But that’s not tonight.
Tonight, the beast inside me needs her.
And he will not be sated until he’s fully indulged.
27
Rina
In the weeks I’ve gotten to know Brecken Davenport, I think it’s safe to say, he’s unexpected. In the best and worst possible of ways. This is a perfect example of that.
And typically, that’s not something I go for. Some women may love surprises. A guy to swoop in and knock her off her feet.
I don’t.
Letting go of my past doesn’t mean throwing caution to the wind and pretending the world is all sunshine, gumdrops, and rainbows when it’s not. I thought Harrison was gone and I let my guard down and that’s when he attacked.
I will never allow myself to make the same mistake twice.
Which is why Brecken showing up at my work tonight should have set off all kinds of alarm bells. And I can’t figure out why it didn’t. Is it him? Or am I getting sucked in too quickly, repeating old mistakes?
He’s easy to do that with.
He’s impossibly charming and he makes me feel safe. And my brothers like him—whether I care to admit it or not, that’s a huge plus for me. He’s protective of Aria. Hell, he’s protective of me.
So as I watch him clean up the kitchen after cooking me an amazingly special and sweet meal, I’m trying to talk myself out of all the ways I’m falling for him. It’s not going so well. Especially when he smiles at me like that. All dimples and sparkly eyes and raw sexiness.
He is the perfect package.
A hot mess of a man who makes me smile and laugh and feel so goddamn good.
“What’s that smile all about?” I ask.
“That you look all comfortable reading on my couch in front of the fire but I’m about to mess all that up by putting my face between your thighs.”
My breath hitches before turning shallow. “Oh yeah? How do you plan to do that if you can’t catch me?”
I set my Kindle down and slowly start to rise off the couch, a jolt of adrenaline-spiked anticipation threading through my veins. His smile grows as his playful eyes lower, turning dark and hungry.
“You gonna try to run from me, Angel? You think I won’t chase you?”
I round the couch, walking backward toward the front door. “I have no doubt you’ll try.”
I watch it play across his face. The hint of concern over playing this game with me. But it doesn’t stop him from pursuing me. Oliver told me he told Brecken about what Harrison did to me that night. I’m glad he did because I never wanted to. But he’s still here with me, not treating me with kid gloves and I don’t think anything has ever turned me on more.
He prowls in my direction, slowly, methodically, his eyes ravaging every inch of my body like a predator about to devour his prey. “What happens when I catch you, Rina?”
I tilt my head, taking another step back. “That’ll be up to you, Brecken. But first you have to catch me.”
I spin on the balls of my feet, but instead of heading for the front door—because I’m not crazy enough to run barefoot out into the dark night—I deke him out, racing for the kitchen. A growl splits the air and I squeal out a laugh as I make it to the other side of the island without him catching me.
“Nice move,” he comments dryly, trying to be serious all the while fighting his smile. The dimples popping in his cheeks aren’t selling it. “When I catch you, Angel, I will not be gentle.”
“Oh, I hope not.”
He groans as he starts to charge after me. I slip past the island, rolling my body around the dining table and bolting for the stairs just as his arm swoops around my waist, lifting me off my feet.
He spins us, slamming me into the wall with his hand as a buffer behind my head to break the impact. An oomph flees my lungs just as his mouth dives in to catch it, his tongue taking advantage of my parted lips. Our kiss is breathless, urgent. My hands rake through his hair, scratching at his scalp and the back of his neck.
A punishment.
He’s taking all the hard-won pieces of my life and tossing them recklessly up in the air like confetti.
His teeth sink into my bottom lip, hard, making me whimper before he sucks the tender flesh into his mouth, licking the zing away.
A promise.
He won’t be gentle with me, but he’ll always take care of me.
My hands glide down his shoulders, squeezing the hard muscles of his arms as he holds me against the wall, all too quickly growing tired of feeling cotton. Seams rip as I impatiently tear his shirt from his body, mine immediately following it as we attack each other’s clothes in a frenzy. I need to feel him against me. His body. His heat. His strength.
All of him.
And he’s right there with me. Delirious and rabid with his intent.
He wrenches me from the wall, his mouth all over my lips and neck, lifting me up into his arms and taking us to the stairs. We don’t make it far. Just up one before the trip becomes too long and he sets me down, leaning into me as slats of wood force themselves into my back.
“Fuck,” he growls, tearing himself away. “You,” he groans, panting heavily as he takes in my heaving breasts and spread legs. His mouth latches onto my breast, sucking in as much of the mound as he can take, nipping and biting at my nipples while his other hand lifts it up, squeezing it unforgivingly.
“Brecken,” I cry, my head falling back, my back bowing off the stairs as he consumes each inch of tender flesh like a man on the edge of chaos.
“Again, Angel. Again.”
“Brecken.” I hoarsely moan his name this time. His hand drops between my legs, his finger skimming up and down my wetness before diving two fingers inside me. “Oh. Oh. Jesus fuck, Brecken.” My hands rip at his hair as he pumps into me, fast and furious. A torrid of sensation I can’t fight or tamp down. My toes curl into the floor, my ass teetering on the edge of the step as my body chases, desperate to take in as much of his wicked hand as possible.
“So beautiful,” he hums against my breasts, flicking my nipple one last time, dragging lower and looking up through his lashes, meeting my eyes. “You’re so beautiful.” His tongue comes out, flicking my clit the way he just did my nipple, his fingers not slowing their pace for even a second. “You’re so fucking beautiful to look at you it almost hurts. But when you come—” He blows on my clit and my eyes roll back. “—like you’re about to now, it’s like nothing else. Your beauty has no parallel.”
“Brecken. God, don’t stop.”
I’m dripping all over him. I feel it. I hear it. The sound so lewd and erotic it only makes me wetter.
His lips capture my clit, sucking, biting, making out with my pussy, just as hard and fast as his fingers are fucking me. It’s so much. Too much. So intense. My hands fly wildly over my head, seeking purchase on the step above me, needing it to ground me before I fall.
My body simultaneously weightless and heavy.
His eyes bore into mine, watching me come apart, a high building so powerfully within me I’m almost afraid of it. Then I’m not given the choice. The orgasm plows through me, my neck arching and my eyes squeezing tight as I scream out my release, shaking and writhing with no control over anything.