Manacled Hearts: an Age Gap Mafia Romance (The Sanctum Syndicate Book 3)

CHAPTER 21

I wake up with a start, drenched in sweat from the grueling dream I just had. There was nothing violent about it. The nightmare part is waking up from it, unable to feel it any longer, because he was in it.

I blink several times, acknowledging my surroundings through the darkness—I’m in Finnigan’s spare bedroom and it’s still the middle of the night. It doesn’t smell like him though, and I feel a touch of sadness at that. The moment I got out of the car my adrenaline crash was so bad, I could barely stand. If I was in my apartment, I would have stayed up, alert, but here… with him… I crashed in his safety. He showed me the bathroom so I could clean up while he looked after my sister, then took me straight to bed, promising to read Maya to sleep in the bedroom next to mine.

The tiredness struck me to the bones, and I went with everything he told me to do. He gave me a small bag Mamaw June apparently packed for me in the few seconds she had before leaving our apartment, and I crawled in bed after changing into a comfy, oversized T-shirt I found in a thrift store. Sleep took me fast.

I turn to my side, shoving my hand under the pillow, and force my eyes closed, urging myself back to sleep. But in this position my thighs press together and the ache that follows between them pulls a dirty gasp out of my mouth. They’re so slippery, so hot, so unbearable.

Flipping on my belly, I bury my face in the pillow, and close my eyes. I’m back in that dream, filled with ecstasy and decadence, where Finnigan’s hand was clutching my breast, his mouth smothering mine, kissing me deeply, and his cock was sheathed so deep inside me, it ached so good.

I can’t bear it anymore!

I turn once again on my back, cursing myself for taking this man’s word as law. He told me we can’t cross that wretched line of his, he warned me not to try, not to even think about him in that way, even when I touched myself. I didn’t agree with the man, but for some odd reason, I complied with the order.

Christ, I’m an idiot. He would never know if I did it, if I crossed his damn imaginary line, and he has no control over me. It’s not his business what I do between my own sheets.

Only, these are his sheets, not mine. Defying his orders here feels perfect, so much dirtier. My skin turns hotter, the T-shirt too constricting, my drenched cotton panties too tight, and I rip them off and throw them across the room, into the darkness. Now the sheets feel slightly cool against my nakedness, and I sigh at the feel of them.

It feels better. But only for a moment, until I close my eyes and that wretched dream is back, his body over mine, his hands touching me, and I swallow back a moan because now, I’m annoyed. He’s so cruel and smug, forbidding me to think of him when I touch myself. He thinks he’s doing me a favor, forcing me to distance myself from him and his line.

Screw him. There are others out there I can fantasize about as I touch myself, and even if I do choose him, just because he wants to torture himself due to some moral rule he self-imposed, it doesn’t mean I have to follow suit.

The fire hums low in my belly, and I press my thighs together once more, hoping to relieve some of that heat. Of course, it burns brighter, my taught nipples grazing against the sheet enhancing the feel of it further.

“Screw this!” I throw the sheet off of me, reveling in the brush of air over my sensitive skin.

I couldn’t deny my body any longer even if I tried.

The moment I press my hand over my bare breast, the softest of moan fills the dark bedroom. I splay the other palm on my belly, slowly sliding down, teasing myself with the anticipation that tortures me further. The moment the tips of my fingers reach the hood of my clit, my back arches off the bed and there’s nothing soft about the sound escaping from my mouth next.

I rub the bundle of nerves in slow, demanding circles, images of Finnigan flashing through my mind, some out of spite, some because there’s no one else I could possibly think of, and the fire begins to rage in my belly.

“Oh… Finnigan,” I whisper on a breathless moan as I slide my fingers down, parting myself until I reach that tight opening.

My lips part in a gasp at the flurry of sensations, the ache and emptiness of them all, and I cry out into the darkness.

Then the darkness moves.

I tense, no time to scream or react before it rushes over me and covers my mouth. No time to fight as it rips my hand away from my sleek center, replacing it with his own. I gasp against his hand and the scent of sea salt and dark chocolate melt their way through me. Recognition hits, the scent flowing right out of my dream.

He squeezes my pussy and shame fills me when my back arches involuntarily at the attack. But I still try to fight beneath him, attempting to escape in case my nose betrays me. I try to kick, but he presses harder against me, and I let out a dirty, wanton cry against his palm. Gripping his wrist, I push it away, but it doesn’t budge. But I’m not actually that sure if I’m not so much pushing, as I am holding onto him.

I freeze in place as he slides his fingers down the sleek seam of me. It’s not panic screaming at me now, it’s how wrong I am for getting even wetter.

“I told you…”

All rational thought burns out of my mind when the darkness speaks with the voice from my dream.

“I told you how dangerous it is to cross this line.” Finnigan’s whisper is heavy, creeping with a decadent darkness.

I can’t believe he was in the bedroom. Watching me sleep. Watching me get naked.

“Is this what you were about to do, even when I forbade you to touch yourself with my name on your lips?” One finger pushes inside of me, stretching me too fast. It may actually be more than one.

“So fucking tight.” He groans more to himself than me.

But as he pulls out and dives in again even deeper, I release his forearm and grab into whatever covers his chest, holding on for dear life because I think I’m falling. Falling in this pit of aching need and burning pleasure.

“Is this what you so desperately want, that you can’t follow… one. Simple. Order?” He punctuates each word with a hard stroke of his fingers, pulling muffled cries out of me.

“You drive me fucking crazy!”

Thrust.

“So mad that I move through the shadows when I hear your feverish dreams.”

Thrust.

“Watching you only to find you moaning my name, not screaming in fear of your nightmares.”

Thrust.

He’s punishing me with pleasure for his own desires.

“I haven’t been able to sleep without knowing you’re okay.”

Thrust.

“Without knowing you’re a good…” Thrust. “Fucking…” Thrust. “Girl.”

I’m losing my mind. Pushed closer to the flaming pit that will change my whole damn life, but not close enough that I feel it’s whole destruction.

“Is this why you want to cross the motherfucking line?!”

He curls those digits, touching a part of me I’ve never been able to find, and my moans turn wild.

“God damn it, Evelyn! How am I ever going to keep my hands away from you now? After feeling how tight, how warm your cunt is? How it responds to me? How fucking ravenous its scent makes me?”

He assaults that spot inside of me with no regard to my cries, my pleas muffled by his palm. He’s lost somewhere between my legs like this is his pleasure, not mine.

“What have you done, Evelyn?”

At that same moment he bears down on my clit and pushes me into that flaming pit, burning the world around me. Pleasure sears me from the inside out and I’m sure I would be flying if he didn’t hold me down.

What have I done?

He releases my mouth and I take shallow, staggered breaths.

How will I go back to how things were? Back to not knowing how his hands truly feel on me?

Was he right all along?

I’m too lost in the aftershock of sensations and burning questions when I realize that he’s no longer touching me, because a deep sigh sounds from the shadows, before steps follow, and the door opens. He’s in the doorway facing away from me, shoulders dropping as he pulls the door behind himself, uttering the same word I whisper to myself.

“Fuck.”

Yes, he was right all along. I can feel it in my gut—there’s no going back after crossing this line. I can’t help but wonder if he’ll try though.

Will he be more successful than I was? I tried to steer myself away from him, my reason not as foolish as his. I don’t care that he’s eleven or whatever years older than me, though he seems so bothered by it. I thought I needed to get over his promise to me.

We’ll get you before anything happens…

He said that before I was returned to that wretched container with the tracker in my mouth. Something did happen, and failing to keep his promise brought so much resentment toward him.

I was blinded. He didn’t fail me at all, I simply chose to ignore what I myself asked of him then. The context. I ignored it because it didn’t fit my vendetta. The need for a vessel to hone my hate was stronger than the actual truth.

Because the truth is that his promise was a response to my plea. And that plea had nothing to do with me or my safety. I told him I can’t fail her—my sister—and he answered by telling me that I won’t, promising he’ll get us out before anything happens. To her. Not to me.

Even now I remember the sorrow in his beautiful azure eyes. He wanted to extend the promise to me too, and the choice of his words told me how much he wished, but he was already unsure if he could even keep the one he made for my sister. It was all out of his control. A sacrifice that was not his to make, but he had to so he could save many. I volunteered for it, knowing the risks.

He gave me exactly what I wanted, what I pleaded for. Madds later told me that it was Finnigan who searched for and carried my sister out. I didn’t ask him to save her, I just told him I couldn’t bear failing her again. So, he made sure I didn’t.

He made sure I kept my own promise to my sister. He made sure I wasn’t a liar. That my soul remained intact. Even if my body didn’t.

And I responded with disdain and blamed him for the situation I threw myself in.

I was a fool.

It kept me away from seeing him for who he is, from my craving for him. And if Finnigan pushes me away because he thinks our age difference wrong, if he villainizes himself for it, then he is a fool too.

There are other differences between us that worry me, that make me feel so inadequate next to him. And sometimes I do wonder if they are the real reason why he pulls away from me so fiercely.

If he has an issue with the fact that I haven’t finished my education because I had to take care of my sister, or that I don’t come from the same social standing as him, or have money… or a home, then he should say that. Because I can move on from shallowness easily, but not from the ridiculous notion of age.

He will need a better reason than that.

Though, I can’t help but ask myself… am I a fool for pursuing this man?

Especially since I have made no final decision about staying in Queenscove?

* * *

I wake up in the morning with surprising ease. My phone says it’s seven o’clock, and my limbs are itching to get out of this bed. Though, my thighs say I need to head into a shower, because I swear I can still feel the dampness he left me with last night.

I dreamed of it, of his hand silencing me, the other between my legs, it was more erotic than I expected. I have similar fantasies, but this… it’s surpassed them all.

Before I can get myself wet all over again, I jump out of bed and pull my T-shirt on. This room doesn’t have an en-suite bathroom, so I open the door peeking out. Okay, I’m on a small corridor, there’s bright light at the end of it, and a few more doors here, but all is quiet. There’s bound to be a bathroom here. I try the door across from me, pressing the handle slowly.

Warm sea salt and dark chocolate hits me with such ferociousness my mouth is parched in an instant. Though there’s nothing but darkness in here, the blinds closed and curtains drawn, I know I’ll find no bathroom if I turn the lights on. And yet, my feet seem to have a mind of their own, because they advance in the dark room, leaving the door ajar. A faint trail of light trickles in, right on the strong form sleeping under a thin sheet. The blonde curly strands of his hair brush against his neck, his strong bare back facing me, and I itch to run my hand through those locks and trace his muscles with the tips of my fingers. As I near him, I see a few faint scars on his skin, and I can’t help but wonder what dared mark him. My gaze draws down his muscled back, lean and strong, all the way to where the thin sheet barely covers the curve of his ass. And god dammit, what an ass. If only that sheet would magically slide lower.

I have no idea what I’m thinking, if I’m sane at all, because my fingers are now ghosting against his spine. I can’t control the need to find out what he feels like. If he’s as warm and soft as I imagine him to be. If his muscles feel as magnificent as I think when they flex beneath my palm.

Then his softness tickles my fingertips, and I could groan if I didn’t need to hold in my breath. I slowly run them down his spine, and when I reach the middle he flinches, but not startled, more like his spine rolls into my touch. He doesn’t stir though, doesn’t wake up, his breathing slightly quicker, but I think he’s still sleeping. So, I continue my exploration, sliding down his spine until my prize is just about in sight and I can reveal at least a bit of that stunning ass. He feels so good under my touch, I itch to risk it and splay my palm over him, but that would truly be foolish.

Maybe he’s a heavy sleeper, and I can get away with it.

Or maybe I should count my blessings and get the heck out of here before the man wakes up and finds me groping him.

I don’t get to make my decision.

Like lightning he moves, grabbing my wrist and hauling me up until he can reach my waist, using it to flip me over and slam my back against his soft bed. I only manage a gasp, too stunned to even register my wrists being trapped above my head, held in one of his hands. Or his thigh pinning my legs to the comfortable mattress. Only when his heaving, strong breaths touch my bare skin do I notice my T-shirt is bunched up above my waist, and I’m bared to him. Since I was technically going to the bathroom, that’s the only thing I pulled on, thinking it’s long enough to cover me.

I tug at his hold, urging him to let me go before he notices my exposed core, though only the short curls I refuse to shave are on display, as the hidden part of me is getting increasingly damp at this proximity. At the constraints.

“What do you think you’re doing, Evie darling?”

I melt into the bed at his rough, morning voice, tainted with sleep and needy dreams. It takes me a few moments to remember I was supposed to struggle to break free. And yet, I allow a few more moments because his hot breath against my skin feels like summer sun and beautiful beach days.

“Let me go.” I tug at his hand, trying to free my own.

I do the same with my legs, but the moment my thighs tighten, I decide against it, only, now I’m all too conscious of the damp patch I might be leaving on his expensive sheets.

“Answer me.” He leans in, his nose dangerously close to my cheek.

When I turn my head in the opposite direction, I realize what a huge mistake it was. His hot breath snakes down my throat, settling in the crook of my neck, and nothing can stop the shudder that rattles my skin and spreads goosebumps on every inch of my body.

“I—I was”—deep inhale—“looking for the bathroom.”

“And you thought that touching me while I slept was going to lead you there?” His breathy voice is even closer, the heat of him brushing over my skin. I’m squirming, but I tell myself it’s because I’m trying to break loose.

“It was leading to something,” I mutter sarcastically under my breath, and I genuinely want to slap myself for still thinking of his ass.

Such a good ass, though.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I quip.

“You’re playing with fire, Evie darling.”

I turn my attention back to him, and even in this darkness, the blue of his eyes shines and I hold onto every speckle. “Let it burn me then, because I’m sick of this aching cold.”

He’s on me before the next breath reaches my lungs, bracing himself on the arm that holds my wrists trapped. His weight presses me into the mattress, and the thigh that pinned me is now slid under one of my legs, spreading me open.

“Finnigan…” I all but moan.

“Don’t, Evelyn. Don’t say my name like it’s the air that breathes life into you because I’m tainted down to the bone, and my soul will only scorch yours.”

“There is nothing left to scorch, Finnigan. I was corrupted long before your soul touched mine. All I can do is burn. Please Finnigan… please—”

He swallows my next words, crushing his lips to mine in the most brutal, shattering kiss. He breathes me in like my life-force is the only thing that can keep his soul alive, and when he pushes his tongue between my lips, nothing can stop the moan that vibrates through my whole flesh.

With a faint growl rumbling in his chest, he deepens the kiss, pressing me harder in the mattress. Our tongues move against each other, chasing the pleasure only the other can give, our lips molding together like two pieces that were once whole and now found their mate again. The only break he takes is to nip at my tongue, or my lips, plunging back in and stealing every single one of my breaths before he feeds them back to me, enriched with all that is him.

I’m lost in the myriad of sensations until a shock of pure pleasure rips through my core. I gasp into his mouth and my hips roll on instinct, to find the source of that rippling pleasure. A satiny, hard length strokes against me, rubbing that charged bundle of nerves, as it grinds up and down. The insight that he sleeps naked brings a hot flush to my cheeks.

A needy mewl rips out of me, but he swallows that too, feeding on my pleasure and pressing harder into me. God, he’s so close to where I really need him. All it would take is for him to grind even lower, so the tip of his cock falls between my legs, and then… one hard push.

Would it hurt? Considering what happened that wretched night when we first met, it’s pretty clear I’m no longer a virgin. Though, I’m thankful my memories are vague. So, all Finnigan would give me now is nothing but pleasure.

I roll my hips harder, urging his cock to find home, but it keeps slipping away from me. Over me. Stroking my clit into an ecstasy filled oblivion distracting me from the task at hand.

“Stop making me fuck you.” He grunts against my mouth, still kissing me.

“Never.” I moan back at him.

Then his lips leave mine and we’re both breathless as we look into each other’s eyes.

“I can’t be what you need.”

This again? Fine.

“Then let me go and leave me the hell alone, Finnigan”—for a moment his grip on me loosens—“and I’ll go back to the bar from where you demanded I be retrieved last night, and I’ll find someone who will give me exactly what I need.”

The rumble deep in his chest is what I hoped for as his hold on me tightens once again.

“You think you can go out dressed in your sinful leather outfits or short skirts, driving everyone mad with lust in those filthy bars, and make them think they can wet their dick inside what is…” he trails off.

“What is yours?” I continue for him.

“You can’t be mine, damn it!”

“I already am.”

That settles it, because in the next breath his mouth is on my throat, biting like he hates every inch of my skin before he licks the slight pain away and brings a different ache to my flesh. It settles deep in my belly and between my legs, and he grounds against me harder. I roll my hips seeking his cock like it can give me life, and he shushes me when I moan too loud, reminding me that we are not alone in this apartment.

Ignoring my silent pleas for his cock, he releases my wrists, pushing my T-shirt all the way up, exposing my breasts to his greedy gaze. His nips and licks follow a trail over each one of them, sucking my nipples into his mouth like his new mission is to dare me to make a sound. But he does it oh so well, licking gently before he scrapes his teeth over the sensitive bud, and I could come right here just from that delicious assault.

He moves in the valley between them before my core can find out if it can find release just from that, following a trail down my body until his chin brushes against my trimmed curls. I’m embarrassed. I imagine the army of women he usually has sex with are waxed from head to toe, sleek and soft.

“I’m sorry, I’m not—”

“You are goddamn perfect.” His fingers rake through those curls, as the pad of his palm grounds down against the bundle of nerves, and the shiver breaking through me feels more like a violent tremble.

Then his mouth is on me, and that insecurity disappears with my loud gasp. Finnigan’s tongue parts my lips from the bottom to the very top, groaning so low in his chest, I could cry at the sensation. The second time he does it I whimper as he flattens his tongue like he can’t bear not having all his taste buds experiencing me. He presses his hands against my thighs and pushes them apart, his tongue delving deeper, circling my entrance and disappointingly moving away from it. The moment it slides over my clit and laps at it like it could give me life, I realize it really could. Because like this, drunk on pleasure in Finnigan’s bed, I feel more alive than I ever have. Biting my forearm to muffle a moan, I roll my back as I grind onto his face, seeking my release, and when he sucks that bundle of nerves between his lush lips, I realize the edge is so much closer than I thought it was.

He grunts harsher, displeased, and I feel a tinge of guilt, wondering if he feels ignored. I brace my elbows on the bed and slowly rise, struggling through the onslaught of sensations.

“Did I say I’m done with you?” he hisses.

I yelp as he sits back on his haunches, grabs my ass, and lifts me up to him, circling my belly with one strong, lean arm. I would be upside down if my head and shoulders weren’t still on the bed, and when he buries his face between my legs again, I grab onto his thighs and let him drive me off this magnificent cliff.

He gives special attention to my clit, rolling it between his tongue and lips, nipping at it when my pleasure brings me too close to the roaring flames I’m craving. My sexual experience is mostly fictional, or from random conversations with classmates or co-workers, but I was under the impression that men don’t have much patience when it comes to giving head, and want to make it quick. But Finnigan, oh my, Finnigan is dragging it out like he finds more pleasure in this than I do.

That would be impossible though, because every time he sucks at me, every time his tongue drags between my folds, every time he teases the entrance, the pleasure grows more than I thought it could be possible.

“Evie?”

We both freeze on the bed, his mouth still on me, my nails digging in his strong thighs. Maya’s voice sounded distant beyond Finnigan’s door. I start moving my legs and scooting back to get off the bed, but Finnigan tightens his hold.

“Finnigan, Maya’s coming,” I whisper.

“Then you better hurry, darling.”

The grin he gives me before his mouth is on my clit again, melts me back into the soft mattress. I’m about to protest, but his eyes gleam with mischief. His hand joins the feverish assault, and two fingers sink deep into me. My ass buckles and ankles cross as my legs tighten around his neck, pushing him deeper into me. Scorching heat burns inside my core, spreading through my belly, then explodes through every single nerve of my body until the loud cry I’m forcing back has no choice but to come out.

The moment it spills from my lips, Finnigan’s large hand covers my mouth and nose and I cry out into his palm, riding this blazing pleasure until my legs go limp around his body.

“Evie?” Maya’s voice is closer now and I almost jump out of my skin when Finnigan gives my ass a playful slap to urge me to get off the bed.

Now, that was… strangely intimate. Pair that with his panty-melting grin he’s giving me, and I might as well hand him my heart on a platter, because this man is going to take it from me whether I want to or not. Regardless of if he wants it.

And isn’t that just terrifying?

I push back the harsh thoughts reminding me that this is not my home, not where my father lives, or that all of this is temporary. I’m going to allow myself to bask in this bubble of pleasure and acceptance for a while longer.

Just a little while longer.