17. Three Days Until Bonding
Chapter seventeen
Three Days Until Bonding
Laurel
Carrson’s fingers thread through my hair, gripping close to my scalp as he pulls me to my feet. His free hand trails over my breasts and down my waist, ending between my legs, where he strokes the seam of my tights with firm, deliberate pressure.
“I think we were interrupted earlier,” he whispers, his voice raspy.
“Mmm, yes. So rude.” I giggle softly and cup the hard length of him through his pants. He groans, the sound ragged. I brace my palm against his chest to keep my balance and feel his heart pounding beneath it, each beat a reminder that he came back to me this time.
Worry that we might not always be so lucky gnaws at the corners of my mind, and I want to ignore it.
To pretend that we’re safe here in this abandoned house with its shattered glass.
I know I should be grateful for whatever time we have together, but I can’t accept that.
I’m not okay living a life where I could lose him.
“I don’t want to be Willow from Santa Barbara. I know why you’re giving her to me, and this house. I understand and I appreciate it, really I do, but I don’t want any of that.” I draw in a shuddering breath. “I want you.”
“You have me,” he says.
“Not while The Order owns you too.” I nip at his lower lip. “I’m greedy for you. Don’t want to share.”
“I don’t want to share you either.” Anguish moves over his face, shadowing his eyes and dragging his shoulders down.
“I hate the thought of the sealing. I’ll kill every man who sees you like that.
I know that doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s the first answer that comes to me whenever I think about it. ”
I recognize that violence in him. I have my own as well, quieter and less useful, burning holes through me every time I picture strangers watching Carrson touch me.
“I know we need to talk about the sealing,” I whisper. “But not right now.”
Carrson draws back enough to look at me.
“For now,” I say. “No one’s watching.”
I step back and cross my arms, grabbing the hem of my shirt. Carrson’s eyes follow, locked on me with such obvious hunger that my breathing quickens before I’ve removed a single thing.
I pull the shirt over my head, then let it flutter to the dusty floor. My bra comes off next, my skirt, and then my tights. Carrson’s eyes darken with each piece I take off. By the time I reach my panties, he’s undressing too.
Once we’re both naked, we stand there, looking. Then we’re crashing together, lips and teeth and hands all over bare skin. Heat flares between us.
Carrson grips my ass and lifts me in one smooth motion.
I gasp as he sets me on the piano.
The keys strike under me in a hard, discordant crash that rings through the conservatory, ugly and beautiful in the same breath. Carrson looks down at where I’m sitting, then back up at my face.
The grin that forms is darkly wicked.
He falls to his knees and spreads my legs apart with his palms.
I stare down, filled with awe at the sight of Carrson Ashford kneeling between my legs, his bare shoulders tense, hair falling over his forehead, looking less like a prince than a sinner who found a place to worship.
He puts his mouth to my core with a long lick up my center, parting me easily.
My head falls back as pleasure streaks through my body, and I brace my hands on the folded piano key cover.
Carrson devours me like a man starved, his mouth rough and hungry between my thighs until I’m trembling so hard the piano answers every movement.
He focuses where I’m most sensitive, dragging his tongue over me, sucking until my hips jerk, grazing just enough to make pleasure spark dangerously close to pain.
The piano and I cry out at the same time, both sounds loud and unrestrained.
I slide my hands into his hair and hold there as he works me. A desperate whine escapes me when he pulls away.
Carrson rises, and I look back to see his mouth wet, his eyes black with need.
“Turn,” he says, helping me stand and turn around with sure hands until my back is to him. He places one hand between my shoulder blades, guiding me forward until my chest meets the piano. The keys press into my breasts and my nipples drag over the ivory, sensitive enough to make me shudder.
Carrson’s hand moves over my backside.
He slaps me.
Lightly.
The surprise of it makes me jolt.
Carrson stops immediately. “Was that okay?”
“Yes,” I mumble, as warmth moves from where his hand struck to my core and out through the rest of my body.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs. “Someday I’m going to take you back here.” He strokes his fingers between my cheeks, and I shiver.
His palm comes down again, harder this time, and a hot rush sparks through me, making my knees spread wider. Carrson’s hand stays there after, rubbing over the sting, possessive and soothing.
“But not today,” he continues. “Are you ready?”
I’m more than ready, aching so badly for him that my thighs are slick and my body has stopped pretending it can be patient.
“Show me,” Carrson says from behind me.
“What?” I twist my head so I can see him.
“Show me how ready you are,” he commands. “Put your fingers inside yourself and feel how wet you are, how badly you want me.”
Widening my legs, I lower one hand and brush my fingers over my clit, then farther, pushing two fingers inside myself while Carrson watches from behind.
The sound I make is shameless.
His hand grips my hip. “Fuck.”
I move my fingers once, twice, feeling myself the way he must feel me. Wet and swollen and clenching. My body desperate even for my own hand because he asked this of me.
“This is how I feel to you?” I ask, breathless.
Carrson leans over me, his chest brushing my back. His mouth comes to my ear. “Better.” He catches my wrist and draws my hand away, then brings my fingers to my mouth. “Taste how sweet you are for me, tiger.”
My lips part.
I obey, sucking my fingers into my mouth and swirling my tongue over them.
His cock drags along my seam at the same time, and I moan around my fingers, my ass pushing back against him.
“See?” he says. “That’s how you taste. Fucking divine.”
Carrson grabs my hair and tugs it back, not too hard but enough to stretch out my neck and tilt my chin up. “You’re mine, Laurel. No matter what your last name is, no matter who sees you, no matter what The Order says or does.”
The words should scare me. Maybe from anyone else, they would, but Carrson’s mine doesn’t feel like The Order’s. It doesn’t feel like a chain or a claim. It feels like a vow made with his hands trembling against my skin.
He waits until I nod, the strands of hair pulling in his hand until they hurt, and then he says a soft, “I’m yours, too.”
His grip in my hair eases just enough for his lips to brush my shoulder.
“This body is mine because you gave it to me.” His hand moves from my stomach, then lower.
“This beautiful mind is mine because you let me inside it.” His fingers find my clit, circling with slow pressure that makes my legs shake.
“No one, not my father, not the Council, not the Brothers, not anyone, will ever take you from me.”
“Carrson.”
“Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
His cock pushes into me in one hard thrust.
I cry out. Carrson goes frozen behind me, buried deep, both hands locked on my hips as if he has to hold himself there or he’ll lose control.
“Still with me?” he asks, voice strained.
“Yes.” I press back against him. “Please.”
He moves then, not gentle like he can be.
He’s rough and possessive, probably driven by the leftover adrenaline from his mission, by the fear of what happened yesterday and the greater fear of what waits for us with the bonding and the sealing.
I understand it because I feel it too, this need to claim the love and lust between us as ours before anyone else tries to make it theirs.
There’s nothing graceful or polished about the way he fucks me. My palms slide over the piano’s surface, searching for something to hold. Carrson bends me farther forward, one hand on the back of my neck, the other holding my shoulder hard enough that I know I’ll feel him there later.
I want to. I want proof. I want some mark that belongs to us and no one else.
“Fuck,” he pants. “So fucking good.” He slaps my ass again, harder this time, and it sends a bright buzz through the rest of my body. “Do you like that?” he asks, slowing so he can hear me.
“Yes,” I pant, so close I can barely speak.
“Tell me.” His fingers stroke the heated skin.
“I like it,” I gasp. “Do it again. Harder.”
“How are you so perfect?” he says as he smacks my ass again, then wraps his hand around my front to run his fingers over my clit.
That’s all it takes.
I come screaming his name as the plants listen and the piano crashes under me, my body locking around his while the climax rolls through me in violent waves.
Carrson keeps moving through it, fucking me deeper, his hand firm between my legs, his mouth at my shoulder, telling me I’m his, that I’m beautiful, that no one gets this but him.
I’m still shaking when he buries himself deep and holds there, his cock spasming inside me until his warmth overflows and spills down my thighs.
He pulls out of me then, and I hiss at the sting of him leaving along with the burn on my backside.
He rubs me there. “Sorry. Made you a little pink.”
I stand and turn to him, throwing my arms over his neck. “It’s okay. I liked it.”
“You did?” he asks, not bothering to hide his delight.
My cheeks warm. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I’m extremely pleased with myself.”
I laugh despite the way that makes me blush. I hide my face in his chest. “I want you to do it again.”
Carrson kisses my hair. “You’re perfect, Laurel.” He lets out a contented sigh. “Perfect for me.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him there, naked in the ruined conservatory, with the piano behind us and the fake passport waiting beside the brass key.
The Order can have its rituals. Its witnesses.
It can have every rotten tradition it mistakes for power.
It does not get the sound of Carrson’s heart under my cheek or the places his hands left heat on my skin. It does not get the way he looks at me now, tender and undone, like I’m the only sacred thing he’s ever believed in.
They don’t get this.
It belongs to us.