Chapter 66 Acelynn
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
acelynn
The soft clink of pool balls filled the room as I lined up my shot against Kaius.
I wasn’t half bad, even if I’d sworn up and down that I’d never played before.
Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was the fact that his eyes on me made me want to show off.
Everyone else had either gone home or retired to bed hours ago after the party for Astoria, leaving just the two of us in the quiet glow of the bar.
I heard his pool stick settle against the table and felt him come up behind me, his presence a warmth I’d come to crave.
Without hesitation, I leaned back into him, resting my head on his shoulder.
The faint scent of smoke and leather clung to his shirt, grounding me.
His lips pressed to the crown of my head, soft and unhurried.
“I love you,” I whispered, and I meant it with every shattered, jagged piece of me. He smiled into my hair, and though he didn’t say the words back, I could feel it. It was in every time he touched me, every time he looked at me like I was both a sin and salvation.
I, Acelynn Thorton, loved Kaius Mordred.
The thought still startled me sometimes.
But the name Emersyn Spade still carried Alec’s shadow, Logan’s cruelty, all the fractures of a family that had tried to own me, break me, bury me alive in blood and obligation.
And yet here I was, whispering love into the darkness with the man who should have been my ruin.
Maybe I should shed that name already, let it die with the people who’d carved scars into me.
But changing it felt like surrendering a war I hadn’t finished fighting.
Spade was a curse, but it was also proof I’d survived.
Still, when I thought of the future, I couldn’t help but wonder…
would I keep carrying it like chains if I chose to revert back to it, or would I take the alias I had used to hide behind for so many months and finally let myself be remade fully?
I turned in his arms, letting my back rest against the pool table. He caged me in with his hands, bracing them on either side of me, that small smirk tugging at my lips before I even spoke. “I think I would like to pick up where we left off earlier.”
His answering growl was pure sex. “I would very much like that as well, kitten.”
In one smooth motion, he lifted me onto the table.
This time, I didn’t resist when he stepped between my legs.
His fingers ghosted up my thighs, goose bumps breaking across my skin at the slow, deliberate trail he left.
I shivered, knowing exactly where this was going, my breath catching as his hands slid beneath my dress.
When his fingers hooked into the sides of my red lace panties, the same ones I knew he’d been eyeing all afternoon, I didn’t hesitate.
I lifted my hips for him, watching as he stripped them from me with deliberate slowness.
My heart pounded when he placed them in his back pocket with a smug little smirk.
Heat bloomed in my cheeks, but before I could protest, his lips crashed against mine.
The kiss began soft, coaxing, but quickly turned demanding.
His mouth claimed mine with a dominance that left no room for me to pretend I wasn’t his for the taking.
Our tongues tangled, my attempt to take control swallowed by the inevitability that Kaius never yielded.
A sharp bite to my bottom lip sent a cry spilling into his mouth.
My body arched into him, the friction between us a torture in itself.
His fingers crawled up my thigh in slow, deliberate strokes until they were at my pussy, ghostly touches teasing me until I was trembling.
I writhed under his touch, a broken sound escaping me as he finally pressed inside.
Two fingers filled me, the pace ruthless enough to steal the air from my lungs.
My head lolled back, vision blurring, until his grip tightened at the base of my hair.
“Eyes on me, Acelynn, or I stop.” The command snapped through my fog. My lashes fluttered as I struggled to obey, but instinct betrayed me, dragging my gaze toward the ceiling with every wave of pleasure. He paused, fingers buried deep, grip in my hair turning iron hard.
“What did I tell you, kitten?” Kaius’s voice was a growl, thick with promise.
“Keep my eyes on you,” I gasped, forcing myself to focus, to anchor on the sharpness in his stare.
“Good girl.”
His pace resumed, faster now, a third finger stretching me wide. I moved with him, hips grinding down to meet each thrust of his hand. The world narrowed to this—Kaius’s eyes on me, his hand commanding my body like no one ever had, the chaos inside me unraveling into something raw and unholy.
“That’s it, Acelynn,” he coaxed, voice rough with hunger. “Ride my fingers like it’s my cock. I want to hear you screaming by the end of this.”
His fingers curled against that sweet spot inside me, thumb pressing hard circles over my clit, and the dam broke.
Pleasure ripped through me, my voice shattering in a scream of his name as my body convulsed.
I collapsed into the crook of his shoulder, shaking, his hand never faltering until the last tremor eased.
Only then did he ease his fingers from me, smoothing down my tangled hair with a tenderness that undid me more than his roughness ever could.
I forced my eyes open, meeting his gaze, my voice raw.
“I always thought you would be my damnation, Kaius Mordred. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
” Our lips brushed. My whisper carried on a breath that trembled with both exhaustion and certainty.
“You are my salvation. The reminder that I don’t need to right the wrongs of the others in my life to be loved.
I can be loved with every fucked-up piece of me, and you’ll be there to catch me if one day I shatter. ”
His mouth crushed mine again, pushing me back against the table, swallowing the small giggle that slipped from me, a sound I never thought I’d find in myself again, not after Alec’s betrayal, Logan’s cruelty, or the endless fracture of Astoria’s pain.
But somehow, in this ruin, Kaius had found me. And in a world built on revenge, this time it had given me the one thing I hadn’t dared to dream of. Him.