Ruin

by Laurelin Paige

  I curled my fingers in his shirt, taking what he gave, hanging on for dear life.

  My knees were weak and my lungs empty of air when he drew back, bringing his palms to cradle my face. His expression was unsure as he studied me, searching for something in my eyes.

  I held on and let him look, not knowing what he wanted to see there. I only hoped he found it or something close because what I wanted to see was in his eyes—desire and concern and interest—and I’d do anything for him to keep looking at me like that. Anything for him to keep touching me. For him to kiss me again.

  And then he was kissing me again, his mouth greedy and demanding as he pushed me backwards until my legs met the sofa. There, he turned me around and pressed my head down until I was bent over the back of the couch.

  “Spread your legs,” he ordered, though he was already spreading them for me, his shoe nudging my feet until they were wide enough.

  His hand traveled from the back of my head and down my spine, a long, possessive caress. Then it disappeared, only to reappear a moment later with his other hand under my dress. He flipped my skirt up then swiftly removed my panties, kneeling in the process. Both of his hands palmed my ass cheeks, his fingernails digging into my skin as his tongue licked along my slit, rimming my wet channel before swiping up to my asshole.

  I gasped at the invasion. Shocks of pleasure jolted through my body as he did it again, and again, licking me with fierce, predatory enthusiasm. I was quivering within minutes, and he hadn’t even touched my clit.

  “Rub yourself, little bird. I want you to come on my tongue.”

  I shook my head, even though I wasn’t sure he could see the movement with me bent over the couch like I was and his head between my thighs. My fingertips were pressed hard into the sofa cushion. They were the only thing holding me up. They couldn’t be spared for other activities.

  “Do it,” he demanded, when I hadn’t moved. His tongue speared inside me, prompting me in ways his words hadn’t.

  “I’m going to come anyway,” I moaned. The knot of sensation pulsed low in my belly, each throb bigger than the last. I’d never come so quickly, and I was more than halfway there without clitoral stimulation.

  Three sharp smacks fell in rapid succession against my right asscheek, the sting making me cry out. Automatically, my body jerked, trying to pull away from the assault.

  Edward pulled his mouth from my body and gripped my hips, anchoring me in place. “I didn’t ask, Celia. Put your fingers on your pussy or I’ll put mine, and believe me when I say you won’t find that as pleasant.”

  He waited this time, denying me his mouth until I responded.

  Having learned how “unpleasant” he could be when he went down on me, I hesitated to obey.

  But I didn’t want a dozen orgasms this way. I wanted his cock inside me, and it seemed I had a better shot at that if I did what he said.

  Lifting my belly from the sofa enough to get access, I slipped my hand down between my legs to the sensitive bud buried in between the folds of skin. I set the tip of my finger to it, scared that any more would set me off, and I wanted to wait to explode on his tongue like he’d asked.

  His breath scorched across my aroused cunt, and that alone nearly devastated me. “Rub it like you mean it, Celia, or I can send you to your room like this, alone.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I panted, but I swirled my finger across my clit, drawing the edges of my climax in closer.

  Another biting thwack sang against my skin, a punishment for the sass, I assumed because his next words were a soft purr. “Good girl.”

  Then his mouth returned to my hole, his tongue thrusting into my heat with determined drive.

  I lasted all of three seconds before my orgasm had seized me. My legs shook aggressively, my knees knocking against the sofa. “Oh, my Godddddd,” I roared, the pleasure blinding me with flashes of white.

  I was still shuddering when I was snatched up by the hair and spun around to face my husband.

  “When it’s my face between your thighs, it’s my name out of your lips,” he scolded.

  “Yes, Edward,” I said, only to have the words swallowed by his tongue as it shoved into my mouth. He tasted like me, which made me all kinds of hot, especially when he kissed me like it was a punishment, like I’d been bad. Like I deserved to be suffocated with the wrath of his desire.

  When I was completely breathless, he abruptly pushed away, only to swing me into his arms. He carried me to his bedroom, bride style, kissing me the entire way. When he got to his closed door, he set me down so he could open it and usher me in.

  It was the first time I’d been to his room when I’d been invited. The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on me, despite the distraction of my lust.

  We hadn’t made it past more than the threshold when he tugged on my clothing. “Take this off,” he ordered.

  I worked the dress over my head while he kicked off his loafers. I couldn’t remember having ever seen his feet bare, and the sight was entirely too sexy for what it was. They were long and pedicured and manly. How was it possible that was such a turn-on? I didn’t even like feet.

  “And the bra,” he said, as he began to undo his pants.

  I watched him as I threw off the last piece of my clothing, watched as his greedy eyes skimmed across my naked body. Eagerly, I waited to be able to do the same to him, but he’d only gotten his cock out when he lifted me up, letting my legs wrap around him before he pressed me against the wall across from his door.

  “I want to be inside you.” He rubbed the length of his cock, hard and hot, against my throbbing pussy.

  “Yes. Yes, Edward, yes!” I bucked my hips up, inviting him to slide inside. Begging him.

  His crown notched at my hole, and I reached down to help guide him in, but he yanked my arm away and pinned it with the other above my head. He held them there with one hand as his other stroked the underside of my breast.

  “You know what I mean when I say that. Tell me you know what I mean.”

  I paused, wanting to be connected with him like this—with understanding—even more than I wanted to be connected with him with my body. I replayed his words in my head. He wanted to be inside me. Inside all the way. Not just physically, but in every way. Mentally, emotionally.

  Didn’t he know that he already was? Hadn’t that been his goal all along?

  Yes, it had. So he did know. Or he guessed. Maybe what he needed was to know that I knew too.

  “I know,” I said earnestly. “I know who you are.”

  He closed his eyes and growled at that, tilting his pelvis to slide his cock through my folds. Still, he didn’t enter me, keeping his lids squeezed shut as if trying to hold onto control.

  When he opened them again, he brought his hand from my breast up to grip my chin. “You have to choose this. I’m not deciding this for you. You choose if I put you down and let you walk away. Really walk away. Or you choose to keep put. But as soon as I’m inside you, that’s where I’m going to stay. You will be mine. Tell me you understand.”

  I don’t know why I hesitated. I understood what he was saying, and I’d already made my choice. Months ago, when I’d first shared anything real with him, the decision had been made. Maybe even before that. When I’d let him put a ring on my finger. When I followed him to Europe.

  When I’d taken that goddamned meeting with a stranger, and he’d seen me for who I was. Maybe all the way back then.

  Now he was giving me a chance to walk away? To really walk away? From this house, from this island, from this marriage. From his threats and his ruin.

  A smart woman wouldn’t believe him.

  Maybe I didn’t either.

  It was a serious ultimatum, too important to be discussed in the midst of orgasms and the temptation of his beautiful cock. He could very well have said it only to make me uncomfortable. To turn himself on.

  Not that the steel rod pressing against my pelvis needed it. The bead of pre-cum at his tip
certainly seemed to indicate he was fully aroused.

  Still, it could have been just words.

  But the possibility that they weren’t words, the possibility that he truly meant the rest—that I’d be his, that he’d be inside me permanently? It somehow seemed worth the risk.

  “I understand, Edward,” I said, sure of the decision if not sure of him. “And I’m not going anywhere. I choose to stay.”

  I hadn’t even finished speaking when his mouth claimed me, simultaneously shoving his cock into me with a vigorous thrust. Over and over he drove into me, his pace rapid and controlled. He released my hands, needing to use his to hold my thighs around him, and I threw them around his neck, winding my fingers through the back of his hair.

  He kissed me as he fucked me, his mouth straying occasionally to suck on my neck or pull at my nipple with his teeth until I was squirming from the pain. Then he’d pound into me with even more force, plunging into the deepest parts of me.

  It was rough and uncomfortable. My back was going to have bruises from the edge of the closet door frame that slammed into me with each of his thrusts. My breasts were already tender from his bites, my legs ached from how tightly I was wrapped around him, and still it was more pleasurable than any sex I’d ever had. Another orgasm was already gathering, fueled by his frantic tempo, the tilt of his pelvis against my clit, and the skillfully angled stabs of his cock.

  And I knew then, if this was as far inside of him that I ever got—him fully dressed, barely in his room, his secrets never to cross the threshold of his lips—it would be enough. I could be the exposed one of us. I could be the one who was opened up and put on display. I could be raw and pulverized and broken down. For him. I could be that for him, and he would never have to give me anything more than he’d given me so far.

  Because I was already more loved than I’d ever been, and I could die happy in that.

  With this realization, I came, my pussy clenching around Edward’s cock so hard I pushed him out of me.

  He let go of me so quickly I almost fell. Thank goodness for the wall. I stepped toward him, lifting my mouth for his, but he stepped away, a smirk on his lips.

  “I’m going to have to fuck you twice as hard for that,” he said, sweat beaded on his brow. “On the bed.”

  As I walked by, he changed his mind and grabbed my ass with one hand to pull me into him. He assaulted me with a kiss, his chest pressing against the bullet tips of my breasts as he walked me to his bed. As soon as the back of my calves felt the frame behind them, he pushed me to the mattress.

  I crawled backward up the bed to make room for us, my eyes never leaving him as he shoved his pants to the floor and worked the buttons of his shirt.

  He was always so magnificent to look at. Naked, he was otherworldly. Too perfectly chiseled to be a man. Too manipulative and deviant to be a god. More of a devil in bare flesh than he ever had been in a suit.

  Jesus, I thought, dizzy at the sight of him.

  But what I said was, “Edward,” my tone threadbare, even to my own ears.

  “I’m here,” he said, stepping up to the mattress, his cock drenched from my juices, jutting out in front of him. He took it in his hand and jerked it up and down, wielding it as confidently as he wielded any other aspects of his power.

  He still had a grip on it as he crawled up the mattress beside me, letting it go only to cradle my face when I reached my mouth toward his. He took my lips this time, kissing me even more zealously than he had when he’d had me against the wall. I tried to turn my entire body toward him, wanting my chest against him, but he had other ideas, snaking his hand around my waist and twisting me to my side before pulling my ass up to meet his pelvis. His hand at my face slipped under my head and around so he could hold my chin in place.

  While his tongue continued to fuck my mouth, he nudged his cock between my thighs, easily sliding into my soaking pussy.

  There was something more romantic about this position, even though he was fucking me from behind. Everywhere we were skin to skin, the contact so intense I felt it on the insides of my entire body. His kiss was deeper. His cock, too, his languid thrusts hitting the most sensitive parts of my pussy.

  And even when his hand at my face found its way to my neck, even when his fingers scratched at my throat, pressing against my windpipe, making it hard to get a good breath, even then being in his arms felt good. He was dangerous, yes. He wasn’t trustworthy. He was as cruel as he was beautiful.

  He was still a devil, but now he was the devil I knew.

  And I’d never in my life felt so safe.

  Twenty-Three

  I woke up in the dark, the sheets tangled around me, the bed empty. It took a minute for me to remember where I was, how I’d fallen asleep in Edward’s arms after marathon sex. My eyes were still heavy, and it would be easy to curl into the pillow that smelled like him and go back to sleep, but his absence nagged at me. Our relationship, strange and fragile and unformed as it was, captivated me. I wanted it to be as big as it might be, wanted to allow it to swell and grow, and shutting my eyes to it now didn’t seem like the best move.

  With a groan, I threw my arms overhead and stretched, feeling every delicious way my body had been used before climbing out of the comfortable bed. Snatching his discarded shirt to wrap around me, I went to the bathroom then set out on a search for my husband.

  I crept into the dark hall, straining for any sound of movement, finding only thick silence. With no light, I fumbled to the library and found it also dark, but a faint flicker drew my attention out the library window. It was coming from the top of the pool house at the back of the yard. The firewall was lit. I’d found him.

  I pushed out the side door and stepped barefoot into the breezy night, circling around the pool to get to the stairs beyond it that led up to the sanctuary I’d built. It gave me a prideful thrill to know Edward was up there. Beyond signing off on the plans, he’d never acknowledged the finished work, which had been fine enough. I’d made the space for me. Still it was nice to know he appreciated it as well.

  At the top of the stairs, I paused to take in his profile. He was sitting on the sectional, dressed only in his linen pants, his expression tight as he stared out at the nearly full moon reflecting on the ocean. A bottle of amber liquid sat in his lap, half empty. While I watched, he brought it up to his mouth, taking a swig. From the shape of the container, it looked like Hennessy, which meant it probably hadn’t been a full bottle when he’d come out since there had already been one open in his bar, so I couldn’t know for sure how much he’d drunk. My guess was enough, since the bed had been cold on his side, and his usually straight posture was slouched.

  I’d been quiet, and with the crash of the waves, I wasn’t sure he’d heard me approach so I cleared my throat before emerging from the shadows, not wanting to startle him.

  He didn’t look over until I was standing at the other end of the sectional, and even then it was only a quick glance.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t expect it. Every time we’d fucked, he’d pushed me away after. Why should tonight be any different?

  This time, though, when he pushed, I didn’t intend to budge.

  “May I join you, Edward?” It was a question, but my tone was clear that I meant to sit whether he said I could or not. That was a trick I’d learned from him. How to command even while maintaining a polite appearance.

  “You may,” he said, and whatever notion I had that I might be able to dominate this moment fell away because his tone clearly said he was still in charge.

  I sighed as I plopped down in the corner spot, three cushions away from him. Too far away from him. But I didn’t know how to be closer, not with the invisible shield I could feel present around him. Not with the distance he’d already created by sneaking out here in the night. Not with the bottle he held as tightly as I wished he were holding me.

  I curled my feet underneath me and waited in case he had something he wanted to say. If he was in charge, he h
ad the first rights of conversation. He had the ability to take this anywhere he wanted.

  But he remained silent, wrapped up in his thoughts and his cognac, and maybe it was an obvious message that he wanted to be left alone.

  I was tired of being alone, though. Tired of being alone on this island, but also tired of being alone in my whole life, and something about the chemistry that clearly existed between us made me think he might actually be tired of being alone too.

  He appreciated honesty, anyway. And honesty for me at the moment was being here with him, telling him my thoughts, even if they disrupted his own.

  “I don’t know what’s going on between us,” I said, hesitantly.

  If he knew, it would be fanfuckingtastic if he clued me in.

  When he said nothing, I gave him more rope. “Or if you even think anything is going on between us.” My skin prickled with that nervous excitement that comes from putting something brave out there. He could cut me down now. Dash all the hopes I had for us with only a glare.

  Or he could surprise me and tell me something wonderful.

  I waited in case it was the latter.

  His only response was to take another swig of brandy.

  Guess I was talking to myself then. “It sure feels like something to me,” I muttered, turning my gaze from him to the lone bird circling the edge of the water, his wings caught in the gleam of moonlight.

  “What kind of something does it feel like?”

  My head shot back toward Edward who was peering at me with a curious gaze.

  Well, shit, that backfired. I’d wanted him to tell me what it was, not the other way around.

  But that was the way with us. I kept the truth hidden inside me, and he tugged and pulled until it was outside of me, a living thing, wriggling in his hands. Like I was giving birth out of my mouth, and he was the proud doctor who took all the credit.

  And I liked that way about us, for the most part. It had gotten us this far, anyway. So I resumed my role. “It’s confusing,” I admitted. “You told me you were going to kill me. You alluded to it again today. You keep me trapped as your prisoner on this island, and yet...” And yet I felt things. Enormous things. About him.