24. Chapter Twenty-Four - Fragile Breath
“Ivouch my intention was not to have sex with you today,” he murmured against my cheek, his voice low and rumbling through me like a promise whispered against bare skin. “But…” He paused, letting the word hang between us. “I need to erase that filthy creature's touch, my little lamb.”
My breath stuttered, catching embarrassingly in my throat. That nickname. God.
It was stupidly tender, and I hated how much I liked it.
How easily it slipped under my skin and made me want to pull him closer.
Some pathetic part of me craved to curl into him, spread my legs wide, and let him rut away every doubt until I forgot how to breathe, pretending that his hovering body, his erection nudging me, could somehow feel safe enough to lose myself in completely.
“What?” I managed, blinking like I didn’t understand even though we both knew exactly what he meant.
His eyes didn’t waver.
“Erase him,” he clarified, voice rough and low like gravel. “Where he has marked you, I need to remove it.”
The room felt warmer suddenly, heat pooling at the base of my spine and dripping lower. The way he said it made it sound less like a request and more like a claiming, as if he needed to overwrite the memory of Carter’s hands with the feel of his own fingers, his own mouth.
The thought sent a fresh rush of wetness between my thighs, soaking my panties and making the fabric cling to my folds.
“Erase?” I repeated, trying for confusion but hearing how thin it sounded. My cheeks flushed as shame and want tangled in my stomach. “What are you talking about?”
His gaze flicked down my body, slow and reverent, and I felt naked under it even though I was fully clothed.
“He touched you,” Culver murmured, his voice strained. “And I cannot bear it.”
He wasn’t asking for permission, but part of me wanted it. I wanted him to make it all go away, to replace every bad memory with something that felt dangerously right.
I shifted on the couch, and the friction made me more aware of the soaked fabric clinging to my folds, of how badly I wanted him to push his hand between my legs and feel how wet I was for him.
“Whatever,” I mumbled, trying to sound dismissive, trying to keep the upper hand. My voice betrayed me by coming out smaller, thinner, and too breathy. “If you’re asking to touch me, then touch me.”
I tilted my head away from him to hide the betrayal on my face, the slip of hunger showing in my eyes, and added quickly, “He touched me—”
“Hush.” The word was a quiet command, his lips grazing the shell of my ear as he said it. His breath was intimate against my skin, and a violent shiver shot straight down my spine.
“Please, I wish not to know.” The softness of the plea was undercut by something far darker coiled beneath it. “I might kill him if I did.”
My throat tightened, a surge of adrenaline slicing through the haze of arousal, and I opened my mouth to toss out a joke, to poke at him, to call his bluff…
But the words dissolved on my tongue the second I met his eyes because he wasn’t bluffing at all. I had only seen a fraction of him, but I knew he didn’t bluff when it came to violence.
My heart hammered against my ribs, my breath unsteady as I looked away. The image of him snapping Carter’s neck or putting a bullet through him flickered uninvited across my mind, and to my horror, my pussy clenched at it.
“Don’t kill him,” I whispered, my voice cracking around the edges.
It wasn’t for Carter’s sake.
The thought of Culver murdering him meant I’d have to carry that weight in my chest forever, tucked right alongside every other shadow already weighing me down.
“For me,” I added after a beat, quieter, rawer, my throat thickening around the words. “Please don’t kill him.”
Culver’s hands rose to my shoulders, fingers trailing up the sides of my neck as if mapping every tendon and pulse point. The pads of his fingers ghosted over sensitive skin, smearing sweat and leaving tingling warmth behind.
He paused at my throat, his thumb brushing my pulse, and I felt my body soften under the touch. My muscles unwound, my spine curving into him like I’d been waiting for him to hold me this way.
“I shall not kill him,” he murmured against my ear, lips grazing the delicate edge of it. His tone was warm but threaded with spite. “This time.”
My breath hitched as my ass pressed upward against him instinctively.
His erection was still hard, still present, nudging my thighs through his pants, thick and impatient. My body betrayed me completely: nipples aching, folds slick and swollen, inner walls clenching around emptiness only he could fill.
The pull toward him was so strong it left me feeling exposed and needy in a way that both thrilled and terrified me.
“He won’t touch me again,” I said finally, letting the words sit heavy in my mouth.
His shoulders relaxed at that, tension easing from his body in a single exhale that ghosted down the back of my neck. His cock twitched against me in approval.
“Now, come sit in my lap,” he demanded, voice dropping, each word slower than the last. “Let us make haste in removing his touch.”
God. If he kept talking like that, I was going to crack first. Slowly, I slid between his legs and onto his lap. It was different than being pressed against him. Now, I was on top of him.
His cock nestled into the groove of my hot pants, and I bit my lip as I wiggled into a comfortable position. A smile rose on my face as he groaned in my ear when my ass swallowed his cock between my cheeks.
His hands traced slow circles on my shoulders, and his breath cooled the crook of my neck, making it hard to think straight.
Culver was soft and patient, but it felt like he was walking a tightrope ready to snap.
I swallowed, trying to find steady ground, trying to pry my lungs open enough to breathe around the want pressing on them.
“Go on then,” I murmured.
The words came out too hungrily, spilling free, and the instant they left my mouth, I felt the air shift. He didn’t move right away.
His restraint felt like a hand pressed between my shoulder blades, urging me forward without shoving. He was giving me space to take it back if I wanted to, but there was no way I would.
The silence that followed was suffocating in the best way: thick, humid, and threaded with tension sharp enough to buzz inside my ribs.
My pussy clenched in anticipation, slickness sliding down the tender skin between my thighs, and I prayed it wasn’t soaking into his pants.
His fingers found my collarbone first, tracing the ridge with a tenderness that made the hair at the nape of my neck stand up. The barest pressure of his fingertip dragged fire across my skin and sent a shock straight down to my clit, making my breath catch mid-inhale.
His other hand slid down the outside of my arm, fingers curling around my forearm like a silent promise, the weight of his touch grounding and maddening all at once.
“He left his filthy mark all over you,” Culver murmured, his voice thick with loathing—not for me, but for what had been done to my body by someone unworthy.
Carter’s bruises sat on my thighs like fading fingerprints, stark reminders of hands that had gripped without care. Culver’s voice wrapped around them like a vow to replace every bruise with something that belonged to him.
“I mean… that’s kinda the point,” I whispered, the words coming out breathless, stripped of their usual bite.
I could hear how wrecked I sounded, how turned on I was, my voice trembling like my body were already halfway gone.
His fingers drifted lower, slow enough that I could anticipate every inch before he touched it. He traced the soft swell of my stomach, flattening his palm over my belly button as if claiming territory, as if erasing someone else’s touch required learning mine first.
He dipped his fingers downward, skimming the waistband of my shorts with a teasing slide that made my hips twitch without permission.
“Although,” he said, his voice dipping into something darker, more intoxicating, “he did not reach here.”
Heat rushed up my throat and flooded my face as the meaning sank in: a direct, unashamed acknowledgment of where Carter had failed to go and where Culver intended to replace him.
“You don’t know that,” I muttered, even though the weak protest made me sound like a liar or a coward… maybe both.
My thighs pressed together to chase relief, rubbing slick skin against slick skin, trying to quiet the aching throb that refused to ease.
He didn’t entertain the denial.
“I do,” he said, the words grazing my skin like silk and steel layered together. His hand slid to my hip, fingers gripping firmly, thumbs digging into my flesh with enough pressure to make me gasp. “He did not leave a permanent mark. I will be sure to do so, though.”
There was a rough edge beneath the promise, a hunger that wanted to replace bruises with hickeys, gasps with moans, and touches with thrusts.
I could picture it too vividly: the slow push of his cock stretching me wide, his hips pinning mine as I arched and took it, his breath against my neck while he filled me again and again until nothing remained of Carter.
“Someone’s full of himself,” I managed, sarcasm flickering back as a shield, though it was flimsy and transparent. My voice caught as his fingers traced the line of my waist and toyed with the hem of my shirt.
I felt—more than saw—the grin that brushed against my cheek: dark, confident, and amused.
“I have to be thorough,” he murmured, his voice grazing my ear, each word vibrating low and warm against my skin. “It would defeat the purpose if I were not.”
His hands continued their slow exploration, mapping every inch of my torso with infuriating patience, like he was taking his time to really get to know me, turning each touch into a quiet claim that echoed mine, mine, mine through my skin and into my bones.