21. Riley
I half expectMaddoc to shove me away. After all, I shot him just a few days ago, and the only other time I’ve voluntarily been in his arms was tainted by lies and betrayal. But he doesn’t. He does the opposite, banding his arms around me and locking me against him with a groan that sounds like it claws its way up from the center of his soul.
Like he can’t let go.
Like I’m his anchor.
“Riley,” he mutters against my lips, his hands roaming my body and leaving a trail of pure heat in their wake.
“Yes,” I say, even though it wasn’t really a question.
He tugs my hair, tipping my head back, and I press even closer, moaning into his mouth. Flattening my breasts against his hard chest so I can feel his heart beating against mine, proving we’re both alive.
The intoxicating flavor of desperation in his kisses tells me he needs this too. We stumble backward, but I only realize we’ve careened into the living room when we bump into the couch Dante fucked me on once.
The reminder has my body flushing with even more desire, and I throw my head back, giving Maddoc access to suck on my throat, lick the desperation off my skin, bite and mark and claim as much of me as he wants. I need every single thing he can give me right now, and I want to be everything he needs too.
He lifts me onto the end of the couch, perching my ass on its arm and yanking at my clothes, tearing through what he doesn’t have the patience to remove and tossing the scraps aside until I’m completely naked.
I don’t even try to help, not with all the possessive, dominating energy pouring off him. It’s hot as fuck and exactly what I’m craving.
“Need this,” he mutters, his eyes glued to my pussy.
“God. Me too,” I pant, then yelp and almost tumble backward when he slings my legs over his shoulder.
He growls, low and dark, and catches my hips, locking me in place with a grip tight enough to bruise.
It’s fucking perfect. Heat shoots to my core, and when he buries his face between my legs like he’s trying to suffocate himself, an orgasm rips through me without any warning.
“Oh fuck, shit, god, Maddoc.”
He groans, but doesn’t even pretend to come up for air. It’s like he wants to drown in me.
Or else fucking kill me.
“Fucking delicious,” he mutters, sending shivers through me when he moves his head back and forth, rubbing the rough stubble on his jaw against my most sensitive flesh.
He breathes in the scent of my arousal, then laps it up, making my breath hitch and my body squirm.
I’m still shaking a little from the force of my orgasm, my clit swollen and hyper sensitive, when he attacks it again, demanding and rough this time.
“Fuck,” I gasp, grabbing his head even though I’m not sure if I want to push him away or grind against his face to draw it out.
Maddoc doesn’t give me a choice, eating me out like he’s starving for it. Using his mouth like a weapon of mass destruction as he licks and sucks, bites and thrusts, forcing me to come again.
And then again.
It’s too much, but as the aftershocks rip through me, he just growls something against my clit that I can’t understand and then shoves two fingers into my pussy, fucking me with them rough and hard while he sucks on my aching nub until I scream.
“That’s it, baby. Fuck yeah. Give me more.”
“Oh god, I can’t… Maddoc, please,” I pant, pulling at his hair. Trying to get him to stop.
He doesn’t. He just groans and pulls me even closer, drawing it out like melted taffy, twisting the pleasure into something dark and decadent that hovers right on the border of pain.
“More,” he demands, like a man not just obsessed, but possessed.
But my body is already trembling from overstimulation, and I can’t come again. I fucking can’t.
I don’t even realize I’ve said that out loud until Maddoc mutters, “Yes you can.”
His voice is deep and low, vibrating against my pussy in a way that sends me over the edge all over again.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” I gasp, riding it out because he gives me no other choice.
“That’s right, butterfly,” he purrs, turning his head to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss against my inner thigh. “You’re primed for it now. Almost ready to take my cock.”
I shake my head, but the way my pussy clenches tight, my inner muscles rippling enough to send a jolt of pleasure to my core that has me crying out all over again, tells me I’m lying to myself. There’s no way in hell I should even want to be fucked now, but when Maddoc surges to his feet, pulling my legs wider apart and shoving his pants down, I can’t deny the truth.
I don’t just want it. I need it.
But not while he’s still wearing clothes stained with Payton’s blood.
“Off,” I demand, pushing his shirt up to expose rock-solid abs and the twisting, dark lines that form the base of the tattoo spanning his chest.
I splay my hands over his heated skin and he bites off a curse, his muscles rippling under my palms.
“This what you want?” he asks, staring down at me with burning eyes as he tugs the shirt over his head and tosses it aside. “You want nothing but skin between us, baby?”
I meet his stare and hold it, then lean forward and drag my tongue down the line of his six pack. He already knows I do. But instead of pushing my head down and making me take the thick cock bumping my chin like I expect him to, he surprises me by yanking me to my feet and kissing me hard, his hard length throbbing against my stomach.
He tastes like my pleasure, and I grab his shoulders, my knees giving out.
“Fuck, I can’t get enough,” he groans into my mouth, locking his arm around me to hold me in place… then fucking devouring me.
I’m just as hungry for him, kissing him back with a raw craving that feels almost feral, but when one of my hands brushes over the rough line of stitches in his shoulder—the aftermath of the bullet wound I put there when I was aiming for his heart—I freeze, a surge of conflicting emotions threatening to swamp me.
I shudder, and Maddoc pulls back and grabs my chin, staring down into my eyes.
“Fuck,” I whisper, not at all sure what I mean by that.
My eyes start to burn, but I can’t look away.
“No,” he finally says after a minute, and before I can ask what he’s denying—what it was he saw on my face—his mouth crashes back into mine, and I’m fucking lost.
Or maybe found.
The way he dominates all my senses grounds me back in the moment, my mind emptying of all the shit that I don’t know how to deal with yet. My body takes over, driven by pure instinct and a primal need that frees me to let out all my emotions, raw and uncensored.
Maddoc hauls my body, and it’s all the permission I need to let go. I bite at him, drown in his taste and claw at his back, and he takes everything I have and gives it right back with a brutal passion born from the same desperate need for something that neither of us is ready to name yet.
“Please, fuck, do it,” I gasp, my pussy is slick, wet, and swollen from what he’s already put it through, but I still ache for what he promised me.
He groans and gives it to me, lifting me into position without lifting his mouth from mine, then shoving inside me in one ruthless thrust that has me screaming for him all over again.
“Yeah,” he grunts, all his muscles standing out in stark relief as he starts fucking me on the edge of the couch, every thrust rough and relentless and exactly what I need. “This.”
A moan rips from my throat, and I’m coming on his cock before I even have a chance to catch my breath. He fucks me all the way through it and then pulls out and turns me over, bending me over the arm of the couch and holding me there.
He hasn’t come yet, and I fully expect to be impaled. I want it. But instead, I feel a callused hand smooth over my ass while he uses the other to pin my wrists behind my back.
“Thought my marks would last a little longer,” he says, his shaft—still as hard as raw steel and wet from my pussy—throbbing with heat as it rubs against the back of my thighs.
Then he spanks me.
I gasp, the sharp sting a perfect counterpoint to the syrupy exhaustion from all the orgasms he’s wrung out of me. He does it again.
“Fuck, Maddoc,” I whisper, my body feeling like it doesn’t even belong to me anymore. Like I’m both disconnected from it and drowning in the overload.
“You look damn good in red,” he says, grabbing one of my ass cheeks in a rough, possessive grip. Squeezing. Kneading. “Seeing the stripes my belt left on you that night had my cock in pain.” He spanks me again. “I got so fucking hard for you. And the way you sounded…”
His palm cracks into my ass again, and a seductive darkness swirls inside me as the fresh pain twists around the languid heat left over from coming so hard, so many times in a row, making me whine.
“Yeah,” Maddoc grunts. “Like that. I could tell this kind of shit turns you on when I used my belt to you.”
“No,” I whisper, already arching back in a silent request for more.
Maddoc’s low chuckle calls me out for lying, and then he gives me what we both know I really want, kicking my legs apart and lighting me up with a hard flurry of spanking that leaves me gasping, overheated and aching for him.
“Asshole,” I say when he stops, my thighs trembling.
“Oh, is that where you want me to fuck you? In that sweet little asshole? Tempting, butterfly.” He tightens his grip on my wrists and thrusts his hand between my legs, palming my pussy. Then he shoves two fingers deep inside me as he leans over my back to whisper in my ear. “This is what I want right now, but maybe next time.”
“Fuck,” I pant, too lust addled to get more words out. And then I stop trying, because he removes his fingers and fills me with his cock again, driving in hard and not stopping. Fucking into me like he really is possessed. Like he’s reached his breaking point and is determined to find mine too.
It’s here. Right fucking here, with my clit grinding against the couch and my ass on fire from his spanking. I know he’s close, I can feel it in the harsh grip he’s got on my hips and the pounding force he takes me with, and everything—everything—disappears. I want to be fucked like this forever.
And then he snarls out my name, and it pushes me over the edge.
“Maddoc.”
He comes with a hoarse shout right after I do, his cock swelling inside me as he grinds against my ass and unloads everything he’s got. It goes on forever, waves of pleasure that draw out into a long moment of silence in the aftermath that feels deceptively peaceful. I’m barely in my body, so fucked out—exhausted and sated—that it feels like I’m floating above myself.
But of course, like all good things, it comes to an end.
Maddoc pulls out, the loss of his cock followed by a warm flood of cum that drips down my leg, an undeniable reminder that the messy world is still right here, waiting for us both.
I push myself up from the couch and turn to face him, but he’s already moving away, eyes shuttered and expression locked down completely as he uses his shirt to wipe off his cock, his eyes sliding down my body and then looking away.
“You should get up to your room. The guys will be home soon.”
His cool dismissal snuffs out everything warm inside me, and I stiffen. But it’s for the best. We obviously both needed what just happened, but nothing has actually changed just because we finally fucked without any deception between us.
Nothing except how raw and vulnerable I feel.
“Thanks,” I say, snatching up my clothes and walking past him.
I’m not thanking him for the fuck, but for the reminder. There are walls between us for a lot of reasons, and I quickly put mine back up and keep them there as I shower and wash up, my body far easier to clean than the mess of thoughts and emotions inside me.
“Shit,” I whisper, finally letting just a few of them out as the hot water pours down on me. I lean against the wet tile and squeeze my eyes closed, safe to come unraveled—at least a little bit—in the privacy of the steam and silence.
Fuck. I can’t believe I let that happen.
I soap up my hand and move it between my legs again, even though I’ve already washed away all traces of his cum. I’m on birth control, so at least that’s not an issue, but still. That level of raw connection and intimacy isn’t something I ever meant to let happen with him again. It definitely isn’t safe for my heart.
I can’t seem to keep things straight anymore, not with my feelings about these men getting constantly tangled, twisted and knotted into something impossible to unravel.
It’s almost like we’re right back where we started. They’re helping me against West Point again, all of us working to try and keep Chloe safe from the brutality of Austin McKenna, and it’s seductively easy to fall back into old patterns. To imagine that the Reapers are actually on my side, the way it started to feel like they were before we got Chloe back the first time… and to imagine that I’m on their side too.
That they need me, and will be there for me when I need them.
That I see them, and it’s my place to be a comfort and support to them.
That the connection between each of us is just as deep and true as it felt today.
But how can I be on their side when they’ve already betrayed me? And how can I ever let myself believe they’re on mine, when I already know that they’re planning on doing it again?
“Easy answer,” I tell myself, straightening up and turning the handle with a decisive twist, replacing the false, comforting warmth of the water with an icy blast that brings me to my senses. “I can’t.”