Chapter 44 #2
The cabin light is shit. Just a single bare bulb throwing weak yellow illumination across everything. But it’s enough to see the bruise spreading across her cheekbone, the raw red rings circling her wrists where the rope bit deep.
Enough that I would go back and strangle Aaron with my bare hands if I could.
“Dom.”
“Yeah?”
She doesn’t answer, just cocks her head to the side as she continues to study me.
Then her hands release my shirt and travel upward, palms sliding across my chest, over my shoulders, up the sides of my neck. Her fingers thread into my hair and she grips hard enough to tilt my head back.
Then she kisses me.
Her mouth meets mine with a deliberate force that sends electricity crackling down my spine. As her lips part, I taste salt from her dried tears and something underneath that’s purely her, sweet and sharp like citrus peel doused in sweet vanilla.
I should stop this.
The thought surfaces through the haze descending over my brain, bobbing like a buoy in rough seas. She’s been through hell tonight. She’s vulnerable and scared and running on fumes. Whatever’s happening here—whatever she thinks she wants—isn’t something I should be taking advantage of.
But then she makes this sound.
A small, desperate noise in the back of her throat that hits me somewhere south of my sternum and short-circuits every noble intention I’ve ever had.
My hands move without conscious permission. One slides up her back, pressing between her shoulder blades to draw her closer. The other cups the unbruised side of her face, thumb tracing the line of her jaw, fingers threading into the tangled mess of her copper hair.
She sighs against my mouth and deepens the kiss.
Her tongue traces the seam of my lips, requesting entry. I grant it without hesitation. She tastes like exhaustion and desperation and underneath all of it, underneath the fear and the trauma and the hours of captivity, she tastes like fire.
This woman is going to destroy me.
The realization crystallizes somewhere in the part of my brain still capable of rational thought. Phoenix Riviera, with her copper hair and amber eyes and the kind of damage that calls to every protective instinct I possess, is going to tear me apart from the inside out.
And I’m going to let her.
Phoenix pulls back just far enough to breathe, her forehead pressing against mine. Her pupils are blown wide, nearly swallowing the amber. Her chest heaves against mine with each ragged inhale.
“Dom.” My name again, rougher this time. Unsteady. “I need—”
“What do you need?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, her hands drop to the hem of my shirt, the same shirt she’s been twisting and clutching since I pulled her out of that hellhole, and she tugs upward.
I let her strip it off.
The cold cabin air hits my bare skin and I shiver, but Phoenix doesn’t give me time to adjust. Her palms are already mapping the terrain of my chest, fingers tracing the lines of ink that crawl across my skin.
The serpent coiled around my shoulder. The compass rose over my heart.
The thorned vines that disappear beneath the waistband of my jeans.
“These are beautiful,” she breathes.
“Got most of them when I was too young and too stupid to know better.”
“I like them.” Her finger traces a particularly intricate piece—an anatomical heart tangled in barbed wire, done during a particularly dark period of my life. “They’re hopelessly romantic and completely without affectation. Just like you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The assertion is ridiculous and also induces a burning sensation in my chest.
So I kiss her instead of replying.
Phoenix makes that desperate sound again and melts against me. Her arms wind around my neck, pulling me closer, and when I deepen the kiss she matches me eagerly.
My hands find the hem of her shirt. I pause there, fingers resting against the thin fabric, waiting.
“Yes,” she breathes against my mouth. “Please, yes.”
Permission granted.
I peel the fabric up slowly, giving her every opportunity to change her mind. She doesn’t. Just raises her arms to help me and then she’s bare from the waist up, wearing nothing but a simple cotton bra that probably cost more than my rent.
She’s beautiful.
Though the bruise on her cheek is darker now. The raw red around her wrists feels like an indictment of all my failures as an alpha. There is too much evidence of everything she survived tonight, written across her body in purple and blood-red.
“You’re staring,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.” My throat is thick. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She reaches behind her back and unhooks her bra with a practiced motion, letting it fall away. “Look at me.”
I look.
Her breasts are small and perfect, nipples already peaked from the cold air. A flush spreads across her chest, deepening the gold of her skin to something almost bronze.
“Phoenix…” Her name comes out strangled.
“I need you, Dom.” Her hands find mine, guiding them to her waist, pressing my palms flat against her bare skin. “I need to feel something good right now. Can you do that for me?”
God.
“Are you sure?” The question costs me something.
Every instinct I possess screams at me to take what’s being offered, to claim and protect and possess.
But she’s been through hell tonight. She’s running on adrenaline and trauma and I refuse—refuse—to be another person who takes from her without asking.
“I’m sure.” Her amber eyes hold mine, clear and steady despite everything. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
That’s all I need to hear.
I surge forward and capture her mouth again. My hands move, one sliding up her spine to cup between her shoulder blades, the other dropping to grip her hip and pull her impossibly closer.
Phoenix gasps against my lips and shifts in my lap, legs spreading wider to straddle me properly. The heat of her core presses against the growing bulge in my jeans, and even through layers of fabric the contact sends sparks shooting up my spine.
“Fuck,” I groan. “Phoenix—”
“More.” She rocks against me, creating friction that makes my vision blur at the edges. “I need more.”
I flip us in one smooth motion.
Phoenix lands on her back on the narrow bunk, copper hair fanning across the rough blankets. Her eyes briefly go wide with surprise, before she giggles and tries to pull me closer.
“Better?” I hover over her, bracing myself on my forearms to keep from crushing her.
“Getting there.” Her hands find my belt buckle, fingers working at the leather with a desperation that borders on frantic. “Off. Need these off.”
I help her with the buckle, the button, the zipper. Shove my jeans and boxers down my hips in one motion, kicking them off somewhere into the darkness of the cabin.
Phoenix’s gaze drops to my cock and her breath catches audibly.
“Wow.”
A strangled laugh escapes me. “That’s…not what people usually say.”
“What do they usually say?”
“I don’t know. Not wow.”
“Well.” She reaches out and wraps her fingers around my length, and the contact—the heat of her palm, the certainty of her grip—makes me see stars. “Wow.”
I drop my head to her shoulder and groan through clenched teeth. “Phoenix. If you keep doing that, this is going to be over embarrassingly fast.”
“Then maybe you should distract me.”
Happily.
I catch her wrists and pin them gently above her head, holding them there with one hand while the other works at the button of her jeans. She lifts her hips to help me strip them off, and then there’s nothing between us but a scrap of cotton that’s already damp with her arousal.
“Can I touch you?”
“Please.” The word comes out breathless, almost a whimper.
I slide my free hand down her body, between her breasts, across the flat plane of her stomach, over the jut of her hipbone. My fingers trace the edge of her underwear, teasing, testing.
Phoenix arches into the contact. “Dom, I swear to fuck—”
I slip beneath the cotton and find her wet. Dripping, actually. Slick heat coating my fingers the moment I make contact.
“Jesus,” I breathe. “You’re soaked.”
“Been thinking about this for days.” She rocks against my hand, seeking more contact. “Since you put your hands on my thighs to steady me while I signed that poster.”
The admission hits me like a punch to the gut.
She’s been thinking about this. About me. This whole time, while I’ve been convincing myself she’s so far out of my league I’d need a telescope to see her, she’s been lying awake imagining exactly this.
“I’ve wanted you since before I even knew what sex was.
Since I was a kid, using Mabie as an excuse for why I never missed an episode of that fucking show,” I confess against her throat, my fingers still working between her legs.
”Didn’t let myself think about it because I figured there was no fucking chance. But I wanted you.”
Phoenix gasps as I circle her clit, hips jerking upward, even as she lets out a giddy laugh. “Right now, there’s a—a chance. There’s definitely a chance. We’ll have to see how this goes—“
I kiss her to shut her up, swallowing her rambling words while my fingers continue their assault. She’s so responsive, every touch drawing a reaction—a gasp, a moan, a full-body shudder that makes her back bow off the mattress.
When I slide two fingers inside her, she cries out against my mouth.
Tight. So fucking tight, and hot, and wet. Her walls clench around my fingers like they’re trying to pull me deeper, and the thought of what she’ll feel like wrapped around my cock makes me dizzy.
“More,” she pants. “I need—I need—”
“I know what you need.”
I withdraw my fingers—ignoring her whimper of protest—and hook my thumbs in the waistband of her underwear. She lifts her hips without being asked, and I strip the final barrier away, leaving her bare beneath me.
Beautiful.