42. Aeris
Aeris
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, the phrase repeated so often I was pretty sure Caden couldn’t even hear it anymore.
Because as expected he didn’t respond, sweeping through my house with his gun to make sure we were alone. I’d already checked the home security, which showed no doors or windows had been opened in my absence, but Caden wasn’t convinced.
“If Vivienne finds out—”
“You let me deal with Vivienne,” he grunted, moving to the kitchen and opening my freezer like he owned the place.
“Caden—”
He didn’t respond.
Grabbing a bag of frozen peas, he wrapped it in one of my tea towels, the one with little blue shells printed across it, then turned towards me.
“Come here.”
Reluctantly, I stepped closer, hissing when he pressed the cold bundle against my bruised knuckles.
“Let me guess,” I muttered, breathing him in without thinking. His scent was like dark chocolate and whisky, something distinctively him. “You think I’m completely defenceless.”
Caden’s mouth flattened, his stare hard enough to pin me in place. “You nearly broke your hand because you don’t know how to throw a punch.”
“I’ll have you know I kill men regularly,” I replied dryly.
“You poison them while they’re distracted by their cock.”
My brow arched. “Is that really all you think I do?”
A smirk tugged at my lips as I slid my free hand slowly down the front of his chest. Beneath my fingertips, every muscle felt coiled, tight with tension.
“I lure men somewhere private,” I said softly. “Men who think they’re untouchable. Pimps. Wife beaters. Rapists who believe having a cock between their legs makes them superior.”
My nails drifted lower, tracing over the hard line of his abdomen before gliding across his belt. “They come willingly,” I murmured with a wink. “Pun intended.”
The second my hand brushed lower, Caden caught my wrist.
“Aeris—” he warned.
“So uptight,” I murmured. “You’d think you were the one who got attacked.”
His eyes darkened, and he caught my waist and pulled me against him, so quick I could barely react, until my breasts pressed firm against his chest.
“Is there something you need to explain to me?”
I tilted my chin back. “Like what?”
“Like those documents.” His eyes searched mine, as if waiting for the moment I would lie.
I almost laughed. “I need to know that if it goes wrong, and I lose, they’ll be safe.”
“Disappointing. I would’ve pegged you as more of an optimist.”
A faint smile tugged at my lips. “Sometimes life forces you to be a realist, no matter how much you want to be a romantic.”
“Are you giving up, Tempest?”
I let out a breath, pulling my wrist free so I could place the peas into the sink. Leaving him in my kitchen, I moved to my living room and wrapped my arms around myself. My knuckles ached, the skin beginning to purple, but I could flex them no problem.
Sometimes, when I walked away from these situations unharmed, broken but not beyond repair, it seemed like some kind of sick joke.
“Aeris?”
I blinked, unhappy to have phased out under a gaze as intense as his. “Look,” I said flatly, staring at the dark window instead of him, “your little pet is fine.” I turned just enough to see him leaning one arm against the doorframe, broad shoulders filling it completely. “You can go.”
He looked completely out of place in my home, all hard edges, stoic expressions, and quiet violence against my chaos of colours and clash of furnishings.
“Aeris …”
“God, what do you want, Caden?” My voice came out colder than I intended. The adrenaline had finally burned off, leaving something hollow and exhausted in its place. “Why are you here?”
“Because you were hurt.”
I barked out a laugh, sharp and empty. “You say it like you care.” My throat tightened painfully. “I’m the one who’s blackmailing you, remember? Who put you in the position to be assaulted.”
Caden straightened slightly, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity I couldn’t stand looking at for too long. “Aeris …”
“Do you know I’ve lost count of how many men I’ve fucked because Selene told me to?” I asked, the words spilling out ugly and fast, like I couldn’t control them. “I’ve lost count of how many I’ve killed too, and that’s not even including those on my list.”
I wanted to see disgust on his face, revulsion, anything close to what I felt whenever I looked at myself for too long in the mirror. Because then he wouldn’t look at me like that. Like he didn’t hate me.
“Your list?” he asked quietly, stepping closer as I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum as though it might stop the ache spreading there. My pulse felt uneven, my lungs tight, panic clawing slowly up my throat like cold water filling my chest.
“Everyone who hurt me when I was fifteen.”
Something dangerous flickered across his face. His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering sharply beneath his skin. “How many are left?”
I had to swallow the panic, my fingers instinctively reaching for a blanket I’d draped over the sofa. I used the fabric to keep me in the present, something soft to hold onto as those vicious memories tried to pull me back under.
My voice, when it came, was so quiet I wasn’t sure he even heard it. “Just one.”
Caden stared at me for so long it started to feel unbearable, like he was seeing every broken piece of me I’d spent years trying to keep hidden.
Then he moved. One second there was distance between us, and the next his hand was around the back of my neck, firm and warm, pulling me towards him until my cheek pressed against the heavy beat of his heart.
He just … held me. Like I was fragile. Like I mattered. For once there was no panic, no need to shove him away, so I sank into that comfort like he were a lifeboat.
“You don’t get to do this,” I said after a moment, pulling back to look at him. “You don’t get to come here and hold me after everything.”
“You think surviving makes you unworthy?” he asked, voice rough.
“You don’t know what I am,” I whispered. “The half of the things I’ve done.”
“No,” he said, stepping impossibly closer until there was nowhere left for me to retreat. “I know exactly what you are.”
My heart slammed hard against my ribs. “And what’s that?”
His thumb brushed lightly beneath my jaw, the touch so unexpectedly gentle it nearly undid me. “Mine.”
The word shattered something inside me, and I reacted before I overthought it. I kissed him, going on my toes so I could crush my lips to his. It wasn’t soft or gentle. It was desperate.
My good hand fisted in the front of his shirt, and Caden made a low sound against my lips. He pulled me impossibly tighter, one hand at my waist while the other remained at the back of my neck, like he thought I might disappear if he loosened his grip.
My lips felt swollen, and I wanted nothing more than to get lost in his kiss.
I was using him, using his heat, his body to chase away the nightmares of things I’d done. Things that had been done to me.
His lips moved down to my neck, sucking at the skin as his fingers unapologetically moved closer to between my thighs. And I wanted it. Because I chose this. Because I initiated it. Needed it. Needed him to help me forget that I was just some whore. A murderer on a leash. Selene’s pretty puppet.
Pulling back, Caden looked at me with eyes so dark they resembled the deepest parts of a glacier, the ice beneath the water that no one ever gets to see.
Fingers pressed between my legs, stroking over the fabric. “Look how wet you get for me,” he growled, nipping along my jaw.
God, I was wet. Embarrassingly so.
“Who says this is for you?”
A sharp rip, lace fluttering to the floor before a thick finger thrust inside me, making me gasp.
“You really do like to test me, don’t you, Tempest?” he chuckled, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. His other hand pinched my nipple above the fabric of my dress, the pain sharp before he brushed his thumb over to ease the ache.
Clearly I was more messed up than I realised, because I was teasing the one man who had reason to kill me and my thighs were slick with arousal.
Even now he pushed, taking control when I usually hated dominance.
Yet anticipation tingled down my spine at the way he was using my own body against me, distracting me with his fingers, stretching me on a second all while he tugged and played with my nipples.
It was as though everything he did was designed to heighten every sensation until I couldn’t think of anything but him.
“Caden,” I gasped, his thumb circling my clit.
“Only good girls get to come.” He flicked my clit once, not enough to make me orgasm, but enough to make me whimper, almost beg.
I groaned when he pulled out, only to suck his two fingers between his lips before shoving them between mine.
Holy shit.
I immediately wrapped my tongue around them, sucking them into my mouth as his gaze seared across my face, the intensity in them burning.
He pulled them out with a pop, and then my dress was gone, torn down the centre like he was some kind of brute.
For some reason I didn’t care, not when his hands were on my breasts, thumbs circling the nipples in a way that had my pussy weeping.
“Such a needy little slut.” His touch was gentle compared to his harsh tone.
“Go fuck yourself,” I hissed, reaching for his belt. Each loop making my desire grow, my legs weak with how much I wanted this.
“Why, when I can just fuck you?” Caden lost his patience, tugging his own belt out and unfastening his jeans. He didn’t give me a chance to appreciate him, already lifting me in his arms and slamming my back against the wall hard enough my shelf rattled.
His cock pressed against my wet folds, and I cried out when he thrust inside.
“You’re fucking soaking, Tempest,” he growled against my throat, his hips pulling back only to push in harder. Until I ached with the stretch.
It’s not all going to fit, I thought, slightly panicking.
“Come on. You can take me, can’t you?”
“Caden …” I groaned, trying to angle my hips to take him deeper. He had me pinned completely against the wall, legs locked around his waist as he set a slow but punishing pace. Every time I managed to draw a breath, his next thrust knocked it right back out of my lungs.
“Look at you trying,” he continued, one hand sliding up to wrap firmly around my throat. “So fucking tight. You’re struggling, Tempest.”
I met every thrust with desperate rolls of my hips, greedy for more even as it bordered on too much. I was addicted to it—the stretch, the burn, the overwhelming fullness. I chased the pain because it made me feel something real. Something raw.
Only Caden could make me feel this alive.
“God,” I groaned, each thrust of his hips hitting something inside me that had pleasure building too fast, too intense.
“God’s not fucking here.” His fingers tightened until the edges of my vision began to blur. “I am.”
His pace turned frantic, unrestrained as he fucked me until I took every inch. Until I didn’t know where he ended and I began.
My orgasm tore through me like a hurricane, my mind splintering into a million different pieces.
I came so hard my legs trembled, the pleasure rolling through me enough for my eyes to close and my lips to part.
And through it Caden kept touching me, grounding me with little nips of his teeth and strokes of his fingers over my pulse.
Another flex of his fingers, hard enough to bruise like he was barely holding himself back from killing me. “Eyes on me, Tempest.”
I almost rebelled, almost told him to go fuck himself again, just to see him react. To make him hurt me, because that was what I deserved. But I didn’t, instead opening my eyes only for our gazes to collide.
“Look how well you submit.” Caden looked about ready to burn me alive, to destroy me in every possible way.
His eyes were wild, pupils blown wide with raw hunger and barely leashed violence.
I smirked, deciding to do it anyway. “Fuck—”
His fingers tightened again, stealing my voice and the last of my breath.
“You really don’t want to finish that sentence.”
He kept his hand locked around my throat, my lungs beginning to burn as he fucked me through it, chasing his own release.
My second orgasm built impossibly fast on the heels of the first, sharper, darker and more devastating.
It crashed over me without warning, tearing through my body like lightning.
I came hard around his cock, wave after wave of blinding pleasure ripping me apart all while I couldn’t breathe.
But I could hold my breath for a long time, and the longer my lungs burned, the calmer I felt.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Come for me. Let me feel this tight little cunt milk my cock.”
My pussy clamped down around him almost viciously, gushing and pulsing as the pleasure consumed me whole. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision, the intensity so overwhelming I thought I might pass out, and with it came a sense of serenity.
Only then did Caden finally loosen his grip, allowing me one desperate, gasping breath right as he buried himself to the hilt and came with a guttural groan. Thick, hot spurts of cum flooded deep inside me, pulse after pulse, claiming me from the inside out.
It was ecstasy and survival colliding in one terrifying, perfect moment.
Tears burned down my cheeks as waves of euphoria crashed over me.
My body was screaming for oxygen, my survival instincts clawing desperately at the edges of my mind, but the pleasure …
God, the pleasure was stronger. Darker. It twisted through me like liquid fire, turning the panic into something obscene.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I wasn’t supposed to find comfort from the man I was going to kill.