Chapter 25 #3
“Tell me, Kitten,” Carrson murmurs, his voice a rasp against my ear, dark and wicked, full of promise.
“How do you want to come?” His lips graze the shell of my ear as he continues, “My fingers?” He trails kisses down my neck, hot and lingering.
“My mouth?” His teeth nip lightly at my jaw before he seals his mouth to mine, his tongue stroking deep in a kiss that makes it difficult to concentrate.
He pulls back, just enough to make me chase him.
“Or with my cock?” That sinful smirk curves his mouth. “It’s ladies’ choice tonight.”
I bite my lip, working to catch my breath, trying to keep up with the tornado he’s spinning around me.
“All three,” I whisper, my voice thick with want. “Eventually.”
Carrson chuckles, the sound rich and dangerous.
I reach for him, palm flat on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart under my hand. “Right now?” I pause, drawing him closer, my lips brushing his as I speak. “I need you inside of me. That’s what I want.”
“Laurel,” he breathes, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Are you sure?”
I nod, cradling his jaw in my hand. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.” I mean it. With every beat of my heart.
He brushes his nose against mine, then kisses me again, slow, unhurried.
Like we have all the time in the world. He leans back and reaches toward the drawer in the nightstand.
He grabs a condom and rips the foil open with one hand.
His fingers are shaking slightly, which makes me ache for him in a whole new way.
Once he’s ready, he settles over me carefully, holding most of his weight with one forearm. His other hand smooths down my side, his fingers digging into my hip.
“I’ll go slow,” he says. “If anything feels off, anything at all, you tell me, and I’ll stop.”
I nod, my eyes wide. “Okay.”
He lines himself up and eases forward just a little. My body tenses on instinct. He stills immediately, pressing a kiss to my cheek, then my jaw.
“Breathe,” he murmurs, his lips close to my skin. “Just breathe.”
I do. When I exhale, the tension leaves with it. He pushes in again, slow and steady, all the way. There’s a stretch, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s just…full. Real.
Carrson’s eyes squeeze closed. “Fuck,” he groans, his voice breaking. “You feel so good, like heaven.”
We stay like that for a long second, just breathing each other in.
Connected. Tangled. Quiet.
He begins to move. Gently at first, watching my face, making sure I’m okay.
I wrap my legs around his waist and press kisses to his shoulder, his neck, the underside of his jaw. He moans my name, one hand gripping mine, our fingers laced.
He’s not trying to rush. He’s not chasing an orgasm.
Each thrust is deliberate, the stoking of a fire inside me.
He glides in, moves back out. Does it again.
His hand comes down, circles my clit, runs up to brush against my sensitive nipple.
Every touch, every pump of his hips, takes me higher into bliss, pleasure in its purest form.
I never knew sex could feel like this. Not dirty or degrading. Healing.
His tongue is in my mouth again as he pushes deep into me, moving more erratically now. Carrson loses control as he gets closer to release. I’m there, right along with him. My body tightens beneath him, tension building fast, sharp, and bright.
“Carrson,” I gasp. “I think—I think I’m—”
“I’ve got you,” he growls, his pace fast and relentless now. “Come for me, Laurel. Let go.”
Everything shatters.
Pleasure rips through me in undulating waves. I cry out, clutching at him, coming apart in his arms, while he follows with a low, guttural sound as he finds his own release. He moves for a few seconds more, extending my orgasm, riding along as I slowly come down.
Afterward, he doesn’t pull away. He stays inside me, his breath warm on my skin, both of us trembling.
I don’t say anything, and he doesn’t either.
Words are too small for what just happened.
Too flimsy for this feeling, this tender ache in my chest that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with him.
In the hush of that moment, our hearts thud in sync and the world outside fades away, becomes forgotten, until there’s only the two of us, Carrson and me, and the magic we made together.
***
Carrson
Laurel lies beneath me, soft and flushed and breathless, her body molded perfectly to mine, like she was made to fit there. I press a kiss to her temple, then another just beneath her jaw. Her pulse flutters against my lips, and it makes my throat go tight.
I’ve fucked before, more times than I want to admit. Fast. Forgettable. A means to an end.
But this…
This is nothing like that.
This is primal.
Like something ancient just woke up inside me and decided this woman is it.
The beginning and the end.
I want to protect it, this new feeling. Hoard it. Guard it like a secret.
I want to keep it, keep her. Not as a possession or as a prize, but as something far more dangerous, and that scares me.
In my world, love is weakness. Caring for Laurel puts us both in danger, more than ever before because the stakes just got raised.
But she trusted me, let me touch her even when she was scared, and I can’t ignore how good that made me feel.
Like I was something more than just power over others.
More than a role I never chose. More than my last name.
“Was—was it okay?” she asks, and the vulnerability in that question breaks my heart.
I’ll kill Preston for making her doubt herself. It’s not a false promise or an idle threat, just something I put on my to-do list. As far as I’m concerned, Laurel Turner is now mine…and I don’t let other people touch what is mine.
“Okay?” I echo, deliberately making my voice low and teasing. “Kitten, I’m still trying to remember my own name.”
She blushes, and it might just be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. Unable to stop myself, I kiss her again.
“And at the end?” I nuzzle closer, inhaling her sweet scent. “I totally lost control.” I keep my tone light, to give her something easy, something safe, which is what she needs right now. “Honestly?” I smirk and roll my eyes in mock exasperation. “It’s almost embarrassing.”
Her lips twitch, as if she doesn’t quite believe me.
I nudge her chin until she meets my eyes.
“I mean it,” I say, softer now. “That was…” I shake my head once, as words fail me. “Incredible. You are incredible.”
She sighs, soft and content, and something warm stirs in my chest, like a match being struck in a long-abandoned room. Lighting up places that before only knew darkness.
I’m not used to this, making someone feel good, safe, wanted.
I’m the guy people fear and envy. The one they obey.
Not the one they trust. Not the one they smile up at, tender and unguarded, like she just did.
“It’s just,” she continues, still hesitant. “You have a lot more experience than I do.” She pauses, like she’s remembered something. “The sisters mentioned…”
“What?” I stiffen, alarmed by whatever rumors she’s been told, true or otherwise.
“That you used to be with a lot of women, but then you stopped. About a year ago?”
She shifts in my arms, her bare skin brushing mine as she looks up, her eyes searching, soft but intent. “What happened? What changed?”
I have a feeling part of her question comes from insecurity, like maybe she’s worried I’ll go back to screwing around because this thing between us isn’t solid yet.
But the other part? That’s just Laurel. She’s inquisitive, curious, relentless, not willing to let the hard questions go unanswered.
It’s not something I’m used to. I’ve been raised to not ask questions, to obey blindly.
She’s been raised to question everything, to never take no for an answer.
My first instinct is to deflect. To deny. This is a story I’ve buried for so long, I’m reluctant to unearth it, but she trusted me tonight. Let me see all of her, every scar, every shadow, every inch of that brave, breakable heart. If she can do that—be that open and unguarded—then maybe I can too.
“Last year,” I start, my eyes dropping to my fingers as they trace a slow, aimless pattern down her arm. She shivers. Goosebumps ripple across her skin. I smile faintly, liking how I can do that to her. Stir her. Make her feel something real with nothing but my touch.
“I was at the…” I stop, the word catching somewhere in my throat.
I never used to think twice about saying it.
I never used to be ashamed. Men in The Order are encouraged to visit the whorehouses.
Rewarded and praised when we go. Now I think of it differently, and that difference hits even harder as I try to explain to Laurel.
“Brothel?” Laurel supplies, not accusing, just curious, saving me from saying it out loud.
A single, short nod from me. “A woman there told me something so outrageous that at first I thought it had to be a lie, except this woman knows everything. I’ve gotten information from her before, secrets she shouldn’t have had access to, dangerous things, and it’s all been true.”
Laurel quirks her head and props herself on a bent elbow. “What did she tell you?”
I exhale slowly. “That my father got a girl pregnant. A hooker. Eighteen, maybe younger. She said the girl ran and hid. That she was terrified of him, of what he’d do. She had the baby in secret. This all happened around the time I was one or two years old.”
Laurel blinks. “And?”
“It was a girl, my sister, half-sister, that is.” I pause, my eyes locked on hers. “She named the baby Rose.”
Laurel’s gaze darts straight to my bicep. The rose inked into my skin, blooming around a vine of thorns.
“Yeah,” I say, answering the question she doesn’t ask. “That’s why I got the tattoo.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You should have seen how my father reacted. Beat me senseless. We’re not supposed to mark our bodies, you know. The body is a temple and all that bullshit.”
My gaze drifts past her, unfocused, drawn back into memory.
“Part of me wanted to see what he’d do. If he’d recognize the meaning.
If it would crack his mask.” I pause. “As usual, he gave me nothing. The man could bury a corpse and convince the world he was planting a tree. He hides everything. Especially his emotions.”
Laurel extends a single finger to trace a petal with a gentle touch. Now it’s my turn to shiver.
“Now that I think about it,” she says, “you’re the only one I’ve seen with a tattoo. Of all the brothers, I mean.” She presses a kiss to my arm, right over the rose, and something in me breaks, just a little. “Then what happened?”
“Nothing,” I sigh, my shoulders sagging. I hate admitting failure, especially to her. “I’ve been looking for Rose, but I can’t find shit. Don’t even know if she’s real.”
I sit up, frustration chewing at me from the inside out. Laurel moves with me, her hand resting on my arm, grounding me. I rake my hands through my hair and let out a low groan.
“Even if she doesn’t exist, the idea of a sister made me look at things differently. I went to the brothel and thought, what if one of these girls is Rose?” My voice drops, hoarse. “What if she’s here, scared, pretending she’s okay while some fucker uses her like she’s nothing?”
I shake my head. “That killed any urge I had to go there again. I’d look at the sisters, the Mothers, and I couldn’t stop thinking, what if one of them is her too?
All of a sudden, she was everywhere, in every woman’s face, and I didn’t like it.
What I saw. I didn’t like the thought of her as a whore, as some man’s Bonded, as property not a person. ”
I take Laurel’s hand in mine and intertwine our fingers, needing the comfort of her touch, which is crazy. I don’t need anything from anyone.
“That’s what changed. Why I stopped going.
Why I haven’t been with anyone since.” I take her chin and tilt her face to mine, needing her to hear this, feel it.
“If you’re asking if what we just did was okay, if it was worth it, if you’re worth it?
” I pause, hold her gaze. “The answer is yes. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. ”
Laurel opens her mouth, probably to ask more questions, but I’m not sure I have it in me to answer.
I’m not used to heartfelt confessions, and what I said already has me exhausted.
Besides, she’s naked. That gorgeous body is pressed against mine, warm and willing.
Right now, I don’t want to talk anymore.
I want to feel. I want to forget my father, The Order, the sister who may or may not exist.
I kiss Laurel, long and deep, until she moans into my mouth, and fuck, my cock responds like she summoned it by name. Hard. Ready. Hers.
“God, you make the prettiest sounds,” I murmur with a lazy grin. “If you need me to prove it again…” I graze her bottom lip with my teeth. “I’m more than happy to oblige.”
Laurel’s response is instant. Her lips crash into mine. Her nails dig into my shoulder like she wants to brand me as her own.
I laugh, the sound so light it surprises me. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Then I press her into the mattress, cover her with my body, and make her mine all over again.
***
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