Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
VANESSA
He can’t love me. That’s such a strong word. A statement that doesn’t fit what we’re doing here. The guy has barely touched me, for fuck’s sake. It just doesn’t— “No,” I snap. “You don’t get to say that and pretend you mean it. No way.”
He jerks back as though I’d fucking slapped him. The goddamn wounded look on his face almost undoes me. Almost . “I don’t pretend about shit like that.” Chaos scrambles away from me, shoving to his feet. “I don’t fucking tell people shit like that.”
Oh, hell… I went and broke the sociopath. “How am I supposed to know that about you?” I slide my way up the wall behind me, rising to my feet also. “Tell me how I’m supposed to know if this is all some bullshit to manipulate me or if you really are a guy who can fall that fast and hard when I know nothing about you.” I shove a hand toward my journal—abandoned on the nightstand. “You’ve read everything that matters about me. I know nothing about you other than your cut—which says you’re the president—and you have no qualms about letting yourself into strangers' houses.” I shake my head. “How am I supposed to make a judgment call based on those things alone?”
“Do I make you feel unsafe?” He swallows, brow twitching in and out of a frown.
“You make me feel…” I utter a sigh. What do I feel? “You challenge me.” Close enough.
“Good.” He strides to the bed and digs around in his cut for his phone, bringing it out to check the screen.
“Something more important you should be doing?”
“No.” His head whips up, that fucking scowl still furrowed deep. “I’ve got… family shit to deal with.”
He has a family. Of course, he does. But why does my brain shoot straight to a wife and child, not parents or brothers and sisters? I drop my gaze to his hand and search for a ring.
“Jealous, Vanessa?” The frustration melts off his stupidly handsome face, replaced by a cocky self-assuredness. There’s the Chaos I recognize. Not the man shedding his armor mere moments ago.
“Why would you say that?”
“You looked as though I’d eaten the last slice of cake when I said the word ‘family.’”
“Pardon?” I fold my arms across myself.
“You looked devastated,” he clarifies, sauntering toward me.
I could duck right and escape out the door right now. Get the fuck out of here before he reaches me. Yet the feeling that I’d miss out has my feet rooted to the floorboards. I want to know how this ends. I want to see where this goes.
He came here for something, and I don’t think he’s got it yet.
“Shocked, is all.” I shrug. “I hadn’t considered that you had a family. You’re just this… this…”
“Inhuman creature, to be feared?”
I snort. Fuck it. “No.”
“Find that funny?” He frowns, stalling when he gets within two feet of me.
“You’ve done nothing to make me want to fear you.”
“You reckon?” Chaos folds his arms, drawing my attention to the fact that he’s still very much naked on the top half. “I broke into your house.”
“You took advantage of a shitty lock.”
“I watched your every move.”
“So does my stepfather.” My smile fades.
He exhales heavily out his nose, glancing to the side. “I’ve got cameras in your house.”
Okay—back the fuck up. “The hell?”
“Nowhere I’d see you naked.” His gaze blazes as it roves the length of me. “Unless you walk through your house in the buff on the regular.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Are they in here? He said nowhere I get naked, so they must be elsewhere. The kitchen? Living room?
“How else can I keep an eye on things while I run the club?” He states the fact so plainly, like a man explaining why he braises the beef first before grilling it. The reasoning is so cut and dried for him. A non-issue.
“Keep an eye on what?” I shake my head and spin for the door, striding to the living areas. “I’ve done fine on my own without your help. I don’t need you fucking spying on me!”
Chaos follows, leaning against the doorframe as I scour the living room for a goddamn nanny-cam. How big is the fucking thing? I don’t even know what the fuck I am looking for.
“Where the fuck is it?” I holler, shoving books back and forth along the shelves. “You said cameras, too. As in, plural. How many do you have?”
“Stop.”
“No.” I sweep my hand along the edges of the giant picture above the mantel. “Tell me, you fucking asshole.”
“Why does it bother you?”
Is he for fucking real? “Why should it not?” I stall, hands falling to my sides as I stare at the moron with my lips parted in disbelief.
“You didn’t mind me being in your bed.” He shrugs.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I fucking jolted so goddamn hard when I realized you were there that I pulled a muscle in my neck. So yeah, I did kind of mind.” Liar.
“Where?” Chaos frowns, pushing off the doorway. He moves behind me, hands lifting to my shoulders. “What side?”
The man tenderly kneads the flesh, working the stiffness out of my neck. My eyes slip closed, and I fight the bite of tears when he sweeps my loose hair out of the way. He’s a goddamn stalker. A talkative one, at that. But a stalker nonetheless, and yet, when he touches me, I goddamn realize what I’ve missed all these years in being alone.
Empathy. Care. The love of another human being.
“Does it feel any better?” His thumbs push hard against the base of my skull.
I moan at the instant relief.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” His guttural words glide over me in a caress.
I lean toward him. Supplicating. Eager.
There’s nothing good that can come from this. And yet, I sprint toward that cliff with careless abandon, tasting the salt of the black water thrashing below on my parched tongue.
The room falls quiet save for the rush of our breaths; any remaining protest is lost as I turn to putty beneath his hands. Chaos works the tendons until I’m a veritable ragdoll in his hands, sliding his flat palm to the base of my throat, testing.
Asking.
I acquiesce, tilting my head to offer better access as his fingertips explore the planes of my chest, teasing the neckline of my T-shirt.
My hands find their way to his legs, palms flat against the hard muscle of his thighs.
“Do you want me to stop?” His murmured question tickles my ear.
I tilt my head back and rest it against his chest. “If I give myself to you, I want you to promise this isn’t a one-and-done thing. That I mean more to you than a self-gratifying one-night stand.”
He exhales as though disappointed, his left hand finding my hip. “What does this tell you?” Chaos extends his right arm, holding the hand that was at my throat before us.
It shakes.
Fucking trembles with his jangled nerves.
I reach for him, sliding my hands along his forearm to entwine my left with his, closing my right over the back. I’ve never had anyone be that intimidated by me. Me. My throat closes, emotions warring within. I’m fucking honored. Floored that he would want me so damn badly.
That I mean so much.
I turn in Chaos’s arms, keeping my left hand knitted with his right, and place my other on his shoulder. The slope of the muscle is a treat to the senses.
There’s nothing that needs to be said.
I search his breathtaking gaze, from blue to brown and back, digging for a sign that this is too good to be true. All I find is adoration. Absolute fascination as he studies me right back.
My gaze drops to his mouth. Fuck.
His lips are warm. Soft and gentle when he ducks his head to meet me and places his mouth to mine. This should have happened days ago. The connection was already there, and as his teeth graze over my bottom lip, I can’t help but grieve the time we’ve already lost.
“Vanessa.” My name is a whisper as he sets his forehead to mine. “Before we get too into this, you were right: there’s stuff you should know about me.”
“Not now,” I whisper. Don’t ruin the moment—please.
Chaos’s hand tightens on my hip. “I killed my father, and I’ll kill yours too if you ask me.”
Holy. Shit. I said I wanted to know more about him. I goddam asked for this. “You promise?”
His touch slides to the side of my face, fingers tangled in my hair as he pulls back to study my eyes. “Are you fucking with me?”
“Are you?” My goddamn skin tingles. I haven’t felt this alive in so damn long.
His mouth crashes back to mine, arm banding tight around my waist to pull me against his hard body. I relish his fingers in my hair, the way his thumb traces my jaw, his grip desperate as he keeps me close. I fucking relish everything about this messed-up man.
I love that he makes me feel okay to be myself.
Accepted. Good enough.
“Such a fucking enigma,” he praises, breathless. “So fucking mine.”
Oh my God. Yes. I snatch at his belt, fumbling to undo the clasp.
His firm hand encircles my wrists, jerking my touch away. “No.” Using my spread arms to maneuver me, he forces me backward until my lower back hits the lip of the kitchen counter. “This ain’t about me today.” I release a gasp as he shifts his hands to my waist and lifts me atop the marble. “This is all for you.”
The fucking man gets to his knees.
I’m goddamn soaked and ready to go. Fucking hell. A tremor rips through me when Chaos lifts his gaze, peering at me from beneath a firm brow. I give in, weaving the fingers of my right hand through his mess of blond and brown hair, fisting it in my grip.
His eyes slip closed, head arcing back to expose the strong column of his throat.
Jesus wept. The man craves submission.
“What are you going to do for me?” I growl, sliding straight into hell with him.
“Make you come.”
Fucking almost did. “How?”
“By eating your pussy.” He opens his eyes, his stunning gaze fixed on me as I tremble atop the counter.
“Guess you should get your shit together and remove my panties, then.” Palms to the counter behind me, I lean back and spread my legs a little.
He mutters something incomprehensible, tattooed hands moving for the waistband. I shift my weight to help, the cotton sliding down my legs, his fingertips trailing in its wake. He tickles the instep of my foot with his caress, and I jerk my knee higher to pull away.
Palms lock around my ankle. “Sensitive?”
“Impatient.” I smirk.
He smiles, hands traveling north. I’m caught in his gaze, greedily drinking in the intensity of his focus. It’s almost critical, the way he stares, but at the same time, there’s a gratifying sense of captivation—as though he couldn’t look away if he wanted to.
Rough palms reach my thighs, and he twists his wrists to push against the inside of my knees.
I resist. Brat.
Chaos tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, fighting a grin. His hands circle beneath my knee, and with a cocky lift of one eyebrow, he jerks his arms wide.
My legs sweep across the edge of the counter, and I readjust my elbows beneath me to save myself from losing balance. Hot.
“If you want me to be a good boy, you’ve got to let me eat it, Vanessa.”
Jesus motherfucking… My head collapses backward between my shoulders as I groan. Where has this been all my life? For so long, I thought I craved the dominance of a man. The idea that somebody else made the decisions for me and shouldered the weight of those choices. But having Chaos slide his goddamn hands up the inside of my thighs as he exhales heavily, eager to please?
Sign me the fuck up.
“Talk to me,” he demands. “Tell me what you want me to do, Ness.”
“I want you to do your fucking best to make me come, and then I want you to try even harder to do it again.” Who. The fuck. Am I?
“Yes, Ma’am.” Hot lips brush my inner thigh, and I tense at the sudden contact. “One word, and I stop.”
“Which word?” I grumble.
He exhales as though amused. “Enigma.”
“Okay.” He’s called me that a few times now. Wrote it in the margins of my journal. Is that how he sees me? A puzzle to solve? “You may proceed.”
I shiver as his gentle fingers brush against my sex, spreading me for his perusal. He mumbles something I can’t quite catch again, distracting me with his hidden words before the hot seal of his mouth envelops my cunt. I groan from low in my gut, fighting the urge to hold him to me as he laves my opening and then flickers his tongue against my clit. Chaos repeats the action, pushing deeper with each sweep of his strong tongue.
My thighs clench, fists pushed hard against the counter as the telltale tingle builds from my core, spreading through my limbs. Goddamn it. It’s been weeks since I last masturbated, thanks to the fucking hormonal fluctuations of my cycle, but shit, this soon?
The goddamn demon adds his fingers to the mix, pushing two inside my slick heat.
“Fuck.” I jerk backward across the countertop, stimulation on overdrive.
He pulls his fingers free, mouth still lavishing my pussy with the adoration he promised, and grips my ankles to pull me closer again.
This man could drag me to the bedroom by my hair, and I’m convinced at this point I’d leave a fucking snail trail in my wake.
I’m severely fucked up—there’s no other explanation as to why I whimper like a goddamn puppy begging for treats as he fingers my swollen pussy.
The climax comes out of nowhere, a storm surge taking hold as I tense and twist, the rush of euphoria seeking an outlet. Goddamn gibberish passes my lips, entwined with disbelieving giggles at how goddamn good it felt.
The man drinks like it’s necessary for his survival.
“How the…?” I push up to see him and immediately collapse again when he shoves three fingers into my supplicated cunt.
“Let me work,” he growls, shoving my clenching thighs wider apart. “One down, one to go.”
I may die.
I’m sure of it.
Never mind guns or knives or death by asphyxiation. My fucking stalker slash intruder will kill me with orgasms. What a goddamn headstone that’ll be.
“You have no idea how hard I am right now.” He growls the words against my leg, teeth grazing my skin.
“Show me.”
“No.”
I cry out with displeasure. “Why?”
“Because this is about you, Vanessa.” The fucking asshole twists his wrist as his fingers enter me again, curling them toward the sweet spot on my front. Oh no, he isn’t. I may have done my best to avoid relationships in more recent years, but I’ve been around the block enough times to know what this means.
“I can’t,” I whine. “Oh my God. It’s too much.”
He tugs his hand free with a wet pop. “Your pussy seems to tell me it can.”
The damn slickness coats my ass. There is no shame here.
“Besides,” Chaos purrs. “You’re not saying the word that’ll make me stop.”
Enigma. It rattles in my mind, tangled with criticisms. Whore. Shameful. You’re tainted. Nobody will want you after they’ve seen this—even him. The last line jars my eyes open, breath stuck in my throat.
He said that. He told me those words before I left.
I can’t… I can’t breathe. Fuck.
“Enigma.”