But he wished to extract every last drop of pleasure from her body first. He lowered himself down between her legs, tasting her as he continued to stroke the inside of her body. As he went on a search for that pleasure point he knew was deep inside, all the while moving his tongue over that sensitized bundle of nerves.
She twisted, arched beneath him, and he used his free arm to hold her to the bed. Her hands were still bound, but that didn’t stop her from trying to claw at him.
“Behave yourself,” he said, biting her inner thigh, earning himself a sharp cry. He pushed her. Further. Higher. Faster. Until she was sobbing his name. Until the beast within began to roar. Wanting to extract all that he could from her. To make her weak with ecstasy. It would never be enough. This. How could it ever be? He felt the deep, cavernous hole inside of him, and he did not know how he was supposed to fill it. Ever. And so he aided her until she was shaking. Quivering violently against his mouth. Until she shattered around his fingers, until he was so hard he hurt with it, but would not allow himself to sink into her honey depths. Not yet.
He lifted himself, pressing his hardness against that unbearable softness, dragging himself back and forth between her folds. She gasped, reaching toward him with her bound hands, and he took hold of her and forced those hands above her head. “Stay still.” He rocked his hips back and forth over her, that slick friction torturous. A tease of what he truly wanted. To be deep inside of her, surrounded by her, rather than just moving against her desire.
“You do not get to take control here. This pace is not for you to set.”
She shattered again. And again. So many times that he lost count. And he kept going until she was limp in his arms. Then he took her, turning her onto her stomach, propping her hips up, leaving her face buried in the bedspread, her arms thrown out in front of her, still bound. The image that she made there, a woman in the throes of surrender, to him. It was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. And he could no longer claim to be dead inside, because his heart beat so fast he thought it might drill a hole through the front of his chest.
He felt too much here. And there were no lines between the two men that he saw himself as. Between Maximus and The King. Between the man and the killer. He just was. He just was, and he felt dirty and monstrous and free all at once. Shame, greater than anything he’d ever known, welled up inside of him. And nearly as quickly, a sense of being home assaulted him as he touched her lower back, dragged his palm over her perfect ass and brought his fingers down between her thighs to rub her gently. She whimpered.
“Is it too much for you?”
“Never,” she said, her voice muffled but defiant. “I am not weak. Me, I am not easily brought down.”
“Good.”
He positioned himself at her slick entrance and thrust home. He was blinded by it. And he could no longer play games. He gripped her hips hard as he pounded himself inside of her. Lost himself completely in the sweetness of her body. In the rhythm of her cries of pleasure.
“Maximus,” she whispered. “I love you.”
He nearly stopped then, but it was too late. Those words grabbed hold of him. His throat, his heart, and dragged his release from his body. He cried out as his release overtook him. As his need became the only thing. He spilled himself deep inside of her, the roaring in his blood like the howling of wolves. And in that moment, there was nothing. Nothing but her.
He was only one man. The one who had lost himself in her. The man who was surrounded by Annick. The man that Annick said she loved. And for a blistering, blinding moment there was nothing else. Nothing but his release and hers blending together. Into one seamless moment. A perfect feeling.
“Annick,” he growled.
And when it was over, he reversed their positions, brought her on top of him and tried to find his breath. Somewhere in all of that, her words had shifted to a white light. And he could not hear them again, could not see them. He could only feel them. He was in a daze. Like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
“I love you,” she said again.
And that time, he moved away from her. His heart turned to stone. For it was something he could not bear and he had no choice. He had to harden himself against it.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“It can’t be like that between us. How can you say that? After what I’ve done to you.” He reached out and grabbed hold of the bonds on her wrists, removing them.
“How can I say that after you have made me come more times than I can even count? What does this mean? This insanity coming from you?”
“There’s more to life than orgasm, Annick, and you should realize that I’ve used you pretty appallingly.”
“In all the ways I have asked,” she said, sounding almost triumphant. “I am not foolish, Maximus. And I am not weak. I like these games. Because in them I’m a prisoner, but I am strong. Do you not see how that is powerful? And in these games, you are a monster, but you are a man. You bite me. You push me. But it only gives me pleasure, not pain. Do you not see the freedom we find here in this?”
“Sex games are not real.”
“Games? It is not games. And it is not different from talking. From being. It is the same. We are what we do here in this bed. It is part of us. And it cannot be separate. We were playing stupid games to pretend that it could be. Me, and all of my talk of desires. About how I would be with many men. I could not. For I am playing a game inside where I pretend that any man could arouse such passions. But I know they could not. It is you. It is you, and the strength that you have brought to me. These changes that you have given me. It is who you are.”
Her words hit him hard, with the force of a bullet. How could she speak with such certainty about him when he felt no such certainty about himself?
“Who am I? Do you know the answer to that?”
“It is simple. You are charming. And good. And bad. Very bad. A killer, you are right. Though for good reasons. I am not ignoring pieces of you to construct love. I know it is there. Just as I know your heart is there, whatever you might think.”
“You really don’t know any of that for a fact. You don’t actually know what you’re talking about.”