Chapter 20 Calder #3
I flex my hips and thrust forward, ripping through the final bit of resistance and burying myself deep. A pain-filled cry rips from her throat, and she tosses her head back. I grit my teeth and let her stretch around me.
“Fuck.” I hold completely still, giving her time to adjust to the invasion. “You okay?”
“No.” She lifts her head, and I see tears tracking down her flushed cheeks. “It hurts. It feels like you’re ripping me in half.”
I can only imagine. She’s so tiny, and I’m not exactly small.
“I know,” I whisper and lean forward, kissing her forehead and cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Her entire body shudders. “Don’t apologize. Just—move. Make it worth it.”
Make it worth it. I’ll do more than that. Slowly, I pull out almost all the way before sliding back in. Each movement draws a gasp from her, the sound a mixture of pain and maybe pleasure. After a few strokes, her body relaxes around me, adjusting to the invasion and learning the rhythm.
“Better?” I manage, my voice strained with the effort of holding back.
“Getting there.” She rocks her hips experimentally, testing, and the movement sends pleasure shooting up my spine.
I move deeper, faster, watching her face as the pain morphs into pleasure.
Of course she’s stubborn as hell and tries to set the pace, to take back some control by matching my rhythm and rolling her hips.
Not fucking today. Catching both her wrists, I pin them against the counter on either side of her hips.
She struggles against my grip, frustrated and wanting, but I hold firm.
“My pace,” I tell her, my voice low and rough with need. “Not yours.”
“That’s not fair.” She growls in frustration, trying to fight my hold.
“Life’s not fair, sweet girl.” I angle my hips, finding that spot inside her that makes her whole body jerk.
Instead of fighting me, a moan escapes her, and her body arches off the counter. Like a smug motherfucker I grin because I have her right where I want her.
I thrust into her again and again. Each stroke is deliberate and controlled, hitting that spot that transforms her gasps of pain into moans of pleasure. I watch her face, cataloging every expression, the flush spreading across her skin.
“There?” I watch pleasure chase the last traces of pain from her face.
“Yes.” Her voice breaks on the word, raw and desperate. “Right there.”
Knowing she’s past fighting me, I release one of her wrists and snake a hand between us. Her clit is slick and swollen, and the second I touch it, she whimpers. Her free hand clutches my shoulder while the other stays pinned where I left it, obedient even in her desperation.
“Look at me,” I command when her eyes start to flutter closed, when she tries to escape into sensation alone.
They open, heavy-lidded and dark, pupils blown wide.
And there it is—that connection I’ve been craving since the night she kissed me in my truck a year ago.
That sense of rightness that shouldn’t exist but does anyway.
She’s mine at this moment, completely mine, even if she’ll go back to pretending she hates me tomorrow.
“I hate you,” she whispers, even as her body moves with mine and she chases the pleasure I’m giving her.
“No, you only wish you did.”
“No. I do. I hate—” Her words are cut off with a gasp as I hit that spot again, harder, my fingers working her clit in tight circles. “Oh God.”
“This doesn’t feel like hate, sweet girl. It feels like you’re about to come.” I increase the pressure, and her body tightens around me, drawing closer to the edge. “Fuck, come for me, Saint. Come on my cock.”
She’s making these small, desperate sounds now, her body finally surrendering to the pleasure instead of fighting it.
“Calder—” My name on her lips while I’m inside her nearly breaks me, making my rhythm falter.
“Come for me, baby. I want to feel how much you hate me.” I circle her clit with my thumb, maintaining the rhythm that’s driving her toward the edge, feeling her body coil tighter and tighter around me. “Come for me. Come on my cock.”
And just like that she comes apart with a cry, her body clenching around me in waves, pulsing, pulling me deeper. The sensation pushes me over the edge right behind her, pleasure whiting out everything else.
I should pull out, but I’m far too consumed with the need to be inside her that I don’t even try.
I explode, filling her with my cum, marking her in the most primitive way possible.
For a moment, we just stay like that. Breathing hard.
Tangled together. Connected in a way that has nothing to do with force or fear and everything to do with this desperate need between us.
I pull away carefully, releasing her wrists. Red marks bloom where I held her, and guilt twists in my gut.
“You’re bleeding.” I notice the smear of blood on her thigh, on the counter, on me.
I grab a dish towel and run it under warm water before gently cleaning her up. Thankfully, she doesn’t protest.
When I’m done, I take her into my arms and carry her toward the stairs. It aches like a bitch with my ribs still hurting, but it’s worth it to feel her soft and dreamy against me.
Sighing, she leans her head back against my chest. “Can you get the whiskey? I think we need to talk.”
As if I could refuse her after the moment we just shared, I turn, snag the bottle off the counter, and walk us both up to our bed naked.
I ease her into the clean sheets, bring the blanket up, and snuggle in next to her so she rests her head up on my shoulder, then I hand her the bottle.
If it’ll make her open up, I’ll take it.
“What do you want to talk about?”
She lets out a cute little hiccup, and I can’t help but grin. “I owe you an apology.”
I tilt so I can look into her face, sure I heard her wrong. “You owe me an apology?”
“I was upset, and I took it out on you. It’s just. I feel so helpless. It’s one thing after another, and just when I think maybe I can work through each new horror, another pops up.” Her words slur together a little fast but are clear.
“Saint—”
“No, please, let me finish. It’s pretty obvious we have no problem being together physically. But I don’t see how I can give you anything else with the threat of your father constantly hanging over us.”
I consider what she’s saying...and somehow come up with the fact that she’s thinking about feeling anything for me. After everything. It’s not like she is wrong. There’s no real future for Saint and me with my father in control.
I’ve been racking my brain, trying to think of a way to get rid of him, but I don’t have anything concrete yet. Of course I don’t tell her that.
I tilt her chin up. “I know, sweet girl. I know, but someday, it won’t be like that. I promise, okay? I just need you to give me a little time and trust me.”
Her eyes flutter closed, and she clutches the whiskey bottle to her chest like a teddy bear as she leans into me. “Don’t take too long,” she whispers. “I don’t know how much more I can take.” I gulp down a lump in my throat and cuddle her close.
Fear wasn’t something I was used to feeling, especially when it came to feeling it about others, but for the first time in my life, I was afraid for someone else who wasn’t a member of my family.
When it came to Saint, everything I had thought I knew about myself and what I wanted got flipped on its head.
Saving her life and connecting it with mine put her in danger.
Tomorrow, she would get branded with my family crest and become property of the Bishops, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I had to find a solution to this, a way to end it.
I wanted a future with Saint, whatever that might look like, and I knew in order to get that, I would have to make a sacrifice, something bigger than the one I had already made.
I could only hope Saint was strong enough to endure what was to come.