Chapter 10 #2
“God.” A weight lifted from my chest at being able to finally spew everything I’d kept inside.
“If you want me to go, I’ll go, but I just thought you should know how fucking sorry I am and for all the shit I shared.
” I didn’t want to leave, but I wanted him to tell me to stay.
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean that shit in the bathroom. ”
A laugh, a fucking laugh left him, but it wasn’t filled with humor—it was consumed by heartache. “Fuck, do you not get it?”
“Get what? You constantly expect me to pick up on your cues, but you’re difficult to read, Thorne. One minute, you look at me as if I’m something fragile, something worth keeping, and then the next it’s like you don’t care.”
“Because I am a cancer, and you are the perfect host!” The words fractured as they left him.
“I taint everything I touch, and I tried, God, Oren, I tried,” he ripped one of the bandages concealing his arm off, revealing the stitched wound beneath, “to carve my poison from your life. I can’t; I will not continue to be the one who harms you in any way—and having you here?
Where your father can reach you? Where he can use you against me?
I can’t because I cannot stomach, cannot bear the fucking thought of losing you. ”
“Thorne…” My fingers lifted, and when he didn’t pull away, they traced the stitched wound on his arm.
“It doesn’t matter where I go because until he’s dead, he’ll never stop hurting me.
I’ve grown up with his pain, his lashings, his temperament.
You aren’t giving me enough credit, because nothing he’s done or will do will scare me away. ”
His bottom lip quivered, tears filling his eyes as he lifted his chin.
“Please, I need you to hate me, Oren. To loathe my existence and the very air I breathe, because then… Then he can’t, he won’t use you against me…
” A single drop of sorrow rolled down his cheek.
“When I saw you in those images, bloody, beaten… I stopped breathing. But when I saw that soullessness in your gaze, a gaze that captivated me the moment we met, every remaining piece of my already broken soul died. I’m not a strong man, Oren.
I’m fucking weak, and he knows that, he knows how much you mean to me… ”
“But what if I don’t? What if I don’t hate you? I… don’t know exactly what this is, but it isn’t hate. Not at all.” The corner of my mouth lifted. “He showed you what he did to me?”
At his confirmation, I blew out a breath. “I think you’re forgetting I’m excellent at faking my emotions. What you saw? A mask I wanted him to see, because do my eyes look soulless now? Do they seem void of the very thing you think you removed?”
“He’ll leverage it… He’ll leverage the mask you wear, use you to inflict harm on those you love.
He’ll test it, and that isn’t something you will survive.
” His shoulders shook, a shuddering sob escaping him as he looked down at his arms. “This attempt? It wasn’t my first. And that pain, the psychological anguish he is capable of inflicting, isn’t something I want you to know… ”
I threaded my fingers with his, giving his hand a soft squeeze.
“You think I haven’t tried before? Almost succeeded as you did?
” I bit my lip. “All I’ve ever known is psychological anguish, but if I’ve learned one thing in the short time I’ve been here, it’s that doing it alone isn’t feasible.
Shouldering this shit is eating you alive, and I’m sorry if I played a role in it.
I’m sorry if I’m the leverage he might use, but I’m not quitting. I’m not leaving until my dad loses.”
“Oren… Please. I-I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. Keep the facade up and do what my dad says while tearing it down in secret.” I jerked my thumb to the door. “That’s why Matt and I have been meeting to discuss ways to break his empire. I want to help.”
“I can’t,” he whispered, the brokenness in his voice nearly enough to break me. “Keeping up with the facade means continuing to put my hands on you, to break you. And I can’t, Oren. I’ve done enough…”
“But you won’t. No matter how much you put me through, I’ll be alright, because I know it’s not your choice. We have to keep the cogs in line to surprise him.”
“No.” He shook his head, looking at me. “I refuse.”
“You can’t refuse, Thorne, and you know it.” I lifted his hand to my lips, kissing each knuckle before tugging him closer. “Have you already forgotten how stubborn I am? How difficult it is to control me?”
“I’ve seen it, Oren. I’ve seen you fractured by my words, broken by your father’s hand. That isn’t something I can do anymore.” His throat bobbed. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to heal—”
I was tired of his monologues. I cut him off, my lips pressing against his in a desperate attempt to get him to shut the fuck up.
My foot slipped, the difference in height making it difficult to maintain the kiss, but gods, I couldn’t handle the tears pouring from him or the downward tug on his smile lines.
He melted into me, his thighs meeting the bed. Leaning into my touch, he lowered himself to make my access to him easier. Fingers trailed across my throat, his palm landing on my cheek as he hooked his hold around the backside of my jaw to deepen the kiss.
Fucking hell, the bathroom kiss was nothing compared to this.
I settled my legs on either side of his thighs as I brushed my tongue across his teeth, earning a pitiful groan from him that had me wanting more.
Just like last time, he let me control the pace as my fingers wound themselves in his hair, yanking hard as I deepened what he’d already offered me.
Pulling back slightly, he growled under his breath. “If you don’t stop, Oren, I’m afraid this may lead to something else entirely.”
“You ruined my date at the bar, so you owe me,” I whispered, brushing my lips against his jaw. “But I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait, as something tells me Matt wouldn’t appreciate the sounds I’d make you release.”
A pat sounded at the door, cutting me off. “It’s about damn time,” Matt stated, confirming his presence outside the bedroom. “Fuck the shit out of him, Oren. He needs it.”
“Were you fucking listening—”
“Sure was!”
I laughed, burying my head in the crook of Thorne’s neck. “Goddamn it, Matthew. I could’ve used help several times.”
“Nah,” he laughed. “You handled him better than anyone has. Now, before you guys elect to break his headboard, I’m out of here. I’ll be in the gym if you need me.”
“If you see Simon or Liam, tell them I won. They’ll know what I mean,” I shouted before a quick tap on the door solidified his answer.
“Won?” Throne questioned, the sultry hum in his tone causing my cock to ache. “Won what, exactly?”
I shoved him against the bed, straddling his hips as I chucked my shirt to the ground. “That you, commander, enjoy being submissive, because that’s twice now you’ve let me lead.”
With a hooded gaze, he looked up at me. “That easy to read, huh?”
“Easy?” I hooked my fingers through his belt loops, tugging just enough to tease. “Desperate sounds more like it, sir.”
A full-body shiver racked his frame. “God, you’re going to be the death of me.”
“Death? You told me before to abandon my cross because you were my God. Was that simply talk?” I guided my hands to the edge of his shirt, tugging it up and over his frame to reveal the tattoos I still pictured in my mind.
“Perhaps it was,” he crooned, reaching for my waist. “But you are the God here, my dove. Wield me as you wish, command me as you must, and tell me when to kneel for worship, because I am yours.”
“Don’t say that unless you mean it,” I muttered, planting kisses along his neck as I ground against him, my leg hooking underneath his.
Fuck, was I going to make it through this alive? He was everything, all of my boxes checked and more, and I was terrified. Terrified I’d fall and never be able to recover.
A lengthened moan fell from him, heated and deep. His chin tipped back, granting more access to his skin as his length hardened beneath me. “Fuck, Oren.”
“Fuck,” I repeated. It’d been too long since I’d done any of this, and with him? God above, I was going to pass out. “Fuck, take it off.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific, love—”
“Fucking take your pants off, Graves. I’m beyond impatient.”
He licked his lips, his head dipping to the side as he met me with my very own defiance. “Or what?”
I smiled, a hint of laughter etching through because this was who he really was. A defiant shit head with a heart larger than he could contain. “I’ll walk out of this goddamn room and leave you panting like this.”
Obediently, he lifted his hips, slipping his military-grade cargo pants off but electing to leave his black briefs on. “There. Happy?”
I licked my lips at the bulge, at exactly what I was doing to him. “Happy? No,” I answered, a stupid grin etched onto my face as I hooked my finger underneath the waistband of his briefs. “I need these off too, now.”
Grabbing the back of my neck, he pulled me toward him, kissing me with the heat I knew he felt. His tongue piercing brushed against my teeth as I felt him shift to remove the last piece of clothing that concealed him from me.
I groaned as my tongue swirled around his piercing, pleasant thoughts of how it would feel somewhere else. With my hands exploring his torso, I ran them over the piercings that matched mine. “God, you’re perfect.”
“Tell me again,” he breathed against my lips, the words a plea.
“Perfect,” I muttered, pressing my lips against his jaw. “Perfect,” I repeated, my lips trailing across his chest. “Perfect,” I said as my hand wrapped around his cock.
My thumb brushed against metal, and I glanced down, a Prince Albert piercing greeting me. A guttural moan left him as I brushed across it, his chest hitching in response to the overwhelming influx of pleasure.
“Shit.”
“Shit,” I breathed. How was this man real?