“Open your eyes, Delilah. Don’t hide from me.”
I force the lids open, gazing at him.
Gray lowers his hand to his thickening cock.
I see the outline through the denim.
“See what you’ve done to me. How are you going to fix it?”
I don’t respond because the words have vanished with all thoughts.
He rips the delicate thong off my body and casts it aside. “I think you need to rub your pussy, make it swollen and uncomfortable like you’ve made me. Go ahead,” he drawls. “Rub your pretty cunt, until it aches for me.”
My fingers find their way to the wet, slippery folds. I slide the tips of my fingers over my clit, while the other hand digs into the bed linen. My body is on fire. I’m slipping away, but I don’t close my eyes. Not even when the urge to hump my hand consumes me. Not even then.
I let Gray see me—all of me—until the impulse to end the torment has my thighs inching together.
“Don’t you dare close your legs. I want to see your fingers strum that tight little pussy.”
I’m close, and squirming with abandon, when he gets down on his haunches and shoves my hand away. No! I push my fingers back between my legs, but Gray isn’t having it.
He lifts my legs up and apart, holding them behind the knees. With the first long sweep of his tongue, I gasp and whimper.
He raises his head, and meets my eyes with a wicked gleam. “Pinch your nipples while I lick you. Don’t let go until you’re coming all over my mouth.”
I gasp as my fingers wrap around the sensitive furls. But I don’t shy away. I lean into the throb, letting each pulse carry me higher.
Gray licks me with abandon, pushing his long tongue inside my slick core, swirling, before withdrawing. He sucks my clit, gently nudging me closer to the precipice, but releases the swollen bead as my body begins the dance to release. “No!” He’s going to play at the edge—oh my God. No. “Please. Gray. Please.”
“Shhh,” he admonishes. “The more you beg, the longer you’ll wait.”
I squeeze my nipples harder.
“You’re a dirty, dirty girl, Blue Eyes, and I’m going to give you the release you crave.”
My words are a reflection of the cluttered nonsense running through my head. Please. Yes. More. Don’t stop.
His tongue sweeps across my slick flesh. I buck and moan—and his hands are on mine, prying my fingers from my nipples. When I let go, the blood floods the sensitive peaks, sending currents to my throbbing pussy. I tremble, begging him to end it.
And he does. Spectacularly. Nipping, and sucking, lapping my pussy until the tremors weaken, and I’m wrung out.
When he climbs onto the bed with me, he’s naked.
“You don’t need pain. You might choose it, but you don’t need it. Pain is just a lazy way to ramp up the intensity. But there are other ways to find that high during sex, where your mind empties and peace rushes in to fill the space. Sometimes nothing but pain will do, but there are so many ways to get there. It doesn’t always have to hurt.”
I’m sobbing. I don’t know why. But I’m overwhelmed by everything. All of it. The powerful orgasm. Telling him about the Marshalls. And for letting him in—fully inside. Because that’s what I did.
“It’s okay to cry, darlin’. Sometimes it’s the quickest way to get it all out.”
“I’m a mess. We have a mission—I need to be ready.”
“Think of it as all part of getting ready.”
He flips me onto my belly and straddles me, a knee on either side of my hips. His hard cock brushes against my ass, and I wiggle toward it. “Keep still.” He holds me steady between his muscular thighs, his hands massaging my back with long, sensuous strokes, lulling me into a dreamlike trance.
“I killed my mother.”
My body lurches out of the sex-induced stupor. His confession comes out of nowhere. In a voice that’s eerily calm. I wait, with my heart pounding, for him to say something more. Julia Wilder was killed in an automobile accident. She drove off the road after being drugged by her husband. There seems little dispute about that among those in the know.
“You were a child,” I say with as much compassion and empathy as he showed me earlier.
His hands freeze, and he stiffens over me.
I reach behind and clutch his hips, digging my fingers into his backside.
“She didn’t simply lose control of the car,” he says flatly. “She was poisoned. I gave her the sandwich that contained the poison.”
Oh Gray. My heart breaks for the little boy forced to carry this burden, and for the man tormented by guilt. I want to turn around and wrap my arms around him, soothe his pain. But when I try to move, he holds me in place. I don’t like it, but I’ll respect his wishes. He doesn’t want to look at me—or maybe he doesn’t want me to look at him.
“You were eleven years old. You didn’t put the poison in the sandwich. How could you have known?”
“I was angry at her. I lied about where the sandwich came from. She might not have eaten it if she had known it was from my father.” He lowers his forehead to the hollow of my back. “I was happy to help trick her into eating it. They would all still be alive if I hadn’t been such a little asshole.”
“Gray. You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
“Our lives would have all been different. Even JD’s and Chase’s, who didn’t die, but who live with the consequences of what I did.”
“Surely your brothers don’t blame you?” I’m ready to wage all-out war on those Wilder boys.
“They don’t know. I’ve never told anyone besides you, and a therapist I was forced to see in college.”
“The one who recruited you to the FBI.”
“Mmhm.”
I’ve never told anyone besides you… It’s a gift—the gift of trust.
“Let me see you,” I whisper into the mattress.
After a few minutes, he moves his legs enough for me to flip onto my back. I reach up and cup his jaw, easing my fingers over the stubble. His jaw is clenched. His skin sallow. But it’s the suffering in his eyes that reaches in and twists my soul. I don’t say anything. I’m just here—fully present, for whatever he needs.
“I trust you, Delilah,” he says, the words coming directly from his heart, “with the mission—with everything. You need to trust yourself.” He hoists my legs up, pushing my knees into my chest, and slides his cock into me. It’s not an easy slide—for either of us.
His thrusts are ruthless. His face contorts in agony, with droplets of sweat forming in clusters.
I reach up to smooth the sorrow, caressing his lips with my fingertips. He nips the tender pads, and jerks his head away, lowering his mouth to mine.
Gray devours me—taking and taking. And I let him, delivering the pieces he misses in benevolent offering. I want to give him everything. In this moment, I know nothing else.
Every kiss, every breath, every heartbeat brings us closer—not just to the edge, but to each other.
When I’m almost there again, he reaches between us, circling my clit until I come apart, clutching his shoulders as the turbulent waves crest and break, wrecking me.