He makes a sound from deep inside his chest. I don’t think it’s conscious as I look at his face, his gaze on my offering. I’m his. Doesn’t he know that? All of me. Every part of me. I was made for him. I’ve always been his.
He discards his jacket, his shirt, then sets one knee on the bed, jeans still on. He pushes them down just far enough to fist his cock. With the other hand he grips my ass and spreads me open. He looks at me there. He can see all of me and I watch him as he does, feeling the trickle of my own arousal slide down the inside of my thigh.
He brings himself to my entrance and I arch deeper, closing my eyes as I feel him slide into me. Stretching me. Filling me.
“Hard. Do it hard.”
“Mara—”
“I need it.”
He grips both cheeks pulling me wide and drawing out.
My eyelids fly open, and I turn back to find him dipping his head to me, licking me like he did before from hole to hole and back.
“Oh, god.”
He straightens, keeps me spread open. “I need to wash,” he says, but I know he won’t walk away. Not now. Not the way he’s looking at me.
“I want his blood on me.”
He studies me.
“Please.”
He finally nods and pushes into me the way I want. I suck in a breath.
“Fuck, Mara,” he utters as he takes me the way I need, hard and rough. I think it’s what he needs too. To fuck the past out of me. To fuck all those other men out of me. He kneads my ass as he drills into me and soon, I’m lying flat on my belly, arms over my head, wrists inside his hands, his weight on me, breath at my neck.
“I’m going to come,” I tell him as he shifts my wrists into one of his hands. With the other, he grips a handful of hair turning my head so I’m looking at him when my release comes. When the first wave takes me under, all I can feel is him. All I can breathe is him. All I want is him.
When I open my eyes again, I find him watching me, gaze intent. Dark. He draws out, turns me onto my back and reenters me. I’m spent, raw, but I still want and need so much. When he kisses me, it’s all teeth and lips and I taste the copper of blood. I don’t know if it’s mine or his. He shifts his grip to my thigh and pushes it up, opening me wider. He draws back a little, just enough so he can watch us together, watch me take his cock slippery with my arousal, my come.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he groans.
I smile, arch my back, my clit rubbing against him.
“Perfect,” he manages before thrusting one final time, a groan coming from deep in his chest as he throbs inside me, making me come again as he empties. And we are one. The way we were always meant to be but better. Fiercer.
Whole and broken at the same time. Together.
37
Dante
I carry her to my room, into the bathroom where I fill the tub with hot water, bathe her and wash myself before taking her to my bed.
She looks up at me, sleepy-eyed. “I can walk you know.”
I smile, tuck her in then climb in beside her.
The brand at her hip is healing. I don’t want to bring it up now, though. I don’t want to talk about any of that, but I will have to think of what to do with it. How to somehow cover it up so she doesn’t have to see it daily, a constant reminder of the horror that happened to her.
No. I stop myself.
The horror she survived.
She is strong. A survivor. I should not forget that. She is a fierce warrior in her own right. My fierce warrior. She just needed my help to ascend to her rightful place. The place she always belonged.
“How did you do it?” she asks, eyes half-closed. She must be exhausted. She hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours.
“A knife in his kidneys. In his gut.”
“Bloody?”
“Very.” She’s dark.
“Did he know why?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Was it only Viktor?” I don’t want to say the rest of the question out loud. Was it only Viktor who touched you?
Her eyes shift away and she’s momentarily that little girl again. But she collects herself and I can almost see her steel herself. She nods. “Sacha didn’t like that I was there. He tried to stop Viktor once, but Viktor was bigger than him. Stronger.”
She grows quiet, rests her cheek against my chest, fingers tracing a scar along my shoulder, slowly moving up to the one on my face. We lie like this for a long time and just when I think she might be falling asleep, she speaks.