6. Chapter 6
REESE
The nightmare is the same as it always is.
Hands I can’t see holding me down. Voices telling me to be a good girl, to stop fighting, to just let it happen. My father’s face in the doorway, watching with that cold approval that makes me want to claw my own skin off.
But this time, I surface before the worst part. Something warm and solid pulls me back.
I wake slowly. Soft sheets beneath me. Gray light through the windows. And something in my mouth that isn’t my own fingers.
My eyes fly open.
Tate is propped against the headboard, one hand in my hair, his cock resting heavily on my tongue. He’s watching me with those green eyes, and there’s no judgment in them.
“There you are, baby girl.” His voice is rough with sleep. “You were thrashing. So I gave you what you needed, like I always will.”
I should be mortified. I should pull away and apologize for being so fucked up that I need his dick in my mouth just to work through my shit.
Instead, I close my eyes and suck gently, letting the weight of him anchor me to the present. The nightmare fades. The faces disappear. There’s only Tate, the slow stroke of his fingers through my hair, and the sound of his breathing going ragged above me.
“That’s it.” His hips flex, just barely, like he’s fighting the urge to thrust. “You can always use me.”
I stay like that until my heart rate slows. Finally the shaking stops, and I focus on the man giving me what I need.
When I finally pull off, he makes a low sound of loss.
“I feel like such a needy bitch,” I say. My voice is hoarse.
“Baby girl.” He tugs me up until I’m lying against his chest, my head tucked under his chin. “I woke up and you were already reaching for your mouth. I just figured I’d try to keep you from getting as worked up as last time.”
“How long was I . . .”
“Not long. Maybe ten minutes.” His arms tighten around me. “You slept better last night than the night before.”
“Are you getting any sleep at all?”
“Don’t you worry about me, baby girl.”
I’ve never had a single person give a shit about me like this. I press my face into his neck and breathe him in. That scent has become everything to me. Just like him.
“Thank you for being you,” I whisper.
“You mean for being selfish as fuck?” His hand slides down my spine, settles at the small of my back. “I promise you that I very much like having your mouth on my dick.”
“Even when I’m not doing anything?”
“Especially when you’re not doing anything.” He shifts beneath me, and I feel his cock pressing against my stomach. He’s still hard. “You have no idea what it does to me, watching you take what you need. Knowing I’m the one who can give that to you.”
My chest aches, not from pain. I’ve never felt anything like this before, and I’m afraid of what it means. Because I don’t think I’m strong enough to lose it.
I push myself up on my elbow and look at him. His dark hair is messy from sleep, stubble shadowing his jaw. He looks even sexier like this, a little bit more dangerous, even though I know there is no safer person for me to be with.
“Tate.”
“Yeah, baby?”
I don’t have words for what I want to say. So I kiss him instead.
It starts soft. My lips brush against his in a gentle kiss, but then his hand fists in my hair and he angles my head and takes over. His tongue slides against mine, and the heat that’s been simmering beneath my skin ignites.
I pull back, breathing hard. “I want you.”
“You fucking have me.”
“No.” I shift, swinging my leg over his hips until I’m straddling him. His cock presses against my bare pussy, and we both inhale sharply. “I want you like this. I want to be on top of you.”
Surprise flickers across his face. Maybe uncertainty.
“Reese—”
Did I say something wrong?
“Is that a problem?”
He’s quiet for a moment. His hands settle on my hips, and I feel the tension in his grip.
“I’ve never had a woman fuck me before.”
“Never?”
I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. He’s a man used to being in control. It must take a lot of effort for him to give me what I need over how he’s wired.
“Never once.” His jaw tightens, and I can’t read the emotion on his face. “I do the fucking”
“I don’t have to do it.”
His eyes lock onto mine. He looks almost lost, like he’s standing at the edge of something he doesn’t understand.
“Don’t you dare tease me like that and then not deliver.” The words come out rough, dragged from somewhere deep. “I was just waiting for you, baby girl. The thought of you taking what you want from me makes me harder than I’ve ever been in my fucking life.”
I reach down between us and wrap my fingers around his dick. He groans, his hips jerking.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I say.
“Baby girl, the only way you’re stopping is if you want to.” His hands tighten on my hips. “Ride me. Use me. Take whatever the fuck you want.”
I position him at my entrance and sink down slowly.
The stretch is incredible. I watch his face as I take him inch by inch—the way his jaw goes tight, his eyes go dark, his fingers dig into my hips. By the time I’m fully seated, we’re both breathing hard.
“Fuck.” The word comes out strangled. “You feel so damn good, baby girl. So fucking tight.”
I start to move. Slow at first, rolling my hips, finding a rhythm. I’ve never done this before either. It’s different from this angle. It’s deeper, and I can control how fast, how hard, and exactly where he hits inside me.
For years, men have taken what they wanted from my body.
I learned to go somewhere else in my head, to let them use me while I disappeared.
Sex was never about my pleasure. It was about survival.
Not until Tate. Even when I wanted to choose a man for myself, it was always just sucking their dick, because I didn’t want them to touch me.
But this is different. Everything with Tate is different. It’s what it was always supposed to be.
“That’s it.” Tate’s voice is wrecked. “Fuck, look at you. You’re so goddamn beautiful riding my dick.”
I plant my hands on his chest and move faster. His hips buck up to meet me, and I cry out as he hits a spot that makes my vision blur.
“Right there?” He thrusts up again, deliberately.
“Yes. Fuck, yes.”
“Then take it. Take everything you want from me.”
I ride him harder, chasing the intoxicating way this makes me feel. My nails dig into his chest. My thighs burn. The only sounds in the room are skin against skin and our ragged breathing.
“Tate.” I’m close. I can feel it building, the release I’m chasing. “I’m going to—”
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes. He’s staring up at me like I’m the most incredible thing he’s ever seen.
“You’re in control, baby girl. You decide when you come.” His thumb finds my clit, pressing in tight circles. “But your eyes fucking stay on mine.”
The orgasm crashes through me. My whole body locks up, and I hear myself crying out his name as my pussy clenches around him.
He flips us over before I’ve even finished coming.
Suddenly I’m on my back and he’s above me, driving into me with hard thrusts that drag out the orgasm until I’m sobbing from the intensity.
“My fucking turn.” He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, the other gripping my hip as he pounds into me.
It should scare me, the sudden shift in power. But it doesn’t. Because I know he gave me control first. I know he let me have that, and I want him to take it back.
“Yes,” I gasp. “I’m yours.”
“Damn right you are.” He leans down, his mouth against my ear. “This pussy belongs to me. These moans belong to me. Every fucking part of you belongs to me.”
“Yours.” I can barely form words. “All yours.”
He comes with a groan that sounds like it’s torn from his chest, his hips stuttering as he spills inside me. I feel him pulsing, feel the heat of his cum, and a second smaller orgasm ripples through me.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. He’s still inside me, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his breathing harsh against my neck.
Then he lifts his head and looks at me.
“What the fuck are you doing to me, Reese?”
“I don’t know.” I reach up and touch his face, tracing the line of his jaw. “But whatever it is, you’re doing it to me too.”
After a repeat of yesterday’s shower sex, we finally make it into the kitchen.
Tate insists on making breakfast again, which means I’m sitting at the counter watching him move around in nothing but athletic pants while I wear one of his t-shirts. It hangs almost to my knees, and every time he looks at me in it, his eyes go dark.
His phone buzzes on the counter. He glances at the screen, and I watch the shift happen in real time. The softness in his expression hardens. His whole body goes still in a way that reminds me that the man who is so tender with me is a killer. And he’s going to kill again, for me this time.
“It’s Fox. They’re about an hour out.”
The reality of what’s coming crashes back.
Fox and Ivy. Tate’s family. It means that more people will know about what happened to me, even if it’s only the parts I decide to share.
They can’t possibly think that I’m good enough or right for Tate.
Or that Tate will even want me after all this is done.
“Hey.” Tate sets down his coffee and comes around the counter, turning my stool until I’m facing him. “You don’t have to tell them anything you don’t want to tell them. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I stare at my hands. “I just . . .”
“Just what?”
“I’ve never had anyone on my side before. I don’t know how to trust people. I don’t know how to let them in.”
“You let me in.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
Because you saw me at my worst and gave me what I needed instead of using it against me. Because you look at me like I’m worth protecting. Because when I’m with you, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been in my entire fucking life. I see my worth differently.
I don’t say any of that. “I don’t fucking know. It just is.”
He studies my face. I know he sees that I’m holding something back. Not just about Fox and Ivy. About everything. There’s still one thing I haven’t told him. One secret that sits like poison in my chest.