Chapter 11 #2
"I'll go slow," I tell her. "If it hurts too much, tell me and I'll stop."
"It won’t hurt too much." She puts her hands on my shoulders. "I trust you, Rian."
Don't ruin this, Beast warns. She is the only good thing you’ve ever had.
Gripping my cock, I press inside her, just the tip. She's so tight and so wet and the heat of her is staggering, like sinking into something I was built for. Her fingernails dig into my shoulders and she sucks in a sharp breath.
“You have a huge cock. Has anybody ever told you that?”
She says it teasingly and it makes me feel lighter. “No. Does it feel good?”
“It feels like you’re going to split me in half, but romance novels have told me that it gets better,” she reassures me. “Keep going.”
I push the rest of the way in and her whole body tightens around me. She gasps and her eyes go wide. “Oh.”
I stay still, buried in her to the hilt, my arms shaking. "Breathe, pretty girl. Just breathe."
She breathes, nodding. I feel her relax around me, degree by slow degree. When the tension leaves her face, I pull back an inch and push forward again. The wince fades. Her lips part. Her hands slide from my shoulders to my back.
"Oh," she says softly. "Oh, that's..."
I thrust again and her legs wrap around my waist. The sound she makes this time is hungry, not pained. It lights up something primal in my brain. I start a rhythm, slow and deep, and she meets me thrust for thrust.
"You feel so good." I press the words against her throat. "So fucking good, pretty girl. You're perfect."
She rolls her hips up to meet mine and I groan into her neck. My pace quickens. The bed creaks beneath us and she moans, loud and uninhibited, her head tipping back. Fuck. Fuck yes.
"Harder," she says.
I thrust harder. She digs her nails into my back and the sharp sting of it grounds me, pulls me further into my body. I bite the curve of her neck and she clenches around me so tight that I see white.
Yes, Beast snarls. Harder. Make her feel you for days.
She shifts to touch my waist and I freeze. It’s not a memory, exactly. It’s a feeling.
Hands on my waist. Weight that I couldn't push off. The suffocating helplessness of being pinned down by someone who doesn't care if you're screaming.
My whole body locks up. I stop moving, buried inside her, my breath sawing in and out.
"Rian?" Noemi's voice cuts through the static. She doesn't move other than to run her hands up my back. Her thumb strokes the back of my neck, slow and rhythmic. “Are you okay?”
Come back, Beast says, and his voice is steady for once. She's here. You're safe. Come back to her.
I open my eyes. She's looking up at me with those dark brown eyes ringed with dark lashes. So fucking pretty.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi." I sound like I've been gargling glass. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry." She cups my face in both hands. "Be here with me."
I kiss her, pouring everything I can't say into it, and when I start to move again, she moves with me.
I don't hold back. She told me not to, so I don't. I fuck her hard enough to rattle the headboard against the wall, hard enough to drown out Beast, hard enough to make the bed frame groan in protest. She wraps her legs tighter around me and drags her nails down my back and screams my name so loud that I feel it vibrate through my chest.
Her pussy clenches around me and I know she's close.
I reach between us, finding her clit, and rub circles while I fuck into her with everything I have.
She comes with a cry that pulls air from my lungs, her body locking up beneath me.
The feeling of her squeezing my cock is so intense that my vision goes hazy at the edges.
God damn.
My own orgasm builds at the base of my spine. I can feel my control slipping. There's nothing I can do to stop it and losing control is the thing I fear most in this world.
But I think it’s going to happen whether I want it to or not.
"Let go,” Noemi whispers. “It’s okay.”
“Fuck,” I grunt. Pounding into her, I come so hard that my arms give out. My whole body shudders. I bury my face in her neck, making sounds I'll never admit to, completely and utterly undone.
She holds me through it. Her fingers card through my hair. Her legs stay locked around my waist.
“Good boy,” she says softly. “That felt amazing.”
Her praise means everything.
She stayed, Beast says. She isn’t running.
I roll onto my back and pull her with me. She settles against my chest, her ear over my heartbeat, her hair splashed across my skin like spilled ink.
“Was that… good? For you?” She glances at me.
“Yes, pretty girl.” I kiss her forehead. “I wasn’t sure I could–finish. But your soft little pussy was milking my cock… I couldn’t hold on.”
Her face flames bright pink.
“Good.” She gives me another shy smile. “That’s good.”
After a minute of lying pressed together, our hearts slowing in tandem, I get up and head for the bathroom. Noemi’s virgin blood is coating my cock. I don’t care, really. I am glad that she let me touch her, have her like this. I clean myself quickly, then run a washcloth under the hot tap.
Cleaning between Noemi’s legs is a strange, almost worshipful affair. She rises up on one elbow to kiss me. “Thank you.”
My lips twitch. “You’re welcome, pretty girl.”
After that, we lie in the dark for a long time, breathing together. Her finger traces lazy patterns on my chest. I stroke her hair. Neither of us speaks. It's the most peaceful I've felt in my entire life, and that thought is so foreign that I almost laugh.
"Rian." Her voice is soft against my skin. "Can I ask about my aunt? You said you would explain everything. I’ve been worrying about her. Is she… d-did something happen to her?"
My body tenses. She feels it and lifts her head, frowning.
There's no good way to say this. There's no right moment. Unfortunately, there's just the truth, and she deserves it.
I sigh. "Your aunt Kathleen is the one who sold your location to the Vitellis.
" I clench my fists as I say it, even though I can’t actually do anything.
"She traded your address for a job offer and a promise of protection.
Once she got what she asked for, she turned around and tipped off Ransom anonymously about the auction, thinking she could get paid twice.
Somehow, she knew that I was watching you. "
Noemi goes perfectly still against my chest. She sucks in a breath, her eyes wide.
"Ransom traced the anonymous tip immediately," I continue. "I've known that your aunt sent it since the night I bought you."
Silence stretches between us. Her heartbeat picks up speed against my ribs. I can feel her brain working, turning it over, trying to make it fit.
“She… she raised me. She braided my hair. She helped me pick a prom dress, for god’s sake!
” Noemi’s eyes shine with tears, but she hesitates.
"Except she hated the bookstore. She was furious that my mother got to run it.
She and my mom used to fight about it before Mom died.
My mother would– would just get quiet whenever Kathleen's name came up. "
My hand tightens on her back. Do I tell her what I suspect? But I don’t have to, as it turns out.
"Rian. What if she didn't just sell me?" She looks up at me. "What if this has been going on for longer than I think?"
I don't answer right away, but I’m way ahead of her on that one.
“She… she has sold out other people in our family. I just thought that…” She presses her lips into a thin line. “I guess I thought I was special.”
I was bracing for tears, for screaming, for her to shove me away and demand to leave. Instead, she presses her face into my chest and wraps her arm around me, clinging to me tightly.
I hold her back and keep my mouth shut. For once in my miserable life, I understand that not everything requires action. Sometimes, you just lie in the dark with the person you love and let the truth be terrible.
After a long time, she lifts her head. Her eyes are dry but raw, stripped of every defense she normally keeps in place. "What are you guys going to do?"
"Ransom has a plan. We're going to hit the Vitelli compound. Every last fucking soldier and associate, all the way up to Anders." I push her hair back from her face. "It ends tomorrow night."
She searches my expression, looking for doubt. She won't find any. "All of them?"
"Every single one. You'll never have to be afraid of the Vitellis again."
She absorbs this. Then she grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard. "Promise me you'll come back?" she whispers against my lips.
"I promise."
"If you die, I’ll hate you. I’ll pee on your grave."
I almost smile. "I believe you."
She pulls back just enough to look at me. "There's something else. Something I haven't told you."
Beast goes still inside me. I nod once, careful.
"You asked why Anders Vitelli targeted me in all of this. In the bookstore, before I got kidnapped, I saw Anders and Marc arguing." She reaches for her phone on the nightstand, opening the phone, and hands it over. “I also took photos.”
I swallow, looking down. Sure enough, there are photos of Marc crumpled on the floor and Anders with a smoking gun in his hand. “Why were you holding out on me?”
She takes a beat before answering. "I didn't know if I could trust you. Now I know that you care about me. You’re my protector."
“Fuck, Noemi.” Emotion clogs my throat. I pull her close and kiss her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. “These will help us draw Anders out.”
“Good.” She smiles up at me, making me feel like I’m the luckiest fucking man in the world.
I forward the photos to Ransom without another word. Then I set the phone down and pull her against me.
She kisses me again, softer this time, then puts her head back on my chest and closes her eyes.