Chapter 13
SAMUEL
He doesn't bother turning off the water.
One second, the shower pounds hot against my shoulders and in the next I'm in his arms, my legs locked around his waist, water streaming off both of us onto the heated tile.
My wet body slides over his and I grip his neck harder, certain I'm going to fall, but his fingers dig into the flesh of my ass with a bruising possessiveness that says he will never let that happen.
Steam follows us out of the glass enclosure and into the cold air of the master suite.
Goosebumps race across my bare skin and my nipples tighten painfully against the wall of his chest. Water drips a trail behind us across the dark concrete.
Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, the sleeping garden glows silver-green under the landscape lights, still and strange.
He stops at the edge of the bed and tosses me into the center of the comforter.
I bounce once. My breasts bounce twice. His gaze drops to them and the hunger burning in those dark brown eyes is raw enough to strip me of every pretense I've ever hidden behind.
Before I can settle, he grabs a pillow and rips the case free in one clean pull. The fabric stretches between his scarred fists. His mouth curves, slow and wicked, and the intent behind that grin sends a flood of warmth pooling between my thighs.
I crawl backward across the mattress.
He grabs my ankle and drags me back.
"Where do you think you're going, princess?"
"Away from you." I kick, but there's no force behind it. My body is already arching toward him, betraying every word coming out of my mouth.
His knee presses into the mattress and the bed dips under his weight.
He catches both my wrists in one hand and pins them above my head against the wrought-iron headboard.
The metal is cold under my knuckles, sharp against the delicate bones of my wrists.
He loops the pillowcase through the iron bars and ties it tight enough to hold, loose enough that I can twist without bruising.
I pull against the binding. It holds.
My pulse hammers against the fabric. I'm spread beneath him, wrists bound overhead, naked and dripping wet on his dark sheets, and every nerve in my body is vibrating at a frequency I didn't know existed.
"You asked for this." He settles between my thighs and the width of his shoulders forces my legs apart. Warm breath fans over the inside of my knee.
"I said tie me up and fuck me. You're only halfway there."
His laugh is low and dangerous. "You don't give the orders here."
He presses his mouth to my inner thigh. The rough scrape of his beard against tender skin pushes a gasp from my lungs. He moves higher, his lips dragging a hot, slow trail upward, and I can feel my pulse in places I didn't know had a pulse.
When his tongue parts my folds, my hips buck off the mattress.
He pins me down. One hand flat on my lower belly, fingers spread wide enough to graze the curve of my bump. His mouth closes over my clit and he sucks, hard, and the world fractures into white heat and desperate sound.
"Samuel." His name tears from my throat.
He pulls back. The cool air hits where his mouth was and I groan at the loss. His thumb strokes a slow circle over my hip bone, patient, while my body writhes under his hold.
"That's not what I want to hear."
I clench my jaw and pull against the pillowcase. The iron headboard groans under the strain. "You're delusional."
His tongue drags through my folds again, flat and slow, and the pressure on my clit builds with a precision that has my toes curling and my spine arching. Two thick fingers slide into me and curl forward, finding a place inside me that detonates pleasure so bright my vision whites out at the edges.
I moan. Loud. Shamelessly.
He works me to the cliff's edge and holds me there. My walls clamp around his fingers, desperate for the release he is deliberately withholding. Every muscle in my lower body coils tight, trembling, reaching for the orgasm shimmering just out of reach.
And then he stops. Pulls his fingers out. Sits back on his heels and watches me come undone.
"No." I twist against the restraints. "You can't just stop."
"Tell me, Cinder."
"No."
He lowers his mouth to me again and starts the torture over.
The flat of his tongue works through my soaked folds, lapping, circling, pulling my clit between his lips until I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears.
He pushes me to the peak a second time, my hips grinding against his face, my fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the iron bars above my head.
The orgasm crests, right there, right on the edge, and he pulls away again.
I scream. My back bows off the sheets and tears sting behind my lashes.
"Beg me for my cock the way I want and I'll give it to you." His voice is gravel and heat, rough enough to scrape against every raw nerve he's exposed.
I slam my eyes shut. My thighs are shaking. Slick heat runs down the inside of my legs and the empty ache between my hips is unbearable.
I twist my right wrist until the pillowcase loosens enough for me to slip free. My hand shoots between my thighs. One finger slides through my wet folds and pushes inside, and the relief is instant and overwhelming.
He catches my wrist before I can finish.
His tongue drags my arousal from my finger, his lips closing around the tip, his dark eyes locked on mine. The taste of me on his mouth, the hunger on his face. I whimper.
He reties my wrist to the headboard with a second pillowcase stripped from the other pillow, tighter this time, knotted with a patience that borders on cruelty.
"Play with your pussy while I fuck your mouth, pretty princess."
He unknots my right hand just enough for me to reach.
My fingers find my clit and I stroke, circling the swollen flesh while he kneels beside me and lifts my head with a gentle hand cupped behind my skull.
His cock is thick and hard, the veined length curving toward his navel, a drop of precum glistening at the tip.
He holds himself just out of reach. Strokes his shaft once, twice, his scarred fingers gripping the base while the head hovers near my lips.
"Beg me, Cinder. Beg your daddy for his seed and I'll give it to you."
My walls clench around nothing. Warmth spills from my core and soaks the sheets beneath me.
The word climbs my throat. I can taste it on the back of my tongue, sweet and dangerous, and the last five months of control, of survival, of never asking anyone for a single thing, crumbles under the weight of wanting this man beyond reason.
"Daddy." My voice breaks on the second syllable. "Please, daddy. Let me taste it."
His growl vibrates through his chest and rolls over my skin. My nipples ache at the sound.
He guides himself past my lips. The smooth head of his cock slides over my tongue and I open wider for him, drawing him deeper, tasting salt and musk and raw heat.
My fingers work my clit faster and the double sensation, his thick length filling my mouth, my own fingers stroking the fire building between my hips, sends me spiraling.
"Open wider for daddy, baby." His hand cradles the back of my head. His hips move in slow, measured thrusts. "Fuck yes. Just as I remember. Your pretty mouth fits me perfectly."
I moan around him and the vibration draws a ragged groan from deep in his chest.
He pulls free and positions himself between my thighs. The head of his cock presses against my entrance and the swollen flesh of my pussy stretches to take him. He sinks in slow, one thick inch at a time, and my body opens for him with a wet heat that pulls him deeper.
"I've been in love with you since the night I put my baby in you." His forehead drops to mine, his breath ragged, his hands shaking where they grip my hips. "Tell me you'll be mine."
"Yes, daddy."
I arch into him and he drives forward, filling me completely.
My walls grip him and the stretch burns in a way that blurs the line between pain and pleasure until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
He pulls back and thrusts deep, finding a rhythm that has my back arching, my wrists straining against the bindings, my moans filling the cold, quiet house with the only warmth it's ever known.
His thumb finds my clit and he strokes once, twice, and the orgasm I've been denied tears through me with a force that locks every muscle in my body. I cry out, shaking, clenching around him so hard he groans against my neck.
He follows me over. The hot pulse of his release deep inside me pushes a second wave of pleasure through my trembling body. His hips jerk and slow, his breath harsh against my throat.
He unties my wrists and pulls me to his chest. My fingers find the roses inked around my name over the black hole on his chest, the thorns and petals still new enough for the lines to be sharp under my fingertips.
"Claimed and all mine." His lips brush my forehead.
Samuel
Ihold her until her breathing steadies and her pulse drops from a sprint to a jog beneath the hand I keep pressed against her ribs. Her blonde hair fans across the dark sheets, tangled and damp, catching the faint garden light filtering through the glass.
I press a kiss to her temple and ease out of bed.
My feet hit the warm concrete and I cross the room to the closet.
The gold box sits on the top shelf where I put it three days ago, buried under folded sweaters I never wear because a man doesn't keep a ring in a nightstand drawer.
Too predictable. Too easy to second-guess.
The lid opens with a quiet snap. Sapphires rim the setting in a deep blue bed, and the diamond at the center catches the low light and scatters it across the ceiling in small white stars.
I carry it back to the bed and untangle the last of the pillowcase from the iron headboard, tossing the ruined fabric to the floor. She watches me with heavy-lidded eyes, her body still flushed pink, her lips swollen.
I kneel beside the bed and take her hand.
Her light blue eyes go wide. Silver flickers through the pale irises and her bottom lip disappears between her teeth.
"You already asked me in the shower."
"And you didn't answer me in the shower. You challenged me instead." I open the box and hold it so the sapphires catch the garden light. "Marry me, Cinder. I'm done playing, done waiting, done pretending a life without you in it is worth living."
She sits up. The sheet pools around her waist and her hand trembles when she reaches for the ring. Her fingers brush the diamond and then she cups my face with both hands and pulls me to her mouth.
The kiss is warm and slow, her lips softer than they were ten minutes ago, the fire replaced with something quieter and more devastating.
"Yes." She breathes it against my lips. "Yes, I'll marry you."
I slide the ring onto her finger and the sapphires settle against her skin. The fit is right. I knew it would be. I memorized the circumference of her ring finger five months ago while she slept in my arms and I spent two hours staring at her hands.
I climb into bed beside her and pull her against my chest. She tucks herself under my chin, her palm resting over the black hole and my name, her ring finger catching light every time she moves.
The house settles around us. The climate system hums low enough to register in my teeth. Beyond the glass, an enforcer's shadow crosses the far fence line and disappears.
"How can I rest when I know what's coming?" Her voice is barely louder than a whisper.
"Because I'm here to protect you."
Her fingers trace the edge of the vines climbing from the void over my heart. "Why do your friends call you Bones?"
My jaw tightens and then relaxes. If she is going to wear my ring, she deserves to know the man behind the name.
"It's a dark story."
"I want to know the man I'm marrying." She angles her head up, her eyes clear and steady. "Please trust me with your darkness as I trust you with my light."
I pull her closer and rest my chin on the crown of her head. The garden beyond the glass is still and silent, the hedges pale green under the landscape lights.
"Years ago a man in my territory killed his wife. She was a good woman. Kind. She had the nerve to defy him in front of his associates and he beat her to death for it. He dumped her body at the edge of my property."
Cinder's fingers curl against my chest. Her breathing changes, her chest expanding slow and careful.
"I cared for her body. Cremated her with respect and ground the remains to ash. Then I invited the husband to dinner."
Silence.
"He left that night with a belly full of his wife's ashes and a spirit so broken he never harmed another person as long as he lived." I exhale through my nose. "Valerian was there. He started calling me Bones after that and it stuck."
Cinder is quiet for a long stretch. Her thumb traces slow circles against my ribs, her ring catching the light with each pass. When she speaks, her voice is thick with sleep and raw from the night's intensity.
"You punished a man who killed an innocent woman." Her lips press against my chest, right over the black hole. "And you honored the dead."
"Some would call it monstrous."
"Some didn't know the woman who died."
My arms tighten around her. The warmth of her body seeps into mine and fills the cold places in my heart that have been frozen for longer than I want to remember. The baby shifts between us, a small kick against my forearm, and I spread my palm wide over the curve.
Her lashes flutter against my skin. Sleep is pulling her under and she's fighting it, her fingers still moving against my ribs, her breath growing longer and deeper.
"I love you, Samuel." The words are barely louder than an exhale.
I press my lips to the crown of her head and hold them there. In a few hours, the sun will rise and the work of ending Edgar will begin. Blood will spill. Orders will be given. The world outside these walls will demand the version of me that grinds bones and buries enemies.
But right now, my ring sits on her finger. My child kicks against my palm. And my princess sleeps in my arms.
I close my eyes and hold on to her, feeling the emptiness in my soul fill with love. A love I’ll do anything to protect.