4. Six Days Until Bonding
Chapter four
Six Days Until Bonding
Carrson
The world comes back to me in pieces. The crinkle of sheets under me. The smell of old wood and lemon furniture polish. The lazy whir of the ceiling fan overhead. Is it still Halloween? Late October or early November?
A sickening burst of memory. Not facts, but emotion. I was panicking, terrified, searching. My world emptying until there was nothing left except finding her.
My eyes refuse to open, heavy as lead, but my hands are already reaching across the bed. “Laurel?”
“I’m here,” she answers. “I’m right here.”
Her face, that heartbreakingly beautiful face, swims into focus.
Warm brown eyes, wrinkled at the corners with concern.
Wavy brown hair that falls over her shoulder as she moves closer.
Those lips, pink and soft, and crushed to mine the minute I reach her.
I kiss her as hard as I can, bruising, needing to feel her.
That she’s real, alive, warm.
Mine, always mine.
I’m out of breath by the time we break apart.
“I was so worried.” I press my forehead against hers.
“I searched everywhere. Father and the others dragged me back.” The memory hurts.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, Laurel. I tried to find you, I swear I did.
” The words come out in a rush, but I don’t care.
I’m too busy reliving the nightmare. The cornfield and the fear that I’d lost her forever.
“Shh, shh,” she soothes, her hand going to my head and running through my hair. “I know. I know you looked for me. It’s okay. Everything is fine. I’m here. Shh.”
It takes a long minute of her comfort before my heart rate finally slows and that blind panic begins to fade.
We lie back down on the pillows facing each other.
“What happened?” I ask. “Where’d you go?” My hands run over her: arms, neck, hips. I watch her face, looking for damage, any hint of pain.
“Jackson took me. He knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was on Silas’s bus.”
“Silas Creed?” I exclaim.
She nods, eyes wide and solemn.
Not done with my investigation, I slide my hands into her hair. I turn her face left, then right, searching for bruises.
“Carrson—”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did Jackson?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” She bats at my hands, but I don’t let go.
She’s lying. I know it. Not because she’s dishonest. She’s the most honest person I’ve ever met. Not because she wants to hurt me either, but for a more dangerous reason.
To protect me.
I know Laurel, there’s no way she went down without a fight. It’s one of the things I love about her.
Love.
The realization I had when I searched for her body in the corn stalks, when I was convinced I’d failed and she’d died.
I love Laurel Turner.
I’ll do anything, everything, to protect her.
I hiss when I find it, a bruise on her temple mostly hidden by her hair. I brush the strands aside, careful not to hurt her. There’s a lump there, the skin swollen and discolored.
My vision turns red. “That fucker Jackson. I’m going to kill him.” I pull away and try to stand, fury pumping hard through my veins, but Laurel’s hands are on me, pulling me back down into bed.
“Stop,” she says. “I’m fine. Going after Jackson won’t do us any good.”
“I’ll teach him not to touch you,” I say, ready to argue, but she’s pressed up to me, her lips on mine.
Smart girl. She’s the only one who can shut me up.
I kiss her back, thoughts of revenge dissolving as need for her rushes through me, humming in my veins.
This girl. She’s everything and all I want right now is to be buried inside her.
To have physical proof she’s here. With me.
Laurel must feel the same because she’s tugging up my shirt, then slipping her hand into my pants. She gasps softly when she feels how I’m already hard for her.
“Carrson,” she whispers, her voice high and breathy. The sound makes my cock stiffen even more under her fingers. “I need—”
“Yes,” I answer her question before it’s finished, tugging her pants down to her knees.
I’m too greedy and in a rush to take them off all the way.
My hand goes between her legs and I groan when I feel how wet she is for me.
I let my fingers find her clit and circle it, keeping the pressure firm until her back arches off the bed and her eyes flutter shut.
I trace the faint purple veins on her eyelids and watch as her brow tenses when I swirl my fingers faster.
Her mouth opens with quick pants, and her cheeks pinken.
She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and I have no idea why she picked me, of all people, to let touch her like this, see her so vulnerable and undone, but I’m so fucking glad she did. I shift my hand and slip into her heat, pushing two fingers into her easily since she’s so aroused.
Her hands come up and grab onto my forearm like she needs to anchor herself from the waves of pleasure I’m giving her.
Her fingernails sink into my skin, and the burn makes me smile.
I like it when she marks me. I want evidence of her all over me, reminders that I found her.
That I’m the only one who will ever make her feel this way.
I lean closer and whisper in her ear, “You like it, don’t you, kitten. When I finger fuck you like this?”
She whimpers, her pelvis thrusting into my hand in a beat so rhythmic and steady it’s almost music.
“Is it enough though?” I ask, then run my tongue along the edge of her earlobe. I’m rewarded with a full body shudder from her. “Or do you need my cock to fill you up properly? To satisfy that greedy pussy?”
She’s nodding, the movements jerky as her eyes squeeze shut. She’s close to coming. I can feel her walls flutter around my fingers, but I’m too selfish. I don’t want to waste that orgasm. Not when she could come with me inside her so I can feel every delicious pulse.
“Not yet, Laurel.” I take my hand away, and she cries out in protest. “Don’t come yet. Hold it,” I command, undressing quickly, then taking her shirt and pants off too. Now she’s naked and spread, her thighs damp and, damn, if I could paint a picture of her like this I would.
I use my knees to widen her thighs so I can slip between them. I don’t enter her yet, though. Instead I bow my head to take her nipple into my mouth. It peaks as I suck it deeper, then bite lightly, not enough to hurt but enough to feel.
Laurel calls my name at the sensation. I graze my teeth over her, and she moans, my favorite sound in the world.
She’s rocking against my cock, rubbing herself shamelessly on the shaft, coating me with her arousal.
The sensation drives me wild. Unable to resist any longer, I push into her, taking my time so she can stretch around me.
I’m big and she’s tight and the combination is absolute heaven.
Once I’m fully inside, I fuck her slowly, building her back up to the point where she’s on the brink of coming.
When I get her there, I go still and luxuriate in it, the feeling of her trembling beneath me like a leaf.
I force my eyes open and take in the way her chest has gone red and how her breasts bounce with each gasping breath she takes through parted lips. I’m close, and so is she.
“You know what I want, Tiger.” I allow myself to smirk. “Beg for it.”
Laurel’s eyes open and flare with that stubborn streak she has.
I laugh, because I love to challenge her, but also because twenty-four hours ago I thought I’d never be here with her like this again and I’m happy.
Maybe for the first time in my life, I’m truly happy.
Not thinking about my duty, or The Order, or any other of the million problems I have.
I’m just thinking about how glad I am that some idiot ordered pizza six months ago, with no idea that I was outside about to murder a drug dealer.
Laurel presses her lips together, but then I pump my hips and they fall back open. I lean down and kiss her, slipping my tongue into her mouth and syncing it to the sway of my hips.
I pull back a bit. “Come on,” I coax with my smile in place, but it’s softer now. “Tell me what you want.”
“I—I want you, Carrson. Please,” her hands are on my shoulders, grasping, “please fuck me harder.”
I lean forward and place my gentlest kiss to her forehead. “That’s my good girl.”
Then I do as she asks. I slam into her as hard and fast as I can, bracing my upper body on my hands until my wrists ache.
Laurel meets me thrust for thrust, just as desperate for me as I am for her.
Electricity shoots up my spine, and then we’re breaking, falling together, calling each other’s names as we come.
I empty into her, all of me rushing out to merge with all of her, and it feels like coming home.
**
Laurel
Afterwards, we lie naked and tangled together, sweat cooling between us as our breathing evens out.
Carrson strokes his hand down my arm in long, languid sweeps while I tell him everything that happened while I was gone.
Unlike with his father, I don’t hold anything back.
I go through it detail by detail, line by line, because I want him to know. I want to hear his thoughts.
I tell him everything…except that’s not totally true.
“Be careful, Laurel Turner,” Silas said. “When Carrson bonds you, The Order ain’t giving you to him. They’re taking from you.”
I don’t tell Carrson that part. Partly because our bonding seems inevitable now, after everything that happened downstairs. After the whipping. After Carr’s public declaration, but it’s more than that. The truth, when I force myself to look at it, is that I want to be bonded to Carrson.
I want him to be mine.
Permanently.
Silas thinks it’s dangerous, and he’s probably right. And yet, that doesn’t change how I feel.
I also don’t tell Carrson what Sealed by Sight means. Not yet.