Just like I didn’t want the brand tainted, I don’t want this moment to have his presence stained on it.
With a resigned sigh, Jonas grunts, lifting me up. He fists his cock, positioning it at my entrance, grinning when he slips a finger through my arousal.
“Are you ever not wet for me, love?” I shake my head, and he blows out a breath. “Tell me you want this.”
“I do. I need it.”
The tip pushes in, fishing a gasp from my throat. He stretches slow, so fucking slow, keeping his eyes on mine.
“Tell me you belong to me. That you’re sorry for running off.”
“Well, I’m not really sorry for that, though.” I pause, and his brows furrow. “I got you back in the house, didn’t I? And here we are, finishing wars that never should’ve belonged to us in the first place.”
Grunting, he shunts in deeper, and my fingers claw his neck. I wish I could make my home in his bones, but I suppose this is as good as it gets for now.
“It was stupid and reckless,” he says, and I’m not sure if he thinks that I planned to be kidnapped, or what, but I also don’t care. The only thing that matters is the way he feels pushing into me, fucking me slow, sending me off the edge of oblivion already.
“Our entire relationship was based on stupid and reckless.”
He bottoms out, and I let out a ragged moan as sparks collect in my core, pulsing outward. Rolling my hips, I tilt them so my clit grinds against his pelvis, and his head lolls back.
“We have about thirty minutes before the police show up. After I had the power cut, they were called,” he says, guiding my movements, taking me faster and harder. “Be a good girl and make me come, okay? I want to fill you while that piece of shit watches, and then I want to slit his bloody throat for ever touching you in the first place.”
My nods are fervent, matching the feverish pace I set. I slam down over and over onto his cock, the force of my thrusts so powerful that I can feel him in my chest.
My orgasm crests quickly, though whether it’s because of the adrenaline or because of Jonas in general, I can’t say.
I also don’t care.
The consequences of my actions will still be here, long after I come.
“Fuck, love. You look so bloody perfect on top of me. Keep going, just like that.”
Obeying, I grip his shoulders tight, using it as leverage. Rocking up and down, back and forth, I feel sweat bead on my forehead, and then Jonas is gritting his teeth again and fisting my hair, tugging my head back.
“Say you love me,” he commands, forcing my pace to slow. His cock drags against that sweet spot inside me, and my entire body feels like a single pulse point, on the very verge of bursting.
I moan, my pussy spasming around him. “Why?”
“Because I know you do, and I want to hear it.” He licks a path up my neck, nipping at my jaw. “Don’t come until you’ve said it.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to stave off and ride through my climax before it hits, hoping he comes first. But then he shifts, dropping a wet thumb to my clit and adding counterclockwise motions to the brutal pounding of his hips from below.
And I just can’t hold it in any longer. “I love you,” I cry, my world exploding into thousands of tiny blissful shards, some glass and some wooden, and all just as dangerous.
“Fuck,” he hisses, and this time when he goes to move me off of him, I lock my knees and stay put.
“Come inside me,” I whisper, my lips on his ear, and he follows me right over the edge. He pulses, emptying himself, and I feel his hot cum flood my pussy, drawing a second wave of euphoria from me.
We’re a mess of sweaty, tangled limbs as our collective high wears off, and I can feel the despair from before trying to settle in. Running my fingers through his hair, I sigh.
“I do, you know. Love you. I don’t think this relationship has been fake for a while.”
Chuckling, Jonas gently pulls me off of him, and I try not to whimper at the loss, even as his cum runs down my thigh. “I’m not sure that it ever really was.”
He’s right, in a way. It started off completely unconventional, and maybe a little cold at first, but there has never been another person I’ve felt such a strong, visceral connection to.
No one else has ever been willing to save me, when it was all I ever really wanted to begin with.
That unconditional kind of love that you’d risk your life on a battlefield for.
We sit there quietly for a long time, until sirens can be heard in the distance. Pushing up, I glance over at Preston, who seems to have fallen asleep—or maybe passed out since there’s a massive stab wound in his side that I didn’t see until now.
It’s no longer bleeding, but he’s still covered in blood, and I wonder if he’s even alive.
Sliding off of Jonas’s lap, I pull my T-shirt down and walk over slowly, trying to reconcile this man with the one I thought I knew for three years. How could I have gotten it so wrong?
Then again, my father was once my absolute best friend, so I suppose you can only know a person as well as they want you to.
Preston’s eyes flutter open as I bend down in front of him, looking at the myriad of weapons laid out like a buffet. I feel Jonas come up behind me, his presence warm at my back.
“I thought you might want to decide how he dies,” he says, and my heart swells ten times.
That shouldn’t be romantic, but goddamn.
The man just gets me.
Picking up a long, slender kitchen knife, I grip the handle tight in my hand and sigh, looking over my ex one last time. Disgust and anger boil inside me, blocking out any other emotions right now, and I cock my head to the side.
“Any last words, Mr. Covington?”
His cuffs clink together as his hands move, and I smirk when he lifts his middle finger.
“Yeah,” I say, reaching down and pinching his dick between two fingers, bringing the sharp edge of the blade to the underside of the crown. “Fuck you, too.”
EPILOGUE
“The face that launched a thousand ships.” Lenny frowns, moving backward across the room as she taps a brush against the corner of her mouth. “That kind of sounds like an insult, don’t you think?”
I don’t look up from the floating shelf I’m working on mounting, though her every movement registers in my peripheral anyway. Ever since the night I found her at Primrose Manor months ago, covered in her father’s blood, I can’t stop paying attention.
“Girl started a whole war just because she was pretty.” Lenny shakes her head, holding her thumb up for reference to the wall where she’s painting a Helen of Troy mural. “Tell me that’s not the most dramatic thing you’ve ever heard.”
“More dramatic than the time you decided to renovate the entire beach house out of boredom?”
Hands on her hips, she turns to me with narrowed eyes. Gorgeous, seafoam-green that I wish I could deep dive into and drown in.
“You told me to pick a passion project for my portfolio. I fail to understand how you didn’t see this coming.”
Fair enough. Especially since the only reason she decided to start community college courses was because I encouraged her to.
The events at Primrose Manor sparked a huge wave of controversy surrounding her family, even though the bodies inside were given manufactured fates, per the request of Mrs. Primrose. According to official records, Tom suffered a heart attack and died peacefully in his bed, while Preston went missing during a yacht outing.