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One second he’s glaring at me, the next his hand is on me and I’m being shoved back against the wall just off the main floor. His forearm presses across my throat, and his green eyes are blazing.

“There you are.”

“Shut up.”

“You chased her off,” I say softly. “Then put your hands on me when I threatened to go back. What exactly am I supposed to think, prince?”

“Think whatever you want.” His grip tightens, and I have the obscene urge to wind myself around him until separating us would require a fucking autopsy.

My hand catches his wrist as the other lands at his waist. I turn us in one motion, using his momentum against him before he can brace for it. Suddenly he’s the one against the wall. “Much better.”

Then he does something I don’t expect. He fists the front of my shirt and kisses me.

His mouth slams into mine like he’s trying to punish me for existing. I catch his jaw and open his mouth with mine, tasting that stubborn sweetness he never admits is there. He makes a furious sound against my lips and bites me for it. I smile into the kiss and bite him back.

The club is too loud. I break away first, only far enough to speak against his mouth.

“Not here.”

“Then move,” he snarls.

I take his wrist carefully this time, remembering the last time I grabbed him wrong, and pull him off the wall, down a narrower corridor. We reach a staff door. I shove it open, drag him in, and kick it shut.

Then I put him back against the wall.

Our mouths collide again the second the latch clicks. He kisses like he wants to win. I kiss like I already have. My hands find his waist, then the undersides of his thighs, and I lift him just enough that his back hits the plaster and his hips line up with mine. He curses into my mouth, but I swallow it.

His hand finds my throat and now he’s choking me.

“If you fuck someone else,” he says, voice wrecked and lethal, “I’ll end you.”

Heat punches through me. “Say it again.”

“I’ll kill you.” His forehead knocks against mine. “I’ll cut it off. I’ll make sure Sasha watches. I’ll—”

I roll my hips into him and the threat breaks into a sound.

I keep one thigh pinning him to the wall and free my belt with my other hand. I am thinking about binding his wrist, but he’d fight that, and I want his hand on my throat. I loop the belt around the back of his neck instead so I can draw his mouth back to mine whenever he tries to pull away.

“You’re so sweet when you’re violent, my prince.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

He does. He kisses me again, messier, using the hand on my throat to hold me where he wants while I use the belt to hold him where I want. Every time he tries to turn it into another threat, I roll my hips and steal the words out of him.

I slip my hand between us, drag his zipper down so I can wrap my fingers around him, and he jolts so hard his skull knocks the wall.

“Fuck—”

I squeeze him on the upstroke.

“If I see her near you again,” he gasps, “I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” I kiss the words off his tongue. “Stab me?”

His hand spasms on my throat. I feel my own breath catch, and I like it. I like that he’s the one doing it. I like that my vicious little prince has finally stopped running so he can mark me. I want his claim carved into my existence, something neither time nor death can scrape away.