Chapter 33 THE LỊNE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE
My head spins. I lose my voice.
I can’t reconcile the sweet Kian with the brutal Elias. What happened to him? How did the boy who wanted to save lives become the man who takes them?
A mocking smile curves his lips as he advances toward me.
Unwittingly, I back up, my breaths thready. Every sense sharpens, zeroed in on the predator showing me his true colors.
This can’t be.
We stand under the elm tree in Hollow Gardens, looking at our carving.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Kian murmurs, linking his fingers with mine.
My insides twist, and I fight the urge to cry.
“I don’t want to go either.” My lips tremble and I face him. “But don’t worry. I’ll come back for college. You can be a vet, and I’ll be happy as long as we’re together.”
His eyes glitter, green eyes rimmed with gold. I brush his hair over his ear. It’s so long now, the brown roots creep into the blond, telling us our time is up.
“You promise?” he rasps, voice thick. “What if I can’t save up the money—”
I press my finger to his lips. “We’ll find a way. But for now,” we face the tree again, and I trace the etched words, “we still have my birthday next week. One last celebration.”
His heat presses upon me, jolting me back to the present. The eyes. The divot on his chin. The similarities, while not plentiful, are there. It is the same person, but my mind refuses to accept it.
A dark laugh slips from Elias’s lips, cruel and cold. “Kian’s dead. He died with them.”
His words spear into my chest, the pain robbing me of my breath.
He leans down until we’re a hairbreadth apart. His cologne of vetiver and smoke, now polluted with the metallic sting of blood, fills my nose.
“I don’t believe you.” Not looking at him, I shake my head.
Denial is the only course of hope.
Elias shakes my shoulders. “He’s dead. You killed him! He died the day Saints Hollow burned down. Elise and Kian? Fairytales for kids who didn’t know better. This?” He gestures at the corpse on the floor. “This is real life.”
His words are nonsensical. Mad ravings from a lunatic.
“Don’t you dare pin this on me!” I slam my fists against his chest, fury finally surging up my spine like a tidal wave. “I didn’t leave you. I left, but didn’t—”
But then I make the mistake of looking up.
Pain floods those emerald eyes. Hands caging me in, arms shaking from restraint, he stares at me as if I stole his world from him.
He stares at me as if he were on the brink of death and I was his last breath of oxygen.
My tragic heart, lovesick and broken, makes the mistake of latching onto the one man who was once my everything, who, even now, under a different identity, makes me feel too much.
My body awakens. “Für Elise” hums in my mind.
Some songs you only need to hear once to remember for the rest of your life.
My hands move on their own. I fist his shirt and pull him flush against me.
“I will never give up on you, Kian,” I whisper.
A sharp exhale. A beat suspended in midair.
He crashes down, one hand cupping my face, the other fisting my hair, and claims my lips in a savage, desperate kiss.
Heat floods my body, my nerves singeing with light. Our mouths tangle, teeth biting, hands clawing at each other, the madness invading every cell, obliterating every morsel of logic. He grunts as I dig my nails into his back, unable to find purchase.
Clearly frustrated, he rips open his shirt, sending buttons pinging onto the ground.
A whimper escapes me as I finally touch his heated flesh. I climb onto him, wrapping my legs tight around his waist. His tongue dominates my mouth, tasting, dueling, savoring every sound I make.
“What’s my name?” he rasps as we break apart for air.
Mind drunk with lust, I pull his hair, needing his kiss again.
“My name,” he bellows, his hands gripping the front of my sweater.
My vision blurs as I stare at him, nails raking over his scalp. “Kian. Kian Leste.”
A growl tears out of him. “Wrong answer.”
He consumes my lips once more, biting down hard until pain sears through me.
“E-Elias!” I cry, and he rewards me with a swipe of tongue, the ache bleeding into pleasure.
“Tell me you want this.” The fabric gives. A small tear at my neckline.
I claw at him, any part I can reach, desperation teeming in my blood.
“Say it!” Another rip.
“Please…” I clutch his nape, needing his kiss more than I need air. “Yes…yes…”
“Who?” He nips my ear, and wetness seeps out of my thong. “Who’s going to fuck you? Who are you asking to invade your pussy with his throbbing cock?”
Another gasp. A pressure begins deep in my belly. I grind myself against his torso, rubbing my core up and down his muscles.
It’s not enough. I need more.
“Elias. Please shut up and fuck me.”
A roar of satisfaction grinds out of his throat. He rips my sweater in half. Cold air pebbles my nipples followed by hot, wet suction.
I cry, clutching his dark locks as he latches onto my breast like he needs it to survive.
He pinches my other nipple, flicks it lightly, then roughly. Another pinch. I soak through my thong.
My wetness runs down my thighs. If I were sane, I’d be embarrassed.
But it doesn’t matter, because the man feasts on me like he’s famished.
He curls his fingers around the strings of my underwear and leggings, then with a rough yank, tears them off me.
My skin burns from the friction. My legs tremble around his back. One shoe falls on the floor, the other follows.
Elias drags his lips up my chest, licking the divot of my collarbone, before raking his teeth over the slender column of my neck. He lifts me from the wall completely effortlessly.
The cold steel of the table meets my back. With a rough yank, he pulls me to the edge and spreads my legs wide.
“Look at this beautiful pussy. It’s pulsing, needy, weeping for me.”
He drags a finger from my clit to the rosebud of my ass. My eyes fly open.
A depraved glint fills his eyes, his pupils nearly swallowing his irises. With his once-slicked hair now in disarray, his dress shirt half open, revealing a sheen of sweat on his writhing pecs, he looks like the actual king of the underworld.
And he’s claiming me as his queen.
My core pulses. I squeeze my legs, needing the pressure. Needing something to finish me off.
Smack!
“Elias!” I gasp, sparks appearing in my eyes.
“You don’t get to come until I say you do.” He rubs the sting away from my pussy lips. “And you definitely don’t get to come until I have a taste.”
He buries his face between my legs before I can say another word.
A scream tears out of me as pleasure explodes from my core, shattering every cell of my body. Wetness slicks out, my eyes rolling backward, and I thrash on the table.
My mind faintly registers I’m fully naked while he’s still clothed, but the depravity only fans the madness.
“My sweet Lana. You taste as sweet as you smell.” He groans into my pussy, his tongue lapping at my wetness, each lick sparking aftershocks as I quake before him.
Before I can fully take a breath, the sound of a zipper tears through the air.
Then he’s on top of me, arms braced at my sides, head hovering just above me. His cock, hard and thick, wet at the tip, perches at my entrance.
But he holds himself still.
His breaths throttle out of him, his gaze darting over my face, my neck, my body, and back up, like he can’t possibly look his fill.
My tongue dips out, mouth watering.
“I need you.” I curl my legs around his ass and squeeze. “All of you.”
A twitch of his jaw. He still doesn’t move. “You protected?”
I forgot about protection.
“Please. Yes. Birth control. You clear?” My nails dig into his back.
A curt nod. His eyes flare, darkening impossibly more. “What’s my name?”
An ache pulses in my heart. I know what he wants to hear from me.
What he needs to hear from me.
“Elias,” I whisper. My heart breaks, knowing he refuses to be Kian.
He hisses then bears down, thrusting into me in one rough stroke.
I scream, pain carving through me as everything catches fire.
He jolts, then freezes. His gaze snaps to mine again.
“How?”
Eyes tearing up, lips trembling, I cradle his cheek. “I just couldn’t…never found the right person…”
Yes, I pretend I’m experienced. I’ve made out with guys, used toys and dildos, but have never gone all the way.
I used to think I was defective. In my thirties and still a virgin. I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with anyone. Then I thought to myself, why force the issue? Why didn’t I just wait until it felt right?
But now, I think…perhaps I’ve just been waiting for him.
Clearly overwrought with emotion, he cradles my face like I’m the light he never expected to see. He kisses me tenderly, sweetly, giving me his all.
Hope tremors inside me.
My Kian…he’s still in there.
Groaning, he thrusts back in, his motions gentle. “Fuck. You’re so tight.” A masculine grunt of satisfaction ripples from him. “I-I’ve imagined—”
He stops and presses another kiss on my lips.
“I should’ve been more careful,” he says softly, reminding me of the boy he said was long gone.
A gentleness so heart-wrenching guides his motions. In this fragment of time, I don’t remember why I shouldn’t be with him. He slides his hand between us, down my body, and starts a rhythm on my swollen clit.
Firm circles, light flicks, all in tune with his body moving over mine.
Frissons of pleasure begin anew. My muscles tense as I clutch his back, helpless to the climbing sparks.
“E-Elias,” I whimper, my hips moving, chasing his thrusts, giving as good as I get.
“Fuck yes,” he grunts, his cock hardening, swelling, filling me up. “You’re going to come again, princess. I’m going to christen this room with your cum.”
My core flutters at his dirty words.
Eyes flashing, he peels his upper body from me, his fingers still working hard at my clit. He snakes his free hand up my body, kneads my breast before sliding back down and resting his palm below my belly.
Then he presses down, letting me feel him. Every single hard and thick inch.
I moan.
His dick powers into me, each piston shredding my nerves, sending me into the stratosphere.
My vision whitens. His fingers quicken around my clit. My legs shake, muscles coil, back arching.
More moans and whimpers fill the air.
“Who am I?” Hips snapping hard against me, his rhythm spins out of control. He curves his body over mine once more.
“Elias.” My eyes roll back and teeth chatter.
I’m so close. Oh my fucking God, I’m so close.
The table rattles, its legs squeaking against the floor, adding to the erotic soundtrack of our movements.
“I’m your husband.”
His cock lengthens. His hand presses deeper into my stomach.
“Feel. Every. Fucking. Inch.”
The table groans, and a whine slithers out of my throat.
“Remember,” he rasps, face flushed, eyes intense, “I own you.”
White static rings in my ears, the submissive streak inside me roaring to life.
“And…”
Thrust.
“You’re…”
Thrust.
“My wife!”
He punches his cock extra deep.
A scream perches at the back of my throat. I claw his hand, and he hisses, punishing me only by hammering into me relentlessly, stealing my breath, my soul, my everything.
Thud.
The table hits something.
My eyes snap open, the room coming back into focus. Elias stares at me, sweat dripping down his forehead.
He doesn’t pause. He doesn’t yield. He doesn’t care that the table is banging against a dead body.
Oh my God. I’m naked, having sex with my deranged husband with a corpse next to me. Instead of horror, arousal shoots through my veins like a drug.
My nipples tighten, more wetness slicking out of me, the sounds of skin slapping skin echoing against the walls. I shake, unable to stop the tremors, the ecstasy so close, almost at my fingertips.
“Come, Lana,” he growls into my ear. “Come around my cock like a good wife.”
I scream and break into a million pieces—a cataclysmic event—my mind suspended somewhere between heaven and hell.
Exhilaration floods my veins as I quake and quake and quake.
He crushes his lips to mine, his hand shackling my wrists above my head.
“I hate you,” he growls under his breath. “Fuuuck.”
“Liar,” I whisper. “You don’t fuck someone you hate like this.”
But my heart spasms, the pain from his words quickly fading as he presses his full body weight on top of me, like he needs all parts of me touching all parts of him.
His cock twitches and hot cum floods my womb. I clutch him tightly.
I can’t let him go. I will never let him go.
As we come down from our high, his semi-hard cock still lodged firmly inside me, common sense finally comes back in fragile wisps.
Kian. Elias. The murders. The violence.
“Tell me you hate me,” he presses the words onto my neck with his lips. Gentle and reverent.
A heartbeat. Then two.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
I’m the liar.
And I know I’m in too deep.