Chapter 22 #3
“Take all of me, Flynn,” I say as he starts to move.
He fists my hair as his rhythm picks up, the other hand constantly spanking me. I can’t help but scream in pleasure louder and louder.
I start to swear in Romanian as he continues to fuck my ass harder and harder. Which makes him take me even deeper than before.
“Futu-i,” I gasp. “Doamne, Flynn, te rog—”
He’s not going to stop this time. He usually would if he hears me shift to my native tongue, but this time he gets even more predatory than before.
And I can’t help but continue to moan at the way he needs me. I could say my safeword and he would end the torment, but the reality is that I don’t want this to end.
Ever.
The pain I might have felt at the beginning is just pure pleasure now.
And I want all of him tonight. Even his teeth in my neck. I want him to have me at his complete mercy.
This is when I hear him groan, and feel his dick twitching inside me. “Here you go, my love,” he growls as he spills in me. “Take it all.”
“All mine,” I moan as he coats my walls, and I can’t help but clench around him, keeping him in place. “I’m taking it all,” I add. “Every single drop is mine.”
“I’m yours, Talulla,” my vampire adds as he stills. His breathing is frantic.
We’re both panting and tired and absolutely devastatingly at ease. Happy.
We belong to each other. Two defeated souls that fit perfectly together just as we are. Broken.
The thought makes my eyes burn. Because it’s true. We’re both broken—him by years of violence and loneliness, me by a childhood of training and trauma. But somehow, our broken pieces fit together. Somehow, we make sense.
Flynn gently pulls out of me, and I collapse on the bed, unable to move. He finally releases my wrists and slowly pulls me to him. I wrap my arms around his neck as he takes me to the bathtub.
The bathroom is already prepared—candles lit, bath drawn, the water the perfect temperature. He must have done this while I was changing earlier.
Always thinking ahead. Always taking care of me.
“I love you,” I say, my words coming out more as a soft chant as I close my eyes.
It’s the second time I’ve told him that sentiment out loud. The first was when he showed me this house. I might have been afraid of what that entails, but it was the only thing that could explain what I was feeling for him at the time.
But this time is different. This time, I mean it with my whole heart. This time, I’m not scared of what it means.
I open my eyes slightly and see Flynn’s icy-gray ones soften.
“I love you too, Talulla,” he replies as he passes a sponge over my body. “Immensely,” he adds, his eyes drifting down to my body.
Immensely. Not just “I love you too” but immensely. The word carries weight, carries centuries of loneliness and longing and finally finding something worth holding onto.
He’s lost in thought as he continues to wash me clean. His hands are gentle, reverent, treating my body like something precious. The contrast between this and what we just did in the bedroom is stark, but it’s all him. The dominant and the caretaker. The predator and the protector.
As I lose myself in his essence, I know something troubles him. I can feel him breaking inside, can see the war in his eyes.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, tilting my head to the side.
“More than okay,” he replies, his eyes finding mine.
But I can see the lie. I can see the weight he’s carrying, the secret he’s keeping.
I nod, feeling his demons battle in his head. “You’ll tell me tomorrow?”
He snorts softly. “Yes, I absolutely will,” he says, and the darkness that was coating him and taking him away from me is now replaced by a genuine smile. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”
Everything. The word hangs between us, heavy with promise and dread.
What is he going to tell me? What has he been hiding? What demons is he fighting that he thinks might drive me away?
But I don’t push. Not tonight. Tonight was perfect, and I’m not going to ruin it with questions he’s not ready to answer.
Tomorrow. He’ll tell me everything tomorrow.
And whatever it is, whatever darkness he’s been carrying, I’ll face it with him.
Because I love him. Immensely.
And nothing—not my father, not his past, not the S.P.I.A, not whatever secret he’s keeping—is going to change that.
We stay in the bath until the water goes cold, until my fingers are pruned and I’m half-asleep against his chest. Then he carries me to bed, tucks me into those black silk sheets, and holds me until I drift off.
The last thing I hear before sleep takes me is his voice, soft and broken and full of love.
“Thank you for choosing me, Talulla. Thank you for staying.”
And in my dreams, I choose him again and again and again.
But for some reason, tonight, after all this happiness, I still see my grandmother, and what catches my attention in the nightmare, is the hands that wrap around her throat and body before teeth sink into her flesh.
And when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t forget the skulls and designs that filled the Original’s skin.
I never will.