Chapter 4 Phoenix
Phoenix
She ate.
That’s trust.
It’s progress.
That’s her giving me an inch, and me pretending I won’t take the whole fucking mile.
I checked on her a couple of hours after I left and watched her sleep for longer than any sane man should. Her body was curled beneath the blanket, vulnerable and inviting, and then I started to move.
I’ve been doing this dance for years. I know how to move like a ghost, how to slip in undetected. I could walk through her apartment blindfolded and never make a sound.
There have been times when she’s stirred, and I’ve had to melt into the walls and become the dark, but my pulse almost always gives me away, pounding against my ribs like it’s begging her to wake up and find me.
But she never has.
She’s never caught me.
However, tonight she’ll be expecting me.
I know she’ll lie there with her eyes closed, trying to make her breathing look natural. Her body will be perfectly still, lashes fluttering just enough to fake a dream, waiting for me to step too close. She’ll draw me in like a moth to her heat.
To be fair, it would be an excellent way for her to fuck me over. I intrude, she attacks, claims self-defense, and I’m either dead or rotting in a cell while she walks away free.
Game over.
She wins.
It doesn’t matter if I know this is a trap. I’ll walk straight into it with my eyes wide open and my hands ready to hold her anyway.
Stepping inside, as I have a thousand times before, I don’t bother with the lights. I know every inch of this place—the scent, the silence, the heartbeat that doesn’t fully belong to me… yet.
I’m halfway down the hall when I come to a complete stop, my eyes landing on her bedroom door standing open at the far end. Not once in all the years I’ve watched her has she ever left that door open.
I know she used to lock herself away when she was younger—little hands shaking as she pressed her body against the bedroom door, hiding from the sound of footsteps and the monsters she was born to.
But that’s done now. I made sure of it.
Goodbye, Mommy.
Goodbye, Daddy.
You pair of useless, decaying cunts.
She’s safe now.
But she never leaves it open, which means this is for me.
She’s inviting the wolf inside.
I push the door open and close it softly behind me. The room sinks into darkness, but I can still make out her perfect outline under the thin blanket.
I move through the room, each step bringing me closer to the only thing that’s ever made sense in my fucked-up world. For a moment, I stand there, staring, watching her attempt to fake sleep.
She’s good at this. I’ll give her that. Most people can’t pull it off, not really. They’ll flinch, twitch, and fuck up their breathing, but she’s holding it together.
I’m halfway to the bed when her legs move, and I stop dead, every muscle in my body wired tight. The softest moan spills from her lips, and she kicks the blanket away, baring her beautiful body to the darkness.
Her hand slips between her thighs, fingers moving slowly, the kind of thing I’ve watched her do a hundred times before—endless recordings I probably shouldn’t still have, the camera feeds that show just how far gone I really am—but never like this.
The sound of her fingers working her open hits me first, then the scent—fuck me, that smell—I can taste her in the air like she’s already inside me.
And fuck, I’d crawl for it. Hands flat on the floor, chest to the ground, dragging my body through the dark, like the animal I am when it comes to her.
I want my face buried between her thighs, my tongue on her, in her, working her until she’s spread wide and shivering, and I’m stripped right down to nothing but my fucking submission.
She rolls from her side onto her back, her hips rocking against her fingers, offering me the perfect view.
That black lace bra she’s wearing is for me.
The wet sound between her thighs? Also for me.
I don’t move.
Don’t blink.
Don’t even fucking breathe.
“Oh my god… feels so good.”
I drag a hand through my hair, my fingers tightening in the strands, because what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? I didn’t walk in here for this. I wasn’t prepared for her like this.
I want to touch.
I want to taste.
I want to watch.
I want to come.
My hand drops, and I palm my cock through my pants, already rock-hard from nothing but proximity. If I finish right here in the dark like some feral animal while she lies there pretending she doesn’t feel my eyes on her, then so be it.
She can add it to the long list of shit I’ve already done because of her.
“God, I wish you were touching me… kissing me… fucking me.”
My jaw tightens, and I almost answer her, tempted to step out of the shadows and take everything she’s pretending she doesn’t want to give me.
But I don’t.
This is how she wants it.
Me, hidden in the dark.
“I wish I could have just one last time with you.”
I freeze, my hand stilled against my throbbing dick, my breath shot to hell.
“But Phoenix…”
Phoenix.
“Oh god, Phoenix.”
That’s it, baby. Call out to me. Remind me who owns your breath.
“Phoenix broke your fingers… the best two that always knew exactly what I needed.”
The snap is instant. There’s no processing her words, no line between thought and action, just something primal taking over.
My blood roars loud in my ears, and my body moves before my brain catches up.
I’d never actually hurt her—never—she’s mine to protect.
But fuck, right now, the need to silence her, to make her feel every inch of the edge she’s dragged me to, is fucking blinding.
Violence pulses in my veins, and heat floods my skull as I yank her hand out of her panties, shoving her flat onto the mattress. Her legs fall open, and I pin her arms above her head with one hand.
“Give me a reason to wipe that motherfucker off the face of the planet, Shannen, just one more.”
She doesn’t answer, and in her silence, I unravel.
I move in slowly, pressing my weight forward, over her, around her, until I’m the only thing she can feel.
I rise higher, bracing my forearm beside her head, and bring her fingers to my face.
Dragging my nose along them, I inhale her scent, then pull them into my mouth, my tongue tracing the tips and tasting what’s left of her.
I swear I could die right here, and I’d go out smiling because there’s no higher heaven for a man like me than this.
“Come on, baby,” I murmur, my lips brushing her knuckles. “Say his name so I can rip out his spleen and serve it to his precious stepmommy on a plate.”
Her hips lift in response, dragging the damp heat of her pussy over my cock through our clothes, and I let out a dry laugh.
“Uh-uh.” I tighten my grip on her wrists. “You don’t get to use that body to leash me again. Not tonight.” I dip my head, my breath ghosting over the shell of her ear. “So either say his name or call out the one you wish you could forget, but never fucking do.”
Her lips part, trembling on the edge of surrender, and I can almost taste the truth fighting its way out of her.
Say it, baby. Say my name, and I’ll drag the stars to your feet.
“I can’t want this,” she whispers.
“Can’t want what? This?” I taunt, grinding my cock against her, pulling a moan straight out of her throat. “That’s a shame, pretty girl, because it’s only ever been yours.”
I do it again, just a little rougher, and her hips arch up, colliding with mine. Then we’re moving together, dry humping like it’s the only thing we’ve ever known—as if we’ve done it a thousand times, and we’ll do it a thousand more.
I’m not leaving this bed until I get her off, and if she keeps grinding against me like that, I’m going to lose it right along with her.
“More,” she pleads.
My hand trembles as it slides down between us, the other still pinning her wrists above her head.
I find the thin barrier of her panties, fingertips brushing the edge of the fabric, playing with it, and testing my own control.
I ease it aside, knowing I could touch her if I let myself—but I don’t. Not yet.
There is nothing I want more than to put my mouth on her.
Not to prove I can make her come.
Not to mark her.
But because I’m sick with it.
I’m obsessed.
Because I’ve waited.
Because I’ve spent a lifetime trying to be good enough to earn this.
But mostly because I’m hers.
My cock is fully tented like it’s trying to find its way to her, and every roll of her hips just makes it worse. It’s not even skin on skin, yet I’m shaking like I’m already inside her.
I’m fucking gone.
“Phoenix… no, it’s—”
I freeze.
She asked for this, didn’t she? She did. She asked for more. She wanted me closer.
I replay it in my head like a fucking mantra because I’d never just take. God knows I could’ve, and I’ve wanted to more than once. More than a thousand times, but I never have. Even now, with her beneath me and every cell in my body screaming to touch, I can’t. Not unless she wants it.
“No, don’t stop, just… I want… Fuck, I don’t want…”
She doesn’t want to want me, but she does. And I’ll take that.
She can hate me tomorrow, but tonight, she wants us.
I lower my hand down to the waistband of my sweats, my heart hammering, and push them low enough for my cock to spring free—hard, aching, and already leaking, like it’s been waiting its whole life for this moment.
I’m not fucking her tonight.
There’s no way I’m crossing that line unless I have her eyes on me and she tells me she’s mine.
I need to feel it.
That’s nonnegotiable.
But this—this, I can do.
The second the tip of my dick brushes against her, I nearly lose it.
She feels perfect.
Better than perfect.
“Holy shit…” The words fall out, wrecked and raw. “You’re so soft.”
I drag the head of my cock through her wetness—hers, mine, both, I don’t even know anymore.
“You’re so wet. So warm. Fuck, how are you this soft?”
“Shut up and move, Phoenix.”
Her hips slide, and mine answer.
I lower my face until I can feel her breath against my lips.