Chapter 47
Raine
Iscrub the living shit out of my body, washing away the blood, the grime, the stench of the massacre at the warehouse. Standing at the vanity, towel wrapped around my body, hair dripping wet, I’m frozen as I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
I barely recognize myself.
Dead eyes stare back at me with the hollowness of someone who has seen too much death. It’s a shame. They were looking so pretty lately. Now they’re empty. The weight of my pain is visible in the heaviness of my eyelids. My hand absentmindedly finds its way to my gaunt cheekbones.
When’s the last time I ate anything?
My grief seems to have attached itself like a fat-sucking vampire, draining all signs of life from me.
I trace a bead of water down my arm, following its slow path from my hair to my wrist, the cool trail prickling my skin.
There’s something surreal about how the world still turns when someone you love dies.
The thing about losing someone is it’s not the big moments that undo you, but the stupid, little ones.
Another droplet slides, then another, racing each other toward my wrist where two colorful “Ride or Die” bracelets sit. I watch the droplets fall, unable to stop the way my mind unspools with them.
Cherry will never step into a hot shower.
She’ll never drink shitty coffee or stack a dishwasher or scratch a dog behind the ears.
Never daydream with me and ask me in her deep Southern accent to leave with her.
She’ll never get to live the life she deserved, the one she was so close to having.
And the worst part? The part that’ll stay with me until my last dying breath?
She would still be alive if it wasn’t for me. I could have made a difference. I could have done something. I could have been something other than destructive for once in my life. But I didn’t. I didn’t do a thing.
I fucking hate myself.
“Raine?”
Begrudgingly, my eyes raise in the reflection of the mirror and meet Soren’s.
“You with me?” His voice is careful because what he’s really asking is if I’m okay.
If I’m still me. I should lie and tell him I’m fine.
That’s the easy answer, the one most people prefer to hear.
Because it’s too hard, too difficult, too uncomfortable to hear the truth.
But the words catch somewhere in my throat.
Because I’m not fine. I’m not even close.
All I can taste is despair and grief and hate and guilt, and all I can feel is Cherry’s absence shredding my insides apart. I’m not the woman I was two days ago; I’m back to being the girl I was when my mom was brutally taken from me. I’m a raw, exposed nerve in human skin.
And I hate the fact the Agency was right. Letting someone in is dangerous, causes weakness. Delivers gut-wrenching loss. Heartache. Pain. I should have known better. A tightness wraps around my chest, squeezing until the edges of my vision blur.
God, I’m so fucking exhausted.
From all of it. The deception, the violence, the loss, the never-ending feeling of taking one step forward, only to be shoved twenty feet back.
“Hey.” Soren steps further into the bathroom, still damp from the shower, sweatpants slung low on his hips, nothing else. I turn toward him, palms pressed behind me on the vanity. “You’re okay,” he murmurs as he comes closer. Is he telling himself that? Or reassuring me?
I shake my head once, barely. “It’s my fault.”
He frowns. “It’s not.”
My throat burns. “I’m tired of all this death, Soren. Aren’t you tired?”
He looks down, fingers tugging absently at the drawstring of his sweats. A nervous tell I’ve never seen on him before. When he raises his gaze again, it’s soft.
“I was,” he admits. “Until I met you.”
My heart collapses inward. A painful, beautiful implosion.
“Soren,” I breathe, swallowing hard. “No. Stop."
His brows lift slightly. “Why?”
“I’m damaged, Soren.” It slips out harsher than I mean. “Poisonous. I-I’m fucked up.”
He steps in until the heat of him wraps around me, until I can feel every breath he takes. Slowly, he lifts a hand, knuckles brushing the curve of my cheekbone.
“I don’t think you’re damaged,” he whispers.
A rough laugh breaks from me. “Yeah? Well, you’re not looking close enough.”
“Oh,” he murmurs, thumb stroking the line of my jaw. “I am. I see it. I like a little wreckage.”
He dips his head, lips brushing the shell of my ear, a graze of warmth against the cold hole in my chest. “I like you and all the darkness that comes with you.”
The words tap dance down my spine.
I pull back just enough to look up at him, searching for the lie, the delusion, the deceit. But there’s nothing. No hesitation or uncertainty. Just the brutal sincerity of a man who’s telling his truth. My lips part, wanting to form a protest, a warning, anything, but nothing comes out.
Soren shifts, like he’s about to step away, give me space, give me an out.
But I don’t want to be alone.
Not now.
Not tonight.
“Wait,” I say, breath catching as I hook a finger into the waistband of his sweats.
He stops instantly, eyes dropping to where my finger clings to the fabric.
Slowly, I drag my gaze up, taking him in.
God, he’s beautiful. In that dangerous, ruin-your-life way.
My throat tightens. I don’t know what I want, but I think I know what I need.
My palm slides over him through the soft cotton. I use enough pressure to feel the shape of him. A low breath escapes him, unsteady, and it feeds something starved inside me. His hand closes around my wrist, not to stop me but like he’s checking I actually want this.
“Raine, you don't ne—”
I keep stroking him, my voice barely a whisper. “I just want to feel something other than misery, Soren.”
He exhales shakily.
I step closer, lips brushing his jaw, my fingers tightening on him. “Make me feel something other than pain.”
I lean back and loosen my grip on the towel. It slips from my fingers and falls to the tile in a heavy heap. The air hits my skin. Soren’s eyes devour every single inch of me, like he’s memorizing every curve of my body.
I press my palm to his chest, right over his heartbeat, over part of his giant crucifix tattoo. His heartbeat thunders a solid, steady rhythm. I apply the slightest pressure, guiding him backward out of the bathroom. He walks backwards without question, without looking away from me.
We cross into my room, shadows stretching across the carpet, the quiet hum of the city outside muffled and distant. When the backs of his legs touch the edge of my bed, he stops. He slides off his sweatpants in one fluid motion and sits down, legs parted, body open to me.
I sink to my knees in front of him.
I take him in my hand first, slow, deliberate, then lean forward and glide my tongue up the length of him, tracing a hot, wet path. His muscles jump under my touch.
“Raine,” he murmurs, voice roughened at the edges.
I look up at him through my lashes. His pupils are blown wide, like he’s high. I know he’s not, but this is what we are. We’re like a fucking drug to each other.
“Stop,” he breathes. “Come here.”
I rise, a little unsteady on my feet, and he reaches for me. His hands cradle my hips, warm and steady, pulling me toward him until my knees slide onto the mattress, and I’m straddling him.
He holds me gently.
I graze my fingers down his shoulders, then link them behind his neck as I sink down onto him.
Oh.
So.
Slowly.
My breath trembles because what is this? His forehead presses to my sternum for a second, as if he needs that contact, to feel that piece of me. When I settle fully in his lap, filled and stretched and trembling, my gaze finds his.
And what I see there steals every word from my mouth.
His eyes, normally all storm and darkness, are still. Like the surface of a lake with no wind, no ripples. Just stillness. Just him.
No rage.
No violence.
This is different. This feels different.
Slowly, I start to move. Up and down, time and time again, a steady drag of friction, all the while our eyes stay fixated on each other.
I don’t look away. His eyes hold me there, wide open, unguarded, letting me see everything he would normally bury beneath lust and rage and violence.
Tonight I still see the usual pain buried there …
But I also see restraint, ease, and something else.
Peace.
I see peace.
His hand slides up my torso, tracing the curve of my waist before cupping my breast. His thumb drags over my nipple, slow and firm, and the sound that leaves me is embarrassingly close to a whimper.
We fall into an easy, perfect rhythm, bodies aligned, breaths mingling, moving together like we’ve done this a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes.
Something happens inside of me.
A pressure building behind my ribs gives way, and suddenly my throat is tight, too tight, and I don’t understand why.
Until a tear slips down my cheek.
Soren sees it immediately. His expression shifts as he pulls me closer, his hand warm on the back of my neck, guiding me in.
Then his mouth is on my skin. He drags his tongue slowly up my cheek, licking the tear away.
Another spills.
He chases that one too.
Another.
And he takes that one.
Again. And again. And again.
All while still moving inside me, his slow, steady thrusts feel like they’re stitching me back together with every roll of his hips. By the time the last tear slips free, my chest is heaving. I fear whatever is left of my heart might explode.
Soren angles my face toward his, fingers gentle on my jaw, and kisses me. But this isn’t anything like the past. He kisses me like I'm his life force. Like he’s begging me to live.
He presses his forehead to mine, breath hot on my lips, his hands steady on my hips like he’s wanting me to arrive at the same place he is.
Soren Blackwood is my darkness, my violence, my ruin; all of that remains true.
But he’s also my salvation, he told me so.
He is my bright, impossible something. The thought of him—of us—rebuilds something long broken inside of me.
I ride him faster. Faster, faster, faster, until I grind down on him so hard it feels like I might split apart.
It’s like my body is trying to merge with his, trying to fuse with him molecule by molecule.
Every drag of friction lights me up, every slide of his cock hits something starved and desperate inside me.
I’m right there, teetering on the edge, strung so tight I might shatter into a million pieces.
“Let it go, Raine.”
Three simple words; a thousand different meanings.
Let go of the hurt, the mistakes I’ve made.
The rage.
The bone-deep ache that’s been rotting in my chest for years.
Let go of the revenge I’ve chased like a lion hunting its prey.
The rules that caged me.
The lies that shaped me.
Let go of Cherry’s last breath.
Let go of my mother’s blood on the floor.
Let go of my mother.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
And for the first time in my entire fucked-up life—I do.
I break open like a coconut splitting right down the middle.
Soren surges up and kisses me, like he’s trying to drink the pain straight from my mouth. His hands grip my hips, as I come apart, the orgasm ripping through me so violently my legs tremble and my hearing blurs into static. My breath catches on a sob I don’t even recognize as mine.
I break the kiss, our noses brushing, our breaths mixing, his chest rising against mine. My forehead drops to his, my breath panting into his mouth. For a long, tender moment, nothing exists except our shared breath, our shaking bodies, and the wild, terrifying truth of what just happened.
I let go.
And he held me through it.
Soren rises with me still wrapped around him, lifting me with ease. His cock stays buried deep inside me as he moves, each step sending a shiver up my spine. He lowers me onto the mattress, his body blanketing mine, and begins to move again. Slow and steady.
In. Out.
In. Out.
Each thrust is deliberate, yet tender. Controlled, yet gentle.
We never do this. We don’t do slow. We don’t do gentle. We do violence and fuck like we’re trying to tear pieces out of each other.
But tonight … tonight is something else.
It’s a blending of two broken souls, two ruined creatures, finding reasons to stay alive.
I spread my legs wider, urging him to take me the way we usually do—hardcore. I push up against him, silently begging for the brutality I know so well. I wiggle under him, do not under any circumstances make love to me … But he’s too strong, too powerful, and too in control.
He holds me down with his weight. His darkness meets mine and refuses to run.
“You asked to feel,” he rasps, pausing inside me so the fullness is a slow-burning agony. “So feel.”
We stare at each other as his words suck the air from my lungs. The glow of the city bleeds into the room, highlighting the upside-down cross beneath his eye. My beautiful antichrist. If hell is where I’m headed, then please, let him be there too.
I nod, barely breathing, the smallest surrender I’ve ever made, yet the biggest one of my life.
He moves again, my body opening for him like I’ve been waiting my whole miserable life to be touched this way. My inner walls clench around him, slick and hungry, and in total fucking bliss. I drag my nails lightly down his back, and he shudders, hips stuttering as he tries to keep his rhythm.
Oh god.
This is lovemaking.
And though neither of us has said a single word close to love, the truth is there. It’s in every thrust, in the way he holds me, in the way my body welcomes him. It’s the way he’s killed for me, alongside me, carried me through my pain.
He kneels back, and I hook my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, grinding into him like the needy, sex-crazed woman I know I can be. His thumb finds my clit, and slow, patient strokes undo me thread by thread.
“Give me another,” he murmurs, voice scraping against my skin.
I rise, higher and higher, until the world narrows and explodes, stars bursting behind my eyes.
When my vision clears, Soren is still moving, holding on, but barely.
And when he knows he has taken everything from me and given it back tenfold, he finally lets go, releasing deep inside me with a primal exhale.
He collapses onto me, buried inside me, chest rising and falling against mine as the world fades to black around us. I cradle his head to my chest, my fingers sliding through his hair as the violence and death and harsh reality of our lives bleed away.
I close my eyes, the exhaustion taking over.
The devil has delivered my very own gift. I know, at this very moment, that this is who I’ve sold my soul for.
And I’d do it over and over and over again.