Damian didn’t step back. He remained towering over her, his uninjured arm braced flat on the desk beside her hip, trapping her completely in the suffocating perimeter of his heat.
Ana’s chest rose and fell in ragged breaths. A toxic, burning storm of grief and fury swirled behind her dark eyes as she stared up at him.
"Why do you even care?" Ana challenged, her voice trembling with raw, bitter defiance. "You spent four years treating me like dirt under your heel. You called me a parasite, a debt to be collected, a reminder of everything your father lost! Why bleed for a slave you claim to despise?"
Damian’s jaw ticked, a violent flare of darkness consuming his obsidian eyes.
Without a word, his large right hand shot out, capturing both of her wrists in a bruising, unbreakable grip and pinning them firmly against the dark mahogany behind her.
He leaned in until his lips brushed the curve of her ear, his deep baritone dropping into a low, predatory rasp.
"You want to know why?"
Damian growled, his knuckles flexing against the wood.
"Because I don’t give a damn about your father’s sins, and I don’t give a damn about Dante Sullivan’s syndicate. You are in my house, wearing my name, and I would burn this entire city to the ground before I let another man breathe the air near you."
He released her wrists, reached down into the top drawer of his desk, and pulled out a heavy velvet-lined box.
With cold, deliberate precision, he extracted a flawless, emerald-cut diamond ring flanked by black sapphires... the Sterling family signet piece she had taken off the night their sham of a marriage fractured.
Before Ana could pull away, Damian caught her left hand in his calloused palm. With slow, unyielding force, he slid the heavy platinum band back onto her ring finger, pushing it down until it rested firmly against her skin.
"Look at it," Damian commanded, his fingers curling tight around hers, forcing her hand flat against his bare, heavily bandaged chest right over his pounding heart. "Every syndicate from here to the coast knows that crest. You walk into this city marked as mine, Anastasia. Untouchable."
Ana looked down at the glittering ring against his scarred skin, her pulse hammering wildly in her throat. The terrifying weight of his obsession filled the room, stripping away the last remnants of her defenses.
"You said you’d make me pay for my father’s crimes until I broke," Ana whispered, her breath hitching as she looked back up into the bottomless depths of his dark gaze. "You said you despised every drop of Vance blood in my veins."
Damian stared down at her flushed, tear-stained face, his thumb rising to trace the soft curve of her jawline with bruising intensity.
"I did," Damian murmured, his voice dipping into a dark, raw register that sent a shiver straight down her spine. "I hated the ghost of your family. I hated the debt. But I don’t despise you anymore, Anastasia. Not like I used to."
He leaned down, his lips brushing mere millimeters from hers, parting them with the fierce heat of his breath.
"You are my collateral. My possession," Damian whispered against her mouth, a lethal, uncompromising vow carving through the silence. "And I will have you to myself, no matter what."
The dark, suffocating gravity of his words hung between them for only a fraction of a second before Damian closed the distance completely.
His mouth crashed down onto hers with ruthless, unchecked hunger.
There was no hesitation, no mercy in the kiss... only pure, unadulterated claim. His uninjured hand tangled violently into her dark hair, wrenching her head back as his tongue parted her lips, drinking in her breathless, ragged gasp.
With a low, possessive growl vibrating in his chest, Damian gripped her waist and effortlessly hoisted her up onto the edge of the mahogany desk, scattering the scattered financial files and legal dockets across the floor.
He stepped directly between her parted thighs, his towering, bandaged frame pressing her flat against the cool wood beneath her back.
Ana’s hands instinctively flew to his broad shoulders, her fingers digging into the firm muscle of his uninjured side.
The sheer heat radiating off his bare skin seared straight through her clothes, the dark intoxication of his scent... cedar, and untamed adrenaline... completely overpowering the last shred of rational thought in her head.
"Damian..." she breathed against his mouth, a trembling mix of surrender and defiance. "Your stitches..."
"To hell with the stitches," Damian rasped against her lips, his voice thick and feral.
His mouth broke away from hers, trailing down the soft curve of her jaw and pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the exposed column of her throat.
He found the sweet, sensitive hollow where her pulse hammered wildly and bit down with deliberate, bruising pressure, claiming her skin with teeth and tongue until a deep, dark mark bloomed against her pale flesh.
Ana let out a breathless, fractured cry, her back arching off the desk as an electric jolt shot straight through her spine. Her fingers tangled tightly into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer even as her chest heaved.
Damian lifted his head, his hooded obsidian eyes completely consumed by a dark, predatory fire.
He reached down with his calloused thumb, slowly tracing the fresh, red bruise he had carved into the crook of her neck, admiring his handiwork with ruthless satisfaction.
"Let Dante Sullivan come," Damian whispered, his deep, gravelly voice washing over her parted lips like a dark promise. "Let every bastard in the capital look at you. The moment they see this mark, they will know exactly whose name is carved into your soul."
A sharp, ragged hiss escaped Damian’s teeth as he pulled back a fraction, his broad chest heaving.
Ana’s gaze immediately snapped down from the dark, intoxicating blaze in his eyes to the pristine white bandages wrapped around his torso.
A stark, blossoming stain of crimson was rapidly soaking through the gauze over his left ribs. The sheer physical strain of hoisting her onto the heavy desk and pinning her with his full weight had finally torn through the fresh, delicate suturing.
"Damian!" Ana gasped, the lingering haze of heat evaporating instantly into pure panic.
She pushed against his uninjured shoulder, scrambling upright on the desk as her hands hovered frantically over the fresh bleed. "I told you to stop! You’re bleeding through the dressing!"
Damian merely let out a low, gravelly grunt, an unbothered, dangerous smirk still lingering on his lips despite the obvious throb of pain running through his side.
He leaned one hip casually against the desk, looking at the blood on his bandages as though it were nothing more than spilled wine.
"A minor inconvenience, doll," he murmured, his dark eyes still locked onto the red mark blooming against her throat. "Worth every drop."
"Be quiet," Ana snapped, her voice trembling with a mix of fury and terror as she slid off the edge of the desk, smoothing her disheveled clothes with shaking hands.
She turned on her heel and threw open the heavy study doors.
Walter was standing in the corridor, instantly snapping to attention at the sharp sound of the wood hitting the wall.
His stoic eyes widened slightly as he took in Ana’s flushed face, the fresh bruise on her neck, and the dark red stain spreading across Damian’s chest inside the study.
"Walter, get the surgeon back to the estate right now!" Ana ordered, her tone brooking no argument as her voice echoed down the hall. "He tore his stitches open, and the bleeding isn’t stopping!"
Walter gave a crisp, immediate nod. "Calling the doctor’s team right away, ma’am."
"Anastasia," Damian called out from behind her, his deep, commanding tone laced with dark amusement despite the sharp sting in his ribs. "Stop barking orders at my head of security."
Ana turned back into the study, slamming the double doors shut behind her.
She marched straight up to him, her dark eyes blazing with furious reprimand as she grabbed a clean linen handkerchief from his desk and pressed it firmly against the bleeding wound.
"You sit down and keep your mouth shut until the doctor gets here, Mr. Sterling," she said through clenched teeth, leaning her weight into the compress. "Because if this wound gets infected, I will personally finish what Dante’s hitmen started."
Damian didn’t flinch from the pressure.
He simply reached up with his uninjured hand, his fingers casually curling around her wrist over the bloody linen, his thumb stroking her pulse point as a low, wicked chuckle vibrated in his chest.
"I’d like to see you try, doll."
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