“Baby.”
I had survived.
Barely.
Gage hadn’t just taken me to the edge, he’d sent us both plummeting over it. My screams had bounced off the walls. His grunted and cruel demands snaked into the very air of the room. Not only was my bedroom saturated with his presence, it was tattooed with it. It had seeped into the foundation.
The evidence of the night would never leave. No matter what happened when the sun came up.
I didn’t want the sun to come up.
I didn’t want anything, my limbs screaming at me for the rigorous movements of the past few hours. My insides and outsides were aching from Gage’s touch.
“Lauren.”
Hair was brushed from where it stuck to my face with the thin sheen of sweat that covered my entire body.
It soaked through Gage’s henley, the one that was somehow still clinging to his body, attached to those muscles that were made from hot iron.
I blinked at him as he came into brutal focus, his face carved so it was stark against the backdrop of the room. His eyes were glued to mine, his face blank, full of sharp angles. My own face stung slightly with the evidence of his beard brushing against the skin. The same sensation existed between my thighs, evidence of where his mouth had been, where he had devoured me with abandon.
I shuddered at the mere thought of it.
Men had done that before, because it was expected as polite behavior in the bedroom. And because they’d wanted me to reciprocate. I’d let men do it because it was what I was supposed to do. I hadn’t enjoyed it. Ever. I’d felt uncomfortable, self-conscious, and was usually counting down the moments until it was over.
I had certainly never orgasmed with a man’s mouth on me.
But I’d never had Gage’s mouth on me.
And it was not uncomfortable.
It was explosive.
Glorious.
He’d eaten me like a starving man. Devoured me, swallowed my pleasure and my soul at the same time.
It wasn’t polite. Or expected.
It was everything.
Gage’s form tightened with my movement as he slowly pulled out of me.
I seemed to melt into the mattress without him to keep me solid, his hand at my neck the only thing holding me together.
The evidence of just how raw and naked our fucking had been slowly leaked out of me, and my entire form stiffened with realization.
I’d had sex without a condom. More than once.
Never, not once in my careful and safe life had I done that.
Never.
I was on the pill, had been since I was thirteen to regulate my periods, so I wasn’t overly worried about pregnancy, though there was still a chance. I made a note to plot my cycle to make sure there wasn’t even a possibility for me to be pregnant.
With Gage’s baby.
I pushed away the strange warmth that came with that thought.
Because that was insane.
And I had more pressing matters at hand. Because Gage was not like me. He wasn’t careful or safe. And I doubted his sex life resembled mine in any way whatsoever. The bruises that I guessed would be covering my body would be evidence of that.
Not that I was worried about the bruises.
I liked them.
The dark part of me loved them. Craved more of them.
“We didn’t use a condom,” I breathed.
The expression on Gage’s face froze, as did the hand at my hair. He shuttered everything inside him, as if he’d only just realized it. It was a look that told me that he never in his dangerous and chaotic life had forgotten to practice safe sex.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
“Don’t expect you to believe me,” he rasped after a long and uncomfortable silence. “Fuck, I wouldn’t believe me. Very few instances where this word applies to me, Lauren. Only two, in fact. But I’m clean, baby.”
His eyes flickered with something. Something deep. Something I wanted to swim in, but would likely drown in. I wanted to dive in just the same.
“Don’t expect you to take me at my word,” he continued, voice brusk. “In fact, I’m gonna insist that you don’t. Give you my papers tomorrow. Proof.” His hand tightened at my neck. “Don’t know if you’ll believe that I’m clean, but believe me when I say that I’d never risk shit with you. Not with you. Never would I ever fucking risk tarnishing you any more than necessary. I won’t keep you safe in most ways, but in making sure I preserve you in the utterly beautiful and healthy state you are now, believe me, I’ll fucking lose a limb to make that happen.”
The declaration was so fierce it felt like he’d written it in blood.
Maybe he had. There was blood smeared between the two of us, after all.
He held himself so tight, so hard that it hurt me just to look at it. So I reached up, covering his hand with mine.