CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
SAINT
When he rests his head on my chest, my heart melts into something I fully understand, but can’t acknowledge. My mind screams to run from this, to pull away from this stillness because the silence will become aggravating.
I have never been good with silence. Only motion. Motion when I hurt. Motion when I bleed. When I’m furious. When I’m humiliated. I keep going.
My hand strokes into his hair, and his body sags against mine in ease. I had seen the horror in his eyes when he walked into my apartment. Hours before, he had wanted everything between us to remain professional.
And I should have sent him away, but I couldn’t bear the thought of throwing him out into the night.
Not when I still recall the warmth of holding him inside the darkness of that prison.
Not when everything changed the moment I crawled across the jagged floor to get to him.
Even as my heart hammers against my chest, I won’t let him go.
I won’t run. I’ll stay with him because he needs me.
I’m feeding my sickness, letting it control my thoughts and actions. But I don’t care. It’s for Mason. As long as I’m drowning in him, then no fucking problem. My fingers trace against my skin. His chest expands and contracts quietly, a soft hum escaping his slightly parted lips.
Will he stay when I tell him who I really am? When he see the man and the monster.
Hell, I won’t forget the darkest shadow that has loomed over my life since the day I was born. He’d never approve of us. Not when he sees being like this a weakness. Not when he let my mother die because he thought loving a woman made him weak.
“I need to tell you about my family.” I clear my throat.
His eyes snap up to me, and he nods with a smile. “What is it?”
“I’m taking a risk being here with you, Mason, but I’d risk it, anyway.” He looks into the dark, distant sea. “I’m part of the Black Viper Mafia, and I’m next in line for kingship.”
“That must be a lot of pressure.”
“It is. My father is planning an arranged marriage for me. This is the second time.”
“And do you want it?” His meek eyes meet mine, voice soft with hurt.
“Fuck no,” my hand gently caresses across his back. “Not when you’re here.”
“But your father? Going against a man so powerful.”
“And homophobic.” I sigh, a heavy feeling clouding my head. “I don’t want you to end up like Cyrus’s son.”
“I won’t.” He says firmly, but not enough to quench the flames of fear burning my skin.
“My father’s ruthless. If he finds out about you, I don’t want to imagine what he’ll make me do.”
“Look, the red vault won’t happen again.” He sits up and grips my face. “We are not doomed.” How can he say that to me? When I live and breathe for the will of my father. “Soon, you’ll take over and lead your company how you see fit. You are a good man, Saint.”
Good? I was far away from a smudge of good.
“No, I’m not. I’m not a good man.” I pull away from him. “Everything about me is darkness. I have done so many terrible things. To those who deserve it and those who don’t. I’m not good.”
He gazes up at me, shoulders fallen, an exasperated breath spilling from his lungs. “Either way, you still deserve a bit of light. Even if it’s just a ray of sunshine.” He extends his hand to me. “Come on, I’m feeling so much better now. We can go back to the apartment.”
“What about your apartment? I can’t let you return there. Not when he has a chance of hurting you.”
“I can figure something out.” He shakes his head.
“You know what? I’ll buy you a house.” I say, and his eyes gleam with amusement as he regards me.
“You’re joking.” He laughs.
I help him up to his feet shortly after I regain my footing.
Before he can protest, I snatch him off his feet and carry him back to the car.
“Would you like an apartment or a house? Whatever it is you want, I’ll get it for you.
” He doesn’t say a word. “I’m serious. Tell me? ” My eyes spark with raw excitement.
“Well, I have always wanted to have a house on a hill. Something like the one in Genesis, but more wood than glass. I also want a garden.”
“I can make calls when we get home.”
“It doesn’t have to be now.” He argues.
“We are buying you a house tonight.” I grin just as we get into the car, and I drive us back to the penthouse. Once we get to the bedroom, I make a call to a real estate agent, and they set up a meeting.
“Won’t it be too expensive?”
“I’m a billionaire, Mason. I can get you anything you want, and I think you deserve the best.” I look up at him and press a kiss on his cheek. “We can see the house today.”
“Thank you, Saint.” He holds my cheeks and presses a kiss on my nose.
Then his lips drop on mine, and he kisses me softly.
I don’t kiss him back. I’m too terrified to because I don’t know how to give myself without making it about what it had always been.
Consumption. Lust. But fuck, I want to give myself to him.
“Mason, wait.”
He stares at me.
I lean in and kiss him, wrapping my hand around his waist. Heart thrumming beneath my rib cage, I pull back and break eye contact.
“I need you.” He pouts breathlessly. “I truly do.” My hand slides over to his cheeks, and I caress tenderly.
“And I need you too, but I might hurt you.”
“We’ll go slow.” He reassures me and gets to his feet. He moves to the bed and settles in, hands moving over the buttons of his shirt. He pulls it off and tosses his clothes aside, then he looks at me one more time. “Come on.”
I rise from the chaise lounge and walk toward him. Standing barely inches from him, my chest rises for a deep breath as he closes the gap between us and unbuttons my shirt. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“I promise, I am. I’m doing it because I want to.” He explains.
“I want this time to be different. I want you to enjoy it. If there’s anything I’m not doing right, please speak up.”
He nods.
“Words, please.”
“Yes, I will.” He says.
He sits on the king-sized bed, corded muscles rippling under the low light.
My ardent gaze takes in every inch of his defined body.
Fuck, he’s so beautiful. How could I have ruined this perfection cause my own meaningless want blinded me?
From the fear of truly acknowledging who I am and the things I want.
“Saint.”
“Yes, baby.” The term of endearment slips from my lips before I can stop myself. Every muscle in his body tightens at the sound of my words. His full lips slacken, and his chest expands for air. His hand slides into his shorts, and he takes it off, wincing from pain as he lifts his legs.
“Be careful, please.”
“It only hurts a little. Don’t worry.”
The air between us turns dangerously arousing, and my dick stiffens beneath my pants, forming a mast. He doesn’t hide his erection, and damn, his dick is beautiful, long and slightly curved with the perfect girth, and two veins running from the shaft to the crown.
I never noticed any of this about his body, but I want to take my time. To study him. To adore him. To remain in this moment. Something vulnerable flickers across my face, and an intense hunger swallows it whole.
I let myself feel it all.
Not just the arousal and admiration, but the slight sting of guilt and shame bubbling beneath the surface.
None of that matters because we both want this, and damn, the way his pretty eyes take me in does something terrifyingly delightful to my insides. “I love the way you look at me.”
“I want you so badly.” He replies quickly, and he chews on his bottom lip. I grip my shorts and pull them down to my ankles, kicking them aside and standing hot and naked before him.
His eyes glide over my skin carefully, resting on the scars and the tattoos on my chest. “Tell me about the viper tattoo on your back.” He asks meekly.
“I got it on my eighteenth birthday. It was an official welcome into the Black Viper Syndicate.”
“And your brothers? They have it.”
“Yes, Cross and Virgil do.” I respond.
“I like it.” He gets to his feet and closes the gap between us. My breath hitches in my lungs when he touches the scar on my shoulder. “Tell me about this.”
“My first battle scar. I was thirteen.”
“And this tattoo.” His hand glides over the eagle wing tattoo on my chest, flicking over my nipple. My breathing turns uneven the second the sensation washes over me in pure warmth.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me about yours.”
“Well, I only have one tattoo.” He explains and circles me, fingers tracing along my skin. “Bad college decisions. I was really happy that day, and it had been a long time since I was happy, so I got it to always remind me.”
“I got mine after leading my first operation.” I hum excitedly. I notice all the healed scars on his skin. All the scars he carries because of me.
He returns in front of me and snakes his hand around my shoulder. My dick rubs into his thighs, and he leans in and takes my lips in a careless kiss, smiling at me as an urgency burns inside of me. He pulls my bottom lip and winks at me.
“Why must you torture me? You know I love kissing you.”
“We’ve only kissed once.”
“And? I haven’t forgotten how it felt.” I tease with a smirk.
“How you taste.” He hums and takes my lips again.
The kiss crashes into me, desperate and breathless.
My hands snake around his waist, and I back him into the bed carefully.
My tongue slides into the warmth of his mouth.
He barely gives me room to breathe, taking what he wants.
When I try to pull away, his grip tightens around my neck.
“Not yet.” He whispers against my lips and steals another kiss.
A part of my broken mind tries to tell me that I’m going against everything I have been taught. That I’m tearing myself open for this man, and I’d regret it in the end. But I don’t listen to that voice because it has only been the source of my misery for years.
Fuck, regrets. I’m doing this, and I’m giving it my all, no matter what it costs.
Mason’s back falls into the bed, and I climb in with him, rigid hands at both sides of his lean-muscled body, looming over him. I pull away from his lips, sliding my tongue over his naked, salty skin.
I pull his nipple with my teeth, and he arches into me, a quiet moan slipping through his teeth. “Do you like that?”
“Yes.” He groans as I take the second nipple. “Fuck.” He whines.
I scatter kisses across his skin, and his intense gaze watches me with raw need in his eyes.
“So good.” He groans as our eyes meet through the burning haze of tension.
My wet tongue traces down his V-line and over his leaking dick.
I grip his shaft with my hand and pump twice.
His body aches with pure pleasure as his hand cups the base of my skull.
“Shit, Saint.” He curses under his breath.
I have never done this before, and I hope I get it right. I hope I give him the pleasure his body desperately shudders for. I hope I’m enough. All of me.
My lips wrap around the crown of his dick, and I bob my head around his length. He sits up a little, supporting his body on his elbow while his other hand tightens around my skull. I pull off my lips, and he whines at the loss of my wet heat.
“Tell me if it’s good.”
“It is.” He bites his lower lip as I take his length into my mouth and suck down to the base. His dick easily glides down my throat, and he makes a deep guttural sound while I pull up, coating his length with saliva. “Fuck, you’re doing so well.” He whispers.
My hands slide under his waist so I can place him in a better position, giving me access to his balls and hole.
My thumb slides down his perineal raphe, over to his puckered hole.
A broken sound escapes my lips when he thrusts into the heat of my mouth.
I gag, pulling back as air floods into my mouth.
“Do that again.” I tell him and swallow down to his shaft.
“I like how beautiful you look with your lips wrapped around my dick.” He praises. His word sends a sensational chill through me, causing my eyes to glisten.
“I like it when you talk that way to me.” I grin and run my tongue over the shaft of his pulsating length.
“Cause you make me feel good, baby.”
His chest tightens, face slackening with pleasure. He runs his hands over my stubble and holds my jaw in place as he thrusts into the heat of my mouth. The tip of his dick bites into the back of my throat. Wet, sloppy sound scrape out of me as I gag repeatedly around his engorged length.
“That’s it, baby. Take it all for me.” He groans, eyes half-closed and laden with raw need.
I like this side of Mason. The side that takes control of everything. As a first timer, I like surrendering myself to him. I didn’t think I would, but I do. I like the way he talks to me. The way he looks at me.
I hold steady, taking him all the way to the base, savoring the pain and pleasure of his wicked embrace. I slide the saliva that runs across his balls into his hole, working him open and sliding my fingers into his tight heat. I meet every thrust of his length with my fingers buried into him.
“Shit, damn, your mouth…” he curses under his breath and clenches his hole around my fingers.
“Fuck,” he makes a low and wrecked sound, then he lets out a ragged groan as he gives into the intense hit of his release, flooding into my mouth.
Salt and skin explode at the back of my throat, and his release slides down my lips, gliding down his spent dick.
I don’t stop going. I lick all over his dick, over the crooked vein at the side, down to the shaft, and back to the crown.
“Too sensitive, Saint.”
“You think you can still fuck me?” I let go of his dick with a pop.
Surprise glazes over his pretty eyes. “You want me to?”
I rest my jaw on his stomach and nod in agreement. “Yes, I do. I have never done it before, so you have to be careful.”
“I will.”
“Did I do well?”
“Yeah, you did,” He smirks. “Now get over here. My turn, baby.”