CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GAGE
A matador coaxing a hostile bull into a goddamn pen—that’s what it’s like wrangling Ainsley Morelli. She’s made to fight. No one gets out unscathed.
It’s why I couldn’t just kiss her. Not when the remnants of her anguish and wounds were still streaking her pretty face. It takes a lot to break my girl. And yet they did.
Over and over again.
I wanted her to know I saw her as a warrior. One bite to her lip, and her wicked beast was freed.
Bucking and seething and goading me for more.
A fucking dream.
She kisses like she attacks everything in life—with that take-no-prisoners approach. Ruthlessly charging into the next red flag. Exhilarating.
But there’s more to her struggle right now. She’s suffering. I think the good hurts as much as the bad. A life of concrete cells makes being wrapped in plush cashmere uncomfortable. Too soft. Too taxing on the nerves.
Not that I’m as soft as fucking cashmere. Far from it.
But anything mildly tender flays her at this point.
My mouth sails over every speck of skin it can reach, including her bruised lip to issue a soothing sting as I sprint for our bathroom because I have an idea.
Ours because she’ll never be out of my life, my room, or my bed again.
I set her down on the open area on the gray marble vanity between the two sinks and drink in her appearance. A primal rush blasts through me at the sight of my bite marks branding her as mine, but it’s so far beyond that.
Christ, she’s divine.
An alluring demon—both sexy and savage. Crazed icy-blue eyes, battered lips, hair matted and wild, and an urge to claw like a rabid dog.
And yet with all of that, very few souls could resist her. Like an evil Greek goddess, she’s the depraved beauty mere mortals crave.
She fidgets with a compulsion to continue our grappling as I station myself between her legs and secure her wrists with my hands so she calms.
“Why are you still fighting me?” I ask, and I see her cogs turning—she’s unsure herself.
After a beat, her throat rolls through an arduous swallow, and she pins me with those Arctic blues—suddenly innocent with revelation. “Because I can.”
I smooth her tangled strands away from her face where dots of sweat bead her hairline, understanding what she means, and yet desperate for her to expand, to gift me more of this vulnerability. “You can. You’re safe with me,” I assure her. “What else?”
Her pupils blow wide, glossy with a river of loss and helplessness, but the globed vanity bulbs gleam inside them, extending insight. And it all comes crashing out of her. “Because I couldn’t fight anyone. Not really. And because you are still my safe place and I’m scared. I’m so tired of being scared. And alone. Of just surviving.” She sighs, peering around the bathroom but reliving something excruciating from her memories. “It was all for nothing … for fucking nothing.”
Cradling her cheeks, I will myself not to break, to be the goddamn strength she deserves. “Not for nothing. It was everything. You fought for us. For me. For our son.”
Something about that ignites fresh fury inside her—a myriad of emotions seizing her features. “I did. It was too late, but …”
“But what?” I probe, realizing the only way for us to make it to the other side of this shitstorm is to trudge through every mile of it.
She pins her lips, but finally unleashes her grievance. “You have this whole life, these people, this family. I like them—a lot—and I’m happy you have them. Kind of. But still …” Her hands ball into fists. “Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I’m pissed.”
“I get that,” I admit, my fingers curling around her neck, savoring her erratic pulse and the way her breath hitches. “I’d be fucking crazed with jealousy.”
Her curious eyes meander over me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I squeeze her throat, hoping to provoke that merciless spark in her. “So, fight, Ains. Be my wicked girl and lay me fucking out.”
As if she can sense the guilt, regret, and shame cloaking me, she shakes her head. “Only if you fight back.”
A dark chuckle rips from my lungs as I press into her. “I’m sure I will, baby. I have no doubt I’ll be stamping my handprint on your sweet ass plenty. Your pussy too. But here, now, I want you to give me all you’ve got. Every ounce of your pain. Every reason you have to be infuriated—with me, with the world. We’re fixing this shit. Remember?”
“I can’t,” she scoffs, dazed, like she’s envisioning punching me before she shakes it off. “Not like that. That’s not fixing. That’s selfish. We both hurt.”
“Then be fucking selfish,” I insist.
She glances away, her tongue sweeping over her swollen lip while she considers. I take that breather to undress her. She lifts her arms almost robotically as I pull her halter top off, leaving her in a lacy black bra, which I promptly unhook and toss on the floor. Her phenomenal tits bounce—the perfect perky handful. Nipples already pebbled and fierce. Everything about her is a tantalizing blend of soft and sharp and starved. Raw and impassioned.
Fucking spellbinding.
Starved is probably a more accurate descriptor for me.
My mouth is on her in an instant, tasting her skin and sucking on her pert nipple as my hand kneads the other breast. She pushes against me, back bowing, body vibrating, hands gripping my head to hold me in place, and her legs opening wider as she whimpers for more. This is what she craves—to be dominated while also resisting. That’s the battle she yearns for.
As much as I want to devour her, I’m also eager to be her prey. To let my girl etch her pain into me. So, I abandon her breasts, on a mission to deliver what we both need.
Lifting her ass, I whip her shorts and panties off. “Jesus, fuck,” I hiss. “So damn breathtaking. Un-fucking-real.”
Round hips and cinched waist. The curve of her plump ass on display in the mirror, along with a subtle imprint on her back from the downstairs railing—a sign of our passion. Every toned inch of her is shimmery and defined. Her finely trimmed pussy is practically thrumming, drenched with desire. Magnificent.
She’s so strikingly stunning that I’m not surprised she steals my breath, but my chest constricts uncomfortably when I glimpse the ink that enraged me last week.
Blood instantly boiling, I dust my thumb over the leathery texture—two small puzzle pieces, covering a large, round burn mark. “Ains?”
“My missing pieces—you and our son.” All of her trembles as she unveils that—her voice, her limbs, her chin. The shattering she’s too weary to hide.
She begins folding in on herself, but I hold her legs open, doing my damnedest to focus on her gorgeous face and not the rage engulfing me or the grief threatening to choke me. Not the ink or the abuse it covers or the glistening pussy before me. Just the fragility of the girl I failed.
“And the burn?” I press, my jaw clenching so rigidly that stars mar my vision. “Did Nick fucking burn you, baby?”
A subtle shake of her head precedes her heartbreaking answer. “Not directly, but …”
Not directly? What the fuck does that mean?
Scorch. Stack. Salt.
“Who then? How? Who the fuck do I need to—”
“Would you want to tell me about the worst days of your life?” Her misty eyes go hollow with that question, a plea for me to drop it, to let her leave it in the past.
For now.
“No,” I admit, even though the idea of so much unknown with her is cracking my chest open. “But I’ll show you how I got through them.”
Her gaze rises to mine in intrigue. Waiting. So, I reach a hand to my back and rip my shirt off, eager to survey her reaction.
She doesn’t disappoint. Never fucking does.
“Puzzles,” she murmurs with an astonished gape as she studies my chest.
My arms, back, hands, and neck have traditional warrior tattoos—dragons, skulls, swords, snakes, the skeleton of a tree frog, a spartan, praying hands, a death’s-head moth, and a nun being choked out by a rosary. To name a few.
All right, so they aren’t all traditional warrior tattoos.
Anyway, on my pecs, whether nautical- or warrior-themed, every image is composed of puzzle pieces for my girl. The guys asked me once why I kept them and added more puzzle elements to the body mural, even after I’d lost her. I played it off, claiming I didn’t feel like getting all of it redone and liked the consistency. I doubt they bought it, but they didn’t push. We all knew I couldn’t fucking let her go, which felt like utter defeat. What kind of a man obsesses over a woman who doesn’t want him? You’re supposed to move on. I tried, but the grip she had on me was tenacious.
“For you,” I tell her. “We were connected, even when we’d been torn apart. Even through perceived death and betrayal, we both fucking held on.”
She glides her fingertips atop the ink over my left pec. It’s of a heart—the organ—puzzle pieces crowding around it, but not over it, originally to show how incomplete I was without her. But after I was erased, I added a sword, spearing the organ through that hole—life and gore splattering out of it to stain the other pieces.
“Your hatred,” she concludes.
“Yes. Partly. Because that was easier. Necessary. Loving you after I’d lost you practically killed me. But living without you was impossible. So regardless”—I place my hand over hers—“you were always with me.”
Her eyes scan the scars littering my chest, torso, and shoulders. They’re worse on my back, but I don’t mention that because it’s clear they’re upsetting, her head and shoulders drooping.
I can’t bear to watch her crumble, certainly not for my past torment when she’s been in Hell herself. So, since she’s a dripping goddess before me—her mouthwatering cunt so greedy for my touch—I plunge two fingers inside her, rough enough that she shrieks from the unexpected invasion.
“Give me your damn anger, Ains.”
She gasps, lifting her hips to meet my thrusting fingers. “I’m pissed about things that aren’t really your fault.”
“So what? Sometimes, we need to rage over shit. Petty or warranted doesn’t fucking matter.” I pull my stiletto knife from my pocket—the same one I fucked her with—and place it in her palm. “You’re going to give me every ounce of pent-up fear, anguish, and anger. Cut it into me. Revel in the blood, the knowledge that I’ll carry your wounds for you until the end of time. All while I make you come your goddamn brains out.”
She glares at the knife, utterly bewildered and also heady from the spot my fingers are massaging inside her. “You’re a fucking psycho. Stunad . I’m not going to cut you while I’m orgasming, for Christ’s sake.”
“Batshit crazy, baby.” I pause there and grin, the kind of smile only she can provoke—demented yet more joyful than I have any right to fucking be. And when I’m confident she’s adequately dazzled, I go in for the kill. “This is more ingenious than any idea a therapist could offer. Would you rather journal or let me feed your hungry cunt while you hand me your rage?”
Recognizing the brilliance of my argument, she snicks the knife open, so I add a third finger—a tight fucking fit.
“God, yes. There.” Her eyes glaze over with both ecstasy and a voracious appetite to gash the pain. Still, there’s a fleck of hesitation swimming in those chilling blues.
“There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t been done. Slash me. Hell, cut out my heart and beat me with it, Wicked.” My free hand clutches her chin, forcing her to really look at me, to hear my damn plea. “If it’ll transfer some of this pain to me, I volunteer. Do it.”
Her head slants, the downcast set of her features revealing how lost she is. “You don’t want to rage at me?”
“Not at all, Ains.”
And the tears fucking fall. “Why? I deserve it. I need it.”
“No, baby.” My lips press against hers for a kiss that is tender, but due to her cracked lip, it’s also a vehicle of the jolting sting she’s so fond of. “You’ve served your fucking time for any mistakes you made and then some. You didn’t deserve anything you endured. And I raged. For years. That’s not what I need now.”
A whimper and a buck of her hips precedes a breathless, “What do you need?”
I pump my fingers further into her sopping pussy, rough and relentless because gentle isn’t really us. “This.” Harder. “You.” Deeper. “Us.”
My thumb capers over her clit to sweeten the deal.
And it does.
She sets the knife aside with a whispered, “Please,” and unclasps my belt. “Please fuck me, Gage. Make it hurt. Make me yours.”
“Brr,” I roar in reference to the statement she made last night, claiming there was a snowball’s chance in Hell she’d be begging me for anything.
The sexiest hint of a smile tips her mouth as she takes me out, my pants and boxers dropping to the Calacatta marble floor with a whoosh and a clank from the belt before I kick them aside.
“I’m a glutton for punishment,” she says as her palm encircles my shaft. “Bring on the damn frostbite.”
A stilted chuckle jumps out of me. Christ, I love her wit.
Her eyes wander over me as she strokes my engorged dick, the precum practically squirting—so damn ready.
“Forget the eight-pack,” she utters. “You’ve got muscles I didn’t know existed. You’re spectacular. Stupid hot.”
Her reverence and touch are enthralling, but I’m an impatient motherfucker, so I replace her hand with my own to take over her work, sliding her forward on the counter. And to my delight, she wiggles her ass, widens her legs, and perches her heels on the ledge. So fucking desperate. For me.
Wrapping my arm around her back, I swipe my leaking cock through her juices as a tease and marvel at the two of us—beaten and scarred but thriving … together . “I can’t fix what happened to you. I can’t erase all that pain and loss or change the fact that I didn’t storm that piece-of-shit town years ago and keep you safe. But I will find a way to free you from it, and I can do this.”
I slam inside her so hard that she screams as she goes fucking airborne, her nails digging into my flesh to hold on while we both adjust to the stretch.
“Jesus Christ, Ains. This bewitching fucking pussy, my goddamn sanctuary.” I grit out a groan to center my thoughts and keep us on track. “I am your shield, your sword, your strong-ass tower. Your own personal rage room.”
Plucking the knife off the countertop, I carefully place the handle in her palm. “So, fucking fight, or I stop.”
“You feel so good,” she whimpers, her upper back banging against the mirror, her ass punching the marble with patterned thuds, her cunt swallowing me, sucking up every inch. But my girl finds her fury. “You forgot me. Replaced me.”
That’s why she’s pissed about my family.
“You’re wrong,” I insist, pumping into her, “but dig that knife into my flesh, right over that speared hole in my heart. Make it a W for the wicked girl who is forever etched into me.”
Her glacial blues lock on to mine, and resolution solidifies in them, so I afford her a slightly steadier stance by letting her luscious ass rest on the counter. I brace my body with my hands on the mirror behind her and slow my rhythm, pulling out and pushing in at an agonizingly sluggish pace. Torturous.
She raises the blade, sinking it gently into the skin to cut a diagonal line, blood trickling from it immediately. Compared to what I’ve endured, it’s no more debilitating than a paper cut. My pain sensors are numb to that shit now.
Her eyes brighten at the sight of the crimson droplets, like I knew they would, before her focus shifts between the mark and my reaction.
“Keep going,” I insist.
She carves the next diagonal line as I breathe through it, maintaining my snail’s pace. My cock twitching; balls tingling; spine, thighs, and abdomen aching to ram into her. But the peace in her eyes as she continues, accompanying the potent haze of arousal, is worth it.
“Fuck, we look so good together, Ains.”
While she finishes scoring my chest, I watch in fascination as her body molds to mine, every inch of my shaft vanishing inside her pussy, which pulses around me each time I sink back in.
“The way your greedy cunt devours me. You’re so wet; I’m coated in white.”
The blood spills down my chest from the gory W over my heart, and a cocktail of conflict washes over her—erotic thrill, territorial satisfaction, and guilty concern.
“You okay?” she whispers, setting the knife aside.
In response, I thrust into her with a vigorous force, painting both of our chests in my blood. “Okay? Yeah, Ains, I’m more than okay. I’m home.” I wait for her to digest that, purring and clawing at me as my words and cock slice through her in unison. “Is that what you think my family is? A replacement for you?”
She shrugs, and I recognize the agony she’s harboring. It’s the same I felt when I believed I had been off being tortured while she moved on without me. Obliterating.
For a beat, we’re both lost in the moment—panting breaths and a chorus of moans, harmonizing with the thumps of my thrusts and the sticky sound of me pushing through her wetness. Her hands rove over me in frantic exploration, urging me closer. My thumb rollicks over her clit, beckoning her to the edge.
We’re blood-smeared and sweat-slicked.
Etched and bitten and crazed. Us.
I’m not sure how to clear the lust-fueled fog enough to respond to her concern, but I know it needs to happen now. While we’re free inside this feral bubble. Vicious and hungry.
“Do you see this blood?” I scoop her into my arms, her legs dangling over my elbows as I pound into her from this glorious angle—so deep—and she clasps my shoulders. “It’s all yours. No matter how much spills out, there’s still more inside. For you. That’s how deep you were—are—embedded in me. I tried to bleed you away, but my heart just kept beating harder for you. Always.” Pump. “Fucking.” Thrust. “There.”
“Right,” she balks, digging her claws into my skin like the seductive heathen she is. “Because hate is poison. That’s where you and I missed each other differently.”
She loses her train of thought when she starts to grind her clit against my pelvis, her icy blues boiling into pure dancing fire. But then my girl snarls like a sexy dragon, spewing her flames. “I told you I loved you every day in my dreams. I prayed I’d make things right by finding our son—the only reason I had to wake up each day. And I missed you every single minute.”
Her pain guts me, but the view of us in the mirror distracts me from replying. It’s not only that we’re drenched with sex and blood. We’re gleaming with the triumph over loss and betrayal. Savage and wild. I spin so she can glimpse us fully. Her mouth falls open. She’s just as captivated by the two of us—unhinged and connected.
Tangled limbs, skin glistening with perspiration, muscles flexed and rigid. Our bodies moving in rhythm, as though there were a beat guiding us. But it’s just us, driven to tango. Our song —the sloshing sound of our arousal and the slapping of skin. The reflection says it all—the scars and beauty, gore and lust, peace and pain. Everything we are.
“Look at us,” I heave, pounding into her as she clutches me. “How perfect we fit. Fucking art. My red blood, your white cum, and your piercing blues. A damn patriotic masterpiece.”
“Masterpiece,” she parrots, entranced as she licks her lips, clearly undone at the sight of me fucking her. But I’m not sure whether she sees the deeper picture. This is our reward. Holding on.
“That’s my fucking girl,” I growl, admiring us—her. “I want to suck that fury right out of you: eat your pussy, drink your blood, steal your breath until you’re filled with nothing but me—my cum swimming in your bloodstream, my beast fueling yours. Goddamn healing.”
“Good Lord,” she puffs out through a chuckle. “You’re insane, but I think I’m addicted to your crazy.” She glances from our mirror image to down between us, how I have her folded in half while I slam into her. “You know they have swings for this.”
“Fuck that,” I bellow, the sneer echoing around us as I spread her arousal and work my coated thumb into her ass, pushing past the resistance while she purrs and wiggles and writhes.
“Oh God, yes,” she mutters, pupils blowing. “More.”
I answer her plea, shoving my thumb in as far as it will go. “I am your everything.”
My other hand cradles her head so I can ram into her with all the ferociousness she craves, the friction grazing her clit to edge her toward the summit. “Your freedom.”
Thrust.
“Your protection.”
Harder.
“Your family.”
Pump.
“Your safety.”
Again.
“Your god.”
Her body thrums. Almost there.
“Your fucking swing into ecstasy,” I finish.
As if to grant me the gift of those words being gospel, she flutters her lashes and digs her nails deeper. “Oh fuck. I’m gonna come, Gage.”
A scream lurches from her lungs, nearly deafening with the acoustics. Music to my damn ears. She shakes and shudders, and every part of her tightens, strangling my thumb and, more importantly, my cock. The world blurs. My balls draw up, electricity zips through my limbs, and I topple off that same precipice.
“Fuck, Ains.” My thighs tremble as my release shoots inside her, and something primal seizes my entire being, domineering promises spilling from me. “Keeping you full all the time. Always dripping with my cum. Or drinking it.”
She falls limp in my arms—spent and listless from her climax—but giggling in what sounds like delirium to my words.
With my semi-hard cock still buried to the hilt inside her, I lower us both to the floor, carefully, because I’m dizzy as fuck. She slumps against my shoulder as I prop my back on the cool, glass shower wall. I lift her chin and capture her lips, tasting her in an entirely new light. This is the flavor of a future and plans and building anew.
But I need to address the past, especially the points she made, so I lick into her once more, nip at her lip, and peck her nose. Goddamn, she’s pretty.
And all mine.
Still gripping her chin, I shed the weighty things I need to say. “When I told you I missed you a few days ago, I don’t think I even grasped how much. I did, but … even holding you now hurts.” I move my index finger to her mouth because she can’t stay quiet and is chomping at the bit to interject. “I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry, which isn’t even close to enough. I should’ve believed in us, in you. It’s just—”
“It was all so messed up,” she cuts me off, her post-screaming-climax voice so scratchy and raw. She mindlessly trails her fingers through the dripping blood while she continues, “It’s always easy to know what you should’ve done, looking back. Or for someone on the outside. But when you’re in it, not so much. I don’t want us to go backward, to be stuck in regret.”
While I certainly don’t want to go backward either, I’m not sure I can let myself off the hook so easily, but I realize blaming myself in front of her will only intensify her own guilt, so I relent. “That’s probably the case for both of us. The thing is, you and I aren’t that different. You had the hope of our son to keep you going. And that family down there is how I got out of bed, how I kept from going completely insane. Otherwise, I would have ended up in the ground or been nothing but bitterness and hate. It’s like …”
I search for a way to explain it and finally tap into something I think she’ll understand. “You were— are —my oxygen, but I couldn’t breathe you in. So, they became my ventilator.”
She nods, considering that as she decorates my torso with winding crimson lines, until she finally peers at me, crystal-clear blues narrowed. “And if I asked you to give them up, would you?”
“No,” I answer honestly, and her face remains impassive, which makes me think this is more about feeding her curiosity than asking me to move on. So, I elaborate. “For a couple of reasons. One, because they won’t throw me out or let me walk away from them. No matter what. Never have. Never would consider it. We face everything together. And that is reciprocated tenfold on my end.”
“You deserve that,” she whispers before rasping out a snarky, “Sounds like they’ve got you on a leash, Big Guy .”
I kiss her matted hair and chuckle. “I suppose they do. We’re really all leashed to each other. But that’s still saying something about their stick-to-itiveness. I’m sure you’d never believe it, but I’m a grumpy motherfucker.”
“Hmm. I may have heard some tall tales.” She smirks, shifting her legs and straightening her back so she’s straddling me, her crimson-stained tits perking up with pride.
My hands make the decision for me, pouncing on her to tweak those peaked nipples, while my dick jumps to attention inside her warmth, and my brain tries damn hard to formulate the rest of my thought. “But I also wouldn’t give them up because I want you to have everything. My new life’s purpose is to worship you, give you anything you want, build us an incredible future so we can finally fucking grow old. And they can give you more than I can alone. You deserve to be surrounded by people who adore you, who strengthen you, who care about you so much that it surpasses fuckups, bad days, struggles, or family images.”
Her breaths quicken, revealing she’s about to unveil a fear. “What if they don’t want me?”
I brush my hand over her cheek, dusting my thumb along her swollen lips. “They do. How could they not?”
She doesn’t respond, but I’m sure she’s picked up the slight reservations the guys are still hanging on to. They saw me crumble without her, so there’s some hesitancy to completely trust her now. But we’ll work through that.
“And you never wanted to be with any of the girls?” she finally asks, which I wasn’t expecting.
I wait for her eyes to latch on to mine, so she knows the truth without a doubt. “No.”
“They’re young, pretty, smart—”
“And not you,” I interrupt. “I care about them, love them as my family, but they are the wives of my best friends—men who I think of as brothers. There was never anyone—”
“But you slept with other people.” She states that matter-of-factly, like she knows or she’s bracing herself. Either way, fierce as always.
With all the other shit we had to wade through, I didn’t think about this, but I don’t hold back. “Yes. After I found out you were married … a long while after.” I drag my hand down my face, the scruff I grew out for her bristling my palm as shame heats my skin. “A few one-night stands. I tried because that’s what people tell you to do to move on. But it didn’t work for me. It was years ago, and it just pissed me the fuck off. I told the guys it was because I hated the whole female species too much. That was partly true. But even once that hatred lessened, I still couldn’t find the desire. I knew you were the only woman who would ever feel like home.”
I groan, the same wrath I felt then coursing through me. “Let’s not do that.”
This time, she pulls my face to hers. “Do what?”
“I don’t want to make excuses because I fucked up. I should’ve come back for you, and I—”
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” she says, grinding herself against me. If she’s trying to get my attention, I’m not sure that’s the method that will help me grip on to her words. “I don’t blame you for that, not now that I know about the CIA, and … I just needed to know.”
My fingers curl around her hips, rocking her on my cock, which is eagerly anticipating round two. “Anything else?”
“Only one more question before we clean you up so you don’t get infected and then move on to more no-talking activities.” She swivels her hips again, and we both release involuntary moans. “If there wasn’t anyone else, besides your family, what was there?”
Again, raw honesty. “Working out and my job. Torturing people.”
She laughs—feathery and bright and infectious, like she did last night in the closet. “And baking?”
“Yeah, that too.” I chuckle.
“I mean”—she throws her arms out—“what more could a girl want?”
“Oh, I’ve got a few things.” I waggle my brows, lift her off me so my disgruntled dick pops free, grab a towel, and lie down flat with my head on it.
She smooshes her lips to the side, and the cutest wrinkle of confusion creases her forehead. “Maybe I should have been more specific about the no-talking activities I had in mind. Sleeping on the bathroom floor was not one of them.”
“No one’s fucking sleeping.” I tap her calf before pointing to the towel beneath my head. “This isn’t a pillow. It’s a cushion for your knees. Get your sweet ass over here and sit on my face.”
“Gage,” she huffs, “you have open wounds that I inflicted on your chest.” She gestures to them as though I might not remember they’re there. “Let’s clean those.”
“The meal comes before you wash your serving platter. Now,” I order. “I need to feast.”
She shakes her head, apparently at a loss for words. I should write that down. Rare fucking occasion.
“You want to know more about me, Ains? The important highlights?”
She nods and crosses her arms, which elevates those crimson-stained tits and only makes me want to devour her more. My warrior. Her lips tip up in a crooked grin as she gathers that what I’ve got to share is good.
“I’m a sailor, baby. And right now, I’m in the mood to fucking snorkel. You’ve got two seconds to drown me in that sopping cunt—so I can feast on the delicacy of us together—before I grab my gear, tie you down, whip that perfect ass for making me wait, and do some deep C diving of my own.” I curl my hand into the letter C so the play on words is abundantly clear.
She guffaws—a full-fledged cackle that echoes off the stone and glass to swirl around us. “Well, all righty then. Was that part of BUD/S? Filthy-mouth training?”
“Nah, Wicked.” I tug on her ankle, sliding her closer. “That’s all me. The filth you crave, the evil you were made for, and obviously, your cold day in Hell.”
She’s within reach now, so I swipe my hand between her thighs, collecting our cum cocktail and rubbing it on her lips like gloss. Without hesitation, her tongue darts out to sample it. And she fucking hums in delight, devouring every drop.
“That’s right. My desperate slut. Now feed me that delicious cum.”
“Ladies first.” She bends over me, ass high in the air as she slowly makes a show of sucking my stiff, painful dick clean, her tongue laving around the crown and all the way down to my balls, lapping up every last drop of us.
Stars. Everywhere. Too fucking much.
The blinding pleasure has my chest rumbling. I’m delirious and aching for more of her talented mouth, but I need to snap out of it because I’m downright ravenous to consume her. Now. So, I deliver a swift swat to her luscious ass, the crack ripping through the quiet to ricochet off the slate-gray cabinets and cold marble floor. She shrieks from the shock, but I don’t miss the seductive jutting of her hip toward me, silently begging for more.
“My turn,” I rasp. “And don’t worry your pretty little ass. There will be plenty of spankings in your future.” A sigh billows out of me as I regroup. “Christ, that fucking expert whore mouth. It was made to take my cock. Perfect.”
“And still salivating,” she teases, lewdly smacking her lips.
Without further ado, she crawls up to my head and boldly mounts my face, not even resisting when I impatiently force her full weight down to my mouth. So confident and sexy. I grip her round hips, swivel her over my tongue, and rake my teeth across her clit. Teasing and edging until she’s wholly committed to fucking my mouth, like the voracious demon she is.
A goddamn fantasy. Rocking and writhing and screaming for more.
She digs those manicured talons into my scalp, losing herself in the best damn way, as I roar my encouragement into her throbbing pussy.
“Jesus … oh my God. Oh hell, I’m gonna … black out,” she hisses, and it takes everything in me not to break into hysterics.
But after a few more sweeps of my tongue, I pinch her nipples for the shot of pain she covets while suctioning her clit into my mouth, and she loses it.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit. I’m coming … Gage.”
She flies into oblivion, gasps and sputters pouring out of her while I remain devoted to my meal. Tremors rack through her limbs, her cunt pulses around my tongue, and she whimpers as she floats back down, eventually flattening herself beside me, wrapped in my arms. Where she fucking belongs.
“What the hell was that?” she mumbles into the crook of my neck.
“My dessert. Orange Creamsicle.” I kiss her forehead, breathing in her citrus and coconut scent—the tsunami I’ll gladly be swept away by for the rest of my days. And I don’t let my mind wander to KORT or the people hunting her or the loyalty test. Or any of the shit we need to conquer. Because nothing else matters but this.
“It’s just the beginning, Ains. That’s a taste of your new life.”