Phantom: Her Ruthless Fiancé: 50 Loving States, Kentucky (Ruthless Triad)

by Theodora Taylor

  Almost ran.

  He had to close himself back up in the passenger seat of the car to keep himself from forcing the issue.

  She wasn’t ready, he advised himself, as Wayne drove him uptown.

  He had to give her time. He had to be patient. He had to—

  “Turn back around.”

  The three words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them.

  Wayne glanced at him in the rearview. “You forget something?”

  Phantom didn’t have a good answer for that question—at least not one that didn’t sound crazy and obsessive.

  So he just said it again. “Turn around.”

  And Wayne turned around.

  There was a car accident on 86th, and they got caught in the kind of stand-still New York had made famous in the movies.

  Son of a bitch. He couldn’t make himself wait—couldn’t sit still in the backseat.

  Without a word of explanation to Wayne, he climbed out of the car and started walking toward her brownstone. Then running, his chest thundering with determination.

  “Hak-kan?” Olivia asked when she opened her door to the sight of him panting. “Is everything alright?”

  “Let me in,” he answered. “Let me in.”

  13

  OLIVIA

  “Let me in.”

  I didn’t think about it. I just opened the door wider and let him inside.

  “Is everything alright?” I asked again as he bound in past me.

  He scanned the door as I closed it behind him.

  “Just two locks?” He eyed the deadbolt like it was a piece of scotch tape.

  “Two locks are all I need,” I insisted—I’d had the same conversation with Skylar during her visit to the city.

  He didn’t answer. Just stared at the lock, his black shark eyes burning with some emotion I couldn’t name.

  “Why…?” My voice came out shakier than I wanted it to, so I swallowed and said, “Why are you here?”

  My question drew his eyes away from the lock, and I wished I hadn’t asked it when he pinned me underneath that intense shark gaze.

  “You were right.”

  “I was right?” I repeated, unable to look away. “Right about what?”

  “Me having needs.”

  “Oh…” The confusion cleared, leaving behind a hollow, cold sensation in my chest. “So you’re here because you want to cheat?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Nah, I don’t cheat.”

  “But you just said you have needs.”

  “Yeah, I do. But I got my fist. That can be enough.”

  I looked to both sides. “So you came here to tell me you want to masturbate? That’s fine, of course. I’d never begrudge you tha—”

  “O,” he said, cutting me off. “Stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop being stupid,” he answered, his shark eyes burning into mine. “You know what I mean. You know why I’m here.”

  I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. But then…

  Somewhere deep inside of me, the woman with sexual needs that I’d been squashing down rose up to answer all my questions.

  He wants you, she told me. He came here. He asked you to let him in because he wants you.

  Her claim tingled across my skin. But that couldn’t be true.

  Could it?

  As if in answer to my unspoken question, he stepped closer. So close that when I tried to step away, my back hit the door.

  And did he apologize for erasing all but a sliver of the space between us? No. No, he didn’t.

  In fact, he placed a hand on either side of my head, crowding me in further, filling my nose up with his signature scent of cold wind and danger.

  “I have needs,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “But I fucked this up. I made it about you not cheating. I should have asked, do you have needs, too?”

  I swallowed—at least I tried to swallow. My throat was so dry. It ended up a choke.

  Our relationship was fake. We’d both agreed to that.

  Adding anything extra to it wouldn’t be wise. I should tell him that, then send him away with a gentle good night—

  “Yes…yes, I have needs,” my scared heart spit out before my brain could finish processing a wise reply.

  Three words: I have needs. But they were the scariest things that had ever fallen out of my mouth.

  And those three words were all it took.

  His lips crashed down on mine. Ravaging. Consuming. Like I was a meal he’d been denied too long.

  He didn’t stop; he wouldn’t stop kissing me. Even when he reached into his suit jacket, Hak-kan’s lips stayed on mine. So I couldn’t see what he retrieved, but I easily guessed at what it was when the back of his hands grazed my stomach.

  A condom. This was happening. This was happening again. Right now.

  He finally stopped the kiss. “Sorry, beautiful—not going to be able to do this gentle. You made me wait too long, and now I’m fucking out of my mind.”

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. I didn’t mind going lightning fast. Being wanted so intensely—it sent all sorts of new thrills through me. Also…

  I peeped up at him and confessed, “I want this too.”

  With a feral growl, he lifted my pretty party dress, yanked my panties aside, and shoved in.

  I cried out—and not in a good way.

  I’d thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. Not like last time. He was big…even bigger than I remembered. And the pressure was unbelievable, like being split in two by a steel beam covered in flesh.

  “Fuck, sorry,” he said, pausing.

  I could only pant, trying to catch my breath. I wasn’t sure what to do. Push him away? Demand he stop? My hips twisted with a mind of their own, trying to escape.

  “Okay, settle down. It’s okay,” he crooned, pressing his forehead into mine. “I don’t ever want to hurt you, beautiful. But sometimes that’s going to happen with a guy as big as me. Here…”

  He lifted me like I weighed nothing. “Let me in. Wrap your legs around my waist and let your body remember me.”

  I did as he said even though this was definitely a new position for me—something meant for tiny actresses in movies—not for a doctor who’d just admitted for the first time in her life that she had needs.

  “That better?” he asked, pulling back to regard me with a soft look.

  I nodded. Because it was.

  “Good,” he said. “I have trouble controlling myself with you. Sometimes I’m gonna get too excited, and it’s going to hurt.”

  He began rolling his rock-hard shaft inside of me but mitigated the discomfort with kisses and soft words….

  One kiss. “But from now on, I’m the only one—the only one who’s ever going to cause you pain.”

  Two kisses. “The only one who’s going to make it better.”

  Three kisses. “I’m always going to make it better. That I promise you, beautiful.”

  He made me that promise—that vow I never asked for—and he slow-rolled inside of me until a new wet sound filled the air. The sound of me milking him inside my slippery folds, of my body letting him in, just like he’d demanded.

  It was no longer too much, but suddenly it wasn’t quite enough. I moaned, and yet another word I would have guessed I had inside of me fell out. “Harder.”

  He froze for a hot, dangerous tick of a second. Then he slammed into me, his heavy body pinning me to the front door. Whatever gage he’d been keeping on himself to go slow, to ensure he didn’t hurt me—it switched off.

  I don’t curse. That’s not behavior befitting the southern debutante my mother tried to raise or the professional doctor I decided to become. But inside my mind, I couldn’t think of any other word to describe what he did to me other than fucking.

  He fucked me so hard against my front door. He fucked me so hard that when the orgasm overtook me, it felt like I was going to die.

  And I
didn’t care. Eric and Bernice would be sad, but they’d find another doctor to replace me. And there’d be no need for anyone to mourn because I would have died happy. So happy, overtaken by an ecstasy, unlike anything I’d ever known.

  The only thing better than the way he took me was the helplessness in his voice when his own release came thundering into the station. “Ah fuck, it feels so good inside you, beautiful. I can’t…I can’t hold on this time.”

  When we’d done this on my birthday, he told me I’d made him feel like a king. Well, as he lost all control between my legs, he made me feel like a powerful queen. I held on to the rutting beast he’d become until he pushed in one last time, his entire body seizing as he released into the condom with a loud shout.

  We both panted, looking at each other like, What was that.

  Then we did it again.

  And again. Until sometime in the night, I fell asleep a completely satisfied woman.

  Unlike the last time we had sex when I woke up, I found him lying there beside me, his big body sprawled out across the bed. And his tattooed back on full display.

  Big bodies carried more heat—we’d learn that in first-year biology at Manhattan U. He’d probably gotten hot in the night and tossed off the Ugandan quilt. I didn’t mind waking up to his particular naked body.

  The tattoos on his back were a fascinating mix of east and west. A giant American-style skull surrounded by waves with an Asian influence. And for some reason, there was a wild rose inked on top of his right scapula.

  The urge to touch his muscled back made me reach out a hand, but then he turned over, revealing something even more impressive than his full-back tattoo.

  I blinked at the flesh, standing like a thick monument between his legs. How could he have morning wood after everything we did last night?

  I rubbed my thumb against the suddenly tingling palm of the hand I’d reached out, kind of wanting to touch that too.…

  But no. It was Saturday. And weekends were for getting stuff done.

  I hauled myself to my feet instead of giving in to the urge to touch the huge fake fiancé sleeping in my bed. It was already eleven a.m., according to my FitBit watch. That meant I’d wasted most of the morning.

  I decided to run through my usual routine anyway. Shower and shave. Then I applied my weekly orange turmeric mask while listening to the tail end of the American Top 40 countdown.

  If not for the sore ache between my legs and the protests of my abductor muscles which weren’t used to being worked out like that, I might have forgotten what had transpired last night. Yes, best to go about the rest of my weekend as if nothing had happened.

  I mean, who even knew if Hak-kan would still be there when I emerged from the bathroom anyway? He could disappear like last time. Call it Schrödinger’s Dragon.

  However, that hypothetical question died a quick death when Hak-kan abruptly crashed through the door, his eyes hooded and sleepy.

  I was brushing my teeth at the sink, so I couldn’t say good morning, but I waved at him in the mirror.

  He waved back and made a beeline for the toilet.

  Garrett usually asked for privacy when using the toilet, but my unexpected guest didn’t even bother to close the frosted glass door as he did his business.

  And I had a hard time tearing my eyes away from the cause of that sore ache between my legs.

  My gosh, he was huge. If I hadn’t witnessed so many babies coming into this world, I would have had questions about how he managed to fit that monster inside of me.

  Of course, I quickly looked away when he was done and walked over to the bathroom counter.

  But his cock pressed into the backside of my towel when he came up behind me and reached his arms around my waist to wash his hands as opposed to just using the other sink.

  “Hey,” he said, dropping a kiss onto my shoulder.

  “Hi,” I answered, trying to keep my voice casual, even though no man or woman had ever seen me in this state of disarray. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Like a fucking rock,” he answered.

  He shook the water off his hands. But then, instead of moving away, he settled his chin on my shoulder and asked, “Why did you leave the last time?”

  His questions still weren’t the clearest things in the world, but for once, it didn’t take me too long to catch up.

  I knew that he was talking about the morning I’d left him a thank you note in an instant.

  “When I woke up, you weren’t there.”

  “So?” His face was a cold blank in the mirror.

  “I thought you’d left. Maybe for good.”

  “Da fuck you think that?”

  I was startled—not only at the question but also at the aggravated anger in his tone.

  “Because you weren’t there,” I answered. What was this weird circular argument?

  “So you wake up alone in a dude’s penthouse, and your immediate thought is he wants you to leave?”

  “Yes?” I answered, confused, because, “What else would I think? You didn’t leave a note.”

  “I didn’t leave a note because I was downstairs grabbing us breakfast. I might look like a fucking monster, but I wasn’t going to let you starve after everything we did that night. But when I got back with the food, you’d split.”

  “Oh…” I said, feeling silly. And weirdly complimented. All the shameful feelings I’d been carrying around about that morning after were replaced by relief…then guilt.

  “Thank you for buying me breakfast. I’m sorry I left before you returned. If I’d known, of course, I would have stayed. I’ll pay you back for—”

  He glared at me in the mirror. “If you really want to hear me cuss, O, finish offering to pay me back for that breakfast you missed."

  I quieted—not only because I wasn’t particularly keen on hearing even more foul language from him, but also because I didn’t know what else to say.

  A tense silence filled up the bathroom, but for some reason, he still didn’t move away.

  “I had a serious girlfriend. Once. About eight years ago. Cute girl. Her brother was one of our recruits. So she understood the life. That made dating her real easy. We went out for about three years. She had me thinking about putting a ring on it.”

  “What happened?” I asked, tamping down a weird spurt of jealousy at the thought of him real proposing to another woman. “She got drunk one night and came on to one of the other Dragons, Han. He’s magic like that. He walks into a room, and the girls’ legs just fall open. Wasn’t the first time a woman chose him over me. But not going to lie, that shit hit different. And I’ve been—I guess the nicest way you could put it, is closed off ever since. Especially with women.”

  Even though I had no idea why he’d told me this story, I felt honored that he would share a past hurt with me, and my heart squeezed with empathy. “I’m sorry that happened to you. That must have been tough.”

  He snorted. “I’m not looking for you to validate my feelings, beautiful. I’m just letting you know I get it. We’re both kind of fucked up when it comes to self-esteem. We both assumed the worst that morning, and that’s on us. On history. But I’ve been watching my Dragon partners and their women misunderstand each other for years now, and it’s just stupid. That’s not going to be us. We’re not them. We’re going to be one of those couples that talk shit out—no misunderstandings. I’ve already decided.”

  He turned me around to face him and settled his hands on my waist. “Let me make shit real clear so that there’s not even a speck of doubt. I want you. You drive me crazy, O. I want to be inside you all the fucking time. So don’t ever let your mind get twisted with doubt about that again.”

  I stared up at him, too astonished to speak.

  “So how about it?” he asked into my utter silence. “You want to go again?”

  I blinked. “You mean now? I’m in a face mask. I look crazy.”

  He stepped back from me, and a grim shadow dropped over his face.
r />   “It only has ten more minutes to go,” I explained with an apologetic tone. “I’ll wash it off, and then maybe we can—”

  “You think I won’t fuck you in that mask?” he asked. His face was as stony as I’d ever seen it. “Hold one while I get another condom.”

  “Um, it’s not a challenge,” I called after him as he jogged out. “I was just saying that we could wait until—”

  That was as far as I got before he charged back into the room and took possession of my mouth with a hot kiss.

  His hand found its way under my towel, cupping me as he asked, “You trying to make me lose it again?”

  His voice was little more than a feral growl. “You want me to ride you too hard like I did last night?”

  My privates had felt so sore a few minutes ago, but the way he was kneading my vagina, pressing the ball of his hand into the bundle of nerves housed between my folds. The action somehow soothed and stimulated me at the same time.

  “No…” came out on a shuddering breath.

  “No, you’re not ready for this dick? No, you don’t want me all over you like that again? Make it clear, O. Tell me what you want.”

  The answer came out surprising and true.

  “You,” I gasped. “I want you.”

  He shook his head. “There you go making me feel like a king again, beautiful.”

  His black shark eyes glittered with intent as he pulled the condom on over his massive staff. Then it was game on.

  My towel fell away when he set me on top of the sink. And I barely had time to brace my hands on the counter before he was inside me, driving into me with such force, I had to switch my hold—one arm around his thick neck and the other around his waist to keep from falling.

  He was the force pushing me into the unknown. But he was also the anchor when the orgasm ripped through me. He was…he was…in those moments, he was my everything.

  He came with a roar just a few moments later, his muscular body shuddering between my legs.

  He held me on top of the sink, just hugging me to him as he emptied into the condom. And I got the sense that I was his anchor too.

  After that, Phantom simply pulled out and said, “You wanna wash that shit off your face? Then we’ll do a take two on brunch at my place, and then, we’ll see the production of Chrysanthemum that your ex future mother-in-law was so excited about—nah, I’m just joking. We’re going to fuck some more. Feeding you and fucking you is all I got planned for the whole day.”