Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
Damien
She trembles at the promise in my voice. The anger has burned away. How can I be angry with her for wanting all of me, not just the parts I’m willing to give?
“Hands above your head.”
She inhales a quick breath and lifts her arms without hesitation. I loop the zip tie around her slender wrists and cinch it tight to the slatted headboard, leaving her trapped.
Helpless.
At my mercy.
My hands trace the curve of her ribs. My pulse hammers as she shudders beneath the whisper of my touch.
Her skin feels like silk under my fingertips.
My throat constricts. When my fingers close around her breasts, they fit my palms like they were made for my touch.
Each pass of my thumbs over her nipples sends lightning through my veins, echoing the arch of her spine as a soft moan spills through her parted lips.
I lower my mouth, starving for her. A groan tears from my chest, vibrating against her breast. My tongue traces patterns learned over months of worshipping her body.
But she keeps surprising me. Every gasp imprints itself on my consciousness.
When I catch her nipple between my teeth, the noise she makes, desperate and shattered, echoes the violent rhythm pounding in my chest.
“Please.”
“Please, what?” I lift my head. Her breath comes in quick, ragged bursts as she shifts against the cool cotton beneath her, desperate for any friction, hips pressing up in a silent plea. “Tell me, little doe?”
“Touch me. Please.”
Almost nothing compares to the exquisite sound of her begging.
“Where?” My fingers hover centimeters above the bare skin of her stomach, deliberately out of reach, my fingertips quivering with anticipation. “Here?”
A soft whimper slides from her throat, an exquisite little sound, as she writhes, lips parting.
“Lower.”
My fingertips skim the valley of her abdomen before stopping just above her hip.
“Here?”
She strains toward my touch, growling like an angry kitten.
“You know where.”
I press my thumb to the soft skin above where she wants me most, barely brushing it. She gasps, quivering.
“Tell me.”
She swallows, eyes fluttering.
“My cunt. Please touch my cunt.”
A smile spreads across my face, slow and satisfied. When desperation strips away her careful language, when she begs with crude words, those moments are worth everything.
I inhale, savoring the sweet, warm scent rising from her. “Don’t you mean my cunt?”
Her pulse pounds at her throat as she nods. “Yours.”
“Spread your legs.”
She parts her thighs, letting them fall open, her skin pebbling where cool air meets warm flesh.
“Wider.”
Her legs slide until they make a perfect V. She looks beautiful, desperate, and exposed, everything I’ve been craving since I first entered her bedroom.
“Look at you.” The words scrape out of my throat. “So fucking beautiful.”
I drop to my knees at the foot of the bed and tug her closer to the edge. My fingertip dips into the damp hollow of her outer lips, gathering slickness with a gentle sweep. She gasps, pressing down, but I pull away.
She trembles against her restraints. “Please, don’t tease.”
I lean in, voice low. “You gave up your right to make demands the moment you let another man put his mouth on you.”
The first thrust of my fingers inside her is harsh, my anger at her kissing Damien flaring again. She’s soaked. So smooth that her heat surrounds my fingers as they disappear. I curl them against that spot deep inside her, and her hips lift off the bed, a strangled cry escaping her throat.
“Tight.” My thumb makes slow, circular motions on her clit. “But you’re always tight for me, aren’t you? No matter how many times you take me.”
She gasps, her inner muscles clenching around my fingers.
“Not yet.” I slow my movements, backing her away from the edge. “You don’t get to come until I say you can.”
“Please.” Her hips chase my hand, eyes wild and desperate. “I need—”
“You need what I give you. Nothing more, nothing less.”
The words push through my clenched teeth. She needs to know. Needs to understand that no one else can do this. I’m the only man who can tear her apart and put her back together. Push her past every limit.
I withdraw my fingers and bring them to my mouth.
She whimpers, her head lifting off the pillow, her pupils blowing wide, the dark swallowing the light until barely any color remains.
Salt and sweetness coat my tongue as I slide them between my lips.
My gaze never leaves hers. Heat surges hot beneath my skin.
I did this. I alone made her this wet, this desperate.
No one else. The satisfaction rolls through my chest, escaping as a low hum that makes her thighs quiver.
“Sweet. But I think I need a better taste.”
I lower my head, my tongue tracing slow paths through her folds.
I’ve memorized every tender crease, but each time is intoxicating, the scent and taste making me want to drown in her.
When I capture her clit between my lips, her entire body goes rigid.
My hands press her thighs to the mattress as she dissolves into breathless gasps and silent tears beneath my mouth.
“Oh God.” She strains against her bonds. “Please, I’m going to—”
I stop.
“Not yet.” I pull back, wiping my lips. “First, I want to hear you say it again.”
“Say what?” She gasps, need and confusion tangled together.
“That you’re mine.”
I’ve never been an insecure man, but I need her to say it, especially after tonight.
I rise to my feet, fingers fumbling with my zipper, desperate for relief from the painful constriction.
A groan escapes my throat as I wrap my hand around my cock, the single stroke sending electricity up my spine.
The mattress dips beneath my weight as I position myself between her splayed thighs, her skin flushed and glistening.
“Say that you belong to me and only me, Luna.”
“I’m yours.”
“And the billionaire?”
Her body stiffens, and my pulse spikes.
Please, Luna. Tell me you belong to me. This me. And I’ll find a way to give you all of me.
My hand continues its slow rhythm up and down my cock as I hover above her. Her expression softens, surrender washing over her features. My breath stops as I wait for her answer.
“I’m yours.” Her voice breaks on the last word.
My chest seizes, pressure building behind my ribs. Love—unexpected and impossibly real—blazes through me at her words.
The revelation slams into me, stealing my breath. Love. I never thought myself capable of this feeling. Yet here it is, burning through every cell in my body as I look down at this woman who’s somehow slipped past all my defenses. Past all the separation I put in place between us.
“Now it’s my turn, beautiful girl. I need to be inside you.”
I lean forward, my body drawn to hers like gravity, and for a moment I hover there.
Her thighs tremble—still spread, still offering—against my hips.
When I brush against her slick heat, the familiar jolt races up my spine, that first touch that always feels new.
That’s never enough. My breath catches as I press forward, the world narrowing to the single point where our bodies meet.
“I’m giving you one thing you want tonight, Luna.
You’ll get some of my weight.” She gasps, and tears shimmer in her eyes.
“But my mask stays on. My clothes stay on. No kissing. You want to feel me on top of you? I’ll give you what I can, proof that you’re not just a fuck toy, Luna. You’re everything.”
Her answering whimper tears straight through my chest, cracking it open.
I sink into her, a long, slow slide, watching her face transform with each inch. Her eyes flutter closed, lips parting in surrender. A groan tears from my throat as her heat envelops me. My fingers dig into her hips, not just guiding but anchoring myself to this moment.
To her.
I lower myself over her, arms braced but allowing my chest to graze her skin in the barest caress—contact so light it might be imagined.
Her eyes fly open, startled and wide. My face hovers inches from hers, my mask a barrier between us while her expression—raw, unguarded, and desperate—burns itself into my vision.
Her eyes drift closed, lashes like fans against her cheeks.
“Look at me.”
The demand tears from my throat. I need her eyes on mine.
Need her to see past everything else. Those lashes flutter open, and her gaze locks onto mine, eyes enormous and unfocused with desire, and lips parted around shallow breaths.
The sight knocks the air out of my lungs.
Her vulnerable expression echoes the turmoil within me, a silent recognition that this runs deeper than flesh.
My hips rotate at the end of each slow, deep thrust, grinding into her.
My hand slips between us, thumb rubbing her clit.
She lifts her hips, legs wrapping around me, and pulling me deeper.
My palm presses into her thigh, my fingers digging into her soft flesh as I find a deeper angle.
Her moans rise higher, each one a surrender of control.
Her breath hitches. “There. Just like that.”
Sweat trickles down my brow, beneath the mask, and my muscles quiver with the strain of holding back. I want to prolong this moment, this beautiful convergence of need and abandon.
I hold on, teetering on the edge, before I begin to unravel.
My hips collide with hers, each thrust deeper than the last, as if I could somehow lose myself inside her.
A shudder rolls through my entire body. She cries out as I return to the brutal rhythm she knows, the one that doesn’t betray how much I need her.
I bury my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the salt of her skin, drowning in her scent until there’s nothing left in the world but Luna.
I hover above her, muscles straining to keep space between us, but with each breath she rises to meet me, her spine curving.
The gap I maintain crackles with a dangerous promise I’m terrified to keep.
My arms tremble, not from exertion, but from the war between wanting to collapse onto her, surrender to her, and knowing I can’t.
I’m giving you what I can, Luna.
My fingers slide back to her clit. A choked sob escapes her as her muscles tighten around me.
“That’s right.” I drive deeper into her, setting a punishing pace. “You’re mine. Every moan, every gasp, every tremor belongs to me.”
Mine, mine, mine.
The word echoes in my head, a chant that consumes me with each thrust. Her cries fill the air, mirroring the tremor in my limbs.
“Say it again, Luna.” I dig my fingers into her hip, desperate to leave my mark. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.” Her words are a drug, surging through my veins. “Only yours.”
I press a tender kiss to the scar from her bear attack, then lower my mouth to her breast, worshiping her nipple with a reverence that belies my turmoil.
She lifts her head, her breath warm against the top of mine. For a second, I think she might kiss it. I’ve expected her to push that boundary when I worshipped her breasts, but she never has. She respects boundaries. Unlike me.
I know the damage I’m doing. Every night I come here, I’m tearing us both apart, but I can’t stop. “I’m sorry.” The words I never thought I’d say slip out before I can stop them, muffled around her nipple.
She stills beneath me. “What did you say?”
I can’t repeat it. Instead, I focus on moving inside her, on the way she feels wrapped around me, trying to pour everything I can’t say into the way I touch her.
The tension builds, coiling tighter and tighter until we both shatter.
Her walls clench around me, and I follow her over the edge, burying myself deep as I come with a roar.
She sobs beneath me. The zip-tie bites into her wrists as she strains against it, her orgasm tearing through her with violent beauty.
Her release floods over me like liquid heat.
We linger in the aftermath, breathless and shuddering.
I want to cut her bonds and gather her trembling form against my chest. Trace lazy patterns across her cooling skin until sleep claims us both.
Whisper the words clogging my throat. Promises, confessions, and truths that could shatter everything.
But I remain silent.
“Thank you.”
Her voice breaks, raw with the tears that track down her flushed cheeks. I look down at her, eyes glistening with a mix of euphoria and anguish. A contradiction that tears through my gut like claws.
I’m such a fucking asshole for denying her this. I’m destroying her with my selfishness. Destroying us both.
My chest constricts until breathing becomes almost impossible. I need distance before I give in to the urge to strip away every barrier between us.
Without a word, I reach up and snap the zip tie with a sharp twist. The plastic falls away from her reddened wrists, and I step back from the bed where she lies like a fallen goddess, naked and beautiful among the torn remains of purple silk.
My seed, evidence of my claim, seeps from between her thighs, another mark of possession in a relationship built on taking what I can never truly have.
I pause at the door, turning to look at her.
She’s shifted onto her stomach, sprawled across the sheets, the curve of her spine catching the moonlight that filters through her curtains.
Her hair spills across her pillow, her skin bearing the flush of release, and every line of her body speaking of satisfaction.
But the smile I’m used to seeing in these moments is nowhere to be found. Confusion clouds her eyes instead of the usual satisfied haze. Her lips part as if to speak, then close again. I can read the questions there as clearly as if she’d voiced them.
Are you leaving already? Why only once tonight?
She’s learned my patterns too well, expecting the relentless hunger that usually drives me to possess her again and again until we’re both wrung out. Tonight’s restraint, especially after that kiss, confuses her and leaves her reaching for explanations I can’t give.
The words stick in my throat like broken glass, and all I can do is memorize the way she looks at me. Beautiful and bewildered.
I refuse to look back again as I cross the threshold into the hallway.
I can’t afford to. I’ll break.
I’ll tear off this fucking mask, speak my name, and damn us both to a future neither of us is prepared for.