Chapter 3
CINDER
His teeth leave a sting on my neck that has me gripping the lapels of his suit jacket. The pain is sweet, sharp, and exactly what I need to ground me in a body that has been numb since morning.
"You don't have to explain why you were about to let that waste of oxygen walk you to his room." His breath fans warm against the mark he just left on my skin. "But I'd love to know why you chose him, of all people, to give yourself to."
The question wraps around the ache in my heart. I swallow hard and press my forehead against his chest. The steady thud of Samuel’s heart vibrates through the thin fabric of his shirt.
Samuel. I’ve gotten really cozy thinking of this man on a first name basis oddly fast.
I latch onto that thought because it’s easier than thinking about the real answer to his question.
"I don't think I could get through the truth without crying," I offer honestly.
His hand moves from my hair to the back of my neck, cradling the base of my skull, his thumb stroking the line of my jaw. He tips my face up. Dark brown eyes lock onto mine and the intensity there steals my next breath.
"The only tears I want to see in your eyes are the ones I put there from fucking you long and hard."
Heat flashes through me so fast my knees buckle. His arm tightens at my waist, holding me steady against all six feet four inches of him.
"Please don't sugarcoat it." A nervous laugh slips through my lips. I press my palms flat to his chest and give myself the pretense of distance. "I'm sorry, your name?"
I know exactly who he is. Every woman in Chicago with a pulse and a news feed knows Samuel "Bones" Payne.
But he doesn't know I know, and the rules I set for tonight are already in pieces on the floor of this elevator.
No names. No kissing. Out by sunup. Two out of three broken and the night has barely started.
Might as well play a little while I can.
"Samuel Payne."
His name leaves his mouth in that low, deliberate tone and I let it roll through me. The husk of his voice syncing with the rough glide of his fingers over the exposed skin at my lower back.
Both work in tandem raising the heat level coursing through my body.
Calluses skim over my bare skin and the friction sends waves of need racing straight to my thighs.
“And you, my princess?”
"Cinder," I offer, and the vulnerability of it hits a second later. But I hold back my last name. I can give him the girl behind the grief, but not the real me. That has to be earned.
"Cinder," he repeats, as if he's tasting each syllable. His fingers trace the curve of my spine where the dress dips low, and my body arches toward him on impulse.
Then the grief crashes back without warning.
I buried my father this morning. I’ve washed, but when I look at my hands I can still see the handful of dirt I tossed on his coffin.
I'm standing in an elevator with a stranger's hands on my bare skin, and for one ugly second the shame crawls up from the base of my spine and wraps around my throat.
I shouldn’t be here.
What kind of woman buries her father and gives herself to a killer before the flowers on the casket wilt?
The answer comes quick and fierce. The kind who refuses to drown.
I shove the shame into the same black box I locked my tears in this morning. I am allowed to want this. I am allowed to choose what happens to my body when every other piece of my life has been stolen from me.
Samuel skewers me with a hard look. I have a feeling not much passes him by. “What were you just thinking?”
His thumb traces my bottom lip. Dark eyes narrow, reading my face with a patience that borders on unsettling.
I don't give him the truth. I give him a redirect and mean every word.
Tonight did not go as planned, but I can make something sweet from bitter ruins.
I can give my virginity on my terms. Tomorrow I can contact Lavender, crash at her place, start digging for information on who my stepmother hired to kill my father.
The last thing I need is Bianca and Gianna showing up at my apartment to kick me out since the place belonged to my dad and now them.
Fuckers.
But that's tomorrow's war. Tonight I want oblivion.
Dark eyes consider me.
"Never mind that. I want to forget my problems for a night." I slide my hand up his chest, over the hard ridge of his collarbone, and twine my fingers into the loose hair at the base of his skull. "Can you make that happen, daddy?"
A growl rolls through him. Deep and low, vibrating through his chest into mine. Every red blood cell in my body warms.
"Daddy, huh?"
"There's definitely a gap in our ages." I glide my fingertips through the silver threading his temples, then lower to stroke along the trim of his dark beard.
The coarse hair prickles against my skin and I lean in, close enough to catch his scent.
Cedar. Black pepper. And underneath both, something warm and raw and purely male.
"Does that bother you, Cinder?"
Mmm. “I like the way you say my name,” I husk, barely recognizing this inner vixen coming to the surface.
I take his hand from my waist and press his palm flat over the peak of my nipple.
The heat of his skin burns through the thin fabric of my dress and a sharp jolt of pleasure races straight between my thighs.
His eyes darken. The lines of his jaw go hard, shadows carving the angles of his face into something predatory.
"Does it feel like it bothers me?"
His fingers close over my breast and I bite back a moan.
He rolls the stiff peak between his thumb and forefinger, slow and deliberate, watching my face while he does it.
No need to play coy. He commands the very atmosphere in this elevator.
The danger rippling off him is real, and in this moment, it is the biggest turn-on of my life.
His free hand gathers the hem of my dress and drags the fabric up my thigh. Cool air hits bare skin. His knuckles graze the soft inside of my leg and my hips tilt toward him on instinct.
The elevator doors open.
Snow falls past floor-to-ceiling windows in thick, lazy flakes. Chicago spreads below, a scatter of lights blurred by altitude and weather. A fireplace burns low across the penthouse suite, flames licking over dark stone and casting amber shadows across cream-colored sheets and polished furniture.
Samuel walks me backward through the door, his mouth on mine before I register the room around us. This kiss is the real one. The brush in the elevator was a preview. This is a fiery claiming.
His mouth moves over mine with a controlled hunger that pulls the breath from my lungs.
He tastes like whiskey, smoky and warm with a faint sweetness that coats my tongue and makes me press up on my toes for more.
His hand cups the back of my head, angling me exactly where he wants it, and I open for him.
His tongue slides against mine, slow and thorough, and a sound leaves my throat that I’ve never made for another man.
Then again, I’ve never been kissed so deeply before that even my toes curl.
He backs me across the room until my knees hit the edge of the bed. The sheets are cool under my palms when I brace myself. He pulls back just enough to reach for the zipper at my back.
"You're shaking."
"I know."
"Do you want to stop?"
"No." The word comes fast and sure. I reach for his jacket and push it off his shoulders. "I want this. I'm choosing this."
His jacket hits the floor. I work the buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers and he stands perfectly still, letting me set the pace. Button by button, his body appears. Ink covers most of his skin. I push the shirt open and my breath catches.
Tattoos of torn flesh span his inner ribs, so detailed the exposed rib bones and shredded red muscle look real in the firelight.
The work travels across his chest and down the sides of his lats, revealing more bone along the way.
And over his heart, where the ink parts to reveal skin, sits a black hole. Dark. Empty. Deliberate.
My fingers hover over the void. The fire pops and hisses behind me. Snow drifts past the windows.
"That's intense."
Those dark eyes lift from where I touch the place over his heart to hold my gaze. His gaze holds mine, and every bit of ink on his body makes sense. The black hole. The torn flesh. The exposed bone. This man wears his damage on his skin because there's nowhere left to bury it.
"It's honest, princess."
“Brutally so.”
I trace the edge of the black hole and his stomach muscles contract under my touch. He catches my wrist, brings my fingers to his mouth, and presses his lips against the tips.
"Your turn, princess."
He pulls the zipper the rest of the way down. My dress pools at my feet and I stand in front of him in black lace panties and heels. I didn’t bother with a bra. I couldn’t stand the tight constraint of the elastic and silk when I dressed this morning.
Cool air tightens my skin and my nipples peak hard in the chill.
His gaze moves over me. Down the line of my throat, over the swell of my breasts, my belly, my hips. He takes his time and I let him.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on."
He sinks to his knees in front of me.
The sight of this man, all muscle, ink and scarred knuckles, kneeling while snow falls past the windows, sends a raw, aching need through me.
He hooks his fingers into the sides of my panties and drags them down my legs.
As he does, he presses a kiss to my hip bone.
My inner thigh. The crease where my leg meets my body.
Each kiss is gentle. Each one a question my body answers with a shiver.
For a known killer, he’s a gentle beast.
My fingers sink into his hair and I pull the tie free. Dark locks fall around his shoulders. Silver threads catch the firelight and begs for me to slip my fingers into it as I ride him from above.
My pussy clenches and releases at the idea.