The Dark Elite (The Dark Elite 1)

His nostrils flare, and I can feel the tension vibrating through his body, as if he’s being pulled in two directions at once. As if the opposing impulses raging inside him might actually kill him.

“I told you to fucking stop,” he growls.

“Or what?”

And it’s those two little words that make him snap.

He releases his grip on my hips so fast that my body jerks at the loss of resistance, slamming into him as he crushes me against the tree. There’s not an inch of space between us now, and I can feel the hard press of his cock against my stomach as he buries his face in my hair.

I’m pinned against the hard, unforgiving bark of the tree, trapped entirely by the size and weight of Hale’s body. My sweater snags on the rough texture as he shoves an arm between us, undoing my pants enough for him to slip his hand inside.

His fingertips don’t tease my clit like they did last time. They don’t tease me at all.

Instead, he plunges two fingers inside me, groaning when he feels my core clench around them. The heel of his hand puts pressure on the sensitive bundle of nerves as he withdraws his fingers and thrusts again, deeper this time.

His harsh breaths sound loud in my ear, and he rocks his hips against me in time to the movement of his hand—as if he wishes desperately that it was his cock inside me, not his fingers.

There’s no control at all in this version of Hale, no finesse or calculation.

There’s just the raw, brutal strength of his need.

I wish I felt nothing.

I wish I could claim my promised victory by finding the blankness in myself that I want so desperately to have.

By not caring.

By not letting him affect me.

But the truth is, he’s my weakness too.

My toes curl in my borrowed shoes, and sensation roars through me until I think I might burst from it. My hands clutch at him, fingers digging into the thick muscles of his back and shoulders. The bark tugs at my hair as I tilt my head back, trying to make it easier for my lungs to drag in air.

I can’t catch my breath. My gasps are a counterpoint to Hale’s rough exhales in the quiet, still air of the woods. We both refuse to make any other sound than that, but somehow the muffled noises of desperate need turn me on even more. I can feel how out-of-control Hale is, and I like knowing that if I’m spinning out, at least he is too.

Then he hooks his fingers, hitting a place in me that I’ve never felt in quite this way before, and as he grinds his hand against my clit again, two different kinds of pleasure collide inside me.

“Ahh!”

I won’t let myself scream his name, so an inarticulate noise rips from my throat instead as my whole body shudders in his hold. Hale keeps working my core and my clit, keeps working those two sensitive spots that make ecstasy unfold inside me, and I let out another breathless cry before the orgasm finally rolls to a stop.

I feel like I got hit by a car. Like I’ve been physically jarred by the force of the sensations that slammed into me.

Hale’s hand finally stills, but he presses his hips against me again, the heat of his hard cock like a brand even through the layers of clothes that separate us. This is the second time he’s made me come without finishing himself, and as I feel the way his hips swirl and grind against mine, I wonder if he’ll leave it here.

Will he press for more? Will he force me?

But incrementally, his body relaxes. He’s still hard, and I can feel the small shudder in every exhale, but he makes no move at all for several long minutes.

Then he slips his hand from my pants, brushing against my sensitive clit, which still throbs in the aftermath of his touch. Gently, he pulls the zipper back up my pants, sliding the button through the buttonhole. His touch is almost tender as his hand drags up my body and takes my chin, tilting my face up to meet his.

Our lips are so close that we’d only have to move an inch for them to meet.

The entire time he touched me, we never kissed. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I have a feeling if we did, it would start a fire that would consume us both.

An inferno that would burn us to the ground.

“You don’t want to know what happened to Ciro,” he says quietly.