“You love to taunt me. Yet, you tremble in my grasp.”
“I can’t tell if you’re angry.”
“I am angry.” Sliding my hands up to either side of the pillow, he holds me captive as he drives forward, filling the ache between my thighs. In slow and easy thrusts, he pumps in and out of me, jerking my body with each rough invasion. “I hate that fucking you has become my favorite thing in the world.”
“Then, stop, if it troubles you so much.”
“I can’t stop. Once I’m inside of you, and I can feel that tight little hole gripping my dick.” He bends my arms, and holds my wrists behind my back like that of a criminal about to be cuffed. His arm slides beneath my stomach, propping me up onto my knees, and with one hand holding my wrists captive, he grips the back of my neck again with the other. “It’s impossible to stop,” he grits in my ear, hips slapping against my ass as he pounds into me with fervor. “This is what you do to me. My head. My body. It’s madness. And I’m going to fuck you until I no longer feel this violence inside of me.”
I don’t know where, or when, I developed a desire for rough sex, but everything about this sends a wicked thrill through my body. The idea that I’ve stirred this lack of control, made him want me to the point of savagery, it almost feels like too much power in my hands. Like I’m holding the reins of an untamable beast.
Like I’m the one in control.
It’s strange, the way he makes me feel this way, as comparatively small and inexperienced as I am.
I turn my head into the pillow, breathing hard against the cotton, and my thoughts take me back to the night before, when his lips sealed off the oxygen as I climaxed. How exquisite it felt, the tug for air, the tightening of muscles, my body in a frenzy for release.
Pace escalating, he grunts while he ruts against me, the force of his body knocking what little breath remains out of my lungs.
I focus on his stiff length slipping in and out of me, the way my breasts jitter beneath me on each forward thrust.
Oh, God.
My head urges me to turn and steal a breath, but I can’t. I want the burn in my chest, the cramping in my womb, and the tremble of my muscles, as it culminates inside of me.
“Keep your head in the pillow.” Lucian’s voice is ragged and strained, his fingers digging into my wrists, keeping me hostage as he drives into me.
My body jostles like a ragdoll beneath him, helpless to his relentless assault, and I curl my fingers in his grasp, desperate for air, desperate for release, desperate for the pleasure he’s stirred inside of me.
So close.
Chest pulsing for one sip of breath, I bite the sheets, listening to the perpetual sound of slapping skin echo through the room over his grunts and growls.
Long, labored moans escape my lips, captured into the pillowcase. The damp cotton fails to offer more than a small bit of air, not enough to fill my lungs.
My muscles tighten. Toes curl. Arms tremble in his grasp. I’m so close.
“Come for me, Isa.”
The deep timbre of Lucian’s voice sends me flying over the edge, into the stratosphere where the light flashes in my eyes. I scream into the pillow, while pleasure rips through my body, the dizzying poison exploding through my veins.
I turn my head to suck in a breath, drinking in the cool air that rushes into my chest. His palm slides beneath my throat, my wrists still bound in his other hand, and he squeezes as he lies across my back and runs his teeth over my jawline. Thrusts slowing, the groan in his throat is long and tortured, and he releases my neck to push off of me. As cool air hits my back, Lucian’s curses bounce off the walls.
As he jerks out the last of his orgasm, I lie weak and exhausted, reeling from my newfound thrill.
“You enjoy the lack of breath.” He rests his head against my shoulders and kisses my damp skin.
I nod, still panting from the exertion that has every muscle feeling like jelly. “I think I just figured out my new favorite thing, too.”
“You and I are going to get along very well, my little raven.” Teeth nipping my skin, he tightens his grip around me, drawing my arms in and caging me beneath him. “As tragic as that may be.”
Chapter 46
Lucian
Four years ago …
Voices echo around me. Sterile scents invade my senses. I can’t tell if I’m awake or asleep. The incessant beeping in my ear grows louder, until I open my eyes to see white walls and a half-closed white curtain, enveloping me in with two men in white coats.
Am I dead?
A flash of blinding light hits the back of my head, making my eyes instinctively screw shut, and I feel the flames burning my skin.
I jerk awake, but when I try to sit up, my body doesn’t move.
“Relax, Lucian. Your heart sounds as if it might gallop away any minute.” The voice is foreign to me, in this place that feels like a dream.
“Where am I? What is this?” The words arrive stiff and clipped through an ache in my jaw that pulses in my ear.
“I’m Dr. Thames, and this is Dr. Mayer,” he says, gesturing to the shorter, stocky man beside him. “He’s an expert in the field of reconstructive surgery.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
“You’ve been in a coma for about a week. In that time, we’ve done some minor patches to your face and jawline, but wanted to wait until you were stable before taking you to the OR.”
“Patches? For what?” A fog swirls inside my head, dancing around the dull throb that beats through my sinuses.
“You were in an accident and sustained some fairly serious injuries, particularly to your jawline, shoulder, arm and thigh. Your shoulder took the brunt of the impact, but you have a number of broken bones in your face, collarbone and ribs. There was quite a bit of head trauma, as well. The coma was induced to reduce some of the swelling on your brain. We placed a drain that, I’m pleased to report, we were able to remove yesterday afternoon, along with weaning you off the vent. You’ve remained stable since.”
My mind replays the last thing I remember. The lights. The fire. Roark holding his teddy bear. “My son. Where’s my son?”
“Your mother tells me there was an accident at home? That was the nature of you hopping on a bike with no helmet.”
“Accident?” I say the word aloud, and the movie reel inside my head rewinds further. Roark sleeping. The pill bottle. No pulse. My chest expands as the panic blooms behind my ribs, until I can’t breathe.
Something beeps inside the room.
“Hey, hey. Calm down, Lucian.”
A hand touches my shoulder, and I want to throw it off me, but can’t. Nothing moves. I can’t feel anything but the agony tearing through me. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. As difficult as it may be, the best thing you can do right now, Mr. Blackthorne, is focus on your recovery.”
Tears distort his form, as I stare up at this man I don’t even know. One who thinks he knows what’s best for me. “What’s the point?”
Two weeks have passed since the accident. Two weeks of rehab. Caring too little. Thinking too much. Drowning in the misery and guilt of having failed my son. It’s there every time I look into the mirror. The mangled remains of my face, so riddled with scars and metal plates that I don’t even feel human anymore. My punishment for being a shitty father. For putting myself first, when it should’ve been Roark.