He gripped my ass so hard with his fingertips I cried out. He answered with a growl against my sensitive skin. He flicked his tongue over me, and then he fucked me with that tongue.
It was primitive.
Angry.
It was all Ash.
In every way that mattered.
There was nothing beautiful about this moment—and everything brutal and exposed.
He pulled back just enough to lock eyes with me as he continued his assault, setting my nerves on fire. His eyes heated as I let out a moan, needing more, needing so very much more. His hands firm, he held me captive as the rain drenched us both, and his mouth locked onto me.
His beautiful mouth punished.
And I reacted to each tug of his lips, each suck, each swirl of his tongue, over and over again; he took me to the stars only to stop just as I was falling back again.
“Ash.” My body wept along with the weather. “Please!”
“You don’t get to tell me.” He pulled away, mouth wet, eyes crazed. “You don’t get a say in how you want me or how you get me.”
“You’re so arrogant!”
“Yes,” he snapped. “I’ll take you hard. I’ll take you gentle. But I’ll decide how you need it, how you want it, and when…” A hand pinched my ass while another slid up and roughly cupped my breasts, massaging them as he lowered his head again. “I decide how I worship you.”
I cried out as he slid his hand from my ass to between my legs, massaging with his palm. “Right there.”
He pulled back and winked.
“You, you jack—”
He dipped his head.
He used his tongue like a weapon.
His hands like an instrument.
And when I came apart all over his face, his fingers, his tongue, he lifted his head toward the sky as if he wanted the universe to see evidence of what he’d done, as if he’d just made a sacrifice, there on the dirty ground with my legs wrapped around him.
A throat cleared. “I hate to break up whatever weird pagan ritual you guys got going on out here, but… DoorDash is literally pulling up right now.” I about died when I looked over at Maksim, who had a hand covering his eyes, and King, who was staring down at his phone with a smirk across his face.
I fell back against the grass and sighed as Ash slowly lowered my legs and, in a move I didn’t see coming, crawled up my body and shielded me from not only the rain but their stares.
From the poor delivery guy.
From everything.
Then again.
That was Ash.
Protector.
Monster.
Bully.
Mine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be here when it happens.”—Woody Allen
Ash
Hours after tasting her—and I couldn’t even eat dinner—because nothing would feel as good pressed against my tongue, occupying my mouth.
Had I lost my fucking mind there for a minute?
Yes.
Had I felt slightly guilty at the fear in her eyes?
Maybe.
But I knew her.
I knew Annie.
I was trying to ease her into it, trying to seduce her the way she deserved, with pretty kisses from a gentleman, not cruel bites from a villain.
And yet, that was what her body craved.
What I wanted.
There would be time for gentle.
One day I’d take hours.
But today was not that day.
And there was something so fucking familiar about the way her moans reached my ears, how her thighs clenched around my face like I’d visited her temple many times before.
What the hell?
I was still stumped.
Horny as hell.
And trying to fit the pieces together.
“Until the stars fall.” I shook the phrase from my head.
Claire had said that, no, wait… she always said until the sky falls.
I froze.
Had I been that drunk?
“So.” Maksim plopped down on the couch next to me. After dinner, we’d all gone to the theater room to Netflix.
I wanted to chill.
But Annie had been avoiding me since our foray into public fornication. Not that I blamed her.
The poor DoorDash driver asked if we needed an ambulance, only to have Maksim say. “Do they treat blue balls now?”
“So.” I crossed my arms.
“That trick.” He sniffed and looked away, then back at me. “You know where you had like one hand here.” The fucker touched me on the chest. “And then the other… you know…” He nodded. “Lower—”
“Touch my dick, and I’m cutting yours off.”
“Bro! At least be comfortable enough in your sexuality to know that if I wanted dick, I’d tell you.”
“That oddly doesn’t make me feel better, Maks.”
He snorted out a laugh. “Bet you’re not feeling better at all. How are the balls? Sad? Tight? Blue?”
“Did you have a reason for being here?”
“So that move—”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to stop you right there. And you want to know why?”
He frowned. “Because it’s a trade secret? Trademark move?”
“No.” My jaw clenched. “Because I refuse to teach you something or even discuss something that you may or may not attempt on my fucking sister!”