Chapter Thirty-One Larissa
Chapter Thirty-One
LARISSA
LYING ON THE plush rug in the living room, towel open beneath me, I fight my worthless body and the growing tightness in my chest as the merciless chill lingers.
The ache in my bones making it impossible to move as I watch the flailing embers fighting for strength, while I fight right along with them.
Lost in the combination of mixed flames, oranges merging with shades of red and underlying blue as they battle for dominance.
Finding it ironic that after endless years of training, it’s my body, not my mind, betraying me.
Unable to take full breaths, I force myself to stay awake as I summon the only thing I have left—my will.
Staring up at the ceiling, I will the lingering burn to fuel me as I resolve to forge the pain into power.
A lesson Tula fine-tuned inside me, which I know could propel me into a better headspace.
The one thing I need to see this through.
But it’s my aching, useless fucking heart that refuses to let me forget he couldn’t leave without kissing me one last time.
Refusing to let me overlook the worship of his fingers as he stroked my skin or the look in his eyes when I woke.
That look closely resembling the ingrained image of the first time I laid eyes on him.
Just as that image threatens to blind me with a fresh wave of pain and disappointment, my internal warning goes off, seconds too late, after his addicting scent fills my nose.
A blink later, he appears in my line of sight.
Moving so slowly above me that the flames lick and light every inch of his profile before he stills to hover directly over me.
Powerful arms bracket my body, my jaw pulsing as his metal eyes rake me hungrily, the tip of his dog tags tickling the top of my scalp.
But it’s the dire need in his expression that steals every bit of the rest of my hard-earned breath.
Just as I whisper his name, his eyes close as he dips and begins ravaging my mouth.
My return kiss just as selfish as his as he fuses his breath into me while feeding me his commanding tongue.
Even with our mouths mismatched due to his position, our kiss is utterly perfect, as our molding always has been.
The sweep of his mouth hypnotizing as he draws upon mine mercilessly.
Every reciprocated glide of my tongue a silent ceasefire for the last stolen moment as he pulls away, pressing his forehead to mine, keeping his eyes from sight.
“Tyler, please,” I whisper, tears I refuse to allow a second time threatening. “Just once, let me see you.”
For tense seconds, he stills, as if he’s considering it.
As he does, I wonder if I’ll ever get the answer to the question he’s been waiting for me to ask—or if I’ll be able to look at him again if it’s answered.
It’s his next urgent kiss that wipes all racing thoughts away as I open for him, latching on.
Growing more senseless and needy with every deep thrust of his tongue, inhaling him until I’m dizzy, drunk.
Our kiss turns more frantic as his lips begin to eagerly roam, until he lowers and laps each one of my breasts, leaving them soaked in his wake as I grip the hem of his T-shirt.
Running my free palm along the rigid trail of muscle of his abdomen, my fingers trace the light smattering of hair down to the button of his jeans.
As he rains reverent kisses along my body, engulfing me with his warmth, I decide our current juxtaposition is tragically poetic.
In the truth and knowledge that though he’s determined to keep me from accessing him—entering his world—he’s too blind to the fact that no matter how we line up, our fit is perfect.
The firelight fuels our latest dance of consumption—this blaze more painful even as we free ourselves.
Engaged in a different dance altogether as he lowers and flatly licks at the seam of my core while I unzip his jeans.
Grabbing his velvet-thick length, I pump him slowly in my grip as he hums his pleasure.
Straddling me now, as I fight to keep access, he feverishly captures the whole of my pussy in his ravenous mouth.
My moans fuel him as he sucks mercilessly before adding his fingers, gently opening me.
Slowly gliding his fingers along the sides of my clit, he dips before delivering fast, thorough, targeted licks of his tongue.
My thighs shake as my orgasm instantly starts to build.
Gooseflesh erupts along my skin as I frantically start to draw my nails along his skin in summons.
Within a few more licks, the rush overtakes me, crashing through me with such force that I buck against him frantically to ride it out.
My hips eagerly lifting as he stokes out more pleasure with the deep reach of his fingers until I’m utterly wrung out.
Seeming just as starved, he spends a few more seconds lapping at my core as I stroke his cock, appreciably trailing my fingers along the bulge of his bicep, soaking in every second until he finally lifts to kneel.
Mimicking his movement, I barely make it to my shaking knees as he grips me, lifting me into his lap before crushing me into him, into his possessive kiss.
Tilting my head to give him more access, I run my tongue along his as I palm his arms and chest, my fingertips brushing along his dog tags.
Lifting them into my hand as we continue to feed, I measure their weight and meaning between us.
His heavy exhale and heaving chest, my acknowledgment of the same searing truth as I rip my eyes away from the tags to see his smashed shut.
This time, not in disgust, but indecision.
His rippling features and tortured expression enough to tell me that I’m staring at the man I came for.
Even if he’s refusing to stare back. This knowledge elicits his whispered name as he dips, making himself busy by kissing along my neck, refusing me even as he gifts himself to me.
As the fire starts to die, we fuel our own—our desperate hands blurring as we map one another.
I scan him frantically in what light remains as he draws upon my nipple, lashes fluttering.
Fingers tangled in his thick, dark brown hair, I call his name in prompt, only to be denied again.
Feeling the vibrations coming from him when he positions me on the couch, palming my hands on the back of it while locking himself out of view, I briefly fight the loss …
until he bites into my shoulder and buries himself in one damning thrust.
We both cry in unison at the sheer magnitude of our collision, which hangs heavy as I immediately start to come undone.
Pressing his calloused palms over the back of my hands to keep me pinned, he slowly and purposefully rears back, his next claiming thrust ruining us both.
Our cries briefly muted as the couch scratches the floor with its shift.
Sounding again and again as every thrust becomes more powerful than the one before.
Utterly consumed, the buzz in my chest filters throughout my skin, exploding like a tidal wave across my entire being as he thrusts the whole of himself into me, burying his cock with each one and grinding it in before doing it again.
And again. And again, until I’m shaking beneath him.
His brutal, purposeful pace fueling the apocalypse happening inside me.
Knowing the man I sought out—came for—is now present. That he’s not only here, he’s claiming me in a way that can’t be undone. My only consolation is in the agony lacing his voice as he breaks his silence.
“Goddamnit,” he rasps out, increasing his pace frantically, tenfold, as his tortured pleasure rings in my ears. “God damn you,” he croaks, bringing me straight to the headspace I swore I would never let him have.
“Please,” I beg as ecstasy rattles my body, my very core. His movements only stoking my insatiable need for him, even as he fills me completely inside and out.
Consumed and too far gone, he continues to saturate me with his scent, surrounding me in warmth and safety I never thought was possible again. Made utterly whole in those seconds he gifts me, even if they are a lie.
It’s my breaking heart that has me begging once more for a true glimpse of the man gifting this to me. The crack widening with the knowledge of how short-lived this feeling will be.
Pulling me back into his lap, he continues to pump his hips up and into me, his hands mapping every inch of my skin.
Matching his slow movements, my chest detonates at the sensation, my heart seizing at the knowledge of what this is and isn’t.
For him, it’s goodbye. Heart aching, I plead with him again, the pain far too visceral as I allow him to break what he’s just fully claimed.
“Please let me see you,” I manage, but he refuses, threading his fingers through my hair as he lifts his hips, grinding his length in a filthy thrust, only rutting deeper into me at the end of each stroke.
Gripping one of the hands he covers, he lowers it between our joined bodies, separating my fingers to cinch his cock.
Gripping my hair with his fist, he tilts my head down, his words tipping me over as he forces me to watch—to bear witness to his claim.
It’s the sight of us connecting so intimately and his intent that has me coiling and releasing just as quickly, soaking us both in my orgasm.
At the feel of it, and my cry of his name, I feel his control snap.
With it, he finally releases his grip. Freed, I instantly turn my head to meet his open eyes.
My chest detonates again at the sight that greets me—lust, warmth, affection, and a vulnerability I never once thought he’d allow me to bear witness to.
Just as I burn the image into memory, he steals my view and mutes the confession threatening to pour from me with a silencing kiss.
Holding my face with his strong palm, he sweeps his thumb along my cheek reverently, matching every deep thrust of his tongue. I return his kiss just as eagerly, putting all I feel into it as he continues to fill me.
His thrusts ramping up just as the firelight framing us continues to dim.
Both of us now lost in the gentle chaos of our joined bodies and muted emotional war.
His tantric movements agonizing as he imprisons me, the only truth I want to set free.
It’s when he slows to the point he’s barely moving inside me that I glance back to see him roaming my face tenderly.
Blinking my eyes clear, I get one last glimpse of the man I came for as he exhales both his release and my name in a reverent whisper while pulsing inside me. Heart thundering against my back where he cradles me, our breaths mingle as our foreheads touch, collective skin glistening.
Basking in the feel, the most intimate moment I’ve ever known with another, he grunts as if it pains him before cutting it short as he pulls out of me. All warmth stripped away as his cum spills down my thigh, and he releases me abruptly as the fire dies out.
Leaving us—me—utterly in the dark.
The significance not lost that with the lack of light, I feel his full withdrawal—along with the loss of him.
Shivering in the absence of it all, I retrieve and wrap myself in my towel as he quickly tucks himself away.
His posture growing more rigid with each movement, I manage to catch his soft brown gaze one last time, a second before he blinks us away.
This shift impossibly more powerful and painful than the earlier slam of the door. This break purposeful. Final.
A heartbeat later, I’m alone in the pitch-dark living room, as if I imagined it all. It’s my buzzing skin, my tingling lips, and the aftermath roaring inside me that let me know that for blissful minutes, he gave himself to me.
That it might have happened, but never will again. In his mind and his future, I don’t factor in and never will.
Because in our game of deception, he’s never lied about that.
The evidence of his lovemaking lingers on my saturated skin as I will the pain sieging me into fuel, and anger.
Determined to stop it from becoming capable of breaking me, to use it for what I need it for. To keep from breaking my vow to myself.
In refusing to allow it to happen, I rapidly begin to drain the aching vessel of the scarlet blood that remains pumping for him. Slowing the flow and allowing it to wither as I awaken my dormant soldier.
“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli