Chapter 29 Before We Light the Match #2
“Yes,” I whimper, rubbing my backside over his length, squirming when he collars my throat. “Oh, God, yes.”
His dominance. The way he has me under him. He’s owning my body, my breathing, my everything, and I should be terrified.
“My Aria isn’t afraid of scary stories.” Reaper kisses my ear. “She loves them. Revels in them.”
He digs his fingers into my throat. Just slightly. Like he’s waiting for me to say no. To push him away. To tell him to get the hell out of my life.
But I don’t. Because I want more. I want it all.
“Fuck me.” My voice is needy now, hoarse from pleasure. “Fuck me, Reaper. Make me forget everything else.”
“Christ.” He clenches my throat and powers inside me in one full thrust.
Exhilaration shoots into my bloodstream. I’m full of him, full of us, full of everything I thought wasn’t possible when my world was gray before him.
He releases my neck and I drag in oxygen, the sounds of skin slapping against skin loud in the dark.
But that’s only the beginning, because Reaper brackets my throat again, alternating between a firm grip and a light hold, giving me air before I need to ask for it.
“You take me so perfectly,” he huffs against my ear, his body curling over mine with each brutal stroke. “Fucking perfect cunt. I’m going to come so hard inside you, you’ll be dripping with my cum tomorrow.”
My pussy clenches at the image.
“Shit, you just got tighter. You like that, huh? Naughty girl. Am I the only one who’ll see this side of you?”
But he doesn’t let me answer. Instead, his thrusts ram faster. Harder.
I feel him everywhere, each graze of his perfect cock hitting my clit and somewhere deep inside me.
Dots gather in my vision. My mouth parts for the air I desperately need.
Pleasure gathers so tightly I shake, my limbs no longer under my control.
Wet sounds join the grunts and moans. I’m making a mess and I don’t care.
“You’re strangling me, Aria. You’re going to come so hard, right?”
I nod, desperate, manic, out of my mind.
“Then come.”
Reaper bites my neck. The lash of pain sets me off, and ecstasy melts my mind. He lets go of my neck then, the rush of oxygen prolonging the high. I collapse onto the bed, helpless to the onslaught of sensations.
I’m barely aware of his fingers digging into my ass as he keeps my hips bent and slams into me once, twice, three times.
“Yes!” he roars.
A rush of wet heat floods my womb, sending another orgasm rippling through me as I spasm from the unending waves swallowing my body, my mind, and my heart.
Eventually, he turns me to the side and cradles me against him, one hand massaging my tender neck, the other teasing my swollen entrance, playing with our cum before pushing it back inside me, like he can’t bear to waste any of it.
My eyelids are heavy. But my heart is full. So full.
I hiss when he grazes my clit.
“Did I hurt you?” he murmurs. “Was I too rough?”
I shake my head and moan, still unable to form words. Snuggling closer, I relish the way he cradles me tenderly in his arms while pressing soft kisses over my cheek, my neck, and my shoulder.
“I’m happy.”
The words are out before I realize I’ve said them. And they’re true. Here, in his arms, I’m loved, cherished, and safe from all the horrors waiting outside these four walls.
He goes quiet after that, just holding me, and the silence seems different now—full instead of empty.
Minutes pass until a question prods my mind, even as sleep threatens to overtake me.
But I have to ask. I need to ask.
“Reaper,” I whisper. “Can you stay the whole night? Don’t leave before I wake?”
He freezes behind me, and for a moment I think he’s going to deny me. That he’s going to say this is temporary and only for the dark.
But then he replies, the words threaded with something heavy, something painful, “Yes.”
Elation jolts my heart.
With a smile, my eyes drift closed on the thought of seeing him in the daylight, and I fall into a deep sleep, the exhaustion finally catching up to me.
The next thing I know, I startle awake sometime later, disoriented when panic grips my throat.
The world is quiet. No light streams in through the curtains yet, so it’s still nighttime.
My ribs constrict when I don’t feel a heated presence against my back. Chaotic snapshots flash through my mind.
Bloodshed. Benefaction.
Reaper.
Then the questions, the suspicions I shoved aside last night claw back, louder now. Clearer.
How did Reaper get inside the Benefaction? How did he know where the safe house was?
How did he get into my apartment—or here—without Elias and his people knowing?
My shoulders tighten. Slowly, I turn, my hand drifting across the mattress until I touch the smooth, hot torso of Reaper.
Lightly, I trail my fingertips over his body, memorizing the defined ridges of his abs, listening to the rhythmic cadence of his breathing. I pause at his belly button, suddenly afraid to reach higher.
Afraid to know what I’d feel if I touched that spot above his sternum.
But I need to know.
I’ve been in the dark too long.
Holding my breath, I sit up, my fingers gliding over more hard muscles, more smooth skin.
And there it is.
An unmistakable raised scar bisecting his pecs.
A heart transplant scar.
My exhale rushes out, my lungs seizing.
No.
I need to be wrong. I need my fingers to be wrong.
Before I can stop myself, I lean over and flick on the lamp, drenching the room in warm light.
And I’m met with a pair of beautiful eyes.
Dark. Whiskey. Intense.
Eyes filled with bottomless pain.
“You couldn’t resist turning on the light, could you?” he asks.
Ren.