"Oh my God," I gasped, my entire body going impossibly tight as he kept up his relentless pace, my moans getting louder, more uncontrollable, more wild than I had ever been before.
My hips started slamming back into him, demanding release.
"Greedy pussy," he said, hand gripping my hip and dragging me back into him as he slammed forward.
And then the entire world exploded; my entire body shook hard as the orgasm slammed through me, a fast, unrelenting pulsating that ricocheted outward, pinging off of every nerve ending, overtaking my system in a way I didn't know was possible.
It blinded and deafened me for a long moment.
But when my hearing came back, I could hear the scream that ripped from my vocal chords and new it was going to give me a sore throat.
Duke delivered on his promises.
"Fucking milked my cock," he growled as he slammed forward, burying as deep as my body would allow, and jerked upward hard once, coming with my name on his lips.
And that sound made my heart clench hard in my chest and I realized something.
Something life-changing.
I wasn't just attracted to him.
I didn't just find comfort in his presence.
I liked him.
I liked him in a way that was wild, uncontrollable.
In a way that told me I was teetering at a dangerous cliff with clumsy feet and vertigo and that when I fell, I knew what it would be into.
Love.
And that...
Oh, God.
I couldn't fall in love with someone like him.
"Orgasm to over-thinking in two-point-three seconds. That's practically a superpower," he said, sliding slowly out of me and I felt the disconnection with sadness. "Talk to me," he said and I could hear him shuffling to stand, moving away for a second toward the bathroom and then coming back. He moved down beside me, stretching out on his side. His hand planted on my shoulder and he pushed slightly until I moved to my side as well, facing him. "Not gonna have you open up to me like you just did only to shut down on me. Not, at least, without talking to me about it first. What's going on?"
My stomach went liquid, swirled around in a way that made me queasy. But I took in a deep breath and decided it was always better to ask than stay silent.
"Why do you have a swastika tattoo on your shoulder?"FIFTEENPennyHe visibly flinched at the question, like it had totally escaped his mind that he even had that tattoo on his body.
But then, to his credit, he didn't stall or hedge, or try to sugarcoat any detail of his upbringing. He gave it to me with all the gory, twisted details intact from the fights he got into at school with kids of other races to the times he had needed to lie to the cops when they showed up or when a rally got violent. He told me about the awful things his people and, often himself, had been involved in.
Then he told me about the daycare center, how that was his wakeup call, his final straw.
Then he told me about how he found The Henchmen, how things just clicked with them. He had grown up in a brotherhood with a sense of loyalty and service to his people. So finding that again, minus the hate, had been the right transition for his life.
Even if what The Henchmen did wasn't legal.
He said they helped him get rid of some of the guilt and shame that came from his upbringing, helping him become a better man in the process.
"Honestly, no one mentions the fucking thing so I just forgot to finish getting it removed," he said, shaking his head at himself. "Guess I need to make an appointment soon."
My hand went out, sifting into his hair and brushing it behind his shoulder and my heart did that squeeze thing again and I knew it was inevitable. I was going to lose my footing and then I was going to fall. And if the way I reacted to him was any indication, it would be sooner rather than later.
"See the gears turning. What's going on in there?"
I shook my head. "Bunch of things," I said, it being mostly true.
"You scared?" he asked.
I knew what he meant.
He meant about the faceless men with guns and trigger-happy fingers.
And there was fear of that.
But, more so, there was the fear of getting involved, in loving him, in getting my heart stomped all over, in dealing with a breakup that I was pretty sure might be more painful than any I had experienced before.
I was terrified.
"Yes."
His face softened at that, his hand going out to cup my jaw. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you." The way he said it was like a vow. Then he gave me a lopsided type of grin. "I know maybe that is hard to believe given the course of events these past few days, but I am going to keep you safe by whatever means necessary."