He grabs hold of my wrist. “Touch me,” he rasps, guiding it to his chest.
I run my palm over the intricate tattoos, watching in wonder as I create my own bloody artwork across his tanned skin.
Chase watches on with dark lustful interest.
“Enough,” he says, grabbing my bloody hand with his own, mixing together the different shades of our very essence together. He covers my body with his and takes my lips in a passionate kiss. My nipples graze his chest, and a spark of pleasure ripples through me. He swipes his thumb across my lip and stares at me for a silent moment. “I’m going to ruin you,” he says, and I’m not sure if it’s a warning or a promise.
He reaches between us and positions the head of his cock at the dripping entrance to my pussy. “This is going to hurt,” he warns.
I cup his cheek in my palm. “One can only hope.”
He groans and thrusts inside me with such force that not only do I feel like I’m being torn apart from the inside, but my head smashes against the headboard. “Yes!” I shout, feeling a burst of pleasure behind the pain and needing more of it. “More!”
“I knew it,” he groans, pulling out again, causing a new kind of rippling pleasure within me. “I knew you were the one.”
“More,” is all I can say, arching my hips to meet his.
He pounds into me, and with my free yet bloody hand, I dig my fingers into his ass, guiding him deeper. Pushing him harder. There is pleasure and pain, but they aren’t separate feelings. There’s also a fast building of sensation that I never want to let go of. A realization that sets me free like a wild animal running from its cage.
I was never broken.
I was just his.
My body tightens as he slams into me over and over again. My pussy clenches around him, pulling him back in whenever he pulls out.
“Fuck, come on my cock, Nevie. Come all around me,” he groans, and his muscles and jaw tighten as his movements being to uncoil, becoming wild and erratic.
“Look at me,” he grates between his teeth. “I want to see you come.”
I’m panting like an animal as the feeling builds and builds until one final thrust sends me into a cloud of pleasure that envelopes me like a fog I’m more than happy to be lost in. I scream my release without taking my eyes from his, pulsing around his cock, milking him. “Nevie!” He screams as he grows impossibly hard within me, threatening to rip me to shreds before bursting apart, coating my insides with his hot release that drips out between us, soaking the sheets.
He drops his forehead to mine to catch his breath. His lips seek mine, planting kisses on the corner of my mouth. He darts out his tongue and tastes his dried blood on my face.
“We made a mess,” I say with a small embarrassed laugh.
He releases my other hand, then grabs the knife and unties my feet. He drops next to me on the bed and pulls me against him, resting his hand over the swell of my breast.
“No, we’ve made way more than that,” he replies with a smile that makes me blush all over.
He reaches over to the nightstand and pulls something out of the drawer. A remote. My eyes widen at the large tattoo on his back.
Words that read: Snow White.
“Like the fairy tale?” I ask, glancing from his chest to the painting on the wall.
“No. Like you, princess. Neve means snow. Blanca means white. It’s not for some kid’s story, it’s for you. It’s real.” He runs his finger around the name on his chest. “You’re real.”
It’s my name. Tattooed on his chest. A mural depicting the feelings he’s always had for me.
It was never my imagination. Chase is right.
This. Us. We’re real.
I’m stunned into silence, my only answer a deep inhale of his sticky skin and a sigh that has me releasing eighteen years’ worth of pent up anguish.
We’re silent for a long time, content in each other’s company. “You know who I am now. And now you’re mine.” He clicks a button on the remote, and a large TV drops down from the ceiling near the foot of the bed. He clicks another button, and it lights up. “Now I can tell you why you’re here.” There isn’t any hesitation in his voice, but he doesn’t sound too eager either.
I roll over, draping a leg over his thigh, waiting to hear whatever it is he has to tell me, but knowing that whatever it is won’t change the feeling that for the first time in my life I’m finally home.
I’ll never be alone again.
Chase frowns as he finds the channel with the local news. “I’m sorry, princess,” he says, and the way he says it I know he’s not apologizing for himself, but then for who?
He points to the TV where a reporter is standing out in front of my house. Behind her is my stepmother who is wearing her usual Chanel suit, only this time it’s black. I didn’t even know she owned anything black. “And now we cut to where Regina Blanca is about to hold a press conference. Let’s listen in.”
Regina dramatically removes the large sunglasses from her face and sniffles. She doesn’t appear sick. Her eyes are clear. “As most of you know by now, my lovely stepdaughter,” she pauses and raises the back of her hand to her mouth, turning away for a brief moment before taking a deep breath and starting again. “As many of you know my stepdaughter, Neve, went missing last night. This morning, a large amount of what has been confirmed as her blood was found in the back yard by the fountain as well as drag marks leading into the woods. As of right now, no body has been recovered, but I’m told that with the amount of blood that she’s lost…it doesn’t look good. At this time, I ask for your prayers and privacy as we try and discover how this tragedy unfolded and figure out where we go from here.” She coughs, and our butler Henry hands her a handkerchief she uses to dab at the corner of her eyes. “Without our Neve.”
Regina turns hastily from the array of microphones and heads back into the house, and I catch Henry rolling his eyes as he follows her inside and shuts the doors.
The reporter turns back to the camera. “You’ve heard it folks. Unfortunately, it’s not looking good for Neve Blanca, and police have confirmed that the search and rescue mission has been replaced with a search and recovery…”
I turn and stare at Chase. He took my blood. I run my fingers lightly over the bandage. The same blood found in the garden. It all clicks. Chase came for me because Regina wanted me dead.
Chase clicks off the TV as I stare at it in complete silence. I’m shocked, but I shouldn’t be. This is typical Regina bullshit. Why would I ever think that murder would be off the menu? Oh, the levels she’d stoop to in order to get her own way.
“Nevie, you okay?” Chase asks, rubbing my back.
“You were supposed to kill me,” I say. “But you didn’t want to, so you took my blood and spread it around to make it look as if I were dead.” I turn to him. “That explains why I’m here, but it doesn’t explain you buying shares of my father’s company in order to gain control.”
Chase smiles and pulls me back on the bed so we are once again lying chest to chest, sticking together as our blood dries between us. “Now that is an even better story,” he says, planting a kiss to the top of my head. “Listen closely, princess, because it’s one I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long fucking time.”