8. No More Secrets
8
NO MORE SECRETS
KRUZ
I hate myself for the way my body responds to this man.
His dark hair is a mess from the wind, framing his eyes as he hovers over me. He’s wearing a long-sleeved thermal shirt, but his thick forearms on either side of my head are still distracting in the worst way.
Distracting from the fact that I should hold on to the hate I feel for him.
If attractiveness were a weapon, he’d be a lethal one.
Good thing I’m already dead inside at this point.
“Yeah,” I finally admit. My pussy clenches when he grinds against me again, whole heartedly agreeing with the sentiment. “It’s the only good thing about you,” I make sure to add.
“Don’t lie,” he responds, cocky as ever with that stupid fucking smirk on his face.
“You’re one to talk about lying,” I all but spit. He moves one hand down to squeeze my hip, placing more of his weight on me everywhere else. My resolve is quickly deteriorating.
The worst part? I like the way he lies. It’s almost as pretty as his face.
Especially when he promises to take care of me, promises that everything will be okay.
He kisses along my jawline, and I release a stuttered breath. “We need to set some boundaries.” My words have no heat behind them.
“I fucking love boundaries,” he scrapes his teeth over my chin and shifts so he can work his way up the other side, and when he reaches the top, he sucks my earlobe into his mouth.
“You don’t know the meaning of boundaries.” I squirm beneath him, not because I want him to stop but because I can barely handle this.
“Sure, I do.” He places a chaste kiss on my lips and—unfortunately—I kiss him back, my lips chasing after his as he pulls away. “They’re those things I’m really good at ignoring.”
His lips crash down on mine again, his tongue parting them and exploring my mouth like he owns it. The way his kisses me stabs at something tender inside me, and this is when I realize how fucking dangerous this is.
I wrap my fingers around his throat and nudge him away ever so slightly, just far enough that his lips can’t reach mine. “No more kissing on the lips,” I place the first boundary in front of him, knowing full well that eventually he’ll steamroll through it.
Thankfully, for now, he listens.
He adjusts himself just far enough down my body and unzips my jacket, ripping it open and shoving my shirt up.
His big hand curls around my ribcage. “Can I kiss you here?”
He doesn’t wait for my answer; he just lowers his mouth to the underside of my breast and kisses me there with more tongue than anything.
He moves his head an inch lower and repeats the process. By the time he’s reached my hip bone, I’m so fucking done for that I couldn’t bite back at him if I wanted to—and I don’t.
He sucks at my sensitive skin as he pulls down the waistband of my leggings. “Here, Kruz?”
I thread my fingers through his hair and grip it tightly at his scalp; answer enough.
Ezra puts me in a headspace I’ve never been in before I met him, which is a huge part of the reason I kept going back for more for as long as I did. And it’s why now, when I definitely should not be letting this happen, the lizard part of my brain decides that a little hate sex might be the answer.
I at least deserve an orgasm for all the shit he’s put me through.
But when he hooks my leg over his shoulder and looks up at me with those big blue eyes of his, I think there’s a softness there that tells me it’s only hate sex for me… because he doesn’t hate me at all.
And then he licks a long, slow line from my entrance to my clit, my head falls back against the pillow, and I’m unable to form a coherent thought at all.
Is this his plan? Bring me to this island and fuck me into submission? If so, it’s working.
Two thick fingers curl inside me, and he growls at the way my pussy clenches around them. I don’t bother stifling the moan that comes out of my mouth. He’s always been able to bring me to the edge quicker than anyone else.
Including me.
His free hand slips under the hem of my shirt. I’m not wearing a bra because, well, he didn’t bring any extras. Wonder why that could be.
He toys with my nipple, and I grind against his face. It’s him who moans this time. I know it’s combination of all the ways he’s touching me right now, but it’s the sound coming from deep in his chest and sight of him grinding his cock into the mattress for relief—like he’s getting just as much out of this as I am—that wracks my body with tremors.
He doesn’t let up until I’m squirming away from him, physically unable to take another second of his torture.
He slithers back up my body like the snake he is, and I finally come back to my senses. “We’re not fucking,” I deadpan.
But he doesn’t so much as flinch at the words I meant to be a slap to his face.
He just kisses my forehead. My temple. My cheek. The corner of my mouth, so close to my lips that I almost turn my head a little just so I can taste myself on his.
But then he’s pulling away, standing, adjusting his thick cock in his pants like he’s not as wanton right now as I know he is. “Whatever is enough for you is enough for me.”
That’s all he says before turning to leave.
The loss of his presence in the room is almost unbearable.
But what is even more so is that when I finally peel myself away from the bed to pull on one of Ezra’s massive t-shirts to sleep in and step into the kitchen to make tea, I can hear him in the shower… and from the sound of things, that most definitely was not enough for him.
He grunts in pleasure, so loudly I can hear it from the kitchen, and as loud as the water from the shower beating down is, I think he’s probably left the door open just so I would.
Because he knows I’ll picture it.
Because he wants me to.
Heat prickles at the back of my neck, my grip tightening on the counter as I force myself to focus on anything else—on the dull hum of the fridge, the faint creak of the old pipes.
But it’s useless.
The image is already there, seared into my mind, unbidden and impossible to ignore.
My hands shake as I fill my cup, and I retreat back to the bedroom to drink it before snuggling in for the night.
The last thing I think of before finally falling asleep is that I’m not sure anything he gives me will ever be enough.
If there’s anything I will always want more of, no matter the scenario, it’s him.
* * *
The cottage is quiet, the only sound is the faint crackle of the fire burning low in the hearth through the open bedroom door.
I blink my eyes open, my head swimming with the remnants of a restless dream, only to find myself wrapped in warmth.
Ezra’s arm is draped heavily over my waist, his body pressed against mine.
His breathing is steady, soft puffs of air brushing the back of my neck.
The heat from the fire, combined with the heaviness of his presence makes it hard to move.
Hard to think.
Hard to breathe.
I should shove him away.
I should be furious that he’s this close to me without my permission. He’s slept on the couch every night since we’ve been here, so I’m not sure why he’s made this executive decision now.
Whatever happened between us a few hours ago doesn’t mean I want this.
But instead, I stay perfectly still, my gaze drawn to the flickering flames in the fireplace visible through the open bedroom door.
Because the truth is, my body knows his before my mind can protest.
Because despite everything, despite the anger and the mistrust, this is the easiest thing in the world.
Because part of me doesn’t want to leave the cocoon of warmth he’s made around me.
My eyes drift down to his chest, partially exposed where the blanket has fallen away. The shifting light dances over his skin, illuminating the brand etched across it, twisting lines of scarred flesh that stretch over hard muscle, stark against the heat of his skin. It’s a mark that has always unsettled me, something brutal and deliberate, a wound turned permanent.
I’d noticed it before, but I hadn’t understood what it meant. I remember the first time I asked, the way he’d barely looked at me, brushing it off like it was nothing. My dad was a psycho; he’d muttered before steering the conversation elsewhere. His tone had made it clear that that was all he was willing to give me.
I was used to him deflecting by then. Used to the way he would redirect, shutting doors before I even had the chance to open them. And I let him. I never pushed, never pried, because back then, I thought keeping him close meant not asking for too much. I thought that if I gave him space, if I waited, he might eventually let me in.
But now, with everything I know about the Assembly, about the kind of power and violence that moves in shadows, shaping lives whether you want it to or not, the pieces start to fall into place.
A slow, uneasy feeling curls in my stomach, and before I can stop myself, my fingers reach out, drawn to the raised lines of the brand.
I expect him to flinch, to shift away like he always does when someone gets too close. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he stirs, his inhale cutting through the quiet as his breath catches. His eyes flutter open, heavy with sleep.
He catches me mid-movement, my hand frozen against his chest. Heat radiates from his skin, but I barely feel it over the tension tightening the space between us.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
The air is thick, charged, humming.
"It’s… a brand," I say softly, as if stating the obvious will somehow make the moment less dangerous, less intimate.
His gaze doesn’t waver, doesn’t shift away from mine. He lets me look. Lets me touch.
"It is." His voice is steady, matter-of-fact. Like he’s decided that now, finally—he’ll tell me anything I want to know.
No more secrets.
My heart skips at the thought, a flicker of something I refuse to name, and I shove the hope somewhere deep down.
I would be an idiot to think that.
I swallow hard, my fingers lingering against the scar. My mind races for the right thing to say, for something that doesn’t make me sound like I care as much as I do.
"Did it… did it hurt?" Stupid question. Probably the dumbest thing I could ask. But I don’t know what else to say, and I don’t want him to stop talking.
A wry smile tugs at his lips, but there’s no humor in it. Just something dark. Hollow. "What do you think?"
I hesitate, biting the inside of my cheek. And then, quieter this time, "Why did you do it?"
The question lands between us, heavier than the others. He hears what I’m really asking—why the brand, why this life, why any of it?
And I think he might actually tell me.
I want to know why he’s fucking around with the Assembly in the first place—what could make someone go down that path, what could make them stay.
His jaw tightens, and for a second, I think he’s going to brush me off like he always does, push me away with half-truths and silence.
But then, he shifts.
Leans back against the pillows, his arm still looped around my waist. Still holding me there.
"I didn’t have a choice," he finally says, voice rough, like the words scrape on the way out. "I was fourteen. It was part of my years-long initiation."
My heart clenches.
Fourteen is so fucking young.
He exhales, eyes flickering to the ceiling, as if he can escape what’s coming next.
"It wasn’t just this," he continues, gesturing toward the brand. "There were… other things. Things I don’t like to talk about." He pauses, jaw flexing. "Things I can’t talk about. Things that keep me bound to them." His eyes meet mine, dark and shadowed, a lifetime of something unspoken coiled inside them. "I’ve been forced to do a lot of things in my life, morte mea."
And even though he doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t say the worst of it out loud, I know.
I can feel it in the way his body tenses, in the way he’s still waiting for me to pull away. To be disgusted.
But I don’t move. I just stare at him, trying to piece together the boy he was with the man in front of me, the one who thinks he has no way out.
And I hate it.
I hate the Assembly.
I hate whoever did this to him.
And most of all, I hate that he still thinks he belongs to them.
The vulnerability in his voice cuts through me, stripping away the layers of arrogance and indifference he’s always worn like armor.
Now, I see past all of it, to the boy who never had a choice.
And I hate that I never even considered it until now.
I don’t say anything, don’t try to fill the silence with empty words that won’t change anything. Instead, I shift closer, resting my head against him, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
He doesn’t push me away. He doesn’t tense.
He just pulls me in, arms tightening around me like he’s afraid to let go.
And maybe I should be afraid of what this means. Of what’s shifting between us, forming into something new and raw.
But I’m not.
I wonder if this is how it will be now, if this openness will last now that the worst of the secrets are out.
I let myself hope for a second, and I wonder how much more he’ll tell me.
How much more I even want to know.
Something rearranges itself in my brain, the constant dreadful feeling in my stomach unfurling, shifting into something else entirely.
We fall asleep like that, tangled together in front of the fire, the wind outside howling against the windows as the embers in the hearth slowly fade to nothing.