Marked by the King

Chapter Eight – Beneath the Surface

Emilia’s POV

I didn’t mean to fall asleep.

Not really.

But when I curled up on the couch, wrapped in the cardigan that still smelled faintly like Logan’s cigarette smoke and lavender detergent, something in my body gave out.

I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I stopped moving.

The TV played low in the background—some documentary I wasn’t listening to. The city outside my window buzzed and howled like it always did. But it all faded. Slowly. Like the world was slipping behind a veil.

And then, I drifted.

Not into sleep.

Into him.

⸻

The first thing I noticed was the silence.

Not peaceful silence.

A charged one.

The kind that comes before a storm hits.

The room I stood in was unfamiliar. Dark gray walls. Dim lighting. Velvet shadows curling around the corners. My cardigan was gone. My feet were bare. My hair, unbraided, hung around my shoulders like a curtain.

But I wasn’t cold.

Because he was here.

Luca.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t move.

Just stood across the room watching me with those obsidian eyes—like I was the only thing in existence that mattered.

And somehow, I understood what this was.

A dream. But not mine alone.

A tether. A thread. Something deeper than thought. A space between us that had never existed until now.

And in that space?

I didn’t feel afraid.

I felt seen.

Wanted.

Claimed.

⸻

He started walking.

Slowly.

Each step deliberate. Grounded. Like a king in his domain. Like the predator who’d finally cornered what he’d been hunting.

I didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

Didn’t want to.

My breath caught when he reached me. Close enough that I could smell him—cedarwood and smoke and something darker, like power wrapped in warmth.

His fingers came to my chin and tilted it upward.

“Say it,” he said.

I blinked.

“What?”

“That you want this.”

“I…” My voice cracked, throat dry.

“I can smell your need, Emilia.”

He said my name like a promise. Like a threat. Like he’d already written it in his blood.

My lips parted, trembling.

And then I whispered, “Yes.”

⸻

He kissed me.

Not gently.

Not softly.

His mouth crashed against mine with a hunger so fierce I gasped into him. His hands gripped my waist, sliding down to lift me effortlessly. My legs wrapped around his hips, and he carried me like I weighed nothing—like possession was his birthright.

I didn’t ask where we were going.

I just held on.

He set me down on something soft. A leather chaise maybe. Or velvet. I didn’t care. My focus was on the way his fingers pushed beneath the hem of my shirt, spreading fire over my ribs, my spine, the trembling skin beneath.

I arched into his touch.

I moaned into his mouth.

And he growled into mine.

“You don’t get to hide anymore,” he said against my lips.

“I’m not hiding,” I breathed.

“You were,” he murmured. “But not from me.”

⸻

The shirt was gone.

I didn’t know when.

He was kissing down my neck, his stubble scraping my collarbone, his mouth hot and wet and insistent. Every place he touched sparked to life like someone striking flint across my skin.

My thighs trembled when he trailed his fingers down my stomach.

He dipped lower.

I gasped.

“You’re wet for me,” he said, voice like smoke. “Even in your dreams.”

“Yes,” I whispered, desperate.

He slid two fingers beneath the waistband of my underwear and brushed lightly over the center of me.

I jerked, breath hitching.

And then he did it again.

Slower.

Deeper.

“I could make you beg,” he said.

“You already are,” I choked out.

His eyes flared.

He kissed me again—brutal and possessive. Tongue plunging, fingers curling, hips pressing against mine like he wanted to fuse us together. He tore my underwear off in a single motion. Tossed it aside like it offended him.

And when he knelt between my legs, he didn’t hesitate.

He kissed me there.

Open.

Wet.

Worshipful.

And when I cried out, bucking, shaking, his grip only tightened.

“You don’t come until I say,” he growled.

I whimpered. “Please…”

His tongue circled, pressed, licked with maddening precision. His voice rumbled between my thighs.

“Hold it.”

“I can’t—”

“You will. Because I said so.”

That should’ve terrified me.

But it didn’t.

It made me burn.

It made me drip.

It made me want to surrender every single part of myself to the man with darkness in his eyes and obsession in his touch.

I tangled my fingers in his hair.

He bit my thigh—just enough to make me gasp.

And then he rose.

Pulled down his pants.

And I saw him.

Hard. Heavy. Pulsing with restraint.

“I dreamed of this,” he said. “Of burying myself so deep inside you, your body forgets any man ever came before me.”

I reached for him.

He caught my wrist.

Pressed it to the pillow above my head.

And then the other.

He held them there.

And slid in.

All at once.

I gasped—half pain, half pleasure, all need.

He didn’t give me time to adjust.

Didn’t ask.

He just moved.

Thrust after thrust, filling me until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t be anything but his.

“Say it,” he rasped. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m—f**k—Luca—”

He went deeper.

Harder.

Until I was sobbing beneath him.

“Yes,” I cried. “Yours. Yours.”

And when I finally came, it was like shattering glass.

I screamed.

I broke.

And he held me together with every brutal thrust.

⸻

When I woke, I was soaked in sweat.

My heart thundered.

My legs shook.

And between them?

Heat.

Wetness.

Need.

It was just a dream.

But my body didn’t know that.

My mind didn’t either.

Because the first word on my tongue—

The one I whispered into the empty room—

Was his name.

“Luca.”

Luca’s POV

Sleep doesn’t come easy to men like me.

Too many ghosts.

Too many memories.

Too much blood on the walls of my mind.

But that night, something pulled me under.

Not gently.

Not like rest.

Like drowning.

And at the bottom of that dark sea… she was there.

⸻

Emilia.

Naked.

Kneeling.

Waiting.

⸻

The room was one I’d never seen before—limestone walls, a roaring fire, thick shadows clinging to the corners like they belonged there. But I didn’t care about the space.

She was the only thing in it that mattered.

Her eyes were wide but not afraid. Her lips were parted, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Her knees pressed into the cold floor. Her wrists were bound—not tightly, but willingly. Black silk ribbon. My favorite.

She had tied them for me.

I could see it in her expression.

She wanted this.

She wanted me.

⸻

I stepped forward slowly.

I didn’t speak.

Not yet.

Didn’t want to break the tension.

Didn’t want to shatter the obedience I saw blooming across her face like a bruise she wanted to wear.

She kept her eyes down.

Good girl.

⸻

When I finally touched her, it was her mouth I claimed first.

I gripped her jaw, firm but not rough, and pressed my thumb to her bottom lip.

“Open.”

She did.

No hesitation.

I slid two fingers inside—slow, deep, letting her taste me.

She moaned around them.

And I nearly lost control.

⸻

I lifted her to her feet.

Dragged her wrists up above her head and hooked the ribbon to a low chain hanging from the ceiling.

It was dream logic. None of it real. But the heat in my blood didn’t know that.

I stepped back and looked at her.

Her arms stretched above her head, back arched, body trembling—not from fear, but anticipation.

My c**k throbbed at the sight.

“You don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

She nodded.

“Say it.”

“I don’t speak unless you tell me to,” she whispered.

My smile was slow. Dangerous.

“Good.”

⸻

I circled her once.

Let my fingers trail down the curve of her spine.

She shivered.

When I reached the front, I cupped her breasts in both hands—thumbs brushing over her n*****s until they peaked.

She was gasping already.

“You want me to touch you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You want me to use you?”

“Yes, Luca.”

That name.

On her tongue.

It did something to me.

Lit something in the center of my chest I hadn’t felt in years.

And I wasn’t going to put it out.

⸻

I dropped to my knees.

Tasted her.

Made her scream.

Her thighs shook as I devoured her, one hand gripping her bound wrists, the other pressing her hips forward so she couldn’t escape.

Not that she tried.

She rocked into my mouth.

Wetting my lips. My chin. Moaning like she was losing herself.

And when I stopped—just before she came—she whimpered in frustration.

I stood.

Unzipped my pants.

Let her watch as I stroked myself.

Slow. Cruel.

“You want this?”

She nodded frantically.

“Say it.”

“I want you. Please.”

I gripped her throat—not hard. Just enough to feel her breath catch.

“You belong to me now,” I said.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes.”

⸻

I pressed into her in one long, relentless thrust.

Her body bowed.

A broken prayer.

A perfect offering.

I didn’t move for a moment.

Just stayed inside her.

Felt the way she clenched.

The way she welcomed the stretch, the fullness.

Then I pulled back—

—and slammed into her again.

Harder.

Deeper.

She cried out.

Music.

I f****d her like a man possessed. Like this wasn’t a dream but the only truth I’d ever known.

Her arms pulled against the ribbon. Her legs shook.

But she didn’t beg me to stop.

She begged me to go harder.

So I did.

I held her hips.

Bit her shoulder.

Left a mark on her collarbone.

One no other man would ever erase.

Not even in her mind.

⸻

“You don’t need to be afraid anymore,” I whispered in her ear.

“I’m not.”

“You’re mine now.”

“I know.”

⸻

Her body seized around me as she came—tight, wet, sobbing my name into the firelit air.

I followed seconds later.

Spilling inside her with a growl that tore through my throat like a war cry.

⸻

And when it was done, I didn’t let her go.

I held her.

Kissed the top of her head.

Stroked her back until the tremors faded.

Because even in a dream… I couldn’t stop touching her.

⸻

When I woke, it was still dark.

The sheets were damp.

My hands clenched.

My c**k still aching with aftershocks.

But the worst part?

I wasn’t satisfied.

Because it hadn’t been real.

Not yet.

⸻

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the shadows.

And all I could think about was one thing.

Not the s*x.

Not the sounds.

Not the way she came undone beneath me.

But the way she said my name.

Luca.

Like it meant something.

Like it mattered.

Like she already knew she belonged to me.

And maybe she did.

Even if she didn’t understand it yet.

She would.

Soon.