Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Dahlia
“Lagos…”
The ground beneath my bare feet seems to tilt. “Is it you?” I say, my voice a fragile whisper.
He is so still.
Too still.
His hood tilts toward the cot. “Thank you for helping me find her.”
It’s him!
I don’t wait for him to answer me, launching myself at him, crying, “Lagos… it’s you,” before throwing my arms up so I can grip his thick neck muscles.
I practically climb him with his help, his big hands catching me beneath my thighs. My lips meet his, tasting the sweet and metallic essence that is him, that belongs to the man who I love.
Who does want me.
Who came for me.
Why would Tomar lie?
A growl rumbles from his chest, purring against my body as he strides to the bed. He crawls on with me, already bucking his hips and bruising my core with his erection.
I wrestle with his hooded cloak and shirt, drawing the material off his torso, immediately met with warm, hard flesh.
Tilting my chin, I can’t breathe as his lips move around my face and neck, lingering on my throat, where he sucks until whimpers spill through my lips.
I close my eyes.
Just feel him.
He mouths me. His tongue laps the new welt before following the curve of my chin while one hand removes his jeans and his feet kick off his boots.
We are restless hands.
Gripping and desperate.
Removing our clothes.
Unwilling to part our bodies, or break our lips from sucking flesh, or open our eyes, or wait a moment longer to be together.
And he is rough , pinning me beneath him, heavier than he has ever been before. He brackets my head with his forearms, his body covering me entirely.
“Lagos…”
“Is this mine?” His tongue rims the shell of my ear, and his hand spans out over the firm mound between my hips.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Unwelcome fear pours down my spine when he slides two fingers between my thighs—too fast. And he doesn’t prepare me further, dragging his thick, hard dick up between my slick folds.
He thrusts into me.
He practically snarls as he drives in deep, hitting the end inside me, beating a yelp through my mouth.
“Lagos!” I gasp for air.
Then his fingers curl in my hair, tangling the red strands, and his hot breath blows down over me. “Call me Six.”
I don’t understand.
Tears spring to my eyes; he has suffered something… terrible. Something that is manifesting right now. His usual pulsing energy is darker, a palpable need, greedy, and vicious.
He groans. “So tight, little Lace Girl.”
Helpless yelps beat from me. I curl away from the severe fullness, the painful friction that fringes on too much.
“Fuck, yes ,” he hisses, grabbing my thigh in a bruising hold, yanking my hips up to meet his hard pounding. His balls slap the private place beneath where he enters me, sending pleasure through my core.
I moan, long and hard, trying to hold on as he takes me. I paw at his flanks. Unlike before, he doesn’t consider my fragility, or small muscles, or tiny bones. My body absorbs his devastating pumps.
My head spins with sensation as he takes me from full to empty. Over and over again. I try to keep up with him, my hands pawing at the thick, rippling muscles at his sides, my legs pulsing behind his.
“I missed you.” I sob into his chest. “It was real. We were real.” All my emotions—loss, grief, need—burn at the front of my mind as I let him use me the way he needs, the way he demands.
I don’t know what he has been through, but it’s dark presence fills the room. Even though it is punishing, the motion, speed, and power, my climax rushes through me before I realise it, gasping his name. “Lagos.”
His fist tightens in my hair.
“Six,” he demands.
No. “I don’t want to call you that.” I shake my head, trying to bury the terror creeping into the room and circling me, warning me.
“Say it!” he growls, hammering his hips into me, knocking me up the mattress.
I’m in the most vulnerable position, naked, being taken, when a profound sense of dread swallows me whole.
Am I in danger?
His knuckles bite at my scalp, so I relent and sob the name, “Six.”
That sets him off.
Every thrust takes him deeper, driving me from pleasure to pain and back again until I have whiplash from one sensation to the next, and then he rears up.
Glaring down at me, his shadowed face is in full view for the first time since I saw him standing in the cabin. His dick pulses inside me, and a big hand moves from my hair to my throat. He wraps long strong fingers around my neck.
I stare into eyes void of… anything.
He squeezes my throat. Hard. Pressure. So much pressure. I open my mouth in shock, heaving, but my lungs burn with each empty gasp.
My vision warps. The sight of his lost, onyx gaze narrows to a single point. I reach up and claw at his hand, tugging it from my neck, but he doesn’t inch, doesn’t flinch.
Still thrusting into me, his panting and growling become muffled as I choke, but my heart is loud. It pounds wildly between my ears as it strains to feed my body sweet, sweet oxygen.
“Lag—” I choke. “Lag—” As my vision blurs, his face becomes a silhouette with electric edges.
My body vibrates with sorrow, shoulders quaking beneath his heavy mass. This is worse than my nightmare, than my memory of the Shadow because Lagos isn’t here to save me. He is the one hurting me.
Then— Crack.
What happened?
Lagos collapses on top of me. His death grip on my throat doesn’t release immediately. I swear his fingers grip harder, getting it done, killing me…
I can’t move.
His body crushes me.
Then his hand goes as slack as his body. The pressure disappears from my throat, so I gasp and gasp, filling my burning lungs.
And I hear?—
“Flower…” A pained gasp.
Is he okay? Lagos?
He is shifted from on top of me, rolled to the side with a careless thud.
When I have drawn in enough oxygen, my vision returns, and I blink. Fear and relief and anger mash into panic.
Tomar is standing over me with a solid lead pipe, fresh blood smeared on the cylinder, and Robert is lowering a gun to his side, expression fierce with concern.
“Breathe, Dahlia.”
Just breathe…