.
“Yes,” Malik hissed, his eyes open again, blazing up at him. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”
The praise was a lightning strike to Gavriel’s core. He moved faster, driven by the words, by the sight of Malik coming undone beneath him. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on Malik’s chest, feeling the frantic heartbeat under his palms. Their sweat-slick skin slid together. The sounds in the room were different now—Gavriel’s ragged breaths, the slap of skin, Malik’s low, encouraging curses.
“You feel… you feel incredible,” Gavriel choked out, the truth of it overwhelming him.
Malik’s answering smile was wild, almost feral. He bucked his hips up, meeting Gavriel’s downward strokes, driving him deeper. The friction became unbearable, a coiling spring ready to snap.
“Gavriel,” Malik growled, a warning and a plea.
It was the use of his full name that did it. The climax tore through Gavriel with a violence that blurred his vision. He cried out, a sound ripped from a place he didn’t know he had, his body seizing as he spilled himself inside Malik.
He collapsed forward, shuddering, but Malik’s hands on his hips kept him in place. Malik was still moving, his own rhythm becoming frantic, desperate. He rocked up into Gavriel, chasing his own release through the aftershocks of Gavriel’s. His breaths were short, sharp gasps. His perfect control was in tatters.
With a final, deep thrust and a guttural sound that was almost a sob, Malik found his end. His body arched, rigid for a long moment before melting back into the mattress, utterly spent.
Silence.
It was a different silence than before. Not empty, but full—of the echo of their sounds, the scent of sex and salt, the weight of what had just shifted.
Gavriel, his strength gone, rolled off to the side. He lay on his back, staring at the canopy, his chest heaving. He felt shattered. Remade.
After a long minute, he felt Malik turn his head on the pillow. Gavriel turned to meet his gaze.
Malik looked… unraveled. His hair was a dark mess against the linen. His eyes held a dazed, unfamiliar softness. He studied Gavriel’s face, his own expression unreadable again, but the calculation was slower to return.
One of his hands lifted, as if against its own will, and his fingertips brushed a damp strand of hair from Gavriel’s forehead. The touch was feather-light, almost reverent. It lingered for a second before his hand fell back to the sheet between them.
He didn’t speak. He just looked, and in that look, Gavriel sensed the ground crumbling beneath both of them.