The Empire (Filthy Trilogy 3)

“You will leave,” he says, ignoring the question. “Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be standing here, wasting any of the time I have with you. I should be kissing you.” His mouth closes down on mine and it’s pure animal hunger, possessive, brutal almost in its intensity, that part of him buried deep beneath the surface that I’ve sensed was there—no, that he told me was there. That he’s declared the part of him that would scare me away. That’s what he thinks. That ultimately, I will see all of him, know him, the real him, the real savant, and I will leave.

And so, I answer that certainty in him that I will run away by leaning into him, by meeting every lick and touch with one of my own. He feels it, too, and this doesn’t satisfy him. It drives him. It pushes him. And he pushes me. Before I know his intent, he’s maneuvered us and we’re at the bed, which might seem like a fine place for a romantic moment if he didn’t turn me to face the mattress. If he didn’t press me to my knees and then lean me forward.

I settle on my elbows and he wastes no time ensuring I’m not wasting time thinking. He’s immediately on his knee beside me, one palm between my shoulder blades, the other one my backside. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t dare me with words and yet I know the moment I say no, the moment I say stop, he would. On some level, maybe he’d revel in his success. Maybe he’d think that he’d pushed me to show my fear, pushed me to run, and if I do, it’s inevitable. But I don’t want to run. I’m aroused. I’m so very aroused and when his hand squeezes my backside, and then slides lower, between my legs, fingers pressing along the slick seam of my sex, there is no way he can believe I feel fear or resistance. He has to know how aroused I am. How in need I am.

His hand lifts from my back, and his lips press there, a gentle brush of his mouth that is tender and sweet, but then he’s gone. He’s gone from the mattress, but he hasn’t left. He stands behind me, hands on my hips, and his fingers are back between my thighs, teasing me with his exploration, and when I arch into his touch, suddenly his free hand is on my backside, giving it a stinging smack. Sensations rush through me, wild and hot, and I have barely recovered when he is patting my sex, a steady pulse that sends darts of sensations through my body.

“Eric,” I breathe out, the first word I have spoken, the only word either of us have spoken.

He spanks me again and then he’s patting my sex again and I’m overwhelmed with the sensations that are suddenly gone. “Don’t move.”

He shifts behind me and on instinct, I try to turn, but he catches my hips again. “Don’t move.” He spanks me. I yelp and ache with so much need I can barely breathe. He releases me and my nipples tighten and ache, as if he’s touched them and swore he’d never do it again. There’s a shift and soft whispers of movement behind me and then Eric’s hands are back on my hips, his fingers sliding between my thighs, and as much as I want him inside me, there’s this part of me that knows he’s behind me for a reason. He’s still shut down. He’s still keeping an emotional distance between us.

A thought I don’t hold onto for long as his cock slides between my thighs and my sex, my aching sex, becomes the center of my attention. That is until he’s suddenly flipping me over onto my back and going down on one knee in front of me, pulling me forward, spreading me wide. “You just don’t run, do you?” he challenges, pressing his lips to my belly before his eyes lift to mine, the look there a mix of hot challenge and tender affection that defies his hand on my backside, but then, it was never a firm hand. It was just solid enough to arouse me. Just firm enough to be as perfect as every line of his handsome face, his high cheekbones, his firm jaw.

“I wasn’t the one to leave,” I say. “You know that, right?”

“I’m here now,” he says, licking my clit.

I suck in a breath and fight the wave of arousal he’s stirred anew in me. “For now,” I whisper. “But how long does ‘now’ last?”

“Until you leave, Harper. Until you leave.” And when I would object to this statement, his mouth comes down on me and he’s licking and teasing, using his fingers and tongue to do wickedly wonderful things to my body. He can’t believe I’ll leave. He can’t want me to leave or he wouldn’t follow that statement up with this kind of pleasure.

I arch into his mouth, into his fingers stretching me when I want him inside me, not them. I want him filling me. I want him completing me, but then he does. He just doesn’t seem to know that. And all I know right now, is how good he feels. How good his fingers and tongue feel. I shatter, oh God, how I shatter and for long moments that are over too soon, there is nothing but the quake of my body. But then it’s over, and there is so much I need all over again, the sum of which is him.

I almost expect him to place another barrier between us, to turn me over and fuck me, but he doesn’t. He slides up my body and molds me close, the rush of heat and emotion between us almost too much to allow me to breathe. I know how that devil comment affected him now. I just somehow know. He presses inside me, filling me the way I want to be filled, and when he’s inside me, buried deep, my hand settles on his cheek. “I will never believe you’re like them

. I will never see them when I look at you. And unlike everyone else in your life, I won’t leave.” Because that’s where his fear of me seeing him as a Kingston comes from. He thinks I’ll see them in him and I’ll leave. “I won’t leave,” I promise. “Good. Bad. All the in between. You’re stuck with me for all of it.”

He doesn’t reject these words. His mouth comes down on mine and I know he’s weighing my words, I know he wants to taste them on my lips. And that’s how I know that he’s not convinced I mean them, but one day, one day, I will undo the damage the Kingstons created in him. One day, they will no longer be able to touch him or us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Harper

The questions in Eric’s kiss transform to white-hot passion, but there is tenderness beneath the fire, beneath the wild hunger I sense in him. He cups my backside and arches my hips, pressing his cock deeper, rocking with me. Kissing me. Touching me. I am lost in this man in ways I didn’t know any person could be lost in another. Our legs are entwined. His fingers tangled in my hair, roughly pulling my mouth to his.

“You’re not leaving?”

“No,” I whisper. “Never.”

“No. You’re not.”

“Remember that. Stop assuming. Stop pushing. Stop—”

With that, his lips slant over mine and his tongue presses past my lips. I feel that deep stroke in every part of my body, my sex clenching around his cock. “Still want me to stop?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s already kissing me again and the demand is back, the taste of him all about power and control, the flex of his fingers in my backside, the push of his cock deep inside me echoing the same. I moan and I need him now with such intensity that it’s like I’m trying to crawl under his skin. I press against him, grab his hair, his arm, his perfect backside and it’s not enough.

Eric rolls me to my back, lifts my leg, his hand on my breast, squeezing roughly, even as he thrusts harder and harder, jolting me with sensation with every collision of his body inside mine. Somehow through it all, we’re breathing together, just as we’re moving together. And he seems to know what I need, when I need it. He seems to know exactly where I need it because I’m there, so very there, in that place of perfection that no one wants to end. Sensations rip through me, quaking my body, tightening my sex around his thick erection. He pumps into the clench of my orgasm, moaning deeply, a low, rough masculine sound that would push me over the edge if I wasn’t already there. Fortunately, so is he, and we slide into that sweet spot together, riding it out until we collapse into each other. We hold each other, seconds stretching into minutes until he inches back to look at me, his eyes warm, flecks of gold in the depths of the blue.

“Don’t move,” he orders, kissing my nose in the tender way that squeezes my heart before he pulls out and moves away.

I lean up and watch him stand, his perfect tight ass stealing my thoughts momentarily, but as he starts to walk I call out, “Who put you in charge? Why should I do as you say?”

He disappears into the bathroom and immediately pops back out. “Because you need this,” he says, holding up a towel as he closes the small space between us, going down on a knee to slide it between my legs. “And because I only order you around when I’m trying to protect you or give you an orgasm. Once we eat, we’ll get back to the orgasms. I’m fucking starving.” He stands up and walks to the bathroom where he disappears again.

Protect me. He wants to protect me. I get that. Perhaps too well. The bathroom door is open and I climb off of the bed and pursue him. The bathroom is empty and I track through it to the closet where he’s waiting on me in a pair of sweats, with a T-shirt in his hand. He gives my puckered nipples a quick, but intense inspection, and then pulls the tee over my head. “We won’t eat if you walk around like that.”

“Protect me?” I challenge. “From who? You?”