Chapter 32
Bane
Slade using me for her pleasure was the hottest experience of my life. Hands down. After I changed out of the jeans I had soaked with my cum, we came down to our kitchen.
Yes, our kitchen.
Slade has been quiet, but there’s a smile that tugs at her mouth, and her beautiful green eyes have fire and light in them.
I’ve just finished barbecuing steaks, and we sit down to eat. I dish up Slade’s plate with garlic bread, stuffed potatoes, and salad.
“What if I wanted more salad and less of something else?”
I spear one of the steaks for her and quirk a brow. “You? More salad? Says the girl who lives off candy?”
“I do not.” She laughs, and I pause, stunned. I can’t breathe.
She’s utterly breathtaking when she full-on smiles and laughs. The way her face takes on an ethereal-like glow, the way her eyes dance and sparkle, and the way a tiny dimple makes an appearance.
And I did that. I helped her rediscover this within her.
Suddenly, I want to fall to my knees and worship her. Beg and plead her to never leave and to be mine for all of e-fucking-ternity.
Who the hell am I?
Army wasn’t wrong that I had always steered clear of attachment with women. And I kissed Slade, for Christ’s sake. I initiated it. I devoured her mouth as if I needed to drink her into my soul so she could never leave me.
“Bane?” Her soft voice snaps me out of it. “Are you okay?”
My hand lifts of its own free will to cup her cheek, and my heart hammers wildly in my chest when she leans into my touch.
I have so many questions—for her and myself—and things I need to know.
However, I’m afraid to ask them because I don’t want to push her and have her lose the progress she’s made.
I don’t want her to return to that turned-off, emotionless, numbed state, and I certainly don’t want her to spiral into chaos and be trapped in that mental prison.
“Are you okay, Bane?” she asks again.
“Yeah, baby. I’m perfect,” I say, my voice rough and low.
Her brow furrows slightly, but her cheeks have a bloom of pink. “Don’t call me baby.”
“Why?” I lean closer. “Because it does something to you?”
She tries to turn her head away, but I turn her face back toward me.
“It does something to you, just like it does something to me when you call me daddy.”
Honestly, it made me blow my fucking load in my pants.
“Just like my filthy talk about your needy cunt dripping with your wetness and my cum.”
She shifts in her seat. “Jesus, Bane.”
I lean closer still, brushing my lips over hers, and her breathy pants push air over mine. “Just like the thought of filling and stretching you with my big, thick cock is consuming you. Isn’t it, baby?”
Her chair scrapes across the floor, then topples over. Then she’s in my lap, gripping my cut and smashing her mouth down on mine. My hands grip her hips and pull her down on me so she has friction, and she instantly rubs against me.
“Is my baby hungry and greedy for more pleasure?”
“Yes,” she moans. “I fucking miss orgasms.”
I process that and go still. It makes sense that after the hell she’s been through—and I only know the tip of the iceberg—that sex would be the last thing on her mind. Especially with all emotions, including lust, turned off.
And again, it staggers me that I helped her with this and gave her some strength. I won’t take an ounce of credit for the progress and healing she’s made; that’s all her. I’ve only been the tool for her to use as she creates a stable foundation to rebuild from.
My hand snakes between our bodies, and I cup her pussy over her leggings, grinding the heel of my palm against her for more pressure and friction.
Her head falls back, and her moans fill the kitchen.
If this area wasn’t secluded and off-limits to the rest of the club besides the Council—and I hadn’t texted my best friends to let them know Slade and I were having a late supper and to steer clear—I’d never do this here.
No one gets to see her like this or to hear her moans of pleasure.
Those are all mine. Because I’m a greedy, possessive motherfucker.
She rocks against my hand, chasing the climax that’s building within her as her cheeks flush and her pupils dilate.
“Is your cunt aching?” Because my dick fucking is, but this isn’t about me. It’s wholly and unequivocally all about her.
“Yes.” That one word is shaky, and she trembles in my arms.
“Can I finger-fuck you?” Christ, I’m ready to beg for her to let me do that.
She goes rigid and looks down at me with something akin to panic and horror.
I pull my hand away from her cupping pussy and cradle her head, looking into her eyes. I have to know. I study her, and she’s steady and stable, even with that panic and horror that’s pressing in. “Did Antwane sexually violate you?”
Nothing in the leaked reports mentioned sexual assault on any of the victims they’ve been able to link to him, only brutal torture before death.
“No, but he…” She squeezes her eyes shut.
“Slade…” I pause, but when she doesn’t open her eyes, I command softly, “Look at me, baby.”
Slowly, her thick lashes lift, and the well of tortured pain that greets me nearly brings me to my knees and makes me want to roar in frustration that Antwane isn’t alive so I can kill the heinous son of a bitch myself. I’d make what he did to his victims seem like child’s play.
“Tell me.”
“I…I can’t.” Her body trembles violently.
“You can. While you look into my eyes. While I touch you. Because being with me gives you the strength to face this, Slade.
“Use me to get those words out, because baby, keeping everything inside you, locked up tight, is only eating at your soul. It’s toxic. And one day, it’s going to rip you apart when everything you’ve tried to repress finally blows.”
Tears fill her eyes, and I can see and feel the struggle within her as she fights for control. Finally, she begins to speak.
And there’s no way I could ever be prepared as she tells me everything.
She opens up about being chained to Antwane’s wall, forced to watch him torture his victims, and if she looked away or closed her eyes, he made it so much worse for them.
She talks about the slash marks he made on her body after each person finally died—her penance and punishment for living while they had to die. Thirteen in total, because she finally had a chance to get free and stop him before he gave her the fourteenth cut.
She speaks of how she freed herself, how Number Fourteen had to die because that was the only chance she’d have to act on Antwane’s oversight of keeping the small blade in his back pocket.
My small but fierce warrior should be shattered, decimated, yet she’s so fucking strong. She escaped literal hell and rid the world of something so evil and horrendous, it’s hard to put into words. And she’s alive and breathing.
And I’ll do every-fucking-thing to ensure she stays that way. I’ll lay down my life; I’ll sacrifice my last breath to ensure she continues to draw breath.
“I’m scarred, Bane,” she whispers with tears in her eyes. “Ugly.”
My hands tighten around her. “You’re fucking beautiful. Glorious. And those scars show how strong you are, Slade. That you faced something that tried so goddamn hard to break you, but you were the victor. Not a victim, but a victor. A warrior queen.”
Her bottom lip trembles.
“And I’ll worship at your feet, at your temple, until I draw my last breath.”