29. His, By Choice
His, By Choice
Ifucked up.
She’d never accept me after that. I’d shown her a glimpse of the violence that lived within me.
I’d confessed too soon. I knew she’d have to know that side of me eventually, but I’d hoped she’d be at a stage where she trusted me enough to look beyond the beast that occasionally thirsted for blood and pain and know that she didn’t need to fear him.
I roared as my fists slammed into the punching bag again and again. It was taking everything I had to stay in the gym and give her the space she needed to process or… to leave. And she would leave, right?
I saw the horror in her eyes. I saw that tear slip down her cheek. She’d never fall in love with me.
I kept punching and punching through the pain, taking a twisted pleasure in the soreness of my split knuckles as they made contact with the solid leather.
The beep of the electronic door behind me made me pause. Closing my eyes, I held the heavy sandbag in my hands and rested my forehead against it, breathing hard.
Had she come to say goodbye? My chest tightened. Was I even capable of letting her go if that's what she wanted?
Without turning around, I felt her draw closer.
She didn’t speak or touch me. Not right away.
She made me wait for it. She made me aware of every agonising second before her fingers gently trailed down my sweat-coated spine.
The light contact sent a slow warmth through my veins, grounding me more than any Cher song or date with my punching bag ever had.
When I didn’t move, she pressed in closer. Her arms slipped around me from behind, hesitant at first, as if she wasn’t sure she should.
The heat of her body seeped into my back, and I exhaled a shuddering breath.
Her hands caressed my abs, roaming and exploring up to my chest, tightening around me with growing confidence and making every nerve sharpen.
All I could feel was her: the softness of her skin, the contrast of her touching, stroking, and claiming my body, and the way she fit against me so perfectly.
I tilted my head back, exposing my throat in a wordless surrender. I was hers. To do whatever she wanted with. If only she’d have me.
When her unsteady breath brushed against my neck, I didn’t turn around. If I did, I’d lose whatever fragile restraint I was barely clinging to.
Her hand caressed my face, tender yet deliberate as she guided me to turn to her.
The moment our eyes met, I saw what was already crackling in the air between us.
There was no fear in her expression. Just desire and longing.
Her thumb grazed my dark stubble, and I leaned into her touch, desperate for more.
The space between us pulsed, alive with the fire that had always burned in us, only now something had shifted. We were ready to combust.
“Aria–”
She glided her fingers across my lips, silencing the words before they could form. We stared into each other’s eyes as she rose on her tiptoes, closing the space between our bodies. Her fingers caressed my lips as she stared at them, time stretching unbearably as we hovered inches apart.
Fuck it.
Our lips crashed together with pure, aching need, and I lost my fucking mind. It wasn’t careful or slow, but a collision of inevitability and passion.
I slipped my tongue against hers, claiming her without mercy as we pulled each other impossibly close, her arms locking around my neck and her fingers raking through my hair.
She kissed me back the way I knew she would, with reverence and insatiable hunger, and I could die a happy man, knowing how much she wanted me in that moment.
This was a choice. There wasn’t any room for doubt, overthinking, or even air.
Just feeling. And I wasn’t a man in control of my feelings.
I’d never been able to control how much I wanted her.
I was just a man willing to be completely ruined by her.
Lowering her onto the gym bench, she arched into me as the cool leather hit her back, and she moaned into my mouth.
My hands gripped her hips, bracing for the moment she’d come to her senses and push me away.
When she didn’t, I leaned over her, careful not to press into her yet, wanting my lips to be all she could feel.
I trailed them down the edge of her jaw, and she gasped, tilting her head back as I kept her pinned beneath me.
“I hate it when you’re right,” she whispered, breathless already, as my mouth traced a slow path from her jaw down the curve of her exposed throat.
She tilted her head back even further, causing her tits to brush against my chest and offering herself to me like a goddess ready to be worshipped. “That kiss was everything.”
“You don’t hate it,” I murmured against her skin. “You just hate that you can’t pretend anymore.”
My lips brushed lower, following the rise and fall of her breath and lingering over her fluttering heart beneath my mouth.
I kissed the swell of her tits, my hands roaming up her curves and teasing the sexy black lingerie she had put on to make me lose the last of my sanity.
Her hands slid into my hair as I took her nipple into my mouth through the lace, teasing it with my tongue.
“Sani…” she moaned my name so softly that I lifted my head just enough to look at her.
She was watching me, her blue eyes darker than I’d ever seen them, completely unguarded, stripped of their usual sharpness.
She drew in a slow breath, as if gathering the courage to dive off a cliff.
“I’m done pretending I don’t want you. I can’t do it anymore.
It was easier when I thought this was just a game to you. But it never was, was it?”
I cradled her face, staring into her eyes as I brushed my lips against hers.
“No,” I breathed, shaking my head. “It wasn’t. I just had to convince you to be mine.”
“You didn’t have to convince me,” she whispered, her eyes searching mine as if she was looking for one last reason to retreat but finding none. “I just had to stop lying to myself.”
My chest fractured as if it had opened to let something deeper and more fulfilling than I’d ever known inside. It was the acceptance I’d been waiting for. She didn’t just want me. She trusted me. And it unhinged me.
My lips crashed against hers, feral and possessive.
She moaned as our tongues chased each other, and her nails dug into my shoulders as I lifted her from the bench and walked towards the gym exit.
I needed to be inside her, to claim every inch of her, but fuck, I wasn’t having her for the first time in a gym.
She deserved more than a quick, rushed fuck.
I wanted to spend all night learning her body, every curve, every imperfection, and what drove her wild. And then I wanted to hold her while she slept and wake up still inside her. Sex with her was more than just orgasms. It was what came after, too.
I fumbled with the code on the door, never wanting to break my lips away from hers.
After two unsuccessful attempts, the door finally opened.
But getting to our bedroom was a whole other challenge.
Every few steps, with her legs wrapped around my waist and her pussy rubbing against my rock-hard dick, I had to stop and press her against the wall just to grind against her harder.
Canvas paintings on the walls were knocked off-centre.
A Roman sculpture was smashed off the sideboard where I sat her, while I devoured her pussy with my mouth, her nails clawing through my hair as she screamed my name.
Clothes were discarded down the hallway until finally I threw her down on the bed.
The sight of her naked body, her cheeks flushed and her lips bruised from all the kissing, heightened the maddening frenzy of need in me.
But I forced myself to stop at the foot of the bed and breathe.
To savour the sight of her like this. Her hooded eyes shone so brightly, travelling over my body and fixing on the biggest hard-on I’d ever had in my life, already leaking for her.
Fuck, it was painful how much it wanted to be buried inside her.
I was a little worried that once it was, it would refuse to ever leave.
She leaned up on her elbows, panting heavily and giving me a quizzical look. “Why are you stopping?”
I knew what I was about to say could frighten her away, but she had to know. If she thought I was intense before, she had no idea how I would be once she gave herself to me entirely and promised to be mine.
“You need to understand something,” I groaned, my voice deeper than usual. “There’s no coming back from this, Aria. After this, there’s no way I’ll ever let you walk away from me. No matter what it takes, you’ll be mine forever. So if there’s still any doubt in your mind, tell me now.”
Her lips parted. She stared. Then she moved onto her hands and knees and crawled towards me. My nostrils flared, and my body trembled with the effort to wait for her answer.
She knelt on the bed and lifted her hand, her wedding ring glinting, placing it on my chest. She licked her lips and gave me a slow, teasing smile. “It’s too late for that, Sani. I’m already yours.”
I dropped my head back briefly. A deep growl rumbled from my chest before I grabbed her around the waist and slammed her against me, letting the possessive beast inside me loose as I kissed her.
With one arm wrapped around her back, I hooked my other hand around her thigh, lifted her, and lowered us onto the mattress.
A tsunami of need slammed into me as I ground against her, rolling my hips so my dick rubbed along her clit, making her gasp into my mouth.
I devoured every whimper and every moan as I let my weight press her into the mattress, my muscles tense with anticipation.
But I had to drive her wild, take her to the edge of her sanity as she had done to me.