Chapter 9 Denial Tastes So Sweet
I told myself I was only here to protect her, because outside the heavily guarded hospital, large crowds posed the biggest risk.
A damn weak excuse—getting flimsier by the minute.
I didn’t question why my ears strained to hear her laughter over the ruckus.
I didn’t forget I was Si Shen and she was my mark, that feelings didn’t—couldn’t—exist in my world.
And I most definitely didn’t act on the urge to kill when I saw that asshole trail his fingers on those silky thighs, inching up the hem of her sexy as sin black dress.
But when he guided her to a private corridor and attacked her?
Logic and restraint finally incinerated.
I crushed his windpipe the way he tried with her, and bashed his head against the wall, knocking him out.
Then I snapped a picture of him so I could track him down later.
His unconscious form is now stashed underneath the table, zip-tied to the legs.
I would’ve finished the job if I hadn’t seen her trembling on the ground.
Utterly petrified.
Instead of disappearing into the shadows, I make the worst choice possible.
I step into the light.
Aria gasps, her eyes widening in panic.
Good. She doesn’t recognize me. I made sure of that with today’s outfit—an oversized hoodie instead of my usual T-shirt and leather jacket, the hood shadowing my face and hiding anything identifiable. I spritzed on a new cologne—cedar and sandalwood.
She scrambles back.
I snag her wrist, wanting to calm her, to tell her she’s safe.
“Pl-Please,” she whispers, her gaze bouncing around the corridor until it lands on the fallen man half hidden by the tablecloth.
Her beautiful tawny eyes snap back to mine, awareness dawning in them. “Y-You’ve…You s-save—”
“Shhh.” Slowly, I crouch down and release her hand. I dip my mouth to her ear and break another rule of mine.
I murmur, “You’re safe.”
The trembles stop. Her body stills.
I haven’t used my voice in over a year. The last time was with Elias and Lana when they were in danger. Silence is my hidden rebellion against the Kongs.
If I don’t speak, they don’t own every part of me.
If I don’t speak, no one can get close, and I stay detached.
Better at my job.
But none of that matters right now.
Aria clutches at my shirt, her lips parted, eyes glazed.
I can’t resist the urge to cup her face, to trace those lush lips that have me so mesmerized.
Soft. Plush. I wonder how they’ll taste.
I wet my lips, my mouth parched. Her eyes snag on the movement.
Then her little pink tongue dips out.
The air thickens, and the fury from earlier morphs into sultry heat.
A sweet scent drifts to my nose—cotton and gardenias—and I groan and lean down, needing to smell it at its source.
A whimper escapes her when my nose grazes the tender column of her neck.
She smells so damn good.
“Oh, God,” she whispers.
Fuck me.
Tentative hands reach for my chest. Her touch is a molten brand.
Blood pools in my groin, my cock hardening in seconds.
Her eyes widen in horror or shock; I can’t tell. She touches me, ever so gently, like she’s unsure, like she wants more but is afraid to get it.
“Feel me,” I whisper, my voice hoarse from disuse. “See what you do.”
I drag her palm over my chest, resting it on top of my throbbing heart.
“Y-You’re…I-I’m…” Her words are breathy, featherlike kisses to my ears.
I pull back slightly, taking in her flushed face, wide eyes staring at her hand on my chest, as if she’s shocked at what she’s doing.
Her gaze holds mine again, but I know she can’t see me under the hood. She trails her fingers up my neck, tracing the vines tattooed at my throat.
Tiny fires explode on my skin—every caress a direct tug to my aching cock.
“Feel me,” I rasp, baring my neck to her.
Her touch is bolder now. More sure of herself. The way she digs into my neck, pinpoints of pain and pleasure, drives me insane.
She grazes my jawline, fingers drifting until they reach the edge of my mask, then she—
In a millisecond, I haul her to her feet and drag her into the private lounge.
The door snicks shut behind us, baptizing us in darkness.
Not giving her a chance to speak, I spin her around and back her against it.
She gasps.
Then, I follow my basest impulse.
I capture her parted lips with mine.
This is crazy. He’s a stranger.
I know that. Some lucid, horrified part of me knows that.
The thoughts vaporize like smoke on a rainy day.
Adrenaline or fear has sparked a wildness inside me. Something uncontrollable. Something on the other side of terror—hotter, hungrier, freer.
My skin is too tight, too warm. The ache simmering between my legs is now torturous, impossible to ignore.
Something about the stranger—his stealth, his lethal calmness, the vicious way he dealt with my assailant—shouldn’t be reassuring and safe.
But it is.
It reminds me of Ren at the hospital. The same impossible stillness. The same sense that the world could blow up around me, but he’d still keep me breathing.
Maybe that’s what happens when a dangerous man saves you. Maybe the body confuses survival with trust.
Maybe this stranger has unleashed the part of me buried under the ashes of grief and numbness.
I’ve spent the past year being careful. Responsible. Grieving the right way. Locking down all the broken parts in me that want to claw their way out and rebel.
Now I’m shaking, furious, alive, and drowning in sensations I can’t begin to describe.
And I don’t want to crawl back into the quiet. Into the gray.
Then there’s the stranger’s voice. Rough with a dash of silk. Darkness laced with richness. It steadies me. Beckons me to give in.
I can’t stop myself from surrendering to this explosion.
The masked man groans as he deepens our kiss, his lips seeking, moving ravenously over mine, like he hasn’t eaten in days, weeks, and I’m a feast laid before him.
In pitch darkness, every sensation is magnified. My thoughts, my control are wrenched away from me, and I can just feel.
“Yes.” I whimper before plunging my tongue into his mouth, tasting him. Whiskey. Mint. Masculine.
I should stop, a tiny voice warns in my mind, but it might as well be a foreign language.
Because in this moment, I’m only driven by instinct, by the sensations charging through my body.
He grunts and brackets my face with his hands.
Everything ignites.
The sharp pain when he fists my hair and pulls hard, baring my throat. The agonizing scrape of his teeth down the column of my neck. The slick lapping of his tongue on my pulse.
“You need this, don’t you?” he rasps. “You’re aching. Desperate.”
That rough voice. Like he’s a man of few words, but when he speaks, the world stops to listen.
It’s honey in my veins.
“Yes,” I moan when his hand travels down and cups my breast. “God, I need this.”
It’s been so long. Too long. My body has woken up from hibernation and I’m famished.
A low growl. Two hands palming my breasts now. Squeezing and molding them. Our bodies writhe together, recklessness and hunger taking hold.
It’s not enough.
“More,” I cry out when he bites my neck. Pain and pleasure shoot straight to my clit.
The darkness unleashes something between us. We’re faceless, reduced to sensations and instinct.
He suckles the bite mark, and my head spins. A hardness presses against my belly.
His cock. He’s turned on.
Mind mad with pleasure, I snake my hand between us and fist him over his sweatpants.
“Fuck!” He bears down.
Like he wants me as much as I want him.
“You need this. My cock.” The stranger moves against me, his hips driving a tense rhythm into my belly. “If I were a worse man…it’d be deep in your pussy now.”
My clit throbs at his words. I rub harder against him.
My thong is soaked, wetness slicking out of me. Every inch of me is on fire—too far gone to stop now.
I need more. I crave more. I want more.
Desperate, I climb him, dragging my nails down his back. He’s so tall, so big, so strong.
He could snap me in half.
The thought should scare me, but instead pours gasoline on the flames.
Moaning, I yank the hem of my dress up so I can wrap my legs around his muscular backside.
The inferno blazes the moment his rock-hard dick meets my soaked core.
“Shit.” He grunts, thrusting harder, faster. “Mad for you. Unraveling.”
His staccato words mix with muttered curses, as if he’s forgotten how to speak complete sentences.
“I want to come so bad,” a needy voice moans.
My voice, but I don’t recognize it.
“Yes. Need this.” He crushes his lips to mine again, but this time, there’s no gentleness. “Need you.”
It’s a war of teeth and tongue, of power and submission.
He licks and bites as if he wants to swallow every sound I make.
I widen my thighs and lock my heels tighter against his back.
Wetness drips to my ass, and he swells impossibly bigger between us.
My pussy pulses, empty, needing something, someone to fill it up to the brim.
“So good,” he rasps.
We part for air. I yank down his hood and fist his thick hair, earning me a ragged hiss.
Madness.
The stranger drags a tongue up my neck, my jaw, then he kisses me again and devours my moans.
His fingers travel to my breasts, and with a rough yank, he pulls the bodice to my waist, baring my heated flesh to the stifling air.
“These tits.” He molds his hands over my bare skin.
“Yes!” I meet his hips thrust for thrust.
His motions falter. A low growl rumbles from his chest, rippling through me like a seismic event.
My mouth parts, my vision whitens.
The sparks between my legs tighten into an unbearable point.
He twists my nipples—once, twice.
“I’m coming,” I cry, my head banging against the door, my body thrashing, quaking under him, as waves of white-hot pleasure overpower my senses.
A hoarse yell tears out of him as he slams against me, his fingers twisting then massaging my tender nipples.
His movements falter.
Ripping his lips away from mine, he buries his face into my neck as he spasms against me.
A heated dampness meets my core.
Our breaths are loud in the dark room as we come down from our high. My limbs are languid, boneless, my body held up only by his muscular frame and his heavy, sturdy weight.
“Wh-who are you?” I whisper, the flickers of logic finally snagging on.
The stranger stiffens.
A finger grazes down my arm to my palm.
Someone rattles the doorknob.
“It’s locked,” a voice says. “Get the key?”
Another person answers.
Their voices are defibrillators, shocking me back into reality.
What the fuck did I do?
The stranger must’ve felt the change in my body.
Silently, he sets me down and rights my clothes with one hand, the other never letting go of me.
Then he grazes my palm—tiny little flicks.
Without answering my question, he unlocks the door and cracks it, the sudden stream of light causing my eyes to squint.
“Stay,” he whispers.
And when I open my eyes again, he’s gone.