Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Raylan
Her hands came up, fisting in my shirt. For a second I thought she was holding on, using her grip to keep me close. I realized I read her wrong when she shoved me backward, catching me off guard enough to make me stumble.
“What the hell was that?” she spat indignantly, her cheeks flushed, expression angry. “Zach is out there. Have you lost your mind?”
“Yes,” I said on a growl as I closed the distance between us once more.
Sanity had taken a flying leap right out the window, and I couldn’t care less.
All that mattered in that moment was her.
Kissing her. Tasting her. Sinking deep inside her until she was all that existed.
“Yes, Chaos. I have lost my mind. I’ve been sitting out there for a goddamn hour, watchin’ every asshole in the place stare at you like they were picturing you naked. ”
She raised her hands, palms out, to keep me at bay. “You’re being ridiculous.”
I was, but I didn’t think anyone would blame me, especially if they had any idea what it was like to be with this incredible, sexy, infuriating woman.
As a matter of fact, I’d never felt so out of control in my life.
My body was like a runaway train with no brakes, and I hated the feeling almost as much as I was growing addicted to it.
“Stop moving away from me,” I clipped when she rounded the desk, putting it between us.
“Then stop acting like a freaking caveman.”
A caveman. That was exactly how I was behaving, and I couldn’t help it. Between wanting to murder everyone out there and wanting to mark Lennix as mine in a way no one could miss, my mind was spinning out of control.
“I wouldn’t be acting like a caveman if that fucker, David, hadn’t been flirting with you.”
Lennix’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “One, his name is Davis. You know that, you’re just being petulant. And two, he wasn’t flirting with me!”
I might have laughed if her complete obliviousness when it came to the opposite sex and their reaction to her wasn’t so goddamn maddening. Glowering at her with every ounce of frustration coursing through me, I crossed my arms and clipped, “I don’t like him.”
She barked out disbelieving laugh. “I don’t care. You don’t have to like him. He works for me.”
“So you’re saying you like him?” I threw back, having reached the level of immaturity in this conversation that led to me acting purposely obtuse.
I could tell by the way her features shifted that had been the absolute wrong thing to say, but it was as if a dam had broken and all the words were rushing out too fast for me to catch.
“I’m done with this conversation. You need to leave.
” She headed around the desk to the door, but before she could throw it open and kick my sorry ass out, I latched onto her elbow and wheeled her back around so I could slam my lips down on hers.
Not touching her wasn’t an option. My need for her had gotten so out of control, I could barely see straight.
“I’m sorry,” I said against her lips, my words and the kiss pleading and desperate.
“I’m sorry.” I peppered her face and neck with kisses in between words as I tried to explain the torrent of unfamiliar emotions churning around inside me.
“I just . . . I hated seeing you laugh and smile at someone else. I’m a selfish fucking bastard, and I want that smile for myself.
I want to be the one to make you laugh like that all the time. ”
“Raylan,” she breathed out as her head fell back to give my teeth and tongue better access.
Her tiny hands fisted in my shirt again, this time to keep me close as her back arched, those bountiful tits pressing against me hard enough I could feel how tight her nipples were. “This . . . this isn’t healthy.”
Panic slammed into me with the force of a freight train at the thought of her pulling away from me, of ending us.
In the back of my mind, I knew it was inevitable, that the day would come when we’d have to end, but not today.
It couldn’t be today. I wasn’t ready. I needed to find a way to make it so I didn’t lose her from my life completely when all was said and done.
It wasn’t only Zach I was terrified of losing.
Lennix was one of my best friends. I couldn’t lose that.
Even when the day came that she settled down with someone who could give her everything she deserved.
But fuck if the thought of her with some piece-of-shit didn’t gut me, leaving my insides on the ground at my feet.
Some other man’s ring on her finger. Her swollen and glowing with another man’s baby.
Fucking hell, the idea of that made me murderous.
Just thinking about it made me want to put my fist through a goddamn wall.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I lowered my forehead to hers and held her like I was afraid she’d slip right through my fingers. “Please.”
At her silence, I peeled my eyes open to find her own gaze darting all over my face. “Please what?”
Fuck if I knew. I wasn’t even sure what I was begging for in that moment. Maybe it meant please don’t leave me. Or please don’t give up on me. Even please help me get past all this shit in my head so I don’t fuck up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
But when I opened my mouth, all I could get out was, “Please, Chaos. I need you. Right now.”
“What . . .” Her throat worked on a swallow, and I couldn’t help but trace my thumb down the column of her delicate neck. “What about Zach?”
“I don’t care about Zach.”
I realized my mistake almost immediately, when her eyes flared and the green glittering with something that looked a lot like hope.
“I mean, he thinks I’m in the bathroom. He doesn’t have a clue I’m in here.”
Lennix
I felt my face fall at his response. My lips, that had slowly begun to tip into a smile, fell as my heart dropped out of my chest. It was my own fault for reading too much into that short sentence.
I should have known better, but his explanation still managed to hurt like fucking hell.
He said he wanted to try, but as the weeks passed, I couldn’t shake the feeling he would have been happy to keep doing what we were doing forever.
Sneaking around, lying to our friends, and only showing affection when there was no one around to witness it.
I worried that was his version of trying, and that it was all I’d ever get.
I don’t know what I’d been hoping to hear, but at the desperation in his voice, I knew there was no way I could say no.
I was terrified I’d never be able to say no to him.
That was the problem. Because the longer we did this, the more I was starting to realize it wasn’t working for me.
Stupidly, I’d allowed myself to fall too deep.
I’d promised this man one day at a time, but each day I fell more in love with him.
It was the way he touched me. The way he looked at me. The way he made me feel treasured and special. Every moment we were together, it felt so real. I couldn’t understand why he’d always been so against relationships, because from where I was standing, he excelled at them.
I tried to take a step back but his arms tightened around me like steel bands, refusing to let me budge an inch. “Rayla—”
“Let me touch you.” He might have worded it as a demand, but from the way his expression twisted and his fingers dug into my hips, I heard it as the desperate plea it was. And I would have been lying if I said his words hadn’t lit a fire inside me, causing arousal to flood between my thighs.
“I need to touch you.” He whispered against my skin, knowing where to kiss and caress to set me off like a firework. “I need to kiss you and feel you wrapped around my cock.”
I couldn’t ignore the heaviness in my breasts or the pressure building low in my belly.
We’d been going at it like rabbits for a month now, and the craving I had for him hadn’t lessened in the slightest. All he had to do was walk into the room, and my stomach was full of bees.
When he looked at me, I lit up from the inside.
I was starting to think this man was it for me. The One with a capital T and O. And that scared the hell out of me, because I didn’t know if he felt the same.
But I wouldn’t let myself fall down that black hole. I couldn’t, because I needed him as much as he needed me. I shoved all those unpleasant thoughts back into the steel reinforced box in the back of my mind and locked them up so I could be in the here and now . . . with him. One day at a time.
It was impossible for me to keep any of the boundaries I tried so desperately to put in place to protect my heart. The damn thing was out there in the open, waiting to be crushed.
“Raylan,” I said quietly, reaching up to place my palm against his cheek. He pressed deeper into my touch, appearing almost pained. “Fuck me.”
His eyes flew open, and before I could say another word, he was on me.
Grabbing my ass, he hauled me off my feet and moved me backward before depositing me on the corner of my desk.
We’d done this more times than I could count, tearing at each other’s clothes like we couldn’t get to the other’s skin fast enough, but this felt different.
There was something deeper to the way he was touching me.
There was an aggression that had never been there before.
He was in such a rush to get me naked that his hand shook and he practically tore my panties in half.
He thrust into me so fast, so hard I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle the shout I couldn’t hold in.
He was just so big, my body still needed time to adjust to his size, only he didn’t give it to me this time.
It was as though he was trying to burrow beneath my skin.
“Fuck,” he clipped as he pulled out to the very tip before slamming back in. “Fuck, Lennix. You’re so goddamn perfect. Never been like this.”
I felt my own release barreling up on me and knew it was going to be more intense than ever before.
It hit me before I could prepare, coming so hard the edges of my vision started to close in and stars burst behind my eyelids.
Raylan kept thrusting inside me through it, never slowing down as he sealed my lips with his and swallowed down every sound I made.
If no one heard us from out in the hallway, it would be a miracle.
Every muscle in my body felt like jelly once my orgasm finally finished, and I felt dangerously lightheaded. Raylan eased me back so I was lying on the desk as he continued to fuck me like his life depended on it.
“Jesus, Chaos. Can’t get enough. Never get enough of you.”
I felt him swelling inside me, growing even harder, and I knew exactly what was about to happen, but instead of coming inside me like he always did, he braced one hand on my hip, holding me in place as he pulled out and wrapped his fist around his cock.
“What are you—?” My words cut off at the sight of him jacking himself harder than I ever would have dared.
“Marking you,” he grunted, his hand moving up and down his length at lightning speed.
“I’m marking you as mine the only way I can.
Just in case you have any ideas to the contrary.
Always. Fucking. Mine.” Then he came, his release shooting out across my skin and coating my belly and breasts as he grunted and groaned.
It took a solid minute for us to both come down. And once he had, Raylan smiled that crooked, dimple-popping smile. “You look so beautiful like this,” he said reverently.
“Like what?”
“Beneath me. All glassy-eyed and covered in my cum. Like mine.”
I knew in that very moment I was screwed, because I was his. And I had a feeling I always would be, whether he felt the same or not.