“Aria?” It’s the first time he’s said my name in a long, long time and the fact that he’s doing it now, when it doesn’t matter anymore, only makes me cry harder.
“Baby, please.” He drops to the ground beside me, tries to pull me into his arms.
But it’s too late. I fight him like a wild thing now, kicking and biting and writhing beneath him. I yank at my bonds, desperate to get my arms free. Desperate to get as far away from Sebastian and his fucked up lovemaking as I possibly can.
He pulls me into his lap anyway, his arm a manacle around my waist, holding me to him no matter how hard or how long I fight.
In the end, it isn’t long at all. I’m too exhausted, too hurt, too sad, to put up much of a fight. And so I just stop. Stop fighting. Stop trying to get away. It doesn’t matter anyway. Sebastian is going to do whatever he’s going to do. And though he’d never force me, never rape me, I can’t say anymore that he won’t hurt me. That he won’t tear me apart emotionally, won’t ravage me until there’s nothing left of the woman I’ve worked so hard to build.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me as he reaches behind me. I feel his fingers on mine, feel a tug on the knot holding my arms behind my back. And just that easily, my hands are free.
If only I could say the same about me.
“I’m so sorry.” He whispers the words against my skin and I feel the hot burn of his own tears against my neck.
It touches me though I don’t want it to, has me struggling to raise my arms so that I can soothe him even as I feel myself spin completely out of control.
But my arms have been behind my back for a couple hours and now that the blood is rushing back into them, the pain is excruciating. I can barely breathe through it, let alone convince my limbs to obey any order my strung out brain tries to give them.
Sebastian must tie women up a lot, because he knows right away what the problem is. He takes first one arm, and then the other, chafes his hands against the skin over and over again until the pins and needles slowly disappear.
He doesn’t say anything as he works on me, but then again, neither do I. I’m not sure there’s anything to say, and if there is, I’m pretty damn sure Hallmark doesn’t make a card for the occasion.
More’s the pity.
The worst part is my body still wants him, still craves him like a drug. My pussy is wet, my nipples hard and my body is literally screaming for relief. Relief that only Sebastian can give it.
And he knows it. Of course he knows it. It’s not like I can hide the evidence. And though a part of me wants to protest when he slides his fingers between my thighs, the rest of me is screaming yes, yes, yes.
And then he’s inside me, his fingers curved to hit my G-spot with every thrust of his hand against me. His thumb is on my clit, his mouth at my ear and it takes less than a minute for him to take me up again and then fling me over the edge, right into the sun.
My orgasm goes on and on, as Sebastian draws every ounce of pleasure out of me with his wicked, talented hands. And then, just as I’m floating back to earth, just as my body starts to relax in the first time in what feels like days, he sends me right back up the cliff. And then he sends me over again.
This time the pleasure is even more intense, more acute.
And still he’s not done. Only this time he shifts me so that my legs are straddling his hips and his cock is resting long and hard against my sex.
“Take me,” he says, his voice hoarse with need and remorse and something else I won’t let myself even try to identify. “Please. Take me inside of you.”
I should say no. Should push to my feet and walk away. Should leave him desperate and begging like he left me again and again and again.
But I can’t do that to him, can’t treat him with the same callous disregard that he showed me. Not when I’m just now realizing that I love him. In spite of everything.
And so I push myself onto my knees, bracing one hand on his shoulders as my other hand works to fit his cock against my sex. And then I’m sinking down on him, slowly, slowly. Taking him inside of me. Relishing the way he feels, the way he fills me up.
I begin to move, lifting and lowering myself on his cock again and again and again. I shift, lean forward a little so that my breasts are pressed to his chest, my lips inches from his mouth. It’s the best angle for me—with every drop of my hips the head of his cock is sliding over my G-spot.
And still it’s not enough.
He’s inside me, filling me up, so close that I can feel his breath against my cheek, his sweat against my skin. Yet something feels wrong, feels off. I put it down to everything that came before—to the mistakes we both made—but it isn’t until Sebastian grabs on to my hips and starts to lift and lower them in a rhythm that has my body straining toward a third explosive orgasm, that I come to understand the truth.
I want Sebastian to be in control. My body needs him to be in control. Just that one simple act—him seizing control from me even while I’m on top—sends me careening into another orgasm, this one stronger and more powerful than either of those that came before it.
Seconds later, Sebastian joins me, his hips bucking against me as he floods me with all that he has to give.
When it’s over, when I can breathe without bleeding, and stand without shaking, I push slowly, painstakingly to my feet. Start gathering my ripped and tattered clothes as I try to make what’s left of them just respectable enough to get me home.
“Aria. Don’t go,” Sebastian tells me as he watches me dress.