Chapter 23
Grimes
Our first kiss tastes sweet and smoky and sultry. Naughty and nice. Just like Florian. He looks up at me, a shy but obvious proposition in his blue eyes. And I know I can’t resist him this time.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask.
He nods. Stands on tiptoe, reaching up for me, and when he presses himself against me, I feel his hardness.
I don’t know how I got here, to this moment, this kiss.
I thought I wanted to break him. And then I did it.
Found him lying fetal in his bedroom, half stripped and hyperventilating and tear-stained.
And stars, those scars on his torso. They cracked my hatred in two.
He’d been crying so loudly I heard him from downstairs and he didn’t even realize.
I held him as he slept. I’m not silly enough to think that revenge is never justified, or any of that shit.
I haven’t changed that much. But when he woke up and his eyes were red and puffy and his hands were twisted in my cloak like I was his comfort and not his tormentor, I was powerless.
Some primal, unthinking part of myself took over.
It wanted to soothe him, and I had no strength to fight it.
“Boss?” he says. His eyes are getting wary. He’s afraid I’m going to push him away. Not this time.
“Where do you want to do this?” I ask.
“Your bed,” he says at once. He smiles, looking so beautiful it breaks my heart a little.
“Look at you,” I say. “My flower.”
He blinks, looking stunned and nonplussed. This is all Breta’s fault. She put the idea of Florian as a flower into my head, back when she was making me feel guilty about working him too hard.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I’m terrible at sweet talk. I just thought since it sounds like your name and your face is so pretty, and—”
“You’re not terrible at sweet talk,” he says.
And then he says nothing more, silent for once, as I lead him upstairs.
His joyful presence fills my austere, empty bedroom.
He lies gently on my bed as though it’s his own and looks up at me.
My heartbeat speeds as I look at him, lying there for the taking, hair fanned out beneath his head, lips plump, eyes dark. Beautiful.
“You’re really going to take me?” he checks. The hope in his voice sends tingles through my whole body. “You’re not just playing with me?”
“Of course not.”
Stars, how sadistic does he think I am? On second thoughts, better not answer that question.
“I need to tell you something.” Suddenly, he looks shy. “I’ve-I’ve never been hate-fucked before.”
“With all the men who’ve had you? And as irritating as you are? I find that hard to believe.”
“I’m serious, Boss,” he says.
The trust in his voice steals the laugh from my throat.
“You wouldn’t like it?” I ask.
He shakes his head, eyes downcast.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I think my hatred is fading to mere dislike.”
I re-arrange his hair around his head on the pillow.
I kiss down the column of his throat, feeling his breath catch and shorten, not with fear like when I found him panicking earlier but with tremulous pleasure.
I run my lips over the scars on his torso.
I never suspected that a spoiled rich boy like him might have scars.
Parts of himself he hides from the world.
I thought he was so confident, but there was so much beneath the surface that I didn’t see.
“Undress for me,” I say.
He smiles and I know he’s going to take his time, give me a show.
He holds my gaze as he pulls the fabric of his trousers down over each hip bone in turn, but he keeps the goods covered until the last moment.
Purposefully making me impatient for the unveiling.
The legendary cock of Lord Florian Southland.
I’ve felt it rubbed hard against me, felt my effect, caught hidden glimpses in the dark, but never seen everything in the light of day.
When he finally shows me, he’s much bigger than I expected and swelling fast. I wrap a fist around his shaft.
He moans and tries to thrust into my hand.
“Nope. Hands and knees,” I say.
He’s barely breathing as he obeys. I lose my cloak, then the rest of my clothes.
Then I just look down at my prize. His dark hair falls either side of his neck.
I track my gaze all the way down the pale skin of his back, the V of his waist. He’s so fucking beautiful it breaks my heart.
And he’s giving himself to me. Even after everything I’ve done to him.
I draw a fingertip along his spine, soft and slow.
He shivers, pressing back against me. My hatred leaks from me in dark waves as I look at the trust in his posture.
Is this the man who ruined my life? I can’t think of him like that.
Not when he’s waiting for me like this. He brushes back against me, fleeting, the tiny touch enough to send a spiral of heat into me like a backdraft of an inferno.
“I promise I won’t hurt you,” I say.
“You used to want to. I could see it in your eyes.”
I can’t answer. Thank the stars he isn’t looking at me right now.
“So what changed?” he says.
I press a kiss to the nape of his neck. “You ask too many questions, Florian.”
I run my finger along his ass crack. That’s the end of Florian the interrogator.
He keens a deep moan. With my other hand I scrabble in my bedside table for a bottle of oil.
His breath catches as he hears me unstop the bottle.
I oil up my finger and ease inside him, gentle as I promised, feeling his intake of breath as I breach him for the first time.
Some part of my mind still wonders what the hell I’m doing.
But that part is buried under so many layers of desire, it’s barely perceptible.
Easy to ignore. I sneak my other hand around to play with his nipples, feeling them stiffen up.
He responds to me, breathing hard, squirming like fire flows through his veins.
“How does that feel?” I whisper.
“Mmmmm.” A delicious moan. “Good, Boss. So good.”
He should probably call me Grimes. Boss seems formal when I’m knuckle-deep. Formal, but insanely hot.
I don’t correct him.
I explore deeper, twisting my finger, adding another—bringing more moans. His cock starts to throb, precum slick at the head. I squeeze his shaft hard.
“No, Florian. You’re going to come when I’m inside you.”
“You are inside me,” he whines.
“Not until my cock is inside you.”
“When’s that going to be?”
“When I fucking say so, my little servant.”
He groans. “Sadist.”
I turn him over, sit him up. “You won’t say that in a few moments.”
He raises an eyebrow, trying to play cool, but his precum leaking all over us and his excited breaths betray him. “You’re very confident.”
“I am.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. He straddles me and eases himself onto the tip of my cock, eyelids fluttering. My hands dig hard into his hips and I can’t rip my gaze from his face. He’s in ecstacy, and I can’t look away.
“Now, you’re going to look into my eyes the whole time, so you know this is no hatefuck,” I tell him. “Sounds good?”
”Sounds good, Boss,” he breathes. His pupils are so dilated the blue of his eyes looks navy. He bucks his hips, testing his seat on me, sending sensation spiraling up my cock. I thrust sudden and fierce, bringing a gasp of pleasure.
“I can’t take my eyes off you,” he whispers.
Wild thing to say. Does he think I look like anything compared to him?
“You’re the most beautiful thing in this room, Florian,” I say. “In the world.”
I prove my words as I fuck him. Deep, slow, slow, loving strokes.
Taking him thoroughly, staring at him like we’re making an oath.
Over and over, deeper and deeper, making Lord Florian my own.
His hands caress my face, my neck, all over the tattoo that he caused, and I let him.
He kisses me, tongue teasing in rhythm with my strokes, and then he kisses the tattoo, and I let him. Let him draw the poison from my spirit.
“Hook your leg up,” I grunt, because I need to get deeper, get him high with pleasure, high on me, and he flings one leg over my shoulder like a gymnast, and now I can drive even deeper, pressing us ever closer together, our grunts in unison, the heat of our bodies surging.
His precum all over us. I stare into his wondering eyes, and I realize there’s no hate left in me for him.
There’s only pleasure, this moment, and Florian’s eyes.
He feels so light and delicate with his leg hooked up over me, letting me take him, giving himself to me.
Never mind everything that’s gone before, everything he’s done to me, at this moment all I want is to make this as good for him as it is for me.
I’m powerless to think of anything else.
I hit his spot over and over until he’s liquid and whimpering with helpless pleasure.
His hot tightness sends pleasure surging through me.
I stroke his cock with one firm hand, watching the flush creep up his pale neck as he gets closer.
He’s painfully hard, pulsing in my palm.
He orgasms suddenly with a choked gasp. He only breaks eye contact when he loses control, head lolling back.
I watch his back arch greedily, drinking in every detail in the bright light from the window.
His inner muscles tighten around me, start to pulsate in time with his cock.
It draws my own climax. My balls tighten.
I cry out and come deep inside him, come hard, head spinning and filling him with my release.
“Good, Florian,” I breathe. “You took me so well. Let me fill you right up.”
He nods and murmurs something unintelligible but shivery with affection.
He buries his head in my shoulder. I stroke his hair, eyes closed tight for two reasons.
To prolong the moment, and to stop me from thinking too hard about the depth of that affection reverberating through me from his soft voice.
At last I have to open my eyes. I blink in the brightness and Florian is staring at me with those blue eyes, like he’s waking from a dream.
I feel much the same way. He reaches out one tentative hand to wipe a bead of sweat from my forehead.
I soften inside him, still breathing hard, our chests rising and falling against each other.
Both staring at each other like we just saw something impossible.
“I didn’t know you could be so tender, Boss,” he says.
“Neither did I.”
“You don’t hate me anymore.”
I take a deep breath, like my head is breaking water. “No. I don’t.”