Chapter 29 #2
“You don’t have to learn shit,” he argues.
“You shouldn’t have to change yourself for this place.
” His voice is rough with something that sounds close to pleading.
“Don’t let us dim your light, Laurel. Don’t let us, me, take pieces of your soul because, I promise you, once they’re gone, you won’t ever get them back.
” His voice breaks on the last word. “I know that lesson better than anyone.”
Sadness creeps into his expression. No, not sadness, desolation.
“I’m giving you a way out,” he says quietly. “Take it.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask, my throat tight, and I hate myself, because on the inside I’m begging for him to say no. I want to hear that he doesn’t want me to go. That he chooses me.
What does that make me? To need him, a man who breaks every moral code I’ve built my life around?
To crave the very darkness I used to fear?
I want to deny it. Pretend this is just adrenaline or trauma or temporary insanity, but I can’t.
Because the truth is, he fills my every waking thought, invades my dreams.
I’m addicted to him.
Obsessed.
Earlier, after seeing Staci, I’d been planning my escape from this nightmare, but now Carrson is handing me the keys to my prison. He’s holding open the door to my cage, and…I don’t want to leave. Not without him.
I shift closer and let my thigh brush against his. His body is tense, coiled heat and violence barely leashed, but I draw comfort from it. From him, because I know without a doubt that he’s dangerous, deadly, but he’d never hurt me.
Lightning flashes, illuminating the muscle that ticks in his jaw. “No. I don’t want you to go,” he admits, his voice hoarse. “But wanting you has never made me a good man.” He lifts a hand, the backs of his fingers graze my cheek, and my breath hitches.
“You deserve a hero,” he whispers. “You got the villain instead.”
I swallow hard.
“Make no mistake,” he says, low and fierce. “I like it. Crave it. The power and control.” He closes the distance between us, his fingers curling around my jaw, rough and possessive, holding me still like he needs me to hear this. Like the truth will hurt us both, but hiding it would be worse.
“It’s all I have. I need it, don’t feel safe without it.
” His voice is a deep rasp. “I like being the person everyone listens to, how they all jump when I say so.” His thumb presses into my chin as he leans closer.
“I’ll make ugly choices to keep that. I’ll step on the bodies and not notice how the bones crumble under my feet. ”
His breath is hot against my mouth, but he doesn’t kiss me.
Not yet.
“You? You build. Me? I destroy.”
He thinks I’ll push him away after all those dark confessions, I can tell. He’s testing me, testing what he believes about himself. Maybe we all do that? Maybe we can only really see ourselves in the reflection of someone else’s eyes?
I don’t shove him away. I pull him closer.
“You like power and control because that’s all you’ve been taught to value,” I say softly, staring into his storm-dark eyes.
“It’s the only currency you know, but there are other things of worth too.
Love and friendship and acceptance. It’s not true that you only destroy.
You’ve built a brotherhood here that runs smoothly, that, mostly, follows your rules. Those rules keep others safe.”
He shakes his head, disbelieving. “A brotherhood built on fear. On blood and violence. Don’t romanticize it. I don’t lead them because they believe in me. I lead them because they’re more afraid of me than they are of each other.”
I flinch at the quiet truth of that.
His tough facade cracks, and his face crumples. “When I saw Staci, I felt weak, a failure. What’s the point of it all if I can’t keep a single woman safe? If I can’t keep you safe?”
He lets out a ragged sigh. “Do you know the first question I asked when they called me about Staci?”
I shake my head.
“I asked about you. If you were okay. I should have been thinking about the Sisters, about my duty to them, to the Brothers, and to The Order, but all I could think about was you.”
He takes my chin between his fingers and tips my face up to his. “You have me all fucked up. I don’t know what to do with these feelings. It’s reckless, the things I’d do for you. The people I’d kill for you. The way I’d burn down the fucking world, turn it all to ash, to keep you safe.”
His voice drops lower, darker. “But what if the safest thing for you is to get as far away from me as possible?”
He leans in, his forehead to mine, breathing fast and uneven. “What then, Laurel? What do I do to make this a place where I can have what I want? Power, control, and…you, the one thing I can’t command?”
“You have me,” I tell him. “And power, by itself, isn’t necessarily bad, not if it’s used to help, to heal.” I take his hand in mine and thread our fingers together. “If you don’t like the world you live in, then we change it.”
His mouth twists. “You still don’t understand how powerful The Order is. Me going against them is like throwing a drop of water into the ocean. It makes no difference.”
I square my shoulders. “So we start small. With Jackson. Let’s take out one evil at a time.”
I feel it click into place. The bond between us, a partnership, forged under the pressure of our circumstances, yet somehow inevitable.
Carrson trusts me and treats me like an equal, not a pawn or a prize.
He’s always been honest, never lied to me even when that would have been the easier path.
In a place like this, where monsters smile and shake your hand while holding a knife behind their back, that matters to me.
He’s still watching me, his expression torn between rage and guilt and something much deeper. I reach for him. My fingers curl around his wrist and hold tight. “We can do this, Carrson. Together. As a team.”
He kisses me.
Raw and messy and filled with need.
His lips crash into mine, and I answer him with equal urgency, like he’s air and I can’t breathe without his lips on mine. A growl rumbles in his chest as his tongue pushes past my lips.
“So fucking sweet,” he groans into my mouth.
My hands flatten on his chest. I push, not to stop him, but to take control.
He lets me guide him back, his eyes locked on mine as I crawl over him and straddle his hips.
The moment our bodies align, a ragged sound tears from his throat.
Carrson’s hands fly to my waist, fingers digging in through the thin fabric of my sleep shorts.
He moans loud and raw when I grind down against him with nothing but cotton separating us, and I feel just how hard he is beneath me, how close to snapping.
His hand slides up, cups the back of my neck, and he pulls me down for a long, deep kiss.
With one hand holding me in place, his other hand slips beneath my shirt and finds my bare breast. His thumb brushes my nipple, and I moan, my hips rocking against him.
He shifts, groans into my neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin.
“I thought you’d leave me when I offered you the money and freedom,” he whispers between kisses, his voice thick with emotion, like he’s making a confession. “I forced you into this. That’s the only reason you’re here.”
I freeze, pull back to look him in the eye, and tell him fiercely, “You’re the reason I’m here. You, Carrson.”
His brow furrows. He looks uncertain.
“It’s because of the things I see in you.” I put my palm on his chest, right over his beating heart. “Your kindness, loyalty, and strength. I see the potential in you, how you can make everything different.”
He stares up at me, his dark eyes searching mine like he desperately wants to believe what I say, and I realize no one has told him these things before. No one has ever loved him, not for his last name or his position, but just for himself.
I brace my hand on his chest and lean closer. “There’s goodness in you, Carrson.”
He closes his eyes and turns his head away like the truth hurts more than a lie would. “No. There’s not.”
My hands frame his face as I force his gaze back to mine. “Look at me.”
He resists, keeping his head averted, but I stay steady. Lightly, my thumbs brush along the sharp angle of his cheeks. His eyes finally open, stormy with disbelief.
“It’s true,” I say. “You’re good and worthy and—”
I love you.
That’s what I almost tell him, but I bite it back at the last second.
I’m already emotionally vulnerable from all the tumultuous events of the day and although we’ve come so far, Carrson and me, I’m not quite ready to offer him my heart, or at least to admit that he might already have it. Not to him or to myself.
“I’m not leaving you.” My voice cracks, my hands fisting his shirt.
Something shifts in him. Wakes up. His expression sharpens, turns feral.
“Say it again,” he growls, gripping my arms. “But I’m warning you, make sure you fucking mean it.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Good.” He yanks me against him, his eyes burning. “Because I’ll never let you.”
He flips us with a snarl, caging me beneath him. His mouth finds my throat, biting, licking, kissing the delicate skin until I’m writhing beneath him, helpless to the heat that overtakes us.
“Remember,” he breathes against my ear, his voice guttural as his hands move down my body, rough and greedy.
“I gave you a way out. You didn’t take it.
” His fingers hook into the waistband of my shorts.
He rips them in one brutal motion, the fabric tearing at the seams, baring me completely.
I gasp, arousal and adrenaline roaring through me.
“No matter what happens,” he growls, sliding his hand between my thighs, “how bad it gets, remember you chose this.”
His fingers slide through my folds, separate me, and he shoves two fingers inside me.
“Hmm,” he hums when he feels how wet I am, “dripping for me, aren’t you, Tiger?
Greedy for my cock to slip into that warm, tight pussy of yours.
” He moves his hand, thrusting in slowly, pulling out, circling his thumb over my clit, then pushing again. A sweet, slow punishment.
I arch underneath him, crying out as my hips buck.
He withdraws, stands, and peels his clothes off in sharp, impatient movements. I yank my shirt over my head, my heart slamming, as he rolls on a condom and drops back between my legs, cock hard and poised at my entrance.
“Ready?” His voice is hoarse, all need and no restraint.
I nod.
He drives into me with one long, hard thrust. I moan, overwhelmed by the sensation of him inside me, the delicious burn and stretch. He kisses me, his tongue in my mouth, warm and rough, as his body rolls against me, pushing him deeper.
“Now you’re mine,” he whispers against my neck, my lips, my forehead.
He repeats the word.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
His hips snap forward as he sets a brutal, relentless pace, like he’s trying to outrun the events of the day.
Good.
I don’t want soft.
I want him. The way he really is.
“Don’t hold back,” I tell him, my breath catching. “Not with me.”
That’s all it takes. He pounds into me, hot and filthy. Claiming me with every relentless thrust, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the room. His mouth finds my breast, his sharp teeth grazing my nipple, his tongue soothing the sting before he sucks it deep.
I cry out, my back arching, body shuddering at the friction and fire between us.
“Tell me you want this,” he says, his voice rough.
“I want you,” I gasp, too far gone for shame.
“I’m going to bond you. Put my mark on your hand,” he growls, something unholy in his tone. “Tie you to me forever.” Words vanish, lost to the dark, as he fucks me like an animal. Wild, erratic movements like he’s lost all control, like he’s operating on only instinct and obsession.
Outside, the storm rages. Wind screams along the eaves, rain lashes violently against the windows, and thunder rolls through the night with distant fury. For a moment, it feels like the world could fall apart around us, tear itself to shreds, and we wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t care.
Carrson rises to his knees, keeping my body flat beneath him, and drives into me again and again. His hand grips my shoulder, holding me steady. His gaze rakes over me, possessive, primal, revenant.
Like I’m the altar, and he’s already kneeling.
My body coils, muscles tensing, breath stuttering as pleasure grows, hot and sharp, deep in my core. My thighs tremble, my hips grinding to meet him, movement for movement, stroke for stroke. Every nerve is lit, every breath a gasp. I’m right there, teetering on the edge, so close to falling.
“I need you to come for me,” Carrson grits out, lowering himself until his chest presses flush against me, our hearts colliding. “Let that pretty pussy come all over my cock, so I know you’re mine.”
That’s all it takes. I shatter around him with a strangled moan, walls clenching, body shaking, nails clawing down his back.
He follows a heartbeat later, hips grinding as he comes with a curse and a low, gutted sound, hands fisting in my hair like he’ll never let go.
We collapse together, trembling and breathless, still tangled in heat and sweat.
Outside, the storm rages on. A war of sky against earth, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. This house and the people within it have endured far worse, and I know, only after the rain can the flowers bloom.