6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
FIAMETTA
F rom dreamless sleep to a bitter black room, a creak from my bedroom window jerks me awake. Before I have time to react, scream for help, or even figure out what the hell is happening, I hear a grumble. Not words, only the primitive grunts and growls of a caveman lost to time.
Is it Crue, at my window again?
That would be awfully ballsy of him. My killer, strolling leisurely into my family home for a meeting with the patriarch, before doubling down and sneaking his way into my bedroom right after.
But if there’s one thing Crue Amos doesn’t lack, it’s balls.
He fumbles his way through the window, doing his best to stay quiet as he briefly tangles himself inside the thick, blackout curtains. Another noise comes from his lips. This time it’s closer to words but still not quite there. I stay quiet, intrigued. I watch him wrestle for his freedom with the curtain.
Crue wrests himself free and the outside light illuminates his frame. Somehow, his two-month absence has made me forget just how big he truly is, even after I saw him earlier. He is a truly magnificent specimen. He has an entire body of ripped muscles that always look as if he’s flexing them to the point of collapse, and he’s taller than any man I’ve ever met.
But that’s where my appreciation of him comes to an end; because, behind that body carved by God, is a man. A mean, cruel man, who chose violence over whatever the fuck was beginning to blossom between us.
I stay silent as his footsteps approach. Now, his frame, hard as it is to miss, is barely visible in the darkness that engulfs my room. But somehow, he knows where to go. It must be his unnaturally green eyes. Seeing through the dark like a cat hunting a mouse. For all I know, that’s exactly what it is.
He’s cold, calculated, and monstrous, allowing the barest of human emotions to scratch his surface. That’s if you call a smile and a smoldering look emotion.
His slow, calculated footsteps bring him closer to me.
What the hell are you doing? Don’t let him do this. He’s a monster. Run. Call for help.
Do anything else but this.
But why would I? I have a niggling sensation in the back of my head, a feeling that I’ve spent the past two months trying to rid myself of. I want to feel this closeness with Crue again — the sort of closeness I thought we were building. I want him to hold me down in a way that most would find scary, but I knew was endearing. I need him to do those intensely hot, fucked-up things to me with reckless abandon and no concern about what I have to say about it. It’s a closeness that only true lovers can experience.
And what’s more, I’m supposed to marry a man I can’t stand looking at. Tomas is the real monster. He is the boogeyman beneath my bed, lying in wait to break me. Why, now, would I fend off the closest thing I’ve experienced to love, in favor of hate? Besides, Crue might be here to fulfill that wish I made earlier. For all I know, he’s about to end my suffering before it even begins.
His footsteps go quiet. If I squint my eyes hard enough, I can just make out his form among the all-consuming black. It’s vague and very close. I almost yelp, realizing I’m not staring at his full body, I’m only looking at his abs. His six-packed, rock-solid, covered-in-scars-and-tattoos abs.
He grabs the showpiece blanket I’m under by the edges and slowly starts to lift it. His caution makes me wonder if he actually believes that he got into my room quietly. Maybe he doesn’t care, and this isn’t part of the games he used to play. This slow, methodical peeling off of the blanket, and how his gloved fingertips gently travel across my bare forearm, could all be for him. Is he taking a trip back in time? When there was a chance we could be something.
The gloved hand moves away from me, but I don’t have to wonder why for long, as there is a soft popping and the sound of material being dragged over something. When he returns, it’s skin on skin this time. Not my arm, but my upper thigh. He’s not fumbling here; not like he did at the window. Everything that’s happening is expertly precise, and almost studied.
When Crue reaches my panties, he wastes no time tearing them down my legs. It seems he abandoned his slow, methodical approach the second he felt my body. And while he claws them away, his free hand, still gloved, smacks over my mouth. To prevent a scream from his sudden intrusion?
I expect him to speak, now that he knows I’m awake. Not that I’ve given him any indication that I am. I remain as dead, basking in the sensation of his hand traveling back up my shins, passing my knee and sliding comfortably between my legs. Not a single sound escapes him either, yet. He makes no apologies, no indication of the impending acquisition of his pleasure. There is nothing but silence, and my unsteady breathing against his glove.
As his finger grazes against my wetness, finding its way against my folds, my breathing intensifies. As angry as I might be at him, I have to give Crue credit for one thing: he’s super, fucking hot. He knows exactly what to do to drive me crazy, and it seems to come so naturally to him. It’s as if we really were soul mates in a different life. We are a perfect fit of raw, aggressive masculinity and soft, tender femininity.
Without warning, he plunges his digit inside of me and groans audibly as my pussy tightens around him. I groan, as well, muffled against his leather gloved palm, exchanging my thoughts about our purity for something far more tantalizing.
Slow, steady movements follow. There is no thrusting or pounding, just an enthusiastic exploration of my silky insides using his divine touch. It caresses my walls, and scratches an itch that hasn’t been sated since the night Crue disappeared. He makes me want to howl at the moon in utter delight, like a she-wolf in heat, who is expecting a mating partner.
Instead, I remind myself of what he did to me. I tell myself that he didn’t even have the decency to put my clothes back on me before he dragged me into that alleyway. I feel a phantom itch against my neck where he stabbed me with a needle.
But most of all, I remember the heartache it took weeks to get over. Weeks of time spent with Simone, who held me and consoled me, because the man I cared about had disappeared. She whispered to me, promising that everything was going to be okay, and that Crue wasn’t dead, and the mob hadn’t caught him.
My tears were really about Crue’s betrayal. More than once, I nearly let slip that he was the one who’d tried to kill me, but all those times I held my tongue, believing it was the last I’d ever see him.
Now, we’re here. Crue is standing over me the same way he has so many times before. He is knuckle deep inside of me, while animalistic noises rumble through his chest with every flick of his wrist and motion of his deepening finger.
I’m not going to stop him. Especially not with his finger hitting my g-spot, which makes him groan in satisfaction. He searches for it. He blasts my pussy with indescribable pleasure, and he hasn’t even reached his destination. When he finally gets there, I feel the irresistible sensation of his gentle finger strokes, alongside slow starting thrusts. He grazes against the overly sensitive spot inside with every pull out, and slams over it with every push in.
Crue’s grip on my mouth tenses as he picks up the pace. He squeezes my face so tightly; my cheeks start to hurt. But in the swell of my brewing orgasm, I don’t care. He is silencing me with a tight grip, so no one outside can hear the devilish things he’s doing. If he didn’t, the whole house would be woken by the sound of my bellowing. Even his gloved hand, the very same one that kept me silent in my tiny apartment, struggles to contain the noises that are escaping me.
While he continues his increasingly vigorous finger fucking, Crue drops down to his knees. His heavy breathing instantly hits my skin, and his lips follow close behind it. Thigh first, it’s always thigh first, before his kisses carry his mouth to my clitoris.
I latch onto anything I can, which turns out to the edge of the bed, with one hand and the showpiece blanket in the other. My fingers dig into them, trying so very hard to claw their way through anything in their path. My rapid breathing makes me lightheaded, dizzy, even. I feel as if I’m about to pass out.
Maybe I am. I’ve never felt this good in all my life, and I’ve had this monster’s cock inside me.
Crue’s tongue smashes against my pussy, teasing it with long, sharp licks. My entire body starts to tense into one enormous knot as the mounting pressure reaches unbearable levels. Any movement I try to make to relieve the intense pleasure Crue’s driving into me, is halted by his hand around my face.
All at once the knot releases in an explosive climax, and it makes my body writhe viciously across the bed. White hot heat rushes through me, rolling out from my core and extending to every fiber of my being.
I let out a muffled scream, uncaring of who might hear me. Crue, himself, doesn’t seem as bothered as he was before about keeping my mouth closed and quiet. Maybe he wants them to hear. Maybe he knows about my unholy union with Tomas, and this is his reminder that he’s in control. That I’m his.
Always have been, always will be.
His tongue gets to work again, as a gush of liquid runs down my quivering thighs. He laps up every drop with rabid snarls and husk growls. And when his tongue strikes only wet flesh coated in his saliva, he humphs gloomily because there isn’t more.
As far as apologies go, I’ve seen worse.
Crue stands while I grab the cord dangling from my bedside table lamp and flick the small button to turn it on. I finally see him properly. My heart manages to sink and shoot into my throat, all at once. He’s wearing the outfit. The very same one he wore that night we first met, and the one he wore when he followed me through New York. A black biker mask covers his face — he must’ve pulled it off and then put it back on again in the short time it took me to turn the light on — a black leather jacket hangs cooly off his shoulders, and he has those gloves on... well, one glove in this case.
This has to be a sick joke. He’s toying with me.
Crue turns his head away from the light and shuts his eyes to hide them from its piercing luminance. He takes a moment to steady himself, before re-opening them slowly as he adjusts.
“I’ve missed you, my Little Flame,” he says casually. As if he had completely forgotten about trying to kill me.
“I didn’t.” It’s not fully a lie, and it’s closer to the truth. Lunacy can only carry me so far.
“Why would you miss yourself?” His brow furrows, but I can see his sheepish grin through the mask. The same one that used to melt my heart and made me long to be with him.
“You’re making a joke? Right now?” I’m not angry. I’m dumbfounded. “You can’t be serious.”
His frown deepens. “I’m not serious. It’s a joke.”
What the hell is going on? Did I fall off the bus in crazy town or something?
“That’s the problem.” I hiss at him; softer than the scream I want to use. I would love to cut him down to the bone, the way he did me, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
I spent a long time trying to make sense of what happened that night. Amid the betrayal, turmoil and disgust, I finally came to a conclusion. It was not one I was happy to arrive at, and it will never make anything right, but Crue said it all along, he was going to kill me.
It was my own fault that I stuck around after so many brazen threats. They didn’t stop me, or my heart, from swooning over the man who is towering over me now. But, although I can understand it, and that’s one hell of a stretch already, I can’t forgive him. Not yet, and probably not ever.
“I don’t understand.” Crue’s brows shift again, but this time inching closer to concern than the confusion.
“You tried to kill me.” Blunt and to the point. My life is in a tailspin already, I don’t think I can handle another obstacle in its path. Whatever this was, and as pleasant as it felt at the time, it can never happen again. I can’t allow it to. I can’t start hoping, because this time, if Crue can’t finish what he started, I’ll die anyway, of a broken heart.
“But I didn’t.” I’ve never heard a man sound like a scared puppy caught in a thunderstorm, until now.
“That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.”
It feels impossible that I am having this conversation when my body is telling me one thing, but my mind is saying something completely different. Crue’s the only person who makes me feel this good. Even when I’m totally uninterested, he manages to make me reach a heavenly climax without even trying.
But I have to side with my mind this time. Fend off his desires, in favor of my own. For all I know, this is still a matter of life and death.
“You know I had to do it.” Crue’s eyes don’t budge from mine. He can’t look away, even when he is directly facing the sorrow he has wrought.
“That doesn’t make it easier, either.” A lump in my throat threatens to join the oncoming tears, but I’ll fight them tooth and nail, until he’s gone. I can’t let him see me weak again.
“I...” He takes a long, unblinking pause. He maintains eye contact as if he is trying to search beyond my eyes and into my soul for an answer. When he finds none, he continues.
“I’m sorry, Little Flame.”
He leaves the way he came, without another word.
Fuck.