Chapter 23 #2
"You're soaking," I murmured. "Your body knows who it belongs to, even if you don't want to admit it." I traced her swollen folds with deliberate slowness, savoring the way her juices dripped down my knuckles, warm and abundant in the dim glow.
"I hate you," she gasped, but the words dissolved into a broken moan as I pushed two fingers inside her. Her inner walls fluttered and clenched greedily around the intrusion, pulling me deeper into her velvet heat.
Thunder cracked outside like the world itself was fracturing.
Rain lashed the windows in relentless sheets, mirroring the chaos inside this room.
The glow of the monitors cast eerie, flickering shadows across her face—wet with tears, flushed with unwanted pleasure, her lips parted in silent conflict.
"Say it again." I worked my fingers deeper, my thumb circling that sensitive bundle of nerves with precise, tormenting pressure. "Tell me you hate me while you're dripping down my hand." Her slickness was everywhere now, coating my palm, running in thin rivulets down her thighs.
"I hate—ah—" Her back arched sharply off the surface beneath her. Her bound wrists pulled desperately against the tie, the fabric biting into her skin. "I hate you, I hate you!"
But her body clenched around my fingers, drawing me deeper with rhythmic spasms. I could feel her getting close.
"Hate me all you want." I freed myself from my pants with my other hand, my thick cock springing free, aching and heavy. "You're still mine."
Her eyes flew open, panic cutting through the haze like lightning. "No, Roman, don't—"
I positioned myself at her entrance, the blunt head of my cock nudging against her soaked folds, and thrust home in one powerful motion. The tight, scorching grip of her cunt enveloped me completely, squeezing like a vice.
She screamed—rage and pleasure and despair all tangled together in a raw, guttural sound. Her legs kicked out wildly, her heel connecting hard with my ribs. The sharp pain barely registered over the overwhelming sensation of being buried inside her.
"Stop, please." She was sobbing openly now, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks as I began to move inside her with deep, claiming strokes. "I can't. You can't—"
But her body told a different story. She was clenching around me, so tight and hot and perfect I could barely think straight. Every thrust dragged another broken, needy sound from her throat, her hips twitching up to meet me despite herself.
"This," I growled against her ear, my breath hot on her skin, "this is what you do to me. This is why I can't let you go." I drove into her harder, the wet, obscene sounds of our joining filling the room beneath the roar of the rain.
She turned her head violently, trying to escape even this devastating intimacy. I caught her jaw in a firm grip, forcing her to face me, our eyes locking in the charged darkness.
"Look at me, Leah."
"I won't—" But her eyes met mine anyway, and they were drowning in a storm of conflicting emotions—hatred, shame, and reluctant desire.
I'd never seen anyone look so broken and beautiful at once, her tear-streaked face a masterpiece of ruin and ecstasy.
The wrongness of it hit me then—really hit me. What I was doing. What I'd become. A monster fueled by obsession. But I couldn't stop. God help me, I couldn't stop.
Her bound hands pushed weakly at my chest. "You're a monster."
"I know." I captured her mouth in a bruising kiss, tasting salt and copper from her bitten lip. "I know." My tongue invaded her mouth just as my cock claimed her below, relentless and deep.
The angle changed, and she gasped against my lips, her body going taut like a bowstring. Despite everything—despite her tears and her hatred and her desperate struggling—she was close again, her walls rippling around my length.
"No," she whimpered, voice cracking. "Please don't make me—"
But I could feel it building, that helpless climb toward release. I reached between us, found that swollen bundle of nerves, and pressed firmly, rubbing in tight circles.
She shattered.
Her whole body convulsed violently, a raw cry tearing from her throat that echoed through the room.
She sobbed through it—huge, gasping sobs that shook her entire frame—even as pleasure rolled through her in crashing waves.
Her legs locked around my hips involuntarily, pulling me impossibly deeper even as she wept uncontrollably, her inner muscles milking me with powerful spasms.
"I hate you," she choked out, barely coherent between sobs. "I hate you."
The sight of her—coming apart so completely, crying, hating me and wanting me in equal, devastating measure—destroyed what little control I had left.
I drove into her hard, once, twice, then followed her over that edge with a deep, guttural groan that sounded like her name, spilling myself inside her in hot, pulsing jets.
For a moment we just stayed there, locked together, breathing hard in the aftermath.
Then Leah started to shake. Not from pleasure this time—from the cold reality flooding back in, the weight of what had just happened crashing down on her fragile form.
At some point, the thunderstorm outside had faded into the background, leaving only the occasional sound of rain coming from afar.
I untied her wrists, revealed the angry red marks the silk had left. I touched them gently with my thumb. She didn't pull away, but she didn't look at me either.
I cupped her face, tilted it up, tried to kiss her.
Her body still trembled with aftershocks, her inner thighs marked with my handprints. But her eyes were swollen from crying, and her pupils held no anger, no desire—just a gray, empty sadness that went all the way down.
My hands froze on her cheeks.
"Leah," I said her name softly.
She didn't look at me. Her gaze went through me, landing somewhere that didn't exist.
"Let me go."
"Leah, look at me."
"Let me go, Roman."
She said it again. Same tone, same volume, same terrible calm that sent ice down my spine.
Fear churned in my chest for a few seconds. Then anger replaced it.
What right did she have?
Everything I'd done for her. I paid her debt, got rid of Trent, gave her and that baby the best protection this city had to offer.
And all she gave me was "let me go."
"No. Don't even think about it. You're mine. Always will be."
Leah didn't answer. She just slowly, slowly turned her gaze away from my face.
I turned and walked out through the hidden door. Emily stood waiting outside.
She must've been there a while. Her face was full of worry. Her lips moved like she wanted to speak, then thought better of it. Her eyes traveled from my soaked shirt to the bite mark on my lip to the tie in my hand, finally landing on the dimly lit surveillance room behind me.
She probably understood everything.
"Sir, Leah's not in a good state. You two should talk this out calmly."
"Clean her up and lock her in the master bedroom. Take away all communication devices. Nobody lets her out without my permission." I cut her off.
Emily's mouth opened, but in the end she just lowered her head.
"Yes, sir."