Chapter Twenty-One
Orion
I reached out, and gently moved her hair away from her face with my fingertips to get a look at her. Her wet lashes were stuck together from her tears, and her parted lips were trembling while her drool ran down her chin. Her pretty blue eyes were now red and brimmed with tears.
She sucked in a gasp when I pulled out, and I wiped my thumb across her tear-stained cheeks, smearing her black mascara.
“What do you say, Tesoro?” I arched my brow at her, a dark edge crept into my tone.
She blinked up at me and sniffled as she tried to catch her breath. “Thank you,” she choked out.
“Good girl .”
The little firecracker had been challenging me at the bar, and my dick was instantly hard at her little attitude. She wanted to play a game, one we both knew she wouldn’t win. And I found myself being a willing participant.
I groaned, the sight of her on her knees looking up at me with lust-filled eyes made my cock twitch with need again. “So gorgeous,” I praised her, not missing her whimper at my words. Does my girl have a praise kink?
“Is your pussy wet for me, Emmy?”
“Yes,” she rasped, her chest heaving and making her tits bounce.
“Show me,” I told her. “Dip one of those fingers into your pussy and show me.”
I bit back a groan as she did, her tongue swiping her bottom lip as she reached down and slipped a finger inside of herself, the sight almost making me come again right there.
Fuck.
She lifted her finger and showed me like I asked, her arousal glistening on her skin. I bent down, grabbed her hand, and brought her finger to my mouth.
I swirled my tongue around it, sucking off her juices and humming in approval at the taste of that sweet honey.
Fucking addictive.
I popped her finger from my mouth and darted my hand to her face, squishing her cheeks together. “Did you learn your lesson, Tesoro? ”
The defiance sparked in her tear-brimmed eyes told me “no”, but her mouth said otherwise. “Yes,” she forced out through her puckered lips.
I groaned appreciatively, accepting her answer for what it was, and roughly let her face go. “Good girl.”
I reached out and cupped her right breast, her answering moan reverberating off the cool floor when I squeezed it. I was in no way gentle, but she seemed to love that. I let go and slapped the side of it. She jumped, before whimpering at the sting.
I ran my knuckles over the tops of her breasts, and her nipples hardened when they traveled lower over them. “Whose good girl are you?”
“Yours,” she answered.
“Mine,” I agreed, slapping the side of her breast again. I smiled when her yelp melted into another whimper. I slapped the other, and her head fell back, her eyes closing as she let out a cry.
“You like that, don’t you?” I mused.
“Yeah,” she breathed, her eyes opening again and meeting mine. Reaching out, I took both of her hard nipples between my fingers and pinched them. Hard.
Her chest rose towards me, screaming out.
“On your feet, baby,” I told her. Still holding her hardened peaks, I yanked her closer to me. She panted as I held her in place, and when I let go, she cried again.
Now on her feet, I sunk my fingers into her chestnut hair, my thumb digging into her cheek, and I forced her to look up at me. “Every touch, every kiss, every ounce of pleasure, it will all come from me,” I whispered. “Do you understand?”
She wet her lips. “Yes.”
I slammed my lips on hers, kissing her with an intense hunger, a possessiveness that I couldn’t quite contain. A primal urge surged within me to make her mine in every sense of the word .
I kissed her with fervent intensity as if trying to imprint myself upon her, to leave my mark in a way that no one else ever could.
The kiss was hard, stealing every breath and taking it as my own. I leaned down and gripped the back of her thighs, lifting her up to straddle me and pressing her back firmly against the wall.
My fingers dug into her ass, squeezing her cheeks roughly and forcing a moan to vibrate on my lips. She lifted her palms to my chest, and I reached a hand up to grab them and pin them above her head.
I pushed my hips into her to hold her in place, and my hand went between her legs. I swallowed her moan when I slid a finger into her, her back arching against the wall and her tits pushing into my chest.
I pulled my lips from hers, and kissed down the juncture of her neck, making her shiver as my finger entered her again. When I added another, she whimpered and her hips started rocking back and forth. “That’s it, Emmy. Ride my fingers, baby. Show me how much you want to be fucked.”
Her back arched deeper at my words, and her pussy dripped down my wrist. I removed my fingers and pushed my hard cock into her.
I let go of her hands, my fingers instead grabbing onto her waist so I could hold her steady. I pushed in and out of her at a slow rhythm, torturing her needy core that was desperate for a release.
“Orion,” her voice was a mixture of a growl and a plea, and my lips curved into an amused grin.
My hips picked up their pace, and our bodies slapped together while her nails started to dig into my back, making me hiss when I felt them cut into my skin. Reaching up a hand and roughly kneading her breast, her head fell back onto the wall while I fucked her. Her eyes squeezed shut when a strangled cry left her throat, and her tight pussy started to clench down on me.
“Eyes on me when I’m fucking you,” I growled, driving into her at a punishing pace, fucking her so hard I almost worried she might break.
Her lids shot open, and she looked me dead in the eye while I slammed into her against the wall. A second later, she was screaming as she came undone, panting feverishly as her tits bounced from the motion of my hips.
It only took a few more thrusts, and then I was coming inside her as my orgasm burned through me, wild and hot, ripples of pleasure took over the entirety of my body.
“What’s your favorite color?” Emmy blurted out, her voice soft yet filled with genuine interest. Her head rested on my chest and her fingers traced the outline of my tattoos as I leaned against the headboard.
Something about being wrapped in these Egyptian sheets, away from everyone else, and locking ourselves in the hotel room made me feel like I’d been granted entry to Heaven .
In here, it was just us. No Avery, Atlas, or fucking Miles .
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered buying the whole damn hotel so we could just stay here forever, and I could keep Emmy all to myself.
I’ve never denied being a selfish bastard.
But I had to go and help her get a fucking job. Not just any job, either. Her dream job, one she certainly wouldn’t blow off to stay in these sheets with me. So, I had to suck it up and take her home tonight so she could go to the damn thing.
Serves me right for doing something nice.
But there was another reason we needed to leave; one Emmy didn’t know about.
Finding Miles was proving to be difficult, even for Doug, which likely meant Caleb was helping the fucker to hide out, and that only confirmed my suspicions. Miles’ intentions weren’t to find Emmy and apologize. As if apologizing could ever make a dent in repairing the damage he has done. The bastard had something much more sinister planned, and I intended to kill him before he got the fucking chance.
I chuckled, her head bouncing slightly from the vibration of my chest. “What?” I arched a brow at the abruptness.
She tipped her head back, staring up at me through her long, thick lashes, her tousled hair kissed by the warm golden tendrils weaving through the curtains, framing her face like a halo.
Her eyes, like pools of liquid blue, shimmered with the soft light of dawn, reflecting a depth of innocence that stirred something deep within me.
“What’s your favorite color?” she repeated, her soft voice a gentle melody that glided down my skin. Just as she had done many times before, she caught me off guard, this time with the simplicity of her question.
“You want to know my favorite color?” I smirked down at her, my fingers caressing the small of her exposed back. My chest ached when I looked at her, an unfamiliar tightness knotting inside. Strange.
“I hardly know anything about you, Orion,” she admitted, the weight of her words leaving me momentarily speechless. She wasn’t wrong, but not many did. “And I want to know everything there is to know. So, your favorite color is what I’m starting with. Do I need to ask again?” There was a playful glint in her eyes, and her lips curved into a curious smile.
I blinked. No one had ever asked me that before, so I’d never needed an answer. I probably could have picked one anyway, but there was never anyone I wanted to tell.
Until Emmy.
Since I was a teenager, I had been accustomed to keeping people at arm’s length. My interactions had always been strictly business, devoid of any personal entanglement. An exception to that was Atlas but even our friendship had limits.
Yet, here was Emmy, breaking through my defenses with her genuine curiosity and warmth. A sense of vulnerability crept in, a feeling I’d forgotten existed until I met her, and tiny cracks threatened the concrete walls I’d been building for years.
It was unnerving, this feeling of being laid bare, exposed to someone who wanted to see beyond the heartless fa?ade. But Emmy had this way of looking at me with those eyes that seemed to see straight through to my core, and I found myself wanting to give her whatever the fuck she wanted.
And as if guided by some unseen force, I decided my answer. “Blue,” I told her. “But not just any shade of blue. A shade so pure, so serene, so… oceanic it seems to hold the essence of my tranquility itself.”
A faint blush rose to her cheeks, and a soft smile tugged at the corners of her lips, a flicker of understanding dancing in her eyes.
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” she continued, her voice layered with inquisitiveness.
I sighed, knowing this was going to go on for a while. I could refuse to engage, but there was no point, I learned the lesson of denying her already. “A firefighter.”
She smiled at my answer, and suddenly I couldn’t seem to stop myself from talking, driven by the desire to see her smile like that again.
“I had this Billy Blazes firefighter figure that I carried everywhere with me. I loved it. It was my favorite thing I owned. I used to play with it for hours, saving the world from my imaginary fires and driving Avery mad, who quickly got sick of me pouring water over her stuffed toys.” I chuckled, the memory of Avery locking me out of her room so I couldn’t ruin any more of her stuffed bears resurfacing. “I dreamed of growing up to be just like Billy.”
Emmy’s smile widened, a look of awe transforming her face. An unusual niggly feeling coiled my gut from my sudden revelation. I’d never told anyone that before, it was strange how easy it felt to share that with her.
“What happened to the dream?”
“Life, Tesoro. ”
Her expression softened. She turned over to lay on her front, her arms still pressed against my chest. Her hand reached out and traced the scar that was etched into my eyebrow before continuing along the ones scattered across my chest. “How did you get these?”
I stiffened. Part of me instinctively wanted to push her hand away, to close up and reject her thirst to understand me so I could keep the memories buried down. She wouldn’t snuff out any light hiding in my soul, she’d only find scars and darkness that would send her running.
Too bad I’ll always catch her.
But her gentle touch had the opposite effect, seducing me into letting her in, whispering in my ear to bare all, despite how much my mind repelled against it. I wasn’t afraid of her knowing me for who I was, for her to understand how I became this man. I was afraid of slicing open the wounds of my past after spending so long shoving them down.
I’d never lie to her, at least not about the kind of man I was. The demons of my past still haunted me, carving me into the man I was today, feeding off my darkness and turning me into a cruel, vindictive monster .
I was an instrument of chaos, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about it. But she shouldn’t think being with me would be all sunshine and rainbows. The only Heaven I’d take her to would be with my bloodied mouth.
I turned back to her, regretting it instantly. Her eyes were narrowed, attempting to decipher the non-existent emotion slashed across my face. Her features were clouded with such concern it had my black heart constricting and my chest damn near aching. I wet my lips, there was no way to deny her when she was looking at me like that.
“My sister needed urgent medical attention, and I dared to ask our foster parents for it. I guess the weekly check they received from the local authority was to fuel their alcoholism, not to support the minors they were fostering.”
Her brows furrowed, her lips pressed into a hard line, and she studied me with such dejection. For a second, I thought she might actually start crying. But she didn’t. “Where are they now?”
Again, no point lying to her. “Dead.”
A silent beat of understanding passed between us, and I expected to see something resembling horror or fear transform the curves of her face, though it never came. Instead, she hit me with a sharp “Good.”
And I swore my cock had never gotten so hard, so quickly, in my entire fucking life. “Come here,” I growled, grabbing her waist and pinning her under me.