by Keri Lake
“It’s so strange, isn’t it?” Tilting my head, I guide his eyes to mine. “All my life, I’ve been made to feel fragile, and here, you are the biggest, most dangerous and intimidating man I’ve ever met in my life, and yet, I feel powerful when I’m with you. Invincible. You give me strength.”
It’s true. Every time I’ve felt knocked down by this world, Titus has been there to build me back up. He’s caught my fall, in spite of the fact that I continue to be a liability for him.
A weakness, as he said.
I climb on top of him, legs straddling his hard body, and as I lift the hem of his shirt, he sits up enough to allow me to pull it over his head. Gaze devouring his lean, chiseled form, I lean forward to kiss his chest. The scent of him hits the back of my throat again, watering my mouth. Something pulls from deep inside my stomach, a craving to have him in ways I shouldn’t right now. It somehow overrides the inhibitions sounding off inside my head that tell me it’s too soon. That I’ve not healed mentally and physically, in spite of what I feel.
As if he can hear them, too, his hands slide up from the side of me and lift me up just enough to break the kiss. “Thalia … we don’t have to do this right now.” The strained tone of his voice, alongside the slight tremble in his muscles, belies his words. The few times we’ve been together, I’ve noticed the vibration beneath his skin, as if his body is fighting to hold back.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
His dubious expression tells me he doesn’t believe me.
I thread my fingers in his hair, stretching my body over his, and I bury my face in his neck to hide the doubt I suspect is written all over my own face.
Rough hands smooth along my curves to the underside of my thighs, and he lifts his head just enough to kiss my neck. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“I’m ready. I want this. I want you.” What I want and need more than anything is normalcy. To distance myself from what happened and return to the girl I was before. I drag my tongue across his throat, while snaking my hand down inside his jeans.
He squeezes the back of my thighs as his groan rumbles across my lips. “Fucking hell, I’m trying to be decent, woman.” His voice cracks at the end, and he plants a kiss on my shoulder. “Please, Thalia. I can’t say no to you.”
He doesn’t want you, a familiar voice inside my head taunts. You’re no longer appealing. You’re worthless.
“I’m used now, Titus,” I say, with tears misting my eyes. “It doesn’t matter what you do to me.”
Grip tightening around me, he draws me in closer. “You’re not used. You’re not damaged. You are stronger today than you were yesterday. And tomorrow, you’ll be stronger still.”
No. I know better than that. Secrets I haven’t told him yet. Compartments inside my head that taunt me now, the demons Remus left for me.
“There are things you don’t know, Titus. Things that would disappoint you, after all that time you took to train me.”
“What things? What things could you have possibly done that would disappoint me?”
“I stopped fighting him. After a while. I laid there, while he …” The words choke at the back of my throat, and I push away the endless tears itching to escape. “… had his way with me.” An unbidden memory of lying on the bed, my limp and lifeless body jostling with his assault, is enough to make me want to puke. “I stopped fighting him.”
Brows flickering with what looks like restrained rage, he shakes his head. “Someday, you’ll stop punishing yourself. That’s when you’ll see the truth.”
“What truth?”
“The real battle hasn’t even begun yet. So don’t be so quick to give up on yourself now.” The thought of such a thing is unbearable. Like an anchor weighing down on me, pulling me deeper beneath the surface, until he adds, “But when you’re tired, I’ll be here to take some of those punches.”
How is it possible that in a world full of lesser men, who would take and violate, I’ve found the one who would give the last piece of himself? The singular man unafraid to stand in front of me, like a shield to all my doubts and self-loathing.
I push up from him, staring down at his unearthly, beautiful face, one this world doesn’t deserve. “Why do you keep saving me, Titus? From myself. From others. You’re free to go anywhere in this world. Countless women would fall at your feet, for the safety and protection you could give them. Why do you stay?”
He stares off, as if contemplating the question, his face twisting in a way that he seems troubled by it.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me to ask. After all you’ve--”
“I wish I knew the fancy words to tell you my thoughts, like the ones you read in those books. My words are simple and unimpressive.”
“Tell me. I need to hear them, whatever they are.”
“Inside my head is this … constant noise.” Frowning, he lifts his hand to his temple, as if demonstrating the turmoil. “A commotion of fury and violence that never seems to settle. Unless I’m with you. No matter how turbulent and restless, when there’s rage burning inside of me, you are still. The calm to my chaos.” He brushes his thumb over my eye, focused and concentrated, like he sees something there that isn’t dead and decaying. “The ceaseless light in my world.”
Tears slip down my cheeks as I stare down at this man. This incredible being who has the power to strip me bare, peel back my skin to the blackest, most vulnerable parts, and still make me feel of worth.
As if I have the fortitude and gall to command a god.
“Whatever is left of my heart is yours, Titus. It’s yours, completely.” Reaching down between us, I take hold of him, and his chest kicks out, pressing against my breasts, as he lets out a hiss through his teeth. Beneath the oversized shirt he dressed me in, I slip my panties off one leg. Lifting up my hips enough to tug down his jeans, I spring his cock fully free, dragging the hard flesh along my seam, guiding his tip to that forbidden entrance between my thighs. The single place on my body that not even I can touch without the shame and humiliation that follows.
I dare myself to inch against his prodding erection. To let him impale me without thoughts of Remus and his cruel, unforgiving thrusts. I dare Titus to push me away, as he always does when I traipse this boundary. In spite knowing why he does it, such an act would hurt twice as much now. “Why are you allowing this?” I ask against his lips. “Why aren’t you pushing me away?”
“I already told you. I won’t say no to you.”
“No. You worried too much before, about getting me pregnant. Now you’re silent. Why?”
“That was before the injections. Before the surgery.”
“What surgery?”
“Doctor Levins saved your life. But he ...” The pity written in his expression twists my stomach.
“What?”
“He couldn’t salvage your womb, Thalia. He tried, using some of the techniques they used on the girls at Calico. But the damage was too much. He had to remove it.”
The distortion of his face behind a shield of tears is all that keeps me from breaking. I always knew children weren’t in my cards, but now that fact is as permanent as the scar left behind to remind me every day of my life. If there was even a remote possibility, it’s gone now. Carved right out of me. “Damaged beyond repair, then.”
“No. You survived, and that’s all that matters.”
“Is it?” My voice cracks with the tears in my throat. “All men want children, don’t they? Isn’t that the point?” A sob breaks inside my chest, as Remus’s words come to mind.
Nothing but an empty hole to fuck.
He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “I can’t speak for all men. All I know is, I want you. Nothing else, but you.”
“And when that isn’t enough?”
The corner of his lips kicks up to a sad smile. “That’s like saying the sun isn’t enough. The air isn’t enough. We don’t think about more. We just breathe and enjoy the warmth.”
A part of me wants to hate him for giving me this sliver of hope. This small measure of happiness, when all the colors have been stripped from my world. When my body has been whittled free of any future. “Why do you have to be so good?”
He thumbs a tear from the corner of my eye. “Why do you have to be so damn beautiful?”
Leaning forward, I press my lips to his, surrendering myself to this vulnerability. To be swept up in his reassurance, even if they’re lies. Even if he changes his mind someday and decides the prospect of children is too important, for now, I’ll take his warmth. I need it.
“I need you,” I murmur against his lips.
The rough contours of his body, a landscape marred by so much destruction, slips beneath my wandering hands. I push up from his chest, to find that beautiful golden eye is now black. The dark hair turned to white curls.
Remus smiles back at me. “I knew you did, Thalia. I knew it all along.”
Eyes screwed so tight a flash of light hits the back of my eyelids, I turn away.
“He isn’t here. It’s Titus. Remus is dead,” I whisper to myself, and feel the gentle touch to my face that has me craning away from him.
“Thalia, don’t force this.”
“No! I’ll not have him come between us every time. I won’t let him win! I won’t! Make him go away, Titus! Make me forget him! Make me forget everything!”
He nudges my jaw back toward him. “When I touch you, don’t close your eyes. Look at me. Feel me. Stay with me.”
“I want to, but I can’t. This feels too much like a dream. And if I open my eyes, you’ll be gone. Fizzled away, just like every other time before. You’ll be dead all over again, and I cannot bear that reality. I won’t.”
“I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
I open my eyes to Titus, who keeps his gaze locked on mine. Reaching down as before, I guide him to my entrance, and rock against him slowly, allowing myself to stretch around his girth. I flinch at the size of him, but he doesn’t move, instead allowing me to take him at my own pace. Bigger than I thought, he can hardly breach my opening, and when only his tip slides against my walls, the pressure coils my stomach.
Oh, God. A sick fear churns inside of me, that I won’t be able to fit more than this, but I’ve seen firsthand what miraculous things a woman’s body can do. And I’m determined.
I cannot stand the thought of Remus being my last. I have to erase his touch, his unwelcomed invasion of my body, and Titus is the only man I trust to do that. The only man I know who would sooner hurt himself than me.
Still watching me, he reaches up to grip the back of my neck, tangling his fingers in my hair. “Slow, Thalia. There’s no rush.”
Little by little, I take him inside of my body, and there’s a new ache. A good ache. One that will stay with me far longer than the torment Remus inflicted on me.
The ache for a stronger man, who doesn’t have to dole out pain to assert his power, but takes it upon himself to lift the burden, the unimaginable weight of humiliation that presses down on me.
“You once told me you didn’t deserve me.” A tear slips down my cheek, falling onto his warm skin beneath me. “There is no man left in this world who will ever compare to you, Titus. Ever.”
He sits up from the bed, while I stir my hips against him, feeling him move inside my body, up into my stomach. His lips devour my neck, his fingers tangled deep in my hair, squeezing, as he tips my head back and drags his tongue to my jawline. Up higher, to my lips, stealing my next breath. I moan into his mouth, and for the first time, I feel resurrected.
Whole again.
Like I’ve reached into my past and stolen back some of the power from the girl I was before. The girl I’ll never wholly be again.
I’ve filled that impossible hollow inside of me with something stronger than the hate and loathing: love.
The purist love there is.
The unselfish, unconditional kind of love that has the power to bring the dead back to life. I want to tear myself open for him and sew him inside of me, so I never fall into that blackness again.
Rocking my hips faster, I wrap my arms tight around him, pulling his body as close to me as I can, and I let him fuck away my darkest memories.
His muscles contract and flex beneath me like a robust machine. A vigorous mass of force and kinetics, heat and friction with a natural rhythm, like waves beating against the shore. Gentle enough not to hurt me, but strong enough to distract me from the thoughts that scrape through my mind, threatening to pull me into the abysmal depths.
He’s the first deep breath after drowning. The promise of new life.
I surrender, open myself to him, allowing him to reach inside and throttle what’s left of my shame, to drag it out of me, the same way he dragged that bastard off and tore him apart. I trample those visuals with the new pain, the new sounds and scents, the electric energy that dances around us, threatening to lash out at anything that comes between us. Together, we ebb and flow, like the tides.
Steady and dynamic.
Two forces colliding into one impenetrable shield that the world can no longer touch. We are bound together by fate, and tied by the infrangible threads of love. Unbreakable now.
With every contraction of his muscles, I’m that much closer to the pinnacle. I clutch onto him, panting and moaning with every slow and steady drive of his hips, the sweat of our bodies creating a slick glide.
Sunlight beams through the window beside us, and I tip my head back, letting the rays fall against my face. I let it transport me back into the light. Back to myself. With Titus moving inside of me, I dig my fingers into his flesh, while the knot in my stomach tightens. Mouth gaping, I climb higher and higher, toward Heaven, the sound of my moans reverberating inside my head. A new sound. One of pleasure and gratification. I arch my back as the threads tighten deep inside my core, tugging up into my ribs by some invisible force.
Titus takes one of my nipples into his mouth, suckling me with the greedy impatience of a desperately thirsty man. I arch harder, thrusting my breasts toward him, and I open my eyes to an explosion of light. A scream ruptures out of my chest, a long, droning sound.
Titus curses and groans, rolling over top of me, caging me beneath his body. Two more pumps inside of me, and his entire body shudders in my arms as he climaxes, filling me with the warmth of his seed.
It’s when he collapses onto the bed beside me that an invisible dread crawls over the contentment and bliss that’s rendered me weak. A heavy, suffocating fog settles into my chest, stealing what little breath I can manage, and it’s only as Titus pulls me into his body that I realize what it is.
This is when I was forced back into the darkness after Remus finished with me. When I suffered in pain and silence, alone with my thoughts. As if conditioned, my body waits to be cast aside like worthless chattel.
Today is different, though.
Hot breaths hit the back of my neck where Titus rests his head, his chest pressed into my shoulder blades. Arms wrap tight around me, and he slips back inside of me, still hard in spite of his climax, filling me with thick pressure, but he doesn’t move. All of this must be a comfort for him, I’m guessing. In some ways, it’s a comfort for me, as well, to remain so connected as to have him inside of me. Here, in his arms, I feel safe. Protected. Loved. He holds me against him, and I stare through the window at the bright blue sky. The limitless possibilities spread out before me. The future that I can choose for myself.
“I choose you,” I murmur.
He tightens his grip around me and plants a kiss to the back of my ear. “I choose you, too.”
Chapter 44
The darkness settles, as night rolls in. Chest expanding and contracting against my back, Titus rests peacefully behind me, still inside of me, still caging me in his arms.
I stare down the bed, to the eyes that watch me from the corner of the room. Angry eyes. Accusing eyes. Eyes as black as their surroundings, only seen against t
he stark white pallor of his skin.
Remus.
My instincts prod me to hide beneath the blankets, but I won’t. Not this time.
Instead, I writhe against Titus, whose muscles flinch with the movement. Roused, his arms flex around me, hand sliding down to my belly, where he holds me against him. Grinding his hips into me, stirring his cock inside of me. His masculine groans of need awakening a part of me I’d never willingly give to Remus.
Not ever.
The eyes that watch burn with jealous fury, the same jealousy I saw when I spoke of Titus during my tortures, and I smile.
Go to hell.
The eyes fade into the darkness, and I arch into the massive body behind me.
“You’re ravenous.” His deep voice rumbles in my ear.
“And warm. You’re like an inferno. How about if we take this to the bathtub?”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Titus climbs over top of me, pausing for a kiss, and lands on the floor beside the bed. He gathers up the sheets around my naked body, and lifts me up into his arms.
A gasp flies out of me, and I wrap my arms around him, in spite of knowing he won’t drop me. Through the dark cabin, he carries my bundled form, pausing to swipe up the bear skin from the living room, before heading out the front door and across the yard. Yuma chases after us, scouting the forest as we slip into the night. The soft rustle of trees accompanies a cool breeze, and I’m grateful for the sheet around me as it tickles over the exposed parts of my skin. The vulnerability of being without clothes, in the open, where Ragers, or marauders, could attack us, leaves a tight knot in the pit of my stomach.
As if sensing my edginess, Titus seizes my lips in a kiss, sending a calm through me again.
The forest opens to a clearing where the trees part for the moon’s light, like our personal window to the sky. In the distance, the soft trickle of water tells me we’re not far from the river, toward which Yuma bounds off.