Chapter 22
DOVE
A shadow falls over me, jerking my attention from the diary and cup of tea I've been sitting with at the kitchen counter. Heat suffuses my face, and I quickly close the book when I see Bane standing at the other side of the island.
“Hi,” I blurt, still blushing.
I'm not blushing because he’s just walked in on me reading Lark’s diary.
I don't feel like I “almost got caught”. A few days ago, I decided on the off-chance that Bane knew Lark’s diary and would recognize it, I disguised it.
The bright blue is now covered in the dust jacket from a super boring book I happen to own on the Vaganova Method called The Fundamentals of Classical Dance.
So, no. My face isn’t reddening because of what I’m doing.
It’s because of him.
The feelings that have been slowly creeping like tendrils through my insides have put down roots and started to grow, no matter how much I try and fight it.
It began to get worse the other day, after I ran from what I’m pretty sure now was nobody.
Nobody chasing me. Nobody trying to hurt me.
That’s another whole worry, though luckily, I’m seeing Dr. Caruso tomorrow to reevaluate my dosages.
It’s almost comforting in a weird way to know that I’m not “going” crazy.
I'm already there.
Being crazy, I suppose, is sort of like being an addict.
You’ll always be one, and there’s nothing that’ll change it.
But sobriety is about being an addict who doesn't use.
And being on psych meds is about keeping the crazy in check.
Imaginary villains chasing me through the night? Yeah, that's not in check.
But that's not what I’m talking about with “things getting worse” after that night.
I’m talking about Bane.
He held me that night. He didn’t chase me, or roughly throw me to the ground and fuck me to within an inch of my life. He didn’t wring the orgasms from me until I was shuddering and blubbering and dripping all over the place.
He just held me. He pulled me out of the dark hole my head had fallen into, held me in his arms, and brought me to bed.
I truly don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep so peacefully or felt as safe as I did the night I crashed out with my breath against his skin.
But later that same night, I woke to emptiness.
No warm chest beneath my cheek. Just cool sheets.
We sleep together all the time. By which I mean, we fuck. A lot. But there’s no actual sleeping together.
We haven’t actually ever fucked in a bed. It’s always against a wall, on the floor, bent over his desk, on a couch, one knee up on the bathroom vanity and my breath and makeup fogging and smudging the mirror… You get the idea.
I’m not getting all emo about it and pining for him to take me to literal bed.
He’s not that kind of guy. And I don’t think I’m that kind of girl.
But the memory of how I felt falling asleep in his arms has me in its grip. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake it away.
Bane nods at the book closed in front of me. “A little light reading?”
I glance down at the dust jacket masking Lark’s diary and then back up at him, grinning. “Totally. Casual, fun stuff, you know?”
His mouth twists in what I’ve come to realize is Bane’s version of a smirk.
“What’s up?” I ask.
His dark eyes lift to mine. “Come with me.”
He’s already walking away out of the kitchen. I slip the diary into my bag slung over the back of the kitchen stool before I quickly follow. He leads us up to the second floor, into one of the guest rooms that I've never had need to enter.
I’m confused when Bane opens another door, one that you'd think led to a closet. I follow him into the darkness, then he flips on a light switch.
Whoa.
It’s not a closet. It's an art studio, complete with easels, shelves of supplies, and a stack of blank, stretched canvases, including some extra-huge ones. I’ve never had a chance to paint on those, but have always wanted to try.
Slowly, I drag my eyes back to the easel in front of me.
My easel from home, with my name painted in dark pink on one of the legs.
“Your stepmother is…” Bane’s brow furrows deeply.
“A cunt? Yeah, I know,” I mutter.
A wry smile twists his lips. “She really is. I’ve been trying to coordinate with her to get this stuff for a few weeks. She didn’t make it easy.”
My eyes shine as I survey it all again. Then I blink and turn back to him. “You went and got all of this for me?”
He nods. “I’m not using this room for anything. So…” He lifts a shoulder. “It’s yours. For—”
I don’t know what prompts me to do it. Gratitude, I guess. But it’s not just a trade for the favor he’s done for me. It’s not payment.
It’s just something I want to do.
So I do it. I turn, grab the front of his shirt, and lean up on my toes to kiss him.
Bane freezes, coldness radiating off him. I let the kiss linger another few seconds before I pull away, my face red. I turn away from him, coughing nervously as I quickly walk back to the table full of paints and art supplies.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I know that’s probably not part of our arrange—”
Strong hands grab me from behind, lifting me off the floor and twisting me around. I whimper as Bane's mouth sears to mine, his kiss fierce and wild and unhinged as my arms and legs wrap around his hard, muscled body.
We go crashing backward, and I’m barely aware of the easel falling over. It takes the stack of oversized canvases with it, and I shriek into his mouth as we go toppling over into a riot of oil paints splattering across one of the giant canvases on the floor.
His mouth is hungry and warm, and his tongue tastes minty and sweet as it darts in to swipe against mine. I moan into his lips, dragging my nails over his back muscles through his t-shirt. I cry out as his teeth nibble, suck, and scrape their way down my jaw to my neck.
His powerful hands grab the front of my tank top, shoving it up over my breasts before he tears my bra open. I moan as his finger and thumb find an achy, pebbling nipple.
I claw at the hem of his shirt in the slippery madness of the spilled paint, listening to his low, fevered, masculine growls. His shirt and shoes get tossed away. So do mine, followed by my ruined bra.
Bane’s paint-slicked fingers wrap around my throat as his mouth slides down to my nipples, taking one between his teeth and biting.
I scream in pleasure, my back arching off the mess beneath us as my eyes roll back in my head.
I reach for his belt, but he’s suddenly licking and sucking his way down the hollow of my stomach as he starts to peel my jeans off without even undoing them first. Denim scrapes across my hips, his hot breath teasing down from my navel…
I wince.
“Wait,” I groan, grabbing his hair. “Bane…”
He ignores me, wrenching the jeans down my legs and sliding them off before I can stop him. He's pushing his huge frame between my legs and reaching for my panties when my voice cuts through the madness.
“Stop!” I blurt, clawing at his shoulders and his hair, trying to drag him back up. “You don’t want to—”
“Oh, I can promise you,” he rasps, sliding back up just long enough to kiss me until my lips hurt and my breath catches, “I do.”
His muscled body slides back down mine, his fingers hooking into the front of my panties.
“I’m on my period!” I blurt.
Bane yanks my panties down to my knees.
“Bane—!”
“I heard you,” he murmurs. He starts to nibble up the inside of my thigh, growling and shoving my legs apart when I try to close them.
“No, I’m literally—”
“And I literally don’t give a fuck.”
I watch in horror as this man reaches for the string of my tampon…
…PULLS IT OUT…
…and tosses it behind him onto the canvas we’re tangled across.
He looks up at me, his gaze holding my wide, stunned one, and then lowers his mouth to my pussy.
“You think I just want the clean and tidy version of you?” he growls, biting the tender apex of my thighs, right next to my pussy. “You should know, little bird…”
His mouth dips to my wetness.
“Red is my favorite fucking color.”
I cry out when his tongue drags up my seam, opening my lips and then dragging over my clit. My body writhes, my hips lifting up to his face as he pushes his tongue deep inside me.
“Bleed for me, baby,” he murmurs, tonguing my clit as he hums against me.
Holy fuck, this man.
My back arches as a broken, haunted sound of pleasure wrenches from my throat. I moan, twisting on the sticky wet paint at my back, feeling it coat my skin and matt my hair. Bane lies shirtless between my thighs, growling and hungrily devouring my pussy as I gasp and whine for more more more.
His lips wrap around my clit, his low, deep groans vibrating against me as he swirls his tongue over the swollen bud. I scream, thrashing about, knocking over more shit and not caring at all as my fingers spear into his hair.
“Bane—!”
The orgasm comes out of nowhere, ripping through me as my entire body arches off the mess. My legs kick and shake and finally give out, my heels skidding through slick paint as I come hard against his mouth.
He kicks his jeans off and slides up between my legs. His mouth is bloody…and maybe this is sick…but it doesn’t stop me from wrapping my arms around his neck and yanking him down to me.
I sear my lips to his just as he centers his huge monster dick at my entrance. He slides in wetly, my pussy so slippery with my cum and my blood that he easily buries his thick length to the hilt inside me. I scream into his mouth, clawing and clinging to him, tasting copper on his tongue.
He rams into me hard, thrusting his dick deep inside me, touching me in places I didn’t even know existed. My head lolls back, my arms still tight around his neck as he pounds into me with deep, brutal thrusts.
His hand slides under us, grabbing my ass and shifting my hips to get a better angle. I cry out, moaning and shaking as Bane fucks the shit out of me on the mess of brushes, paint, and blood smeared across the giant canvas beneath.
In and out. In and out. His fat cock reams into me, stretching me to my limit, even though I’ve had two weeks practice taking him by now. I can feel him in my stomach, and I swear when I look down, I can see a bulge in my abdomen from his cock stroking me on the inside.
Bane grabs and tugs on a handful of my hair, making me scream in pleasure and my eyes roll back. His teeth rake over my throat as he slams into me.
“I’ll never get tired of the way this hot little cunt strangles my cock, baby,” he snarls against my skin.
My legs wrap around his muscled hips. My pelvis rises and falls, meeting his every thrust as he rams deep, over and over, until my entire reality becomes a blur of raw, unhinged pleasure and the slick sheen of paint on my back.
“Bane!” I choke, feeling my entire body quiver and shake and clench tightly around him. “I—!”
“You want to squirt all over my cock again, little bird?” he growls into my ear, biting and licking it as my entire core clenches and ripples.
“Do it. Squirt for me, baby,” he rasps. “Bleed for me. Ruin me. Fuck me up again and again, because I’ll never fucking quit you, and it’ll never be e-fucking-nough. ”
He buries his thickness to the balls inside me.
“It’ll—”
Thrust.
“Never.”
Thrust.
“Be.”
Thrust.
“Fucking.”
Thrust.
“Enough.”
When I come, it’s like something cold and brittle inside me finally shatters and releases. A wall comes down. A barricade burns. A tower crumbles.
And I fucking break.
I grab his face and crush my lips to his, tasting his venom and my blood, his fury and my pain.
My core explodes, liquid flooding my thighs as Bane buries every huge inch inside me and roars into my mouth.
I can feel every pulsing jet of his cum as it spills hot into me, my thighs quivering and tightening around his hips as we ride out the wave until there’s nothing left.
Until we collapse onto the paint and blood smeared across the canvas beneath us.
A beautiful, chaotic mess.
Just like us.