Chapter 40 – Sydney
SYDNEY
My ears are ringing.
There’s something warm and wet on me. Under me. On my hands, on my clothes, pooling beneath me. I try to stand, but the world tilts, the floor sliding out from under me. There’s a sharp pain over my temple, and my scalp throbs from where someone had been dragging me by my hair.
Because someone…
Someone attacked me.
I blink hard, trying to think. I remember leaving Alec’s mansion, humiliated and furious. I remember wanting to get home, to be alone. I was distracted, so caught up in my own thoughts and broken heart I didn’t notice someone waiting inside my apartment until it was too late.
As soon as the door shut behind me, they were on me. A fist connected with my temple, and the world went white. I hit the ground, tried to crawl away, but someone grabbed my hair, yanked me up, and then—
BANG.
The grip on my hair vanished, and I slumped back to the floor.
The wet floor. It smells like copper, like warm pennies. I know that smell, somehow. Recognize it, but I can’t—
A pair of hands cups my face, and I scream, scrambling to my feet to get away from them.
“It’s me, darling. It’s Alec.”
The sound of his voice instantly eases something in me, and this time I don’t shove him away when he reaches for me.
My vision is blurred, and I have to blink hard a few times before his warm brown eyes come into focus.
Then the rest of him falls into place. My Alec.
Here, keeping me safe, scaring my attacker away.
His eyes are dark, frantic and scared as they sweep over me, assessing the damage.
“Are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks, voice husky. He’s trying to stay calm and controlled, but there’s a quiver of panic in his voice. He keeps one hand on my cheek, raising the other in front of me.
“Three,” I croak. My throat feels raw. Screaming. I’ve been screaming, haven’t I?
“Good girl.”
He’s so close to me, I can’t see anything but him. I take a shaky step back, trying to put some distance between us. “What happened?”
His jaw tightens. There’s red on him, I realize. All over his hands. I glance down at myself. There’s red on me, too. All over my arms and my clothes. Why is there so much red? “Someone was waiting for you,” Alec explains, voice low. “Why the fuck weren’t you answering your phone?”
Because I put it on do not disturb. Because I was pissed, heartbroken, ten thousand different emotions after letting myself be vulnerable just to be told he still couldn’t be honest with me.
“Gee, I wonder,” I snap. My fists clench at my side. “Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to chit-chat after throwing myself at you when you should be the one groveling.”
“Red—”
“No. Forget it.” My voice shakes with anger.
“Why did you even come? Why didn’t you send Seb or Ash?
God, even Viper seems more inclined to help me at this point.
” His face crumples as the words hit their mark, something flickering behind his eyes, but I don’t care.
I went to him and put my heart on the line. And he rejected me.
“You will never let me in. I get it. Thank you for the help, and I appreciate you scaring him off, but I’ve had enough humiliation for today. Can you please just…” I glance past him and freeze, the words dying on my tongue as I realize what actually happened. He didn’t scare away my attacker.
There’s a dead body.
In the middle of my apartment. His blood soaking into my rug. One eye, unfixed, staring at nothing. His head…
Red. The red all over me, red all over my apartment, pooling under that too still man…
Blood. I’m covered in blood.
Alec catches my face in his hands again, turning my head back toward him. My eyes stay fixed on the body. “Don’t look,” he says sharply. “Focus on me.”
“He’s dead,” I say, voice completely monotone.
“Sydney. Don’t look at it. Look at me.”
But I can’t stop staring.
I should be emotional, right? I should feel something at the sight of a corpse lying on my living room floor. But I feel nothing. He broke in here to hurt me. He might have raped me, maybe even killed me.
“I’m fine,” I hear myself say, voice oddly distant. But I’m not. There’s a dead body on my floor. I’ve never been further from fine. “I’m okay now. You can go.”
Alec swears under his breath. “You’re in shock. I’m not leaving you.”
I do look away from my attacker then, and finally, a spark of emotion lights inside of me. Lights, and then catches fire.
Rage.
“You’re not leaving me?” I repeat, glaring at him. “You haven’t been here. You don’t care about me! You can’t even be honest with me.”
I shove at his chest, but he doesn’t move. He just stares at me, his jaw tight and his eyes impossibly dark. He’s breathing quickly, chest rising and falling as he stares at me.
“Fuck it,” he growls.
He moves before I can react. One step, then another, closing the space between us as I stumble back away from him until my back hits the wall. He stops just inches away from me, palms hitting the wall on either side of my face, boxing me in.
“You want honesty, darling?” he spits, towering over me.
I glare up at him, so furious I’m shaking.
“You’re all I care about,” he continues. “You’re all I think about, night and day, every fucking second I’m awake. You’re in my dreams. I have been haunted by you for the last few weeks. Everything I see reminds me of you, and every breath I take when I’m not holding you is a waste.”
My breath catches in my throat. My pulse is suddenly racing again, my mouth dry. His face dips lower, his lips just above mine.
“Yes,” he says. “I killed that man for you. And I would kill a thousand more just for looking at you. And do you know why?”
I swallow. “Why?”
His hand, still covered in blood, comes up to circle my throat lightly. He doesn’t tighten his grip, doesn’t squeeze. He just holds it there, fingers wrapped around my neck, eyes locked on mine.
“Because you’re mine,” he says quietly, staring into my eyes. “From the day you came into my life, until the day I die. You belong to me.”
I tremble under his touch as his fingers tighten, my heart pounding in my chest. I slide my tongue over my lips.
“Prove it,” I whisper.
There’s no hesitation, no uncertainty. Still gripping my throat, Alec slams his lips to mine in a kiss so hungry I forget to breathe.
We fit together in a way that I’ve never fit with someone before. His lips against my lips, his tongue against my tongue. Our bodies recognize each other like we were made for one another.
Kissing Alec is like coming home.
“I never should have let you walk out of my penthouse. I shouldn’t have let you walk out of my compound either,” he says, hand moving to tug at my hair, angling my head so he can deepen the kiss. “I should keep you locked up with me so I can spend every second of my life with you.”
Frantically, I pull him to me, clawing at his shirt. I can’t get close enough to him. I need more. I’m running on pure adrenaline as my nails scratch down his neck. He groans into my mouth, and my self-control snaps.
I break our kiss just long enough to pull my shirt over my head.
“Red.” I can’t tell if he’s cautioning me or begging me.
“Show me,” I tell him. His eyes are fixed on my chest as I unhook my bra, tossing it aside. I reach up to run my hand over his cheek, and he leans into my touch, groaning. “Show me you care. Show me how much I mean to you.”
He does.
No one has ever kissed me the way Alec does. Like he’s worshiping me, memorizing the feel of my lips against his. It sets my body alight, touches every nerve that runs through me.
His fingers fumble with the waistband of my pants, and then they’re gone, ripped off me and tossed away. There’s still blood on me—on us—as he slides his hands up my legs, tugging my panties down until they fall at my feet, but I don’t even care.
It’s quick. No foreplay, no stretching me out with his fingers and preparing me for it. Alec takes his lips from mine just long enough to free himself from his pants, and then my legs are wrapped around his hips and he’s lifting me up to—
I scream his name when he slams his cock into me, all the way to the hilt, shoving me back against the wall.
Scream again when he pulls back out to thrust into me again.
There’s pain, sure—I’m stretched so tight around him, barely able to take him—but it’s eclipsed by how good he feels inside me, how perfectly he hits that spot in me that makes my toes curl.
“You wanted me, Red?” Alec growls against my lips. I can’t answer him, can’t do anything but gasp as he moves inside of me. “Then take every fucking inch.”
My first orgasm hits me so fast I’m not prepared for it.
I claw at his shoulders, pulsing around him, seeing stars.
Alec murmurs my name, sucking on my bottom lip and then taking it between his teeth to bite.
I’m still feeling it, still riding the last waves of my pleasure and clenching around his cock, when he grips me by the hips, turns around, and drops us to the ground, laying me flat on my back.
“Mine. Every part of you,” Alec mutters as he circles my throat with his hand once again.
Blood. It’s all I can smell as Alec fucks me against the ground, hands grasping me tight enough to bruise. There’s so much of it, on the floor, on both of us, perfuming the air. If he notices, he doesn’t care.
I’m not sure I do either.
“Say it.” Alec grips me tighter, hard enough to hurt. “Say it, Sydney.”
I know what he wants to hear. What he needs to hear.
“I’m yours,” I gasp. There’s nothing controlled about the way he’s fucking me now, nothing at all of the calm and collected Alec I’m used to. He’s feral, lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, thrusts frantic and hard.
“Again,” Alec demands. I arch my neck to give him better access.
“I’m yours!” I feel it coming this time. That tightening in my lower belly, that flutter in my legs. I moan, lifting my hips to meet his, matching him thrust for thrust.
“Don’t fucking forget it,” Alec snarls, tightening his grip, and I shatter.
I think I’m screaming again. I’m not sure.
All I know is how good he feels inside me, all I can hear is his voice murmuring I’m good, so fucking good for him, made for him, and then he’s twitching inside of me, filling me.
Every pulse of his cock tears a little more pleasure from me, until I can’t even remember my own name.
“Fuck.” Alec is panting, holding his weight off me with one arm. He stares down at me, chest heaving. Stares at me like I’m the sun his world revolves around.
I should say something. Get off me, or I love you. His eyes flick down to my parted lips, and he leans forward like he’s going to kiss me again.
And someone at the door clears their throat, loudly.