Chapter 31 Elowyn
ELOWYN
“Elowyn.”
My name has never sounded like this.
Feral. Raw. Full of hurt.
Then again, I’ve never been this close to dying.
Bells still ring in my ears from the shot Duncan took at my brother.
Barclay’s blood, which carries the same genes as mine, slithers down my neck and into the collar of my shirt.
He’s dead, but it could’ve just as easily been me.
My brother held me so tight, struck me so hard. I could tell he wasn’t only after Duncan’s fortune and life.
He wanted both of us dead.
He almost made it. I almost lost the love of my life.
That terror is louder now that the danger is gone, now that I don’t have to focus on survival. Like my body lets itself ache.
But I’m going to be okay. I will, since he’s here. Duncan is coming to save me from myself.
My soulmate. My savage, dark knight. He prowls toward me, his eyes black onyx.
Ferocity bleeds from him, reminding me there’s more than hate and death in this room.
There’s love.
The never-ending, soul-scorching kind of love that bows down to no one and nothing.
Its intensity clogs my throat. It’s a vise around my lungs.
I can’t speak. Can hardly breathe.
Overwhelmed by the past few hours, all that’s left for me to do is stare.
“Little moon.” Duncan stops in front of me, cupping my jaw in his big palms.
My breath catches when he leans in to capture my lips with his. The groan he lets out reverberates in my mouth, diving deep into my soul.
He groans again as my tongue searches his. The manly, possessive sound sends heat between my thighs. I whimper, giving Duncan everything I can in my bound state.
I get all of him too. More kisses, more of his tongue and teeth. His hands slide higher up my cheeks, thumbs stroking my dried tears.
“Ouch.” My open wound. I flinch, immediately hating my response to his touch.
I hate even worse that he rips himself from me as if he’s been bitten.
“Motherfuckers.” His jaw clenches, eyebrows crashing down. His hand dives into his wet hair and rakes through it. “I’m so sorry. So sorry, Elowyn.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper, trying to assuage the guilt he’s drowning in. “You saved me. I’m okay.”
A cloud looms over his features, sending a chill up my spine.
“That cut…that bruise.” A snarl twists his lips. If Barclay were alive, I have no doubt Duncan would’ve killed him with his bare hands. “I didn’t save you. I was this close to being late.”
“You weren’t.” In fact, I’m so happy he’s here that I don’t even care I’m still bound to this chair.
Looking at Duncan, with both of us alive, is everything.
If he needs a moment to get it together before untying me, that’s what he’s having.
“You saved me,” I repeat. “It was all you.”
Duncan shakes his head. His hand finds my jaw, his grip tender.
The feel of his tongue on my cheek is otherworldly. It should be wrong to have him lick my blood off me. Except it isn’t.
I want that. I’m about to ask for more when he pulls away. “We got lucky.”
He drawls the word lucky as if the taste of it disgusts him.
“It’s nothing, I swear.” I’ve barely finished the sentence, and he’s gone, rounding the chair to stand behind me. “I’m alive. That’s all that matters, right?”
“Hmm.”
Though I wish he were kissing me, his hands on the ropes are a relief.
It means my cold, calculated Duncan is back. That guilt isn’t eating him from within. That he isn’t losing his mind.
Also, I can’t deny that my body aches to be free. My skin burns from my failed escape attempts.
I don’t want the pressure on my stomach for another minute, either. It’s restricting the maybe-baby I have in there. I need to keep it safe, if it’s in there at all.
More than anything, I want to be free so I can wrap myself around Duncan. To give myself to him exactly how he wants, as rough as he’ll take it.
Energy courses through my body. All I can think of is ripping off both our clothes.
The space between my thighs is hot, hot, hotter.
I twist my head as far as it’ll go, searching for the other half of me.
My pussy throbs at the sight of him kneeling, working on the knots around my wrists.
With efficient movements and a furrowed brow, he sets me free. He’s being considerate, too, stopping every few seconds to rub the insides of my wrists, my palms.
The feel of his rain-soaked thumbs only turns me on more instead of steadying me.
My pulse flutters wildly. My pussy is hot and needy.
I can’t stop staring at the veins that pulse on Duncan’s hands. Can’t forget how murderous he looked as he emptied round after round on my captors.
I don’t just love him anymore, though. I want to be claimed by him.
I crave it. Hungrily. Devastatingly.
A tremor skitters over my skin. My thighs try to press together even though the chair forces them apart.
“Jesus Christ.” He’s still on his knees, working on untying the rope around my waist. “I can’t believe I wasn’t there. Fuck. Never again, do you hear me? Never. Again.”
“Thank you,” I breathe out as soon as the rope’s hold on me loosens. “And I believe you.”
The rest of what I have to say, this maybe-baby hunch that won’t let go, we’ll talk about it later.
After he takes me like the conqueror he is.
“A cut, a wound. Even the wrong fucking word.” As smooth as a predator, he rises to his feet and appears between my thighs. I gasp at the harsh clasp of his fingers on my chin. “I won’t tolerate any of that shit. I’ll kill anyone who comes close. I’ll destroy them, Elowyn.”
Daring me to challenge him, his eyes flare.
Why would I ever do that?
“I believe you,” I repeat, my breasts swelling as he drags a thumb over my bottom lip. “I want you.”
“You already have me.” One growl, and he’s kneeling.
Deft fingers undo the binds around my ankles, and then…I’m free. Actually free.
Except I don’t care about my freedom anymore.
Him. I only care about him.
This larger-than-life, broad-shouldered man who kneels at my feet, running his hands up my thighs.
My nipples pull into tight peaks, my pulse racing. I can’t help reaching forward and stroking his hair. The damp, smooth strands between my fingers remind me of every time Duncan ate me out until I came all over his face.
My pussy clenches, aches.
“You have me too.” Shamelessly, I scoot closer to him.
Duncan lets out a low, sinful, “Fuck.”
His hands find my jeans button. The zipper is down next, almost torn off by how fast Duncan forces it to yield.
At the same time, I whip my sweater off. The need to be claimed is so loud now that I forget where we are.
The dead bodies surrounding us. My brother’s brain splattered on the floor. The cold.
Nothing bothers me.
“Come here, Elowyn.”
The request isn’t really a request. It’s a warning before Duncan manhandles me, yanking me to him.
“Your jeans are in the way,” he huffs, closing my legs shut.
I keep undressing, already shirtless and wiping Barclay’s blood off me when Duncan hooks his hands into my waistband.
Impatient, I lift my hips to help him strip me out of my jeans and panties at the same time.
My bra, boots, my socks, they’re gone too, tossed to the side.
I’m spread before Duncan again, whimpering under his dark and deviant gaze.
“This pussy.” He parts my lips, his breath hot on the softest parts of me.
“I’m going to kiss it better. Going to make it nice”—he circles my entrance with his tongue, teasing me, being mean—“and even more wet for my cock. You’re going to need it for when I fuck you.
When I tear into your cunt. When I take back what’s always been mine. ”
I’m trembling by the time he’s done speaking. He doesn’t try to soothe or tease me, though.
His mouth closes around my clit, and he sucks.
“Fuck.”
The pleasure is intense, relentless, and never-ending. I cling to his hair, tugging on it much harder than ever before.
Duncan’s teeth graze my sensitive skin, and I cry out his name. I mumble no, yes, please, stop, and more.
He never listens, not once. He does what he wants, digging his hand into my thigh. The fingers of his other hand are shoved between my legs, curling inside me. Probing. Rubbing.
Searching for that spot that makes me see stars.
And then he finds it. The tip of his tongue flicks my clit.
Right.
Fucking.
There.
“Oh God.” This orgasm is unlike any other.
I’m drowning, I’m floating, I keep coming. It’s like it’s never going to end.
“Not God.” Duncan pins me down with both hands on my thighs, talking between one swipe of his tongue and the other. “Me, Elowyn. You pray for me.”
At this point, and for the rest of my life, I’ll do anything he asks. Anything.
“Duncan,” I beg, staring into his eyes. At his blown pupils. “Please. Fuck me. Love me. Take me.”
“Good girl.” Only on his lips would praise sound so dark and depraved. “Good fucking girl.”
The moment we’re sharing is intense as it’s intimate. When he flips me and bends me over the chair, I feel his hands touching my soul.
It’s then that I know I just have to tell him.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I blurt out with my cheek flat against the seat.
At that, Duncan stops removing his clothes. I don’t hear the belt buckle anymore.
In fact, I don’t hear anything.
But I see him. He leans down, his hand wrapped around my throat, tilting my head so I look at him.
“What did you just say?” The tension in his hoarse voice is clear.
When I don’t talk fast enough, he chokes me, just a little. His lips pinch into a fine line, his cock hard and throbbing against my thigh, even through his clothes.
“Answer me.” This demand sounds like a plea.
As if his life depends on what I say next.
All the times he pushed his cum back inside me, all the dirty talk about fucking babies into me…
It wasn’t a kink. It wasn’t the words of a possessive man asserting his control.
He really does want to start a family together. Not tomorrow or in a year.
Now.
Another wave of heat and need surges through me. I’m dizzy with it. Heady.
“I’m not sure,” I whisper, my hips grinding into him on their own. “I’m two days late.”