32. TATE
TATE
Iwant to remove the haunted shadows from his eyes. I recognize them now. It’s not just anger, although Ryan has plenty of that, but the evidence of his deep wounds is forever trapped beneath the surface coloring his expression.
But just like with me, there is no wiping away the damage.
My poor, broken, wounded doll.
There’s no fixing either of us, but he can keep me on this side of sane, and I can keep him safe.
It’s the perfect match.
Mine.
I slam him against the wall again, giving him a filthy kiss. I can’t stop kissing him. What’s happened to me? Ryan moans into my mouth. I undo the ties of the scrubs they must have made him wear. I need to be in him as soon as fucking possible. It’s kinda pathetic how much I need him.
“This is your condo now, too,” I say as I work on getting him out of his clothes. “I’ll get you a key fob.”
“Oh, so I’m allowed to leave?”
“When you have permission.” Which, for the moment, is only when I’m with him.
He rolls his eyes, probably thinking I’m joking, but there’s no way I can. I won’t be able to think straight if I don’t know he’s safe and protected. “Don’t make me lock you in my dungeon, dollface.”
God, I’d love to have him in there. I’d make him so cozy. A special place just for him … My dick hardens more, thinking about it.
“You can stop daydreaming about it, Tate. Not happening.”
“Says you.” My eyes catch on his bare wrist. I’ve been wondering about that. “Where the fuck is your cuff?”
“I gave it to Gideon. For safekeeping,” he rushes out when my eyes narrow. “I couldn’t stand the thought of them taking it from me. I didn’t know what they’d do with it or me.”
Anger rises again. He went to them, even though he didn’t know what they’d do to him. That drives me fucking crazy.
“Mm-hmm,” I grunt. “He’d better not have fucked it up. If there’s even a scratch on it …”
“It has lots of scratches on it, Tate. You told me never to take it off. What did you think was going to happen to it during a game?”
“Just get it back.”
I finally divest him of the awful pants, letting his hard, leaking cock spring free.
What a sight, and all mine. I take a long minute to drink in his luscious body.
All the sculpted muscles, still pumped from all the adrenaline, his tattooed skin shaded with blooms of berry purple.
I spin him around and smack his ass. He lets out a cry.
“Bed.”
I shed the rest of my clothes as we go, until I’m as naked as he is.
It’s just us—freed. A decadence consumes me, one I don’t often feel.
It’s unshackled, unbridled, but still pulsing with feral hunger.
I usually have a tight grip on my self-control, but it turns to ashes around him anyway. Why fight it anymore?
Ryan scrambles backward onto the bed, the rhythm of his breath picking up as if he knows how thoroughly I’m about to ruin him. I slow down, prowling over him, sliding a hand down one of his thick hockey thighs. He spreads his legs, offering his body to me, and I settle between them.
“You make me so fucking hard … so fucking crazy,” I growl, leaning in to catch his lips. I grab his face, needing to bind him in some way. Our cocks touch, and our kiss turns feral, but I still sense his tentative fingers when they test the waters, brushing up my bare arm.
I might always be hyper aware, even with Ryan, but I want his touches. I moan in approval, deepening the kiss. He gets braver, digging his fingers in hard enough to bruise.
Exposing his neck with a rough jerk myself this time, I plant my lips on my favorite spot and deepen the already forming bruise there. Yes. This neck belongs to me. I think I’ll make sure it always bears a mark of my ownership.
Someday I’ll fuck him slow and sensually. Maybe. But I want him too fucking badly right now. Need him more than oxygen.
“I’m going to taste you first, baby.” I crawl down him till my mouth is at groin level. I scissor him open by gripping the underside of his left thigh, knee bent, and pushing it toward his chest. His balls hang down. I nuzzle my nose into the underside, inhaling. “Mmmm.”
Thankfully, whatever soap he used at Kline’s is drowned out by sweat and Ryan’s unique scent. Summertime. Best fucking smell. I lick up his crease, digging my tongue into his hole.
“That’s … good. Fuck that’s good, Tate.”
I slide two fingers in, his hole wet with my saliva, watching them slide in, his hard cock strains at the base, skin red, vein pulsing. I let my tongue curl around the head, lapping the pre-cum away until he cries.
“Tate. Motherfucker. Please suck my dick like a normal person.”
I laugh around his cock. He knows I pride myself on being so far away from normal, I need a whole new classification.
“Your evil laugh is not appreciated.”
But I ignore his complaining. His dick tastes so good, and I want to take my time, licking it, sucking, teasing him until he cries.
I work on destroying him. And maybe I’m punishing him, too.
He still fucking left me. I understand his reasoning, but that doesn’t change that he was almost gone forever.
I had to hold it the fuck together while I got us out of that situation, but my insides still feel the annihilating panic.
I peer up, wanting to see his beautiful face.
And it is beautiful. All the masculine lines in his jaw and cheekbones, with thick brows that have a permanent furrow between them.
And of course, those pretty, doll-like eyes.
I’m going to make sure that the baiting lift of his lower lip is permanently marked from being bitten.
But his goddamn eyes are closed.
“Eyes on me, dollface.”
He shivers, and he watches. I bring him to the edge over and over, fingers working at his hole to pry him open for my cock, my tongue taunting his dick until it realizes it only gets what I want to give it. Ryan was begging to come, but now he’s begging for mercy.
“Do you get it now?”
Ryan nods. Tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to make you sorrier, dollface.
Turn over.” He obeys, and I position him how I want him, on his stomach, legs spread wide, his ass on display for me like an offering.
I smack his ass hard, leaving a giant handprint.
I reach into the bedside drawer for some lube, pouring a generous portion.
My hand moves down to fondle his balls, and I let my dick slide into his crease.
I squeeze his nuts just enough to put him on notice.
“I’m going to punish this hole, baby, and you’re going to convince me that you know you’re mine, or you don’t get to come. If you fail, maybe I’ll let you try again in a month.”
“Fucking hell, Tate. I hate how hot that is.” He groans. “But I’m so fucking horny already. Can’t you have mercy on me?”
I smack his ass again. “No. You broke my number one rule. What is it?”
“I’m yours, and that means I don’t put myself in danger. Please, fuck. I’m so yours, Tate, it’s not even fucking funny.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
Letting my cockhead poke at his hole, I stretch him just a bit. He gasps. “Please, Tate. Fuck me. I’m fucking yours, and I know it.”
“That’s a good start, baby, keep going.”
I slide in slowly. He’s tight around my cock.
God. I moan. I savor the moment I’m all the way in.
All that cliché shit about being home and finally one with someone is the damn vibe, and I can’t fucking believe it.
I refuse to turn into a cliché, but maybe I’ll let myself feel it for now.
I move, hips pulling back and thrusting inside again.
I watch his ass swallow my cock over and over again, fucking him slowly. It looks so filthy.
“This is where you belong, right here on the end of my cock. Don’t you?”
“Yes. God, yes,” he whines.
I rock my hips faster, building to a merciless pace. Ryan’s dying to come. He claws at the sheets. The sounds he makes come out all breathy and needy.
“I’m yours, Tate,” his voice rasps. I build him to a nice, delicious orgasm, but then I back off before he can spill over. “Goddamn, evil motherfucker.” He slams his fist into the mattress.
I do that over and over, enjoying all of it.
His tears of frustration when I don’t let him come, his pleasure-filled moans, his begging and emphatic pleas that he’s only ever been mine.
I’m not unaffected; he feels so good, and his sounds are so damn hot that I’ve almost let go a few times, but I’m at an advantage and get to control the pace.
“I belong to you, even though I fucking hate you right now,” he says.
I keep fucking him hard.
“Tate,” he rasps, desperate. “My name’s not Ryan anymore, it’s yours. Yours, yours, all fucking yours.”
That does it for me. “Come, dollface.”
He makes a sound that’s something between a whine and a moan.
There’s a body-wide shudder. Instead of filling him, I pull out, flipping him over, coming all over his stomach and thighs.
I mix it with his cum, still spurting out of his cock.
Then I press our hot, naked skin together, letting our cum mix, making us filthy with it.
A tidal wave of energy seems to swirl around us, and I get hit with body-wrecking emotion. My chest heaves, and trails of wetness pour down my cheeks.
“What’s happening to me?”
“Tate, are you crying?”
“No,” I practically sob. Don’t fucking get it, though. I’m not hurt. Not scared; not exactly. Maybe some of that irrational terror I always feel now—that something will happen to Ryan—is there. Which, by the way, is about to become completely unmanageable now that I’m in love with him.
“I hate this. Why won’t it stop?”
“Do you know what brought it on?”
“I … I think it was being here with you.”
“Me?”
I take his hand and put it over my heart, and then I rest my forehead on his, nodding. My breath hitches intermittently, my nose clogs, forcing me to sniffle. “Fuck, I love you so damn much, Ryan.”
And then I find his heartbeat. His chest rises and falls against mine.
This.
This makes nothing else matter. Whatever’s going on inside my brain quiets. The constant buzzing under my skin finally stops.
There’s only peace.