Chapter 25
Iheard her knees as they hit the floor, but I paid her no mind.
In fact, I left her there and quickly ascended the staircase to my bedroom.
While she had tried to get outside a short while ago, she’d never be able to guess the code.
Knowing Aurora, though, she very well might try, but I wouldn’t concern myself with her futile efforts.
And her trying to escape wasn’t the only thing she was doing in vain. As I stormed into my bedroom and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, I saw something in my eyes I’d never wanted to show her. Or rather, I never could show her.
During the weeks we’d spent cooped up together, I had grown to like her. I’d never had a shortage of women willing to do any number of perverse things I might want to do, but none of them affected me quite the way that she did.
And I hate it. Never you, though, Bellezza. Never you!
But I needed to, yet I couldn’t find a way to do so. Kingston and Cillian were finalizing the arrangements so it would be a matter of days before she’d be gone from my life forever. She’d end up in Russia and everything would be drastically different.
While I’d been breaking her down little by little, a part of myself had also cracked.
All I could think about was that my days with her were numbered.
My time with her had always been temporary, but until now, I’d never allowed myself to believe it.
King and Cill could call in five minutes, an hour, a day, or a week, and I would have to turn her over to them.
The very thought of someone else seeing Aurora naked... Touching her body... Making her back arch in ecstasy... Holding her in their arms as she slept on their chest... Feeling peace at her mega-watt smile... Calmed by her soft voice...
Rage filled me and I knocked everything off my dresser before stalking over to my bathroom. Everything on my counter met the same fate as I pictured fucking Bocharov pulling her into his arms and pressing his lips against the ones I’d just marked.
Only, she was never mine to mark, and the same way I had made her forget Drake, he would make her forget me.
I moved back to my bedroom, then with a swipe of my hand, knocked everything off my nightstand as well.
That included my cell phone, and I had no sooner bent down to retrieve it when something flew by my head and crashed against the wall before shattering into pieces.
As soon as I turned, I quickly ducked as a vase soared toward my head, too.
Aurora stood in the doorway with a nearly manic expression on her beautiful face.
And it was one marred with tears as the trails of dampness were streaked across her sharp features.
Her hair was tousled and in complete disarray. She was a goddess of fury.
But what caught and kept my attention was seeing her standing there completely naked.
She wasn’t trying to cover herself like she often did, instead allowing me to drink my fill.
And I did. My handprints were fading, but I could still make them out on the side of one breast and on the inside of her thigh.
And there were also several finger-shaped bruises she would feel and see tomorrow.
And my cock was hard again just like that.
Walking toward her, I didn’t even flinch or grimace as I stepped on broken glass.
I’d feel a shard or two wedge itself into the sole of my foot, but I couldn’t focus on anything but Aurora.
I continued to her until my foot stepped down, and even I heard the crunch of glass.
This time, I fucking felt it, but I wouldn’t be deterred.
Aurora looked down before she slowly started to back up.
As soon as she turned to flee, I grabbed her blonde hair, then yanked her against me.
She landed with a thud as her back made contact with my bare chest. I kept one hand in her hair, then brought the other one to her throat.
As soon as my hand encircled it, she sucked in a gulp of air.
Kissing my way across her jawline, I bit down once or twice, eliciting a shiver I could feel between us as it raced down her spine. Continuing to nibble my way to her ear, I bit down on her lobe as soon as I reached it.
“Were you throwing things at me, Bellezza?” When she said nothing, I tightened my grip on her hair. “Answer me!”
“Y-you looked like you could use the help.”
I grinned against her ear. “So thoughtful, but you’re a fucking liar.”
“A-about,” she stammered.
Ignoring her question, I released the lobe from my teeth, then tongued the shell, drawing out a strangled moan from her throat. “I think you were mad at me. Yes?”
“Common state around you,” she said a bit breathlessly.
If she was trying to hide her arousal, she was failing miserably.
Trying to hide her feelings was also an act of futility because I knew the truth.
I knew how she felt, and she knew it, too.
Nothing could ever come from it, but I still wanted to hear it. No, not want but need.
I needed to hear her admit that no one else would ever be able to erase me from her thoughts... Erase my touch from her body... Erase my fucking existence from her world...
“Say it,” I urged her.
“No,” she retorted, then cried out my name as I bit down on her ear once more. “Zarren!”
“Fuck, I love hearing my name fall from your lips. Say it again,” I demanded as I kissed my way back down her face and over her chin. A tug of her hair twisted her face toward mine. When my lips were inches from her, I repeated myself. “Fucking say it!”
“What does it matter? I’ll forget it soon en—”
My hand tightened, cutting off her words. It was too late to stop them from echoing in my head. Forget me? Rage at the very thought of her trying to do that filled me, and I wanted to snap her neck in two.
Actually worried about my own strength at this point, I quickly released her from my grip, then pushed her through the doorway. She stumbled, but that defiance shone in her watery eyes. Her face was now flushed a bright red, matching the handprint of mine around her throat.
She brought her dainty hands to her neck, all while trying to suck deep breaths back into her. More tears escaped from her eyes as she rubbed her reddened flesh. I looked down at my own hands, which shook almost violently.
My control was disintegrating. Never had I ever lost my damn mind until now. Aurora had entered my life as my captive, yet I was the one in bars. I was in her gilded cage when it should’ve been the other way around.
I balled my hands into fists and let them hang at my side.
My eyes were on her as hers focused in on me.
No words needed to be spoken as I read her silent plea.
Aurora dropped her hands from her neck, touching her nipple with one while sliding the other lower.
The second it disappeared between her legs, a primitive growl escaped from my lips.
“What are you doing?” I asked her in a low tone that disguised the foreign sensation rising up within me.
“What you started but weren’t man enough to finish. I’ll make sure to cry out your name as I come on my fin—”
“Come here,” I ordered.
“No, you had your chance and blew it. I’ll leave you to all this,” she said as she dismissively waved at the mess behind me. “I have pressing needs to take care of.”
“Aurora,” I said in warning.
“Zarren,” she mocked as she moaned out my name.
My fists tightened. She was testing the limits of my control, and when she evidently had nicked a sensitive spot and gasped, everything came back into focus. Her pussy wasn’t hers to touch, and it would never be Mikhail’s. It was mine.
“Run,” I told her as a feral possessiveness filled me. I could feel it flowing through my veins, leaving a scalding path in its wake.
She hesitated for just a moment until she glanced down to see me removing my pants. Panic flared in her eyes, and by the time she turned to flee, she had waited too long to do so. She barely made it near the wrought iron railing when I caught up to her from behind.
As the blood rushed in my ears and the heavy sound of my erratic pulse and frantic breathing reverberated in my head, I spun her around and raised one of her legs. The metal shook as she quickly grabbed the top rail. Seconds later, I thrust deep into her, drawing a ragged cry from her lips.
“So fucking good, Bellezza,” I rasped before wrapping one hand around her neck.
As I held her in my grip, I allowed everything that’d been building inside of me to erupt as I fucked her hard. The rail shook and she made a myriad of noises, but all I could focus on was controlling the beast that had risen up inside of me.
Aurora nearly plunged over the rail with each thrust, but I had her in my arms. As long as she was in them, I could protect her. I would protect her. While I had no idea how long I’d be able to do so, I refused to waste a single second longer.
“Your pussy is tightening down so hard around my cock. It knows what you already know and are too stubborn to admit. It was made for me, just as my cock was made for you.”
“Zarren,” she gasped as I yanked her head upward while never slowing or stopping. I pounded into her, and this new angle of penetration allowed me to go so much deeper. She was about to come soon, which made it harder for me to drive into her. “I’m about to come.”
“On whose cock, Belleza?”
“Y-yours,” she stammered.
I pinched her inner thigh. “Try again. On whose?”
“Zarren,” she cried out.
“That’s right,” I said moments before releasing her neck from my grip and pushing her lower body down.
Her breasts were now trapped between me and the iron, and nothing else as her head hung over the top.
I kept her pinned down as I slammed into her over and over.
The moment she came, her pussy clamped down so tight on my cock, and her inner walls tugged and pulled on each of my piercings.
“Fuck,” I groaned out loud, but didn’t stop.
“Zarren... Zarren... My God.... I’m about to come again... Fuck!!!”
Her words as she flew over the edge into her climax sent me soaring toward mine as well.
I held her tightly against me as I thrust hard and deep, then emptied everything inside of her.
The thought of taking her unprotected had crossed my mind more than once before, but I’d never actually done it until now.
Knowing there was not a damn thing between us drew my own orgasm impossibly longer.
With each methodical thrust, I savored the sounds of her sobs.
They should’ve been enough to make me stop, but instead were like drops of gasoline on an open flame.
Sense finally returned to me and I lowered her leg, then stepped away from her. When she turned to look at me, her expression mirrored what I felt.
Anguish... Confusion... Pain... Pleasure... And most of all, shame...
“You should’ve run, Belleza.”
“I tried,” she whispered. “You caught me.”
I shook my head. “Not now. That night on the road. You should’ve run and never looked back.”
“You were hurt. I thought you were going to die.”
“You should’ve fucking let me,” I said before turning around and storming back into my bedroom. I slammed my door behind me with enough force that it fell back open, and when I went to close it again, she was gone. Soon, it wouldn’t just be from the hallway, but from my life.
I stepped forward and when I felt the sharp glass underneath my foot again, I glanced down. Drops of blood were all over, and after hobbling over to the bed, I sat on the edge and pulled out the pieces of glass that I could from my foot. After, I lay back and closed my eyes.
How in the hell can I ever let you go?
The question was one only I could answer, and right now, there was no solution outside of running off with her. “Everything done in the dark comes to the light,” my grandfather would tell me. “You can’t hide your weakness in the shadows.”