Shards
The bathroom door banged open as Dane carried me in. When I woke from my nap, he’d decided it was time to bathe. He chuckled, carrying me like I weighed nothing. Before I could protest, he threw me over his shoulder. His hand smacked my ass, and I gasped.
“Are you manhandling me right now?” I huffed, slapping his back.
“Nope,” he said. He popped his lips on the p.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re a dirty girl. I need to clean you up.”
“It’s okay. Let me go. I’ll shower at home.” Panic sharpened my voice. The thought of him seeing me naked in a bright room shot ice through my veins.
“I may not have fucked that pretty pussy raw today, but I’ve pushed your body to the limit. I know you’re aching.”
“Yes,” I whispered. My heart still hammered against my chest.
“If I don’t clean you now, I’ll take you,” he said with a shrug. I bit my lips and flushed.
“But I’d like that.”
“Oh, I know. You’ve made it nearly impossible to keep my cock to myself, but I’m going to do what I need to do,” he groaned.
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Take care of you,” he said, his voice dropping into that low rumble, curling my toes.
He said it naturally, as if everyone did it this way.
But I knew the truth—no one did this. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
It wasn’t normal. How could it be that a man I’d just met treated me far better than Amos had in the six years I’d known him?
My vision blurred, but I looked up, refusing to blink and let the tears fall.
I didn’t want to fool myself and believe he would want me forever.
“Isn’t this supposed to be the part where I go home?” I whispered. If he heard me, he didn’t say, but he tensed beneath me.
His bedroom was a blur as he carried me through it.
The room was a cavern of matte black walls and textured tile, stripped of everything but the essentials, not including framed drawings of snow-capped mountains and cloudless sunsets.
This bathroom was three times the size of mine.
A mirror spanned the left wall, reflecting the black basin tub set into the floor.
He sat me on the cool, hovering counter.
My feet dangled over the edge as he walked over to the tub, leaning down to turn it on.
When he stepped between my thighs, his firm waist against my core, I tipped my chin to look at him.
He leaned forward, his hands caged me in on either side, lowering himself until we were eye level.
After everything we’d done together, this made me squirm.
Eye contact. He searched for something. I didn’t know what he was searching for, I hoped he wouldn’t find it.
“Vera.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes?”
“What do you think this is?” There was no judgment or annoyance. I clenched my jaw as thunder rolled in the distance. The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but I hesitated. Dane wasn’t Amos, but knowledge didn’t erase the worry. The fear that one wrong word would send me flying across the room.
“A hookup,” I whispered, though the word felt wrong. “Men don’t…. they don’t do this. They don’t stay after. They don’t care if I’m aching. It’s been fun, but it’s time I leave.”
“You think I’d settle for a hookup when I want the whole damn thing?” He leaned in, his nose brushing mine. “I’m not ‘men’, Vera. What have I done to insinuate that’s all we are?” Something like anger flashed in his gaze.
“Isn’t that why I’m here?”
“No, Babygirl. That’s not why you’re here. I went to that party to find you.”
“Men will go anywhere, at any time, to get their dick wet,” I explained.
“That’s where you’re still confused,” he chuckled.
“What?”
“Don’t group me in with those so-called men.
Women come to me. They slide into my DMs and beg for my cock,” he sighed.
My breath rattled in my lungs. I turned away, hating the way my chest hollowed.
His hand gripped my jaw, his fingers stretching from one ear to my temple. He forced my attention back.
“I know you can have any woman you want,” I whimpered. A tear slipped, trailing down my cheek as he watched.
“Is this for me? Babygirl, I didn’t say that to hurt you. I was explaining why you’re different,” he murmured.
“Me?” I breathed.
“You,” he growled. “You’re the only one. I did those things because it was you.”
“You expect me to believe that you’d do all of those things for someone you’d never met?” I asked.
“I expect nothing but what you have to offer.”
I needed to run, but he refused to release me.
He didn’t hover, but he stayed right there, waiting as if I mattered.
His body was a barrier against the winds of my own depression.
His gaze held me captive, demanding I believe him, refusing to let me look anywhere but at him.
But who could ever love me? I took a deep breath, forcing my muscles to relax.
“Let’s not pretend this is something it isn’t.” Dane arched a brow at my words. He stared at me as if he saw something I didn’t.
“And what is that?”
“Like we’re more,” I snapped. He released me, his brows jumping. I held my breath as I waited for his response, instead, he turned from me, taking his heat with him.
I was a mental case. My gaze followed him as he walked to the tub.
I checked out his ass when he bent over.
Steam billowed. I was lured by the water.
He turned, facing me, and I licked my lips as I inhaled every inch of his naked body.
I raised my gaze, locking with his as he smirked.
He cut the distance between us, putting his hands under my arms and lifted me effortlessly.
I wrapped my legs around his waist as he grabbed my ass. He walked us to the tub.
Dane stepped in and held me close as he lowered himself to a built-in seat.
I sighed as the hot water covered my legs, thighs, and belly.
His hand slid up my backside and squeezed my hips as he leaned back.
My hands slid down his chest, and I moved to push off him, but his grip tightened. His eyes flashed.
“Didn’t I tell you? You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m going to sit next to you,” I huffed.
“You’re already on your seat.”
“My goodness, I need to wash myself so I can go.” My lips twitched with the need to smile, but I was feeling like a brat and didn’t want to give in.
“You’re not going home.”
“Are you kidna—” Dane’s lips smashed against mine.
He deepened the kiss, spearing into my mouth.
I melted for him, and he took advantage.
I moaned as he claimed my mouth. My breasts squished against his chest, but instead of a lust-filled passionate kiss, he slowed it to a gentle dance. It was sweet, yet dominant.
We broke apart, and I squealed as he lowered me until I was reclined, my body submerged. My hair floated around me as I stared at him.
“Gods, Vera. I’m going to clean you up and you’re going to relax. If I have to give you a dozen more orgasms, I’ll count it my civil fucking duty.”
“We were kind of in the middle of a conversation,” I said, but there was no snap in my tone. The heat soaked into my tense muscles.
“No, you’re trying to fight, and I have no interest in fighting you,” he said as he grabbed a bottle.
He flicked the lid and squeezed it onto my body.
It was cool and my nipples hardened above the surface.
His hand lathered the liquid, his fingers rubbing it into my skin.
Goosebumps broke out across my exposed body.
Rough fingers trailed my ribs, then pinched my nipple before massaging circles around my breast. He repeated the torture on the other side before his palm smoothed over my chest.
“Why not?” I whispered. He snaked up and grabbed my neck.
“Because a King never fights with his Queen,” he murmured.
Surprise had my eyebrows shooting into my hairline. The meaning behind Dane’s words was clear, but my mind couldn’t process them applying to me. Stripped bare in front of this man, his hand gripping me, my pulse thrummed beneath his fingers.
“Woah there, buddy. I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.” A giggle bubbled up and fell from my lips. I was going to crack. I’d blame my hysteria on exhaustion. He remained silent, staring at me. “You fancy yourself a king?”
“I fancy myself an Alpha.”
“I think you’re mistaken.”
“About what?” Dane asked, cocking his head.
“I am no queen,” I murmured, the giggle dying on my lips.
“You’re an Omega.”
Steel eyes darkened to a stormy gray. His hand traveled to my throat and squeezed.
After the abuse I’d suffered from the man who was supposed to love me, I should have been scared.
I’d just met this man, yet I trusted him.
I leaned into his touch moments before it disappeared. His hand slid south until I gasped.
“And you’re what I say you are,” he growled.
His fingers pinched my sensitive nipple.
Seconds before I could form words, the king lowered himself, and I didn’t realize how fitting that title was until now.
His lips wrapped around my left nipple. His tongue worked in tandem with his fingers as one cupped, groped, and rubbed as the other lathered, sucked, and flicked.
I squirmed beneath him, slightly arching my back, pushing my breasts closer to his face. With Dane, it was never enough. I wanted more.
His gaze cut to mine as his teeth tugged on my nipple. My fingers grasped his hair as his lips released the perky pebble. He pressed a kiss to my sensitive nub.
“You are infuriating,” he murmured seconds before he dragged his tongue along flesh to the right. My stomach tightened as a heat ignited low in my belly.
My Omega instincts batted her lashes at Dane. We wanted to be bred. I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Dane asked.
“Um…” I trailed off, distracted by the way his lips danced across my skin.
“Go on,” he growled, sensing my inability to string a sentence together. His cock dug into my lower back while our gazes remained locked.
Did waiting make him hard?
“You make me want things I stopped craving years ago.” We were skin to skin now, his hard chest a wall against my soft one.
“I don’t like you doing that.”
“What? Laughing?”
“Pretending you’re not mine,” he growled. His teeth nipped at my neck hard enough to sting. Jokes on him. I like that shit.
His lips descended on me again. Hands moved along my body like he wrote the map for it. I writhed beneath him.
“I wasn’t aware,” I teased. All touching—caressing, kissing—stopped. Our gaze locked.
“Claiming you with my tongue and fingers until you screamed didn’t make it obvious?” he asked calmly. His tone contradicted the look in his eyes.
“No,” I hummed. He was getting riled up, and I liked it. I’d only seen him angry at the party, and that was surrounded by people. I wanted to bask in his attention like I was the only woman in the world.
“Telling you that you’re stuck here with me didn’t get through?” His brow arched. The corner of my lip twitched with the need to kiss him.
“Not one bit,” I teased.
“I’m guessing you didn’t hear the part where I called you mine?”
With every question, his body grew more tense. Egging him on, I pretended to think.
“It sounds like you need me to bite you to believe,” he taunted. My lips parted and if my legs hadn’t already, they would have then, too.
“That’s not funny. What about the bruises you’ve left on me? Do those not count?” My eyes darted to his.
“It wasn’t a joke, Babygirl.”
I held his gaze defiantly. His eyes softened, making me uneasy—as if he could see the shattered shards. I swallowed the lump in my throat as his hands gripped my waist and lifted me. The splash of water against the basin was the only sound in the room as he brought me down.
My body slid against his, legs locking around his waist. He squeezed shampoo into his palm, lathering it before burying his hands in my hair.
I stared at the water dripping from his biceps, the muscles flexing as he massaged my scalp.
My eyes rolled back, a moan filling the space between us.
Suds slid down my breasts and navel as my hands traveled over him.
His cock twitched against me, and a smile spread on my lips.
“Did you hear me, Omega?” he asked.
“Hear what?” I blinked. I wasn’t listening to anything but the blood rushing in my ears.
Lifting my chin, I looked up at him, his steel eyes cut to mine, and I swallowed.
I’ve seen that look in a man’s eyes before, but in Dane’s it wasn’t scary.
It had the opposite effect coming from him.
It set my skin ablaze. It made me feel special, valued, wanted—claimed.
“You’re mine,” he said simply, as if this was the only way to reach me.
For a heartbeat, I believed him. I leaned into his hard chest as an instinct I couldn’t understand surfaced. I nuzzled against his throat as my instincts screamed to stay forever.
The heavy thud of the front door echoing from downstairs silenced the world. Dane froze. The playfulness in his muscles hardened. The man who had been tenderly washing me seconds ago vanished, replaced by steel discipline.
“Dane?” a voice roared from the foyer. Deep, rough, and entirely too comfortable in this house. “You in here?”
The sound of that voice was a ghost from my past. I waited for the familiar script: Dane telling me to dry off and make myself useful, bracing for the look in another man’s eyes that said I was just part of the furniture. My stomach turned to ice, waiting for the handoff that always came with Amos.
Instead, he stood, lifting me out of the water and wrapping me in a towel so thick I felt buried. He didn’t look at the door; his focus trained on me, his eyes dark and predatory.
“Stay in the bedroom. Lock the door,” he commanded.
“Who—”
“It’s Kade,” he said, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl. He hooked a finger under my chin, forcing me to see the absolute possessiveness in his gaze. “Right now, you’re mine, and mine alone. Do you understand?”
I nodded, breathless, as he turned toward the door, leaving me shivering in the heat of his command.