Bound to Darkness (Doubeck Crime Family)

Shit. More of the panic recedes, enough that I can extend my inhales, lengthen my exhales, and get some control over myself.

A hot tear rolls down my cheek, but I don’t swipe it away, keeping my eyes on his. “What if it doesn’t work? What if this is me now?”

For a second, the world stops as I wait for his answer. But nothing comes. He shifts his head to the side and buries his face into the crook of my neck.

I freeze, my heart beating harder, but for an entirely different reason. “Wh-What are you doing?”

He sucks in a loud breath, and his chest presses me harder into the rug. Is he…smelling me?

I shift, which only reminds me exactly where we are, and exactly how our bodies fit together, and exactly how much I don’t actually hate this.

Not as much as I should anyway.

“Stop moving,” he says into the curve of my neck. His nose brushes my ear, sending a little tingle through me. “If you don’t stop wiggling around like that, I’m going to strip that scrap of fabric off your cunt and fuck you until I’ve had my fill of you.”

A hot awareness rolls through me, igniting long-dormant corners of my body. At the same time, nausea follows, threatening to send me free-falling back into panic mode. “You wouldn’t do that to me. You wouldn’t take that from me, not after everything I’ve been through.”

He lifts his face to look at me again. His eyes seem darker now. “What, in our very short acquaintance, has made you believe I’m a good man?”

I swallow so loudly I can hear it, even over the crackle of the fire.

He shifts his hips, hiking his body into mine. The hard straight length of him brushes along my panties from my asshole to my clit.

It’s like a damn jumper cable to every nerve, every muscle, every cell inside me. They are awake…and worse—they want.

I want.

Which is something I’m not prepared for. Not in the least, since every time something sexual comes to mind, all I can think about is Sal.

He moves again, pressing into me harder. I wait for the pain, but all I feel is pleasure as his clothed head brushes right over my clit and back again.

“Fuck,” he whispers, his head falling down to the curve of my neck again. “You feel so good. I can’t even imagine what you’d feel like clenched around me right now.”

I make a noise, and it takes me a minute to realize I’d whimpered. Actually whimpered at the idea of him inside me.

This time, he shifts his hips, keeping the motion of dragging himself along my body, back and forth.

I reach out and hold his shoulders, warring between shoving him away and pulling him in tighter.

My first thought is if I lay here, he’ll finish, and then it will be over. But there’s something about him on top of me, every inch of him igniting every inch of me, that keeps me awake. Keeps me from dissociating and putting the distance I’ve always needed between us.

He moves one more time, and I cry out, more a sigh than a whimper this time, at least.

This breaks the spell. He shoves up on his hands, so he’s over me but not touching, except where my legs are still wrapped around his hips. “Go to bed, Rose, before I do something we’ll both regret.”

11

KAI

Every new look at her, every new touch of her skin, every taste of her I get is another pebble in the pond, slowly weighing me down. I need to stop this now before it’s too late, and I ruin us both. She’s still asleep as I quietly pass her closed door and head down to the fitness room.

I’ve thrown myself into working out as I usually do when I’m stressed, but it’s not working this time. I unwrap a cherry Tootsie Pop, put in my earbuds, and focus on the burn in my muscles.

It’s been three days since I last touched her. To her credit, she’s taking it better than the last time, and I’m not pushing her on things like I usually do. Hell, she probably appreciates the break.

After doing so many push-ups that my arms give out and leave my belly flopping on the mat, I relax, letting myself sink into the rubber and bring my breathing back to normal. I close my eyes, and the scent of her hits me first. So hard I have to open them again and look up to make sure she’s not standing in the doorway.

Of course she’s not. She’d never seek me out first. Well, maybe if she wanted to scream at me.