Chapter 31 #2
“You are thinking about it.”
She should have walked away. I should have given her the room. Neither of us did.
Rain slid down the windows. The city beyond them disappeared. Miss Astoria jumped down from the ledge and padded toward the hallway, abandoning us with the cold intelligence of an animal who had no interest in human ruin unless it came with treats.
“Tell me to stop,” I said.
Her eyes flashed. “You have not started anything.”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because if I start, you need to know you can make me stop.”
“You think that makes this clean?”
“No.”
“Then what does it make it?”
“Yours.”
She understood what I was giving her. Ownership and choice. She had spent years stealing both from other people. Now I handed them to her and waited.
She stared at me for several seconds. Then she closed the distance and kissed me.
It was not soft. Her hands grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down hard.
She kissed like she wanted to punish me for making her want this.
Like every fear she had carried since the courtyard had turned into heat.
I stayed still for one second longer than instinct wanted, letting her take the first move.
Then I kissed her back. She made a sharp sound against my mouth.
My hands found her waist. She stiffened for half a breath, then pressed closer.
When I touched her, she did not pull away.
She stepped into it, into me, and the anger in her turned into something deeper.
“I’m still angry with you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I know.”
“This does not mean anything.”
I almost smiled.
“That one was a lie.”
She hit my chest with the flat of her hand. Then she kissed me again.
I walked her backwards down the hall, stopping outside her door.
Her door. Her lock. Her terms.
She looked up at me, eyes dark. “You are doing this on purpose.”
“Yes, my love.”
“To make me feel like I chose this.”
“To make sure you do.”
For a moment, she looked angry enough to leave. Then her hand reached behind her, opened the door, and pulled me inside with her.
Miss Astoria sat on the bed as if she owned it.
Céline stared at her. “Absolutely not.”
The cat blinked.
“Out.”
Miss Astoria did not move. I heard myself laugh, low and helpless.
Céline glanced at me, and despite everything, despite Daniel and Katherine and the file and the rain and every ugly thing waiting beneath us, she laughed too.
Then she scooped up the cat, placed her gently in the hallway, and shut the door.
She turned back to me. “I am choosing this.”
The words went straight through me. I nodded once. “Yes.”
“If I tell you to stop, you stop.”
“Yes.”
“If I hate you tomorrow—”
“You will.”
Her mouth curved in spite of herself.
“Arrogant son of a bitch.”
She crossed the room to me again, slower this time.
Her hands slid up my chest. I let her set the pace.
When she kissed me, the anger had not gone away.
It had simply mixed with the want until both of them felt the same.
I touched her carefully at first, then less carefully when she made a low sound and pulled me closer.
Her dress slipped off her shoulders. My shirt came open under her fingers.
We moved toward the bed without speaking.
She climbed onto it first and tugged me down with her.
She was still angry. I could feel it in the way she gripped my shoulders.
I gave her control where I could. I stopped when her breath hitched the wrong way.
I let her set the rhythm when she pushed me onto my back and took what she needed.
Her hands explored my body, remembering every ridge and curve.
But I also held her hips when she tried to rush it, slowing her down until she made a frustrated sound and dug her nails into my chest.
“Vincent,” she said, half warning, half plea.
I sat up, pulled her closer, and kissed her while I moved with her. Her head fell back. Her hands tightened in my hair. The power shifted between us with every breath, every touch, every sharp word she muttered against my mouth.
I slid my hand between us, pushed her dress the rest of the way up her thighs, and found her panties already wet and pulled them to the side. She gasped when my fingers brushed her. I circled her clit slowly, then faster when her hips started to move against my hand.
“Fuck, you’re soaked,” I said against her neck. “All that anger and your pussy is still dripping for me.”
“Shut up,” she breathed, but her voice cracked when I slid two fingers inside her.
She was tight, hot, and clenched around me like she both wanted me there and hated how good it felt.
I curled my fingers, stroked the spot that made her moan loud and broken.
Her head fell back. I sucked one nipple into my mouth, hard, then the other, leaving dark marks across the soft skin of her breasts while I kept working her with my fingers.
“Vincent—oh god—”
She hated me. She wanted me. She chose this. And every time the choice rose up between us again, she took it harder, like proving she could want me made the anger sharper and the pleasure deeper.
“Come on my fingers first,” I told her. “Let me feel how much you need this even though you hate me for it.”
She came with a sharp cry, thighs shaking, pussy pulsing hard around my fingers. I kept stroking her through it, drawing it out until she was panting and trembling.
She did not give me time to recover. She shoved me back, climbed on top, and yanked my pants open. My cock sprang free, hard and aching. She wrapped her hand around me and stroked once, twice.
“You think you own me now?” she said, her voice rough. “Think you can just take what you want?”
I gripped her hips. “I think you’re going to ride my cock and still tell me you hate me while you come on it.”
She sank down onto me in one slow motion.
Her pussy was still fluttering from the first orgasm, so wet and tight that the head of my cock met resistance at her entrance.
I thrust up hard anyway, burying myself to the hilt in one deep stroke.
She moaned loudly, the sound raw and surprised, her walls squeezing me so perfectly I had to grit my teeth to keep from losing it right then.
“Fuck, Céline,” I groaned. “Your pussy feels so good. So fucking tight and wet around me.”
She started moving, riding me hard, hands braced on my chest. Every time she sank I met her with a thrust, driving deeper.
I sat up, caught one breast in my mouth, sucked hard enough to leave another mark, then did the same to the other.
She cried out, fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer.
“Harder,” she gasped. “Don’t you dare be gentle.”
I flipped us so she was on her back, hooked one of her legs over my shoulder, and fucked her deeper. The angle made her moan louder, each thrust dragging against that spot inside her.
“You feel that?” I said against her ear. “That’s me inside you. Exactly where I wanted to be since the first time you looked at me like you wanted to kill me.”
“Shut up and make me come again,” she snapped, but her voice broke on the last word.
I reached between us and rubbed her clit with my thumb while I drove into her.
Her second orgasm hit harder than the first. She arched off the bed, pussy clenching around my cock in tight, rhythmic pulses, moaning my name like it hurt to say it.
I kept thrusting through it, chasing my own release, until the pressure became too much.
I came deep inside her with a low groan, hips stuttering against hers.
We stayed locked together, breathing hard, skin damp.
The rain still fell against the windows.
She did not move away. She stayed in my lap when I pulled her up, forehead against my collarbone, hands still loosely fisted in my shirt.
The anger had not left. I could feel it in the way she breathed.
But she had chosen this. She had locked the door with me inside. And for tonight, that was enough.
For that night, there was only Selena beneath my hands, no longer performing indifference, no longer mistaking control for safety, no longer pretending she did not want to be wanted by someone who had seen the truth of her damage and reached for her anyway.
I brushed her hair back from her face, and she let me. For now.