Chapter 39 Aston #2
But for some mysterious reason—be it the knife I don’t bother hiding, or some other ulterior motive I’m not privy to—he’s holding back.
Something tells me he holds back a lot.
Alas, it looks like I’ll have to force his hand again if I have any chance of getting that arrow to fly free and back into me where it belongs.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“You know what.”
His jaw pulses on either side. “I told you. Because you didn’t do it.”
I make a loud buzzer sound, like the kind I’ve seen on those game shows Louise used to watch late at night. Her husband would be stroking my leg as he made me sit right next to him, and she’d be cackling at the television as if nothing was amiss. Good times.
My fingers curl into his shirt, digging into him hard enough I hope it hurts. I tip my chin back. “Wrong answer. The truth.”
Come out, come out, little mouse, I think, lips twitching as I stare deep into those cold black eyes. Recalling the dream I had—no, the nightmare—I feel myself slipping and skidding toward a familiar, dangerous edge. Show me what hides behind the curtain.
Show me who you really are.
He looks me up and down, nostrils flaring. “Maybe ’cause I didn’t want you dragging me down with you. Who knows what bullshit you fed them before I showed up?”
My lip curls into a sneer. “Li-ar,” I grit out, emphasizing each syllable. Gripping the collar of his shirt with my free hand, I put us flared nose to flared nose, pointing the sharp tip of the butcher knife to his jugular. “You’re lying to me. Boyfriends don’t lie to each other.”
His dark eyes widen mere inches from mine, and so close that I am now, I can actually make out the little swirls of chocolate brown in his irises.
“First of all,” he says tightly, “I am not your boyfriend. Nor will I ever be. Second…” He grabs my wrist, twisting it back so fast that I’m not expecting it, effectively forcing the knife to point away from him.
I wince as my bones protest.
Towering over me, he forces me back a step, teeth mashed together as he says, “Just because you never learned how to function like a normal person, doesn’t give you the right to manipulate and threaten people at knife-point to get what you want.”
Taking advantage of my flinch at his words, he adds just enough pressure on my awkwardly twisted wrist to make me yelp and drop the knife. By some miracle, it doesn’t land on my foot a la guillotine style.
He immediately kicks it away, and in a move I’m not expecting, he splays his hand over my chest and walks me backward toward the bed. “Now, shut up and sit the fuck down before you hurt yourself.”
And that?
Well, that sets me off.
Shoving at him, I get all up in his face, all but shrieking, “No, you shut up and sit down.”
His head jerks back in surprise, eyes flared.
Planting my hands on his broad, muscular chest, I give him another shove. At least, I attempt to. He doesn’t budge this time. “Why the fuck do you care if I hurt myself, huh? Since when do you give a shit?” I dart my gaze between his. “Better yet…since when are you capable of giving a shit?”
Awareness flickers in the depths of his icy black gaze, mingling with the faintest traces of shock.
“Yeah, that’s right, Valeykins. I know your little secret. Truthfully, I still have my doubts, but…” I wave a hand. “That’s neither here nor there right now. What I want to know is…” My lip ticks up cruelly. “Why?
“Why what?”
“Why bother?”
He frowns.
“Is it just a game to you? Is that what this is?”
“Game…” he murmurs like the word is something foreign.
“This. Us. Everything.” I search his eyes, silently challenging him.
“You’ve got the whole world at your fingertips, Vale.
” I wiggle mine in his face to emphasize my point.
“You want for nothing. You’ve got it all.
Money, popularity, influence…” My voice thickens.
“A parent who seems to actually give a fuck, despite knowing the truth about you.” Allegedly.
Something unreadable passes over his expression, smoothing out his features.
“But it’s not enough, is it?” I whisper, searching his empty gaze. “Not for someone like you.”
His mouth thins, brow scrunching.
“You’re bored, Vale,” I say with ragged conviction. “You’re bored and you’re lonely, because everyone’s too fucking scared of you to make you work for anything.” I’m not even sure where all this is coming from, but I don’t question it. Nor do I try to rein any of it in.
It feels too big. Too important to hold back.
And after last night, after coming so close to having my freedom snatched away…
I don’t want to.
I don’t want to hold anything back.
“Not even your new daddy can fill that void inside you, huh?”
His jaw ticks, jutting out defiantly. “And, what, you think you can?” He makes a low, derisive sound, shaking his head. And yet…he makes no move to put some distance between us.
Blinking away the burn in my eyes, I match his defiance, and push past the tremor in my voice to say, “Why else would you keep coming back?”
His nostrils flare, my name rumbling from his lips in a soft warning. “Aston…”
“Don’t Aston me. Answer the question.” I poke his chest. Hard. I lean up, bugging my eyes at him. “You said you came over to talk. So, talk.”
Gripping my wrist tight enough to make my bones creak—again—he drags me up against his chest. Not unlike what the version of him in my dream did, he uses the other hand to encircle my throat. But he doesn’t squeeze. Not yet at least. He just locks me in place.
“Tell me again how much of a mistake last night was. Tell me how it will never happen again. Tell me—”
“Stop.”
I pout. “Aw, what’s wrong, Valeykins? Not used to being called out on your bullshit.” I tilt my head, causing his thumb to shift so that it rests over my throbbing pulse. “You don’t scare me.”
His jaw works. “Then you’re even more stupid than I thought,” he whispers so quietly I nearly miss it.
Choosing not to take offense to that, I hum and arch into his touch. “Maybe so.” My lip twitches. “But you know what I think?”
“What?” he practically spits.
“I think you’re secretly grateful for it,” I say fiercely.
His brows slam down over his narrowed eyes. “Grateful.”
“Yep. Finally, finally, you’ve got yourself a willing victim.”
He flinches.
He actually flinches. The stoic robot himself…flinches…because of me.
My lip curves. “And you hate that. You hate that you need this. Need me.”
He growls low, the fingers around my neck spasming. “Shut up.”
“Oooh, now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Aston…”
“Tell me why that is, Vale.” My heard pounds in my ears. “Seriously. Why are you fighting this so hard? Why are you resisting something we both crave? Haven’t I made my intentions clear? I want you. You are mine. You belong to m—”
“Like fuck I do.”
I grin, getting right up in his face, ignoring the way his fingers tremble in an effort to not squeeze my throat.
Alarm bells are blaring in my head, but I can’t stop.
It’s too late. “And I belong to you. I always have.” I search his black bottomless gaze…
and all I see is myself reflected back. I look as crazed as I feel.
“Does it make it easier on you or something…” I wet my lips. “Pretending…lying to yourself…”
There. It’s right there. What…what is that…
“One second you’re rubbing your big dick all over me, calling me pet names and staking your claim,” I whisper, “and the next you can’t get away fast enough. Telling me to leave you alone. Acting as if…as if I…”
A snarl crawls out from between his clenched teeth.
“Forced…you.” My vision slants, the earth opening up beneath me. Pain shoots through my skull, and I’m—
I—
What….
An overwhelming pressure constricts my throat, abruptly sealing off my airway.
My entire body is shaken with the force of it as I’m thrown back onto the bed.
There’s a quiet familiar snick of metal I only vaguely register, somehow audible even over the music still playing that sounds like it’s miles away.
My other senses are even slower to return.
The bed shifts, jostling me, his body heat registering before the sight of him does.
Vale.
He hovers over my prone body, completely caging me in, the hard planes of his face bathed in shadows.
When did it get so late? Tillie and Eden will be back soon…
Nostrils flared, Vale dips down, putting us nose to nose.
“You really do have a death wish, don’t you?
” he growls mere inches from my mouth, teeth bared.
“Do you realize how easily I could snuff the life out of you? How easily I could snap this pretty little neck.” I catch a wink of metal in my periphery, and then I feel it—the sharp point of a blade pressing into my neck, right next to my jugular.
“How easily I can drain you of your blood.”
My body jerks, eyes bulging with the strain to hold still. It’s not until I feel the burn of fabric pushing into my nail beds that I realize I’ve got my fingers fisted around his shirt.
But I’m not pushing him away.
Because I’m not scared.
I’m desperate.
Not just for his touch…
But for the lifeline he just threw me at the last possible second, to keep me from careening into oblivion, whether consciously or not.
Lifting the blade from my neck, he uses that same hand to drag the side of his thumb down my shivering jaw. The gentle, almost loving touch is so at odds with the violence consuming the rest of him, it leaves me chattering beyond control.
“I should, shouldn’t I?” he murmurs, dragging his gaze to my lips. “End this once and for all…”
Something tells me he’s no longer talking to me.
I swallow thickly now that I no longer have a knife pressed to my jugular. My body buzzes in a way that makes me feel apart from it.
Vale, I try to say, barely able to form his name on my numb lips.
My lashes flutter, but I don’t miss how he cocks his head, frowning. His attention still glued to my mouth.
“It’d be a kindness,” he whispers near-soundlessly.
“I—” That’s all I manage before he drops his forehead to mine, expelling a gust of air from my lungs. Frozen, all I can do is close my eyes and I claw at his chest. Not to shove him away, but to keep him close. Keep him here. With me…
Vale…
ValeValeVale.
“Why…” he starts to say, the deep timbre of his voice fanning hotly over my mouth. It draws a choked whimper from my chest. A quiet wordless plea. My toes curl, my body squirming from inside itself as I fight not to move. I don’t want to disturb whatever this…this moment is.
I don’t want to scare him away.
And no, the irony doesn’t escape me.
He arches into me—I don’t even think he’s aware he does it at first. Not until his hip slides over my prominent bulge, and he stiffens, his breath hitching.
I don’t even have a chance to panic or question whether or not he feels it too—this barbed, toxic want between us, tethering us like thorns we can’t dislodge. Not without ripping each other to shreds in the process.
Because I feel it…his want…dragging up my upper thigh, before mashing deliciously with my own.
Not that I’d want to….be free of this connection, that is.
No, this is all I ever wanted from the moment I first saw him again.
To be bled dry by it—by him—until there’s nothing of me left.
With a hiss, he drops his face to the crook of my neck. He inhales deeply, gently thrusting his hips into mine, and I feel more than hear it when he groans his little pet name for me into my skin.
“Sugar.”
It’s followed by the hot, tantalizing slide of a tongue dragging over my pulse point. Drawing another quiet needy sound from my throat.
He stiffens at the sound, before lifting his head and gazing down at me with such fierce, unbridled desire, it has my cock throbbing and my heart racing and…
Holy moly, is it possible to blow a load from a single look alone?
Something tells me I might have my answer in another second if I don’t get myself under control.
Screwing my eyes shut, I clamp my teeth together, afraid to so much as risk breathing out of fear it’ll bring unwanted friction where I really don’t need it right now.
We saw what happened last time I came in my pants untouched and with no warning. And this time, in just briefs, there will be absolutely no hiding it from him when it happens.
His upper body shifts, the mattress giving slightly beneath me as he puts all his weight on one arm, while folding the other to wedge between us.
But he doesn’t reach down where I so desperately ache for him…no, he slithers that hand up between our chests, toward my neck.
My eyes fly open just as something cool and hard is pressed against my lips. The flat side of a knife. And not just any knife, I realize—not the discarded butcher knife I held at his throat earlier, like I assumed he’d grabbed when he tackled me—but my knife.
The one I thought I lost last night.
He tilts his head in a way that is distinctly predatory, the tip of his tongue poking out to drag between his teeth.
As he slowly lowers his head, eyes heavily hooded, thick lashes fanning his high cheekbones…I become dimly aware of the song playing. “Alone” by Heart. But it might as well be coming from the other side of a padded wall, what with how deafening my heart pounds in my ears.
What is he…
I suck in a breath, lips parting against the blade just as he closes the distance. Crushing our mouths together.
My eyes fall shut on instinct, lips puckering, the bite of pain from the knife trapped between us barely even registering as I chase to bridge the divide—to defy the laws of physics and move through thin, but solid, metal to get to him. To fully taste him, finally, at last.
The sound that rumbles from his chest, reverberating from his body, vibrating along my lips…it’s nothing short of a purr as our flesh grows moist and sticky, melding together around the knife.
So…close. So fucking close….
I splay my hands across his pecs, finally relaxing my fingers. Through the soft thin fabric of his shirt, I can feel his beaded nipples digging into my palms.
What I wouldn’t give to drag my teeth over them.
Hell, over his entire body.
What I wouldn’t give to kiss Vale properly, without any barrier in between. To be free to touch him, hold him, squeeze him…
To be held, adored, finally, at—
A door slams shut downstairs.