“Goddamn,” he mutters on an uneven breath. “Punching me gets you this wet…”
A flame of humiliation licks over me, and I don’t realize I’ve slapped him until my palm smarts with the sting. Alex licks his lip, gathering the fresh bead of blood, before he grabs the back of my neck with his bandaged hand and draws me closer.
I reach behind and grip the counter, arching my back as he furiously fucks me with his fingers. My nipples harden against the sheer material of my bralette, seeking the rough plane of his chest. The ache plunges deeper, snatching my breath, my hips undulating as I ride his hand shamelessly.
I rock my hips in desperate need to rub my clit against the heel of his hand, and Alex stops.
I open my eyes, my gaze meeting his through a haze of lust and crushing yearning that threatens to break me if he doesn’t touch me again soon.
“Tell me to taste you,” he says, his voice gravel with the harsh demand.
Breaths ragged, I match his intense stare. “No.”
Before I lose my mind to him, I embrace the welling anger and shove his chest, breaking his connection. His effort to capture my arms is thwarted as I jab his wounded ribs. I shove his shoulder and push past, so close to escaping…until his arms circle my waist.
“I think you need the fight.” He crushes my back to his chest.
I can’t deny anything, unsure of my own feelings—these fucking excruciating emotions that beg me to surrender and fall into Alex, to just lose myself completely in the pleasure.
He picks my feet off the floor and carries me toward one of the stalls. With what fight I have left, I plant my foot to the cinderblock wall and kick off, smashing his back into the stall.
The hinges creak, and the flimsy divider gives a fraction. I struggle to free one of my hands and claw my nails down his forearm. He stumbles back harder into the stall. It splinters, cracking until the bolts clink to the tile.
“I’ll tear the world down with you,” he says, his heavy breaths an erotic sound at my ear, our chests rising together in sync. “If that’s what it takes. Shatter for me, baby. I’ll let you break against me.”
A violent tremble takes hold of my body. I hate every word from his mouth. I hate the pressure building in my chest. I hate the ache that threatens to rip me in half.
“I hate you—”
Alex pushes away from the divider and releases me, but only to turn my back flat to the broken surface of the stall. His gaze is molten, a blazing blue that steals my breath.
“You can hate-fuck that pussy against my mouth until I suffocate,” he says, his hands taking hold of my jeans. He shoves my jeans down, towing my panties with them, and drops to his knees.
My lungs threaten to burst as I breathe through the devastating sensation of his mouth surrounding me. My eyes fasten shut as I let him strip my shoes and pants off so he can bring my leg over his shoulder. He sucks my clit between his teeth, and I press my palms to the cool stall, needing to be grounded.
The arousing sensation of his stubble grazing the sensitive skin of my inner thighs sends me reeling, and I undulate my hips, begging for more friction.
Alex latches on to my thigh as he licks a hard seam up my slit. His tongue skillfully plunders between my lips as he works my clit harder, making me shiver. The yearning to crest is overwhelming, and the edges of fear bleed into euphoria. I’m so close to losing all control.
I tunnel my fingers into his hair, nails scraping his scalp, and grip hard. He groans against me, bringing on the first wave of the pending orgasm, and my core pulses with aching need.
I cry out and bring my knee up against his jaw.
Alex curses and staggers back, planting a hand behind him to break his fall. He stares up at me with gritted teeth and hot anger searing the edges of his restrained desire. The sight of smeared blood along his lip pulls at some base craving within me.
We go for each other at the same time.
His hands clasp around my waist as my nails sink into his bare shoulders. Our mouths collide, all savage, vicious want, and the coppery tang of blood bleeds into the kiss, turning it brutal, punishing.
He smashes my back against the stall, and the weak panel finally gives completely. Alex brings my chest against his and deftly swivels me on top of his body as the divider crashes into the next stall, then slides to the floor.
All my weight bears down on him, our bodies fused together, but we’re too far gone to care about the wreckage around us. The need to tear through every barrier preventing us from touching, skin to skin, is shred in violent fury as he snaps my bra away and I work his jeans open.
We wrestle the rest of our clothing from our bodies while lashing into each other with intent to feel every kiss, bite, stroke, our hands and limbs tangling. As Alex kicks his pants down his legs, he breaks the kiss.
“Wait,” he says, breaths torn, chest expanding with each vital intake.
“No. Take off your pants,” I demand, the torturous idea of waiting any longer too painful. I can’t allow my mind to have time to think.
“Blakely, wait—” The urgency in his voice breaks through the hazy lust between us, and I pull back slowly.
With eyes sealed tight, he says, “Grayson did something…”
The way he chokes on the last syllable, panic flares inside my chest. I lift up to glance down at his crotch, fearful a deranged serial killer severed a certain body part—but no. I felt him, hard and long and pressed into me.
Did he cut off his balls?
Searching his body, I finally see what Alex is referring to, and all I can say is: “Huh. That’s…fitting.”
He sighs heavily beneath me. “He gave me a literal countdown until he comes for us.”
Tentatively, I reach behind me and run my fingers over the inflamed skin. “Jesus.” I carefully touch the wires fucking stitched into his flesh.
The glass face of an old pocket watch has been sewn into his calf. The secondhand jumps, counting down the minutes, and I can’t help but to observe the time.
We’ve lost all track of it while we’ve been inside this room, closed off from the world. And I realize that’s never happened before, not where Alex is concerned. Every moment at the cabin together, time was measured, recorded. Unescapable.
“I wasn’t awake,” he says, drawing my thoughts away from that dark place.
I face forward and stare down at him, planting my hands on his chest. “That’s too bad,” I say, lowering myself on top of him. “I was hoping you felt every painful stitch.”
He reaches up and threads his fingers into my hair, holding the side of my face reverently. “No one is capable of making me feel pain like you, Blakely Vaughn. You own that power alone.”
I take sadistic comfort in his confession.
As he holds my gaze, I move my hips, sliding over his cock painstakingly slow, drawing his thoughts away from clocks and time and threats.
A heavy sigh fans across my forehead, and he groans. “Fuck me or kill me…because I can’t not be inside you one second longer.”
His desperate admission races over my skin like wildfire, making our touches frenzied, and in the wake of urgent caresses and hungry kisses, he’s inside me. My body recognizes his. As he fills me, we fit together seamlessly. An ache blooms behind my eyes, the sensation in my chest crushing.
I ride him like that, slow and rhythmic, reacquainting our bodies and emotions. Listening to the desperate inhalations between us, an arrangement of harmonic sounds that strike my nerves like a tuning fork, the vibration an irresistible agony.