The Serpents Hold | Ominis Gaunt

Chapter Nineteen

The carriage's tremors on the cobblestone road shot up Ominis' arm and reverberated through to the grip he held on Nova's jaw. His emotions were barricaded behind a stony expression but his free hand hunted for her wrist, as though trying to physically prevent her from apparating away from him.

"You almost had me believing you feel nothing but animosity towards me."

"I feel nothing for you," she bit out. The more venom, the better the chance it had of purging the lingering taste of him on her lips. She was still clutching the knot of his tie with such force that the texture embedded itself into her skin. "I don't know who you are anymore."

"Mm-hmm," He disregarded her words with a hum, tilting her chin up before audaciously crashing his mouth back into hers. It was more of a fight than a kiss, a spiteful exchange that set her blood boiling. Her nails dug harshly into the back of his neck, and he retaliated by thrusting a fist into her hair, using the leverage to pull her onto his lap.

The power struggle was stirring a perverse pleasure, and she despised that being on the losing side was only turning her on more. Her knees anchored on either side of his hips as her dress shamelessly gathered up around her thighs, and she drove her tongue into him like it was a knife.

"You know me," he insisted before muttering an incantation against her lips, charming the thin curtains to drape themselves across the windows.

"I did," she spat, swatting his hand away from her face. "And then you disappeared. Not a single letter, not a visit..."

"You know I wasn't able to visit you."

"You found a way to visit Sebastian."

"Only once." Distant echoes of cruciatus pulsed in his fingertips as they wandered down to her throat, forcing her to look at him. All his movements were deliberate and achingly controlled. "Don't worry, I was duly punished for it."

His mouth grazed over hers, infuriatingly soft and tempting—and when she tried to deepen it, he intentionally withdrew.

His jaw was practically screaming to be met with the force of a clenched fist.

The fact a denied kiss could get her so needy, the fact he knew it would make her flutter apart for him like a house of cards made her want to swan-dive out of the carriage door.

I need to get out of here.

Rallying enough focus for apparition proved challenging as a warm palm caressed her thigh. Part of her was seriously scandalised that he was skimming the hem of her dress, but a significantly more dominant part was dying to know how far he was willing to take this.

Retracting her hands, she roughly dragged her nails across the racing pulse on his neck and sensed a distinct twitch between her thighs. Chalking it up to a bump in the road, she gritted her teeth against the temptation to grind down and find out.

"You've gone unusually quiet," he observed, his grip firm on her waist. She suppressed the touch-starved relief of being held—a deceptive illusion of I've got you. You're mine.

It was difficult to recall if she'd ever been this aroused.

Their first encounter was more about satisfying a longing for comfort than indulging in lust.

Her second time was a foggy, alcohol-fuelled tumble with her yule ball date as an act of retaliation after learning the news.

The betrothal announcement was just a scrap tucked away in the socialite section of the Daily Prophet, easily missed. Still, someone wanted her to know—Ominis wouldn't have been the one to mail it to her, of course. Nova deduced it was the fiancée who blamed the Slytherin trio for the demise of the Gaunt brother she truly wanted.