Chapter Forty
Isla
He wrecked me.
Completely and utterly wrecked me.
My body was humming, my core was painfully pulsing, my limbs were so weak, I couldn’t lift them.
And I was crying.
Fat, silent tears streamed down my face as he got off the bed without a word, let alone a caress, and I knew this was it.
He’d taken my agency—every ounce of it—and turned it into a pliable, willing, irretrievably muddled mess of melted sinew and loose bones, wanton need and spent dignity.
Now he was done.
I’d gotten a glance of his expression that had reverted to resolute warfighter before he’d gotten up.
Despite his forty-eight-hour pretense, he was going to take his own agency, one that was so ingrained in him, you couldn’t cut it out with a sword if you cleaved him in half, and he was going to leave.
Or make me leave.
Which he probably should because in truth, I wouldn’t hold up against one more caress from him.
I was already a million miles in the sky, teetering dangerously on the thin wisp of a slack line, just waiting to plummet into a full-fledged addiction to him.
No, another touch from him would be bad. But still…
What kind of a monster leaves a woman in his bed after that kind of sex? I didn’t want to know. Or maybe I just wanted to lie to myself as I lay here utterly destroyed and enjoy how convenient self-selective memory was.
Yesterday, I didn’t have to think about how I’d been left in almost this exact same manner a month ago—naked, on a bed, in shambles.
Except that time, it was on a mega yacht in the middle of a storm, and I didn’t know what Nix Erikson sounded like when his whole chest vibrated with a guttural groan as he came.
And I didn’t know the sounds I could make.
The ones he’d ripped from my soul and flayed raw for his consumption as he’d alternately driven his massive cock into me so hard, I couldn’t breathe and edged my clit like an Olympic curling team captain sweeping his way to victory until I was keening.
Jesus, I’d been a mess.
All of this was a mess. But maybe that was the point, and none of these wayward thoughts mattered. I was so perfectly tired. My eyes were already closing, and the drift, this impossible drift, it was happening. Stronger than any current, pulling me under, lulling me….
My heartbeat sounded in my ears.
My core pulsed.
My body ached.
I let myself float away.
Peace.
Soul peace.
Then spears of hardness shot under my body and I was rolled before my side hit a plane of rock, and my altitude was jerked into space.
My nonexistent equilibrium spun, and a pained moan of protest grated past my swollen lips. “Stop. I thought you were leaving.”
“Sh, ma petite intruse. No such luck.” His voice, molten and sexy and deep, filled my head as he cradled me in his arms.
Then I was plunged into scorching hot water.
My arms shot out, my back arched, and I cried out. “No!”
“Settle.” A hard body wrapped around my back as a sadistic, hedonistic warfighter climbed into the giant tub behind me and held my arms down. “You need this.”
“It’s burning!” My skin on fire, my voice hoarse, I tried to kick away from him.
His thick, muscular thighs caged me in as he locked one over my legs with a single fluid movement before his tone turned dark. “I said settle.”
I cried.
Like a child, a choking sob wrenched free, and I couldn’t stop it.
For a long while, maybe an eternity, he let me cry.
He didn’t soothe me. He didn’t stroke my burning flesh. He didn’t offer words of solace or apology.
William Nix Nilsen Erikson sat at my back and held me down.
The fucking sadist.
Except he wasn’t. Or maybe my head was so twisted, I couldn’t see it.
All I knew was, once every choking sob and shed tear of my dignity was in the water, I did as he’d told me.
I settled.
His chest rose with an inhale. “Good, ma petite intruse.” His fingers drifted over my shoulder, gently pulling my hair back from my face. “You needed this.”
“You needed it,” I argued stubbornly.
“Yes, I did,” he agreed, stroking down my arm with a soft but firm caress.
Despite the heat that had settled into my bones, I shivered from his touch, and gooseflesh spread across my pinkened skin.
His strong hand flattened against my diaphragm. “I needed to give you aftercare as much as you needed to experience it.”
Aftercare. The very word blanketed my soul like a newfound addiction. I’d heard the term. I knew what it meant. But I’d never received anything close to this… this kind of attention.
“Experience it,” I repeated like a marionette as my entire body pebbled with a fresh wave of awareness. “Because you broke me?” Ruined me? Used me? Made me cry?
“No. Because you’ve never been taken care of.” His fingers spread across my stomach, and he pushed into my organs like he could bend them to his will. “Breathe, Isla.”
If I had a whisper of notion left that I still retained any measure of dignity, his command, his statement, they shredded it.
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.
” Except he made me want that. He made me want something I hadn’t even been able to admit to myself. “But you make me want to grow roots.”
“Noted, and yes, you do need to be taken care of. Inhale,” he ordered. “Deep breath.” His chest rose.
Mine followed suit.
“Hold it.”
I held it.
“Exhale.”
I kept holding it.
His breath washed over my shoulder. “This is not a test, Isla. Exhale,” he demanded.
I didn’t.
And I didn’t know why.
Except all of a sudden, I was that warrior.
I was bathing in the blood of the warriors that had come before me.
But I was also a little girl. And I was drowning.
The waves were crashing over my head. My lungs were crushing in.
I was going to die. Icy cold surf was pounding me under, and I was going to go to my watery—
“Isla.”
I was jerked upright and spun around, then heavy hands gripped the sides of my face with punishing strength.
“brEATHE.”
My cheeks pushed out with the force of a still-held breath.
It happened in one, violent second.
Forced down by the hands gripping me, hot water slammed into my face, and my head went completely under.
My mouth opened from the shock of being dunked.
Before I could choke on bathwater and the hair now tangled in my face, I was yanked back up.
Darkened green eyes glared at me with fury. “What was that?”
Hair plastered over my cheeks, water dripping into my eyes, strands stuck in my mouth, I started to shake.
A gentle hand pushed soaked locks away from my face, and a warfighter’s voice, a dominant’s voice, softened to a seductive command. “Tell me what happened, Isla.”
“Drownproofing,” I whispered.