“I’m only going to ask you once,” he said, his voice rough and low.
“Yes,” I whispered against his lips.
He smiled. A genuine grin, the kind that made the skin around the edges of his eyes crinkle. “I haven’t asked yet.”
I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his back to his bare butt. “It doesn’t matter. The answer is yes.”
He lowered his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. I brought my hands to his face and cupped his cheeks, and his eyes squeezed shut even tighter. “If I asked you to love me… Just for tonight…”
My heart shattered. For him. For me. For the king who bled from the thorns on his crown. “Yes,” I said. “My answer would be yes.”
Tomorrow was an eternity away. Fear was irrelevant. If all we had was this… moment… I wanted it to matter. Sutton needed it to matter.
Without opening his eyes, he pressed his face into my neck, and I felt it. His staggered breath against my chest and his hot tears against my skin. All the pain. All the brokenness. The unbreakable connection. Everything brought us to this right here, right now.
I pressed my lips against his temple and pulled him closer. His mouth moved over my neck then found mine in the darkness. His tongue licked over the seam of my lips then he kissed one corner of my mouth before pulling away. He gently lifted my arms up over my head, bringing my tank top with them then throwing it to the side. He leaned back on his haunches and took his time drinking me in, as if I were one of the jewels in his Collection Room.
“You have no fucking idea how bad I need to be inside you right now.”
I bowed my back and arched toward him. My fingers traced the lines of his taut stomach all the way down to the trail of hair I loved so much. “Then do it.”
When he looked down at me, the anguish was gone. Now he looked like a lion ready to pounce, and I offered myself as a sacrifice. “Do what? Say the word, Katie.”
Not little sheep. Tonight, I was Katie, and he was Sutton.
“Fuck me.”
“I love watching filthy words spill from your lips. And I love that they only spill for me,” he said as he slid my shorts over my hips and off my legs. His knee nudged mine, forcing my legs apart. He settled on top of me and brought his face to mine. “Your words are mine. Your mouth is mine. You are all mine. There hasn’t been a single minute since I found you in the kitchen that you haven’t belonged to me.”
This feeling of belonging was the most real thing I’d ever known. Whatever happened after this, whatever tomorrow would bring—none of it mattered because I was his, and he was mine. His strength. His power. His brokenness. I wanted it all.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he reached between our bodies and fisted his length, rocking his hips slowly. I moaned against his mouth when his thick head brushed my clit, lighting me on fire. He rubbed me from front to back, spreading my wetness with his thickness. Taunting and teasing until I was nothing more than a breathless, panting mess. The burning man engulfed me in his flames.
“Sutton, please…”
“I’m going to ruin you.” His polished voice was raspy and hard.
I don’t care.
He eased the head of his cock inside me, then reached for my hands and held them above my head. The room grew quiet as I held my breath and welcomed him inside. Body to body. Skin to skin. Finally. He laced his fingers with mine and pushed into me... bare. No condom. There was no feeling of panic or crippling fear, because being trapped in Torryn with Sutton’s baby inside me didn’t feel like a trap at all.
My hips met the slow and easy rock of his. A strangled groan rumbled low in his throat, and I knew it had to be torture for him to go so slow. It was killing me. His sharp edges may have softened, but they weren’t dull. He lived for the challenge whether he admitted it or not.
My hands clenched his, and I challenged him with my eyes. “Fuck me like you mean it.”
Something broke inside of him at my words. Something so intense I almost heard when it ripped open and tore to the ground. He immediately sat up and gripped my hips, pulling me down the bed and lifting my butt onto his lap, then slamming into me again. Deep. So deep it hurt. It stretched me to my fullest and sent pain ripping up my spine. I clawed at his strong arms that held me in place, chasing the pain, craving the pleasure. Sutton fucked me like he hated me. Like he loved me. Like he was at war with himself and my body was the white flag.
Sweat beaded across his forehead and in the hollow of his neck. “Is this what you wanted, little sheep? For me to break you in two?”
Yes. God, yes.
If this was heaven, then his body was my salvation. He reached behind and pulled me up so that I sat all the way on his lap. He drove into me, thrusting and pounding so deep my whole body trembled. He leaned forward and sucked a nipple into his mouth then pulled at it with his teeth. My fingers gripped his hair, pushing him away then pulling him closer like a woman teetering on the edge of madness. With every drive of his hips, I became more addicted to him. He held my hips and thrust deeper.
And harder.
So deep, I couldn’t breathe.
I tipped my head back as my entire body tensed and arched back, pressing my breasts against his chest.
“Fuck yeah,” he growled against my skin. “Fall apart on my cock. Break for me.”
His mouth moved from my breast to my shoulder, and at the exact moment the most intense orgasm I’d ever had ripped through me, his teeth sunk into my skin. The sharp bite of pain and pools of pleasure brought tears to my eyes then trailing down my cheeks.
I was gone, completely sucked in. Sutton owned me. He was right when he said my fate was sealed the moment he walked into the kitchen. Maybe even before that. That tightrope we were walking on? It just snapped in two. My eyes fluttered closed, and I welcomed the fall.
Twenty-Six
Last night was the worst and best night of my life. I almost didn’t get to say goodbye to my father because I was too busy dicking with Keaton fucking Valetta. By the time I got to Dad’s room, he could hardly hold his eyes open. His breath came in slow, drawn-out gasps. I knew the pain would have torn him apart if the nurses hadn’t taken care of it.
Anyone who knew me might say my heart was made of stone. After watching my father die, I knew that couldn’t be true. My heart was made of glass and with every strangled breath he took, another piece of it broke. The shards gutted me. All I could do now was pray that one day the edges would dull, and I could breathe again.
I held one of his hands while Mom held the other with tears streaming down her face—one of the few genuine signs that there was a heart beating in her chest.
Death was a painful truth that the world was taught to fear. Even though Death feared nothing at all. It answered to no one or nothing, and no amount of prayers or pleas or promises could stop it. It didn’t discriminate or bow to kings. It was Death who had a heart of stone, not me.
The last thing my father did before he fell into his final sleep was kiss my mother on her tear-stained cheek. I kissed his forehead and told him goodbye, then I went to Katie because I was terrified of the silence.
It was never my plan to fuck her. I just needed her presence because lately that was the only thing that made me feel human. She was fire, and I’d spent my entire life in the cold. She was never supposed to wake up, but when she did, I had to touch her. Seeing her wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.