“Why?” I mean, there’s rough sex, and then there’s…whatever she’s asking for.
“I want to feel it.”
My fist loosens around her shirt. I bite my lip, close my eyes, stilling inside of her a second.
Let go.
I think about Pammie’s skull. Think about Sid’s rage. About Lucifer in the room with Ezra and the girl. I think about watching my brother kill his own father. About how I couldn’t do the same, even though I should have. Even though he destroyed both of my sisters’ lives.
Another firework explodes. And another.
Let go.
I think about how I’m always angry. I always want to hurt someone. I always feel like I’m .2 seconds away from snapping. From wrapping my car around a tree. But I can’t leave my brothers. I can’t leave my family.
Let go.
I pull my fingers out, let Ella’s shirt go, and go to work on the button of my jeans, my fingers slippery with her. She tries to help me, her fingers shaking, but I slap her hand away.
But when she goes to yank down my jeans past my thighs, I let her help with that. Let her push my boxer briefs down too and watch her eyes as she takes in my aching cock.
Her slender fingers wrap around the base, and she pulls me toward her.
I pull her down by her waist, shove up her dress. I wrap my fingers around hers and help her guide me into her.
She spreads her legs wider, and I push against her. She bites her lip, lies back down, and she feels so fucking tight, it almost hurts. Her panties are pressing against the edge of my dick, too, but I don’t want to pull out and take them off of her.
I keep pushing into her, and it hurts more, even with as wet as she is.
Let go.
My heart is racing, adrenaline flooding through me as I try to hold myself back. Try to go in slowly. But I’ve got one hand on her throat, the other on her thigh and her skin feels so damn soft. She’s grabbing at my forearm with one hand, whimpering, and I know I should slow down. Maybe even get out of her and get the fuck away from her.
She’s clearly as fucked up as I am.
But she feels so fucking good.
And as I push all the way into her with a groan that I can’t hold back, I know that I’m not going to stop.
And when she forces her eyes open and says, “Don’t be a fucking pussy. Hit me,” I know I’m going to do that, too.
Let. Go.
I lean down over her, moving slowly inside of her, one hand on the cold ground to hold my weight off of her. My other hand caresses her soft skin, and this close to her, with white lights exploding over the trees, I can just make out those freckles all over her beautiful face.
My mouth meets hers, but I don’t kiss her. “You sure you want me to do this, kid?”
“I’m not a fucking kid,” she snarls at me.
Then she digs her nails into my back, under my shirt and my hoodie, and her lips part in surprise at what she feels.
My open wounds.
But she recovers quickly, and this little bitch scratches vertically down my mangled flesh, breaking the skin open again. Her eyes are narrowed in a challenge.
She scratches me again.
She meant what she said, about what she wanted.
And when I lift my hand and slap her across the fucking face, I mean it too. This isn’t a game. This isn’t some BDSM bullshit. I don’t play by any rules. There are no safe words here. She wants to get hurt, I’ll fucking hurt her.
I catch her chin in my hand to keep her head from turning to the side. Her nails dig in deeper and she glares up at me as I fuck her, her chest rising and falling as she breathes hard. She looks so goddamn angry, I think I’m going to come inside of her right then.
But I take a breath, hold back.
“That’s it?” she taunts me even though she’s clearly in pain. She scratches her nails slowly down another set of wounds.
I feel my lip curl up in a snarl and I see it again; that flash of fear on her pretty little face, already red from my hand. And something else too, the redness I saw below her eye.
I don’t want to think about who did that to her. I don’t give a fuck.
I put my palm over her mouth as I fuck her, but she shakes her head, tries to bite me.
If I hit her again, it’s going to fucking hurt worse.
I try to tell her as much as my hand slips down to her throat. “You don’t want this.”
She wraps her legs around me, tilts her pelvis up, angling me deeper. “I decide what I want.”
“I’m going to make you cry,” I whisper against her mouth.
She kisses me, her tongue opening up my lips, darting inside. She moans against me, then she whispers, “Do it.”
I pull back, her teeth scraping my bottom lip. But she lets me go, and I rub her cheek again.
I slam into her so hard I feel our hip bones knock together. Her breath rushes out of her in a gasp, but I don’t give her time to recover before I slap her again, and this time, I don’t hold her face.
I let her head snap to the side, long red strands of her hair splayed in the dirt.
She flexes her jaw, and I see blood on her mouth. If it’s from hitting her and not from biting her I’m going to fucking hate myself.
And yet…just as she tries to turn back to look at me, I know I’m going to come.
I press my palm against the side of her face, hard, my head going to her shoulder as I finish inside of her, a guttural groan coming from my mouth, lost in the night with the explosion of another firework.
I collapse on top of her, my hand still against the side of her face. I don’t want her to move. I don’t want her to speak. Not right now.
Her heart is flying in her chest just like mine, our pulse nearly in unison.
She’s panting beneath me, and I’m trying to catch my breath, too.
Finally, I push myself up, still inside of her.
She doesn’t look at me.
“Ella?” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
Blood trickles out of her mouth, her face bright red. Two women I made bleed tonight. I’m only feeling a little bad about one of them.
Slowly, she turns to look up at me. I can see the green in her eyes, lines of blue, too. But beyond how beautiful they are, they look nearly…dead.
“It’s your turn,” I tell her softly, because I’m nothing if not a fucking gentleman, and now that I’ve just come, I’m feeling less wound up. A little…nicer.
But she shakes her head, swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. She smears blood on the side of her face, and I have the sudden urge to lick it off. Or make her bleed more.
“No,” she says in a soft, but steady voice.
“No?”
She nods.
I’m still inside of her, and I could fall asleep just like this, even as the fireworks fire off in quick succession around us and I hear cheers, the end of the show coming.
But everything is out now. I let go, and I’m not at all sure I did it the right way but it’s better than a session at Father Tomas’s hand. If I could use Ella as my punching bag, I wouldn’t need more wounds down my back.
“What do you want?” I whisper in the dark as the fireworks stop. I press my brow to hers, bring one hand beneath her head, my fingers in her hair.
“Sleep,” she mumbles.
“Okay,” I whisper back. “I can do that. By the way,” I run my mouth over hers, taste the blood I drew. “My name is Maverick.”