51
SCAR
“Again,” I ordered, watching as her face twisted into a glare. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her head bowed forward as her chest heaved with the exertion of my demands. “I said fucking again.”
She curled her hands into fists, the hand wrap flexing with them.
“Fix your thumb unless you want it broken,” I said, correcting her positioning for the tenth time in the last ten minutes. After thirty minutes of stretching her body until her muscles were as relaxed as a limp noodle, I’d pushed her into weight training.
She wasn’t ready to run yet, not with her leg only barely out of the brace and working through her daily strengthening exercises.
So we’d promptly taken a page from Sadie’s book, wrapping her hands and teaching her how to throw a punch. Some people thought that after you’d been taught once, you’d know how to do it if the time ever came that you needed it.
They were dead fucking wrong.
The trick in knowing how to defend yourself came from doing it so often that it was committed to muscle memory. Irina wasn’t there yet, her body sagging beneath the effort.
Through her glare, she fixed her thumbs and hauled off. She put all her weight into the punch, using it to drive it into my open palm and taking satisfaction from the thump that carried through the gym.
Her knuckles were pink when she pulled back her right hand, immediately following it with a jab with her left. On and on she went, a rapid succession of punches that wouldn’t be enough to knock anyone out, but they’d sure as fuck shock the hell out of someone who didn’t expect it.
Irina might not have been as tiny as Sadie or Samara, but they had muscle and curves where she had lithe and lean definition. Too lean, after her attempts to stop eating entirely, but they were slowly returning to normal with me feeding her by hand.
She’d stopped fighting it, no longer needing me to dictate how much she ate, but the darkest part of me liked providing her nourishment in such a visceral way.
It loved knowing that she lived because of me, that everything that went into her body came from me.
Even if Ivory had cooked it.
“Enough,” I said, releasing her from the workout as she stumbled over her own two feet with the exhaustion weighing her body down.
“You’re an asshole,” she snapped, probably regretting her choice to ask me for help and tell me she needed pain.
“You hurting or not?” I asked, raising an eyebrow when she leveled a glare at me. She couldn’t deny that the exercise had left her so tired she could barely function, her body claimed by a soreness that could only come from a thorough workout.
It was just a bonus that it would help her rebuild her confidence in her ability to take care of herself in the meantime.
“Yes,” she said reluctantly, her tone echoing her desire not to give me the credit I was due. I suspected an orgasm followed by working her body until she couldn’t walk had been more effective than bleeding herself.
“Let’s go, Butterfly,” I said, stepping forward and lifting her into my arms. Draping her over my shoulder, I took away her ability to walk and let her dangle over my back. She giggled despite herself, the hoarse sound echoing straight up my blue balls and into my stomach.
That giggle was worth every second of pain.
I carried her into the house and to our private suite, ignoring the smile on Ivory’s face when she saw Irina’s grin. Her eyes were wet, the significance of that smile not lost on either of us.
Irina was coming back to life, slowly returning to us. She may not ever be the same, but she was still her.
She was still mine.
I reached in and turned the shower on, taking pride in the fact that Irina was comfortable enough with me that she didn’t hesitate to strip off her clothes. There was no moment of fear or worry before she stripped down.
She stepped in the moment she was naked, letting the water soak her raven hair and spill down over her face. Sucking back greedy breaths of air while the lukewarm water soothed her skin, and enjoying the way she felt when it cooled off, she turned to face me.
She cocked her head to the side, a playful smirk toying with her lips. “Aren’t you coming in?” Showering together had become something we did regularly because of her casts and the weakness of her limbs, but after she’d rubbed her pretty little cunt all over my cock, something about it felt dangerous.
With my dick tenting my gym shorts, I didn’t trust myself to be that close to her naked, wet body. Water dripped down her pert breasts, gliding over her flat stomach and between her thighs before continuing on down to her toes as she stepped toward me.
“Not today, Butterfly,” I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat. Her gaze dropped to my cock, her little pink tongue darting out to trace the seam of her mouth.
I’d never had a woman’s lips wrapped around my cock, never felt the ecstasy that most men were addicted to.
The knowledge that Irina would be the first settled through me, only serving to thoroughly convince me that I could not get in that shower with her. I’d never be able to stop myself from shoving her to her knees and watching her choke on my dick.
“Why not?” she asked, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. She fidgeted, the confidence of a moment ago forgotten as she looked at me and the need written onto my face.
“I’m pretty sure we both know exactly why I need to stay on this side of the glass door,” I said, stepping toward her. I touched my thumb to her bottom lip, dragging it to the side to reveal her bottom teeth. “Because I can’t stop picturing my cock in your throat.”
She gasped, staring up at me for a moment before her eyes dropped back down to my waist.
“Who says I don’t want that too?” she asked, her green eyes glimmering as she stepped back farther in the shower. When she crooked a finger to summon me into it with her, I tilted my head to the side and pulled from the last reserves of my self-control.
“You aren’t ready for this,” I said, shaking my head and refusing to take that step. Refusing to take off my clothes and feel her eyes on me. She’d avoided looking at my cock when we’d showered together, acting like it was a snake that would jump out and bite her at any moment.
It wasn’t completely inaccurate.
“I didn’t—” she paused, sucking back a deep breath. “Darragh never touched me there. I told him I’d bite it off if he put it anywhere near my mouth.”
Pride swelled within me, knowing that she’d found her little ways to fight back even in her sacrifice.
“Irina,” I said, her name dragging out as my self-control frayed at the edges.
“Get in the fucking shower, Paolo,” she said, leaning her back into the shower wall. Her hand skimmed over her stomach and hesitated for a moment when she touched her scars, breathing deeply, then continued down to slide between her thighs. She closed her eyes, taking the moment to remind herself that it was only her hand.
Only herself touching her pussy.
I knew the moment well, having lived for years with fear of my own hand when I’d woken up with it wrapped around my cock in the middle of the night.
Tearing my shirt over my head and shoving my shorts and boxer briefs down my thighs, I prowled into the shower as Irina arched her back. Slamming my mouth down on hers, I stole the breath from her lungs.
“You are the only person I’ve ever wanted to share breath with,” I murmured when I pulled back, nipping at her bottom lip playfully. “The only woman I’ve ever allowed to kiss me.”
She moaned into my mouth, the thought of her brand of ownership on me as appealing to her as it would have been to me. Knowing that she’d been with other men, that she’d kissed them or fucked them, drove me mad if I thought about it.
If I’d known their names, I’d have hunted them down and slaughtered every last one of them, just to be the only man alive to know how she felt on the inside.
My hand touched hers, sliding between her thighs without touching the flesh of her cunt itself. I guided her, using her fingers to toy with her until she was ready for me to touch her for real.
When she shuddered, nearing her orgasm, I lifted her hand from between her thighs and slid her finger into my mouth, sucking her taste from her skin. I needed more immediately, needed to lick it straight from the source.
I dropped to my knees in the shower, staring up at her from a position I’d sworn I would never be in again. I would never get on my knees for someone, never allow them to have that power over me.
But for Irina, I’d lay myself at the foot of her altar and let her consume me.