Chapter Twenty-Three #2
You need a weapon.
I returned to the wardrobe and pulled out my own blazer I wore to the Paris nightclub. My hands shook a little as I remembered getting dressed that night. Staring at myself in the mirrored elevator as it descended from my hotel room to the lobby where Roland had been waiting for me.
I’d been twisted into knots, rehearsing lines in my head. Desperate to accomplish being best friends to a raping bastard, all because it represented an end to lonely nights and life-destroying desires.
But somehow, in a moment of fucking kismet, the moment I heard Ily’s remark about blowjobs and divorces, my allegiances had switched.
Wait, what?
I froze with my jacket dangling in my hands.
That wasn’t true.
Is it?
I’d only known the girl for a single day.
I owed her nothing.
You’ve known your brother for a single night.
Yet you’re giving him everything.
What was the difference?
Q might be blood, but Ily...what if she was something more?
Fuck, do you hear yourself?
I snorted under my breath.
This crush was pissing me the hell off. How did other men get shit done when their entire body and mind became obsessed with a single person?
I’d always guessed I had issues and not just the sadistic devil inside me.
If a psychologist ever got their hands on me, I’d expect them to say my need to deliver pain to others came from my own deep-seated agony at not receiving any touch, love, or affection in my childhood.
I’d loved my mother; God rest her soul.
I’d been her only caregiver as she declined.
Yet she never hugged me.
Not once.
I couldn’t even hate her for being cold to me because I understood how hard it would be to love someone who came from a rapist who destroyed you.
Fuck’s sake, stop.
This is not the time for a walk down shitty memory lane.
Gritting my teeth, I laid my jacket on the bed. Making sure to avoid Ily and forcing myself not to look between her bare legs, I spread the sides of the expensive blazer and ran my fingers over the silk lining until I found the secret pocket along the bottom.
Cursing my big fingers, I pried the bronze handled knife loose. Keeping my hand low and hidden by the blankets, I ensured the mechanism operated correctly. Thin and heavy, the blade popped out with a quick press of a concealed button, becoming a lethal little switchblade.
Good.
At least I could gut a few people if they started asking questions.
Inhaling with courage I didn’t exactly feel, I went to slide the blade back into the handle—
“What’s that?”
Merde.
Squeezing my eyes closed for a second, I fortified my fraying self-control and snapped the knife closed. Shoving it into my other pocket, I looked up.
Ily rubbed her eyes, blinking away sleep. Comprehension slammed into her. “You...you have a—”
Before she could tell every camera watching, I launched onto the bed and tackled her to the mattress. Pinning her with my entire half-naked body, I whispered in her ear. “It’s a knife, but don’t say a word about it in case they’re listening, got it?”
Pulling away a little, I glanced down at her.
I expected to see annoyance at me pouncing on her, followed by a healthy dose of apprehension, but what glimmered in her stunning sunshine stare fucking broke me.
It took an axe to my chains and a blade to my ropes.
It threatened to unleash me with a single look because it wasn’t just a look.
It was an invitation.
A plea given in a flash of honesty.
A summoning from a girl to a boy, angel to devil, and my body reacted far quicker than my mind.
I groaned as I hardened.
I clenched my teeth as her hips shifted beneath mine.
And I fucking snarled as she reached to cup my cheek—
I snatched her wrist and pinned it above her head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She blinked as if she wasn’t entirely sure—almost as if she’d moved without thinking, driven by the same urges I drowned beneath.
Her gaze darted over my bare chest, no doubt seeing a few of the scars I’d earned in my childhood.
Innocent scars from doing innocent things.
Unlike the fresh one on my thigh where I’d tried to butcher myself.
“Sorry I...” Licking her lips, she shrugged a little. “You have lint on your cheek.”
My cock bruised as it nudged against my belt. I hadn’t even kissed her, yet this moment was somehow the hottest, rawest of my life.
Feeling her beneath me.
The smallness of her.
The rightness of her.
It was too much.
Too addictive.
Far, far too addictive.
Get off.
Now!
Loosening my fingers from her wrist, I went to shift away, but her hips went with mine as if they were bound together. Her delicate hand landed on my bare side, sending electricity frying through my blood.
Moaning as deliciously as she had in her sleep, she arched and kept us pressed where we definitely shouldn’t be pressed.
I choked on a groan.
I fought all kinds of urges.
Instantly her cheeks turned into red, red roses.
Dropping her eyes, she tore her hand off me, leaving an imprint of her fingers in my motherfucking soul.
“Sorry. I-I don’t know why I did that. God—” Her bottom lip wobbled, and if she dared fucking cry, I’d have her on her knees and my cock down her throat before the first tear fell.
“I keep ruining this.” She looked to the side, her entire chest going pink. “I-I keep expecting things that aren’t real. Forgive me.”
I tried to move. I really did. But my cock ached where it pressed against her. The thought of removing myself from that sweet, sweet heaven was utterly impossible.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I muttered, keeping my voice low so the cameras didn’t hear but also because I honestly had no breath left inside me.
“No. It’s not. I-I still feel awful about kissing you.”
My teeth clamped together. It took effort to speak around the clench. “And I feel awful for having to fuck you.”
I’d expected that vague apology to give her peace of mind.
It did the opposite.
Her lips twisted with grief, unable to make eye contact. “I know this must be so hard for you. I know you’re struggling just as much as I am.”
What the fuck?
What the hell made her think sleeping with her was hard? Christ, that was the only thing keeping me going. Despite it being borderline abusive and covered in all kinds of wrong, it wasn’t a hardship to be with her.
I wanted to ask her to speak plainly.
I needed to know why she suddenly believed she was the sinner in this scenario, but the blinking red dots of cameras never stopped recording. I had no way of knowing how well they could tape sound or if our every secret was being watched.
Tomorrow.
Once Q had arrived and Ily was safe, then we’d talk.
Truly talk.
I’d tell her that she was the only one in twenty-nine years to make me hope I could ever deserve someone to call my own. I’d tell her how grateful I was that I wasn’t alone in this. That I was thankful it was her.
For now, though...you will get off her and go and do what you came here to do.
With a grunt, I flexed my back to shift away. My hands landed on either side of her head to push up. And Ily’s reaction fucking lacerated me.
Her eyes snapped closed.
Her legs trembled around mine.
She bit her bottom lip as her hips arched just a little, a needy little mewl escaping.
Fuck
everything
holy.
I sank back down. I gave her my weight.
Her head tipped back with a moan.
Yep, I couldn’t do it.
Unable to fight her, utterly weak at the need pouring off her, I did the only thing possible.
I returned to the son who’d cared for a dying mother.
I recognised the symptoms of someone needing aid.
And...I gave it.
As selflessly and as clinically as I could.
Driving my throbbing erection against her uncovered pussy, I grinded her against the bed.
Mistake.
Big mistake.
Huge.
Ily sucked in a tattered gasp, followed by a full-body shudder.
I almost came.
From a single rock.
A clothing-covered, chaste little rock that blew my ever-loving mind.
I did it again.
A hitched moan escaped her as her head tipped back even further, exposing the length of her honey-coloured throat.
I didn’t think.
I dropped my chin and latched my teeth on her sweet, slightly salty neck.
She jerked beneath me. Her hands landed on my naked waist.
Having her touch me caused more pain than I could stand.
Scrambling for her wrists, I fisted them and shoved them above her head. Pinning her in place with one hand, I held her down. Firmly. Resolutely.
“W-What are you doing?” she moaned as I rocked up, wedging my hips against hers, forcing her legs to spread wider.
My voice rasped with nightmares. “Giving you what you need.”
She shuddered as I dragged my length along her heat. Dampness soaked through the front of my trousers, sending me straight to hell.
“But—”
“Hush.” I licked where I bit her. “I’ll help you.”
“Help me—” She shook her head. “I don’t—I mean...I’m—”
“You’re wet and needy.”
“No, I’m—”
“You can’t lie to me, Ily.” I nuzzled against her ear. “I can smell your lust. I see it in your eyes. Let me put you out of your misery.”
She stiffened and squirmed in my wrist lock. “But...this is a job to you. I’m just—”
“My partner in crime and I’ve been remiss.
You’ve gone along with me and pretended for me.
You’ve done such a good job that I believed the role you played.
” I chuckled brokenly. “You acted as if you couldn’t stand me inside you, but...
right now, your body is telling me an entirely different story.
” I licked the only part of her I was allowed. “You want me. Want this.”
Pushing her head back as far as she could into the pillow, she struggled to meet my eyes. “You don’t have to. You don’t...I don’t want you to do this because you feel obligated.”
“Obligated?” I completely forgot about the cameras. “Why the hell would you say that?”
“I...” She flinched. “This isn’t your problem to solve, Henri.”
Henri.
God, had my name ever sounded so breathy and sexy and wanted?
Brushing my nose with hers, I murmured, “Do you need to come or not?”
Her eyes flared. “What sort of question is—”