Marked By The Mad King Alpha (Phoebe and Perry) novel Chapter 50

Standard POV Format

The kiss tasted faintly of mint — a tiny, domestic detail that should have meant nothing. Instead it broke something inside me. For a second I thought she’d swallowed a mint just to steady herself. Then she returned the kiss and the cool assumption vanished beneath a hunger that had been gnawing at me for days.

She surprised me. I’d kept distance because I wanted whatever happened between us to be hers too, not something forced by my temper or my title. The line between gentleness and domination had always been thin for me — but when she leaned in willingly, even tremulous, something in me shifted.

I pressed her back against the sofa and started unfastening her dress. Her eyes found mine, then darted around the room as if searching for an exit she didn’t have. “Eyes on me,” I told her, voice rough. “Look at me, Phoebe.”

She obliged. The way she licked her lips nearly undid me. All my old inclinations — to take, to break, to possess — crowded forward. But she breathed, “Please… be gentle,” and that one small plea held me like a leash.

So I held myself. I let my hands learn her, slow and deliberate. I kissed her mouth, the angle of her jaw, the soft skin of her throat. I cupped her, teased, made her small sounds bloom into something else. When my thumb found the spot that made her gasp, I kept my pace measured, watching her face for more than permission — for comfort, for consent, for a spark of want that wasn’t just fear.

She gave it back. Not the feral, desperate thing I’d sometimes see in her — something steadier, more willing. It was enough.

When she broke under me her reaction hit me like sunlight: vulnerable, raw, and utterly hers. I kept checking — a flicker of her eyes, the way she shifted — and adjusted. There was a savage part of me that wanted to do otherwise, but for once I listened. I didn’t want to terrify her. I wanted to be the one who didn’t.

Phoebe’s POV

Everything felt too bright, too loud, too close. When his mouth found that place on me I couldn’t stop the tremor; when his hand moved with care I surprised myself by leaning into it. The difference between his cruelty and his gentleness was a knife-edge, but tonight the blunt side rested against my skin.