Chapter Twenty-Two
Lucas
She shatters against my tongue, and I hungrily lick up every last drop of her release.
I can’t get enough of her, I need more. Only when her quivers stop, do I lift myself up to look down at her.
She has her eyes closed, lips parted and chest heaving with each ragged breath.
Her cheeks are flushed, a bead of sweat is trailing down between her perfect tits, and she has never looked as beautiful as now.
She is glowing golden in the warm light of the lamp, body sated and bared to me like an offering.
Something primal coils inside me, overpowering and all-consuming.
Mine.
I stand up and start unbuckling my belt. The sound makes her eyes fly open and she looks at me with a horrified expression. Then she flips on her belly and starts to crawl away. My vision tunnels. Where does she think she’s going?
“Oh no, love, you don’t get to run from me.”
I finish removing my pants and boxer briefs in a blink before I catch one of her ankles and drag her back toward me. She is struggling now, but her movements are sluggish from the daze of her orgasm. I bend over her and gather both her hands behind her back to hold her there.
“Lucas,” she whimpers. But I am too far gone, my pulse is rushing in my ears, and I can’t shake the blinding haze surrounding me, drowning me in lust and madness.
I grab her hips and hoist her ass up until she is offered to me, her sweet cunt glistening from her release while her face is plastered to the mattress.
I’m rock hard, I have been since the moment I came into her room and smelled her intoxicating scent.
Now I am pushing the crown of my cock inside her soaking wet pussy. “Fuuuck, sweetheart, you’re soaked.”
I’m not sure if I hear her talk or plead, my mind is dissociating and her words don’t register.
But as soon as her hot pussy wraps around my cock, something in me snaps and I drive inside her in one forceful thrust. Through the thrumming of the blood in my ears, I hazily hear her cry out.
I know it must sting, because I feel myself bottoming out, through the fog clouding my vision, I see her pussy stretching around my girth, but I can’t stop.
My breath is ragged as I try to cling to the last strand of sanity holding me together.
But even this shatters when I start to move.
“Fuck, sweetheart, you feel like heaven.” I hear myself growl.
I pull out and push back in, harder, faster, needing to be inside her, needing more.
I need her to submit. I need to rip her open like she tore me apart.
I want to crawl inside her, under her skin, embed myself into her and never leave.
I need to own her, body, heart and soul so she won’t fucking leave me ever again.
I hold her wrists with one hand while the other is holding her hip in a bruising grip.
I am pounding into her so hard now her teeth rattle with each punishing thrust as the headboard slams loudly against the wall.
I know I should slow down, be gentle and make tender love to her like she deserves.
But the rage-filled beast in me has taken over the reins, and I am fucking her with everything I have, panting hard and gritting out praises through my clenched jaw.
“Look at how well you take my cock. Such a good girl.” I slam into her again and again.
She lets out a ragged cry and throws her head back, spine arched.
“Take it, sweetheart. Say you want more, say it,” I order harshly.
She doesn’t reply and my rage boils over. I release her wrists and bend over her to wrap my hand around her hair and pull her head back, snarling into her ear as I fuck her harder.
“Take it.” All of this pent-up rage.
“Take everything I give you.” All of this madness consuming me.
“Say you’ll have all of me.” Along with this craving tearing my soul to shrapnel.
“Say you want more.” I viciously slam into her with a snarl. “Say. It!”
“Oh, god.” She sobs at last. “Yes, please…more.”
Her ragged plea makes me feral. “You drive me fucking insane. You make me lose my mind—you know that?” My balls draw tight, each thrust bringing me nearer to release.
I curl my arm around her hip and slide my hand over her pussy to rub circles over her clit, and she starts to unravel again.
She makes small noises at the back of her throat as if suppressing her cries and I won’t fucking accept that.
“Don’t you dare suppress that sound I wanna hear.
” I pant. “Let me hear your screams. Let me hear what I do to you.”
I can’t hold back any longer, I need her to—“Fucking give it to me,” I snarl.
Obeying like the good girl she is, she falls over the edge with a loud cry, my name on her lips.
Her pussy clenches around me, gripping tight and sending me right after her, my release slamming through me with so much force I throw my head back with a roar.
I shudder on and on, blood pumping so loudly in my ears I’m convinced I’ve gone deaf.
I ride the orgasm out with her, her pussy flutters around me, each spasm sending a new wave of pleasure through my bones.
When the last remnants of our climaxes fade, I collapse over her, covering her body with mine. We are both panting hard.
I trail kisses over her shoulders, on her neck, behind her ear.
Her scent is permeating every cell of my being, and I inhale her like a fucking animal.
I band one arm around her waist to plaster her to my front and move us to the side into a lying position, with me still inside her.
Her head is lying on my arm, and I slowly nuzzle her temple, gliding to the spot behind her ear.
She lets me, either too shocked or too worn out from exhaustion to resist. Her eyes are closed, her long lashes resting against her soft cheeks.
She is breathing hard, her erratic pulse thundering under my lips, but she doesn’t open her eyes, as if refusing to see what we shared.
“Cara mia,” I whisper over and over in a ragged breath.
I know I should feel shame over how mercilessly I’ve taken her.
But all I sense is a deep fulfillment. For the first time in months, the beast inside me has settled and a sentiment of calm washes over me.
My hold on Chiara tightens. It had been mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex.
I’ve never come this hard in my life, and I already know I want more of her.
Beyond the physical dimension, it has been raw and real.
It was perfect. She is perfect. I begin to harden again inside her and I let my hand wander slowly down her body.
“I’m not nearly done with you yet, love,” I murmur against her ear-shell as I draw her lobe into my mouth, teasing it with my teeth, dragging my tongue along the edge. Her low moan has me from half-mast to fully erect in a fraction of a second.
* * * *
Hours later, I lie with her curled up against me as the light of dawn starts to filter through the curtains. She has fallen into an exhausted slumber, but I can’t sleep, too high from adrenaline and from her, not wanting to close my eyes and miss a single moment.
My mind wanders back to that evening at the gala.
The day she disappeared. Yeah. I’d been drinking, feeling too cocky for my own good.
I remember the way she looked in that golden dress and how it twisted my gut into a tight knot.
I remember how good she felt against me as we danced, the way the light made her skin gleam like something I wanted to drag my tongue over.
And I also remember the way that bastard Nathan held her, the way his hand splayed possessively over her back when they danced.
She smiled at him, she laughed at something he said, and suddenly I felt the need to punch something.
Hence, I stalked out of the room, onto the terrace for some fresh air.
But I wasn’t alone for long. Tiffany followed me and started to babble some meaningless shit I didn’t hear. I remember her high-pitched laugh grating on my nerves, her nails on my arm and her perfume choking the air when all I craved was some peace.
But then I heard her say Chiara’s name and my head snapped around so quickly she took a surprised step back.
“What about Chiara?” I barked.
“Are you and her…” she asked, lips curving into a flirtatious smile, “dating?”
I scoffed, leaning back a little to hide the stiffening of my shoulders. “What? Dating? Of course not, bella. She and I are just friends.”
“But you seem so close.”
Chiara’s face flashed in my mind, beautiful and fragile, broken from the shit her mother had put her through.
I remembered feeling this urge to protect her, even from Tiffany’s sharp tongue.
But then I remembered her smiling up at goddamn Nathan fucking Wellington, and how she let him hold her.
The knot in my gut was choking me up from the inside, the need to lash out was overwhelming and all-consuming, obliterating any rational thought.
So I drawled, “That’s because she has no one, and I am there for her as a friend. After what she went through, she needs people in her corner, and I am there to support her.”
Tiffany tilted her head, eyes glittering with challenge. “You’d really never date her?”
And my stupid ass smirked, words dripping with arrogance. “She’s too soft and delicate for the likes of me. I’d eat her alive.”
I wince now, realizing how cruel and dismissive the words must have sounded for Chiara. I was torn up by jealousy although I hadn’t realized it then. I meant the words like I was too fucked up to deserve her, but of course, Tiffany ate them up, purring.
“So, there is no one to stop you if you were to leave with me tonight?”
I stared at her, and for one second, I considered the easy escape of burying myself in someone who wanted me without complication.
But then I saw Chiara in my mind, her smile, her stunning green and amber eyes.
And the answer was out before I even thought it through.
“No, bella, no one. You look good enough to eat.” I paused, wondering if I should tell her that her sole presence made my skin crawl.
Finally, I settled for the lesser truth, at least the one rule everyone knew I was living by—“But I don’t do repeats, so don’t even think about it.
” I didn’t care that I sounded like an asshole.
“But you and I, we were so good,” Tiffany wails.
Were we? I don’t remember, it all felt so meaningless. I leaned closer to shut her up, tone low and final. “There never was a you and I—that meant nothing, Tiffany. I don’t want you.” My jaw ticked as annoyance burned through me. “Find someone else to bother.”
When I went back inside to claim my second dance with Chiara, she was already gone.
She hadn’t stayed long enough to hear the end of the conversation. She only heard the fabrication, the mask I’d worn to push my feelings down and lie to myself.
And now, she doesn’t want to listen when I tell her the truth, that the only woman who ever mattered is her.