His chest packed and the skin clean, a single tattoo of a palm tree marked on the underside of his bicep.
Scars littered the lower left side of his abdomen, a spray of four or five deep, discolored indentations.
I brushed my fingers over them. He flinched and I had the urge to kiss across them, too.
I did, leaning in and brushing my lips across the marred skin, not knowing what happened but sure whatever it was, it was wholly significant.
Part of what had shaped this broken, guarded man.
Rain pounded and the storm grew strength, and my chest was heaving while he stood there looking at me while I touched him.
Explored him.
Tenderly.
For a moment, he just watched.
Taken.
All that firm, toned flesh shivered beneath my touch.
Then he dove for me again.
Mouth capturing mine as his hands pushed under the material of my nightgown. His fingers found the edges of my panties, and he hissed when he dragged them down, the fabric eliciting a chill as it skimmed the length of my legs.
He dropped them to the floor.
“It isn’t right, Mia. What I’m about to do to you. But I need it. Fuck, I need to feel something good. You, beautiful girl. I need to get inside of you.”
His kiss was manic, a hand at the back of my head, angling me to take control.
He tasted of whiskey and sex and grief.
With the other hand, he gripped me by the hip and tucked me close.
Our bare skin grazed.
Shock streaked through my body.
Electric.
The barest brush, and I was already being burned alive.
My fingers searched, palms gliding over his chest. His muscle rippled beneath my touch. I kept going lower, dragging over his abdomen that twitched and shook until I held him in the palm of my hand.
My belly flipped as I stroked him.
“God. Mia. Yes.”
The words wheezed from his throat, and his hand slipped from my head to my shoulder where he jerked the strap of my gown free, exposing one breast. He dipped down and swirled his tongue around my nipple.
I whimpered and gasped when he dragged his fingers through my center, the flesh drenched and throbbing.
He slipped two fingers inside of me, and I was already coming undone, his name a plea.
Bliss built. Too fast. Mind-numbing. I could no longer think.
“You want me, sweet girl?” The words might have been nice, but they came out a threat.
Raw hunger had taken to his gaze when he edged back to look at me, lust flexing every gorgeous muscle of his body.
“Yes.”
“Tonight, I own you, Mia West.”
My chest tightened, and my heart did that stupid, stupid thing.
Because falling for this man would only break me in the end.
He kissed me again, and I’d never been kissed this way.
In a way that was all consuming, desperate and dire. As if both of our lives depended on it.
I was terrified that maybe they did.
Our mouths at war.
Our hands an entreaty.
Our mingling breaths a covenant.
He dragged me to the very edge of the table, so close that my bottom was barely hanging on, and his hand clenched down on the side of my neck when he edged back to position the head of his cock between my trembling thighs.
He barely pressed in an inch.
I thought I might pass out right then.
He tightened his hold, fingers curling into my hair at the back of my head.
I could feel his manic heart going boom, boom, boom. In sync with the storm. In sync with my mind.
The man held me steady.
Riding a sharp blade of bliss that I knew was getting ready to cut me wide open.
Our foreheads touched.
I exhaled a shaky breath against his lips.
He rocked forward.
Hard.
Filling me full.
Thunder cracked, lightning a blanket of blinding white at the windows.
The room shook.
And I couldn’t breathe.
The perfect intrusion was close to pained as my body fought to adjust to him. To his size and his presence and his aura.
Everything about him overwhelming.
Too big and bold.
I was consumed. Gone. And he hadn’t even begun to move.
“Fuck…Mia.” Leif’s throat bobbed heavily, and he struggled for air, to hold himself together.
“You feel so good,” he muttered with his forehead still pressed to mine. “Too good. God, what have I done? What have I done?”
Our bodies burned.
Fires and flames.
“Leif. Please. Let go.”
On a groan, he did.
He gave.
Owning me, just like he’d promised.
His hips surged deep. Hard, fierce strokes that forced the air out of my lungs with each frenzied thrust.
The sound became a moan.
His name.
His name.
He angled back, taking me by both hips, staring me down as he fucked me straight into oblivion.
Nirvana.
An eclipse.
His darkness surrounding. Stars all around.
“Mia. Fuck me.”
He seemed to get lost, too, spiraling, one hand coming to the back of my neck, dragging me to his kiss. The fingers of his other hand sank into the flesh of my hip, jerking me forward to meet each drive of his body.
He worked me into a sweat.
Worked me into a puddle.
Worked me into chaos.
Pieces of me coming apart.
Cracking.
Splintering.
I buried the scream in his neck when he broke me with bliss. As pleasure unfurled from that tiny pinpoint and scattered into eternity.
Where he sent me wandering in his mystery.
He yanked me from the table as my body was still rocking with waves, and he set me on unsteady feet and whirled me around.
My hands shot out to brace myself on the table, unprepared for the sudden shift. Immediately, he had me wound up again.
Grabbing my bottom in both hands, he filled me.
Hard and fast and possessive.
His face buried in my hair.
Two thrusts and I could feel it.
The erratic jerk of his body and the moan of his spirit as he took me flying with him again.
The chant wouldn’t stop rolling from his tongue. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
And God, I couldn’t understand what he was apologizing for.
His body stilled, and he clutched me tight. He slipped his arms around my waist, and he leaned his chin over my shoulder and brought us cheek to cheek. “What have you done, Mia? What have you done?”
Twenty-Two
Leif
Twenty-Three Years Old
“What is this?” The sound of Maddie’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
I’d been walking down the hall to the bedroom to grab my shoes so we could leave for dinner.
One second I was without a care.
Fucking happy for the first time.
Truly happy.
Not the fucked up, toxic kind, a fraudulent high that burned through my veins and left me in chains.
Next, alarm was sending a rash of nerves tumbling down my spine.
Barbs that lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck and shot my heart into overdrive.
Like any sudden movement might scare her away, I slowly turned around.
Maddie was standing in the middle of our living room with a fucking block in her hand. I gripped two fistfuls of hair.
“Baby,” I wheezed.