by Sybil Bartel
Tarquin Candle Scott did no such pedestrian thing. Grabbing me around the legs, he threw me over his shoulder.
All the air left my lungs as his hard shoulder slammed into my stomach, and I yelped. Grasping at his waist for purchase, my salon-smelling hair fell in my face, and the blood rushed to my head. “What are you doin’?”
Not answering me, he strode into the master bedroom and right into the bathroom. But he didn’t stop there. Walking right into the shower, he turned the water on, and arctic cold hit my ass.
“Stop,” I screeched. “My hair!” My brand-new fancy salon hair that the hairdresser had so painstakingly blown the curls out of. I didn’t care if he said he hated it. “This cost money!”
Apparently, it was wrong thing to say, because in the next instant, I was on my feet, two large hands were holding my head, and my face was under the spray as water undid every minute of my suffering in that humiliating chair.
Before I could worry about holding my breath, my face was yanked out of the spray and his hot mouth slammed over mine.
Taken from one breath-stealing moment to the next, I gasped, and he drove his tongue in.
All at once, everything became fire.
The shower turned hot. His hands heated my flesh, and his kiss burned a path of desire straight to my core. My arms were around his neck, and I was kissing him back as the water drenched our clothes.
Gripping a handful of his wet hair, I yanked, and our lips ripped apart as the hot spray washed my anxiety down my face. “I don’t want you goin’ to jail.”
“I’m not.” His huge hand grasped my jaw, and his hardened gaze bore into me. “You are not useless to me. Don’t you ever fucking say that shit to me again. Understand?”
Tears cascaded. “I can’t give you a baby.”
“I don’t care.”
“You say that now.” But I remembered seven years ago. He’d wanted that baby as much as I did. Despite how stoic he was, I knew he’d been trying to make a better life for me and the child that’d been growing inside me back then. It’d driven him.
His grip tightened, and his compound speech came out. “Do not question my word to you.”
I sucked in a breath, then another, as I mentally gathered all my fears and shoved them down because he was right. Tarquin Scott kept his word. But I needed one more promise from him.
“Promise me you’re not goin’ to jail,” I begged. Because if he promised, then I knew I could trust it.
No hesitation, he gave me exactly what I needed. “I promise.”
Going on tiptoe, I pressed my mouth to his, and a cry escaped.
Swallowing my anxiety, thrusting his tongue back in, he didn’t kiss me like a man possessed. He kissed me like he was salvation, the water was our baptism and our clothes were cardinal sins.
Grabbing my shirt, he jerked it over my head, then slammed his mouth back over mine. His thick fingers were in the waistband of my leggings, and they were shoved over my hips before he growled a single command against my mouth. “Off.”
Aching, needy, my pussy pulsing on emptiness, I yanked my leggings off as I desperately tried to keep our mouths locked, because despite his reassurances, I still feared at any minute this would all be taken away from me.
But I never should’ve underestimated the digger in front of me.
He didn’t crawl out of that swamp on a wish and a prayer.
Fortitude was in his bones so deep, he didn’t know how to quit.
His jeans hit the tiled floor with a thud, and in the next instant, I was picked up by my ass, shoved against the wall, and his hard determination was pushing at my entrance like he owned every inch of my body.
Fear and need crawled up my throat, and I half moaned, half cried in anticipation.
But he didn’t shove into me.
My back didn’t slam against the wall from the force of his thrust. His thick cock didn’t stretch me to the point of pain. He didn’t grunt in physical exertion as his body invaded mine.
The head of his hard length breached my soaked entrance, and he stilled.
Then the only man I’d ever loved looked into my eyes, and he broke me with three little words.
“You. Are. Mine.”
Burying our pasts, eliminating her fears, I had one more mission.
Destroy any doubt.
“You. Are. Mine.” I pushed into her.
But I didn’t fuck her.
Using every ounce of restraint I had, I held her waist and sank inside her slowly. Watching her face, feeling every contraction of her tight cunt around me, I didn’t pound into her like I wanted to.
I tended to her.
Slow.
Measured.
Like she deserved.
I drove in and out and ground my hips against her clit with every slow thrust.
Gripping my hair with her hands and my waist with her thighs, she let out a moan I hadn’t heard in seven years.
The split second of satisfaction was crushed by my next thought. Did she fucking moan with those bikers?
The rage bled in, and I was back, spiraling down a goddamn kill hole I didn’t want to be in. The image of her getting fucked in that clubhouse played on a loop, and I couldn’t stop myself.
I started pounding into her.
Except I didn’t want to just fuck her, make her come, and own her screams.
I wanted to make her hurt.
I wanted to fucking punish her for giving away what was mine.
Irate with myself, with the irrational shit going through my head, I roared out and slammed into her so goddamn hard, her back slapped against the tile and air grunted out of her lungs.
Her hands flew to my shoulders, and her nails dug into my flesh.
Then she did the last fucking thing she should have.
She uttered a single word.
“Harder.”
I fucking let go.
Restraint gone, I reared back and slammed into her.
Her mouth opened, her eyes went wide, and a cry escaped.
I didn’t fucking pause.
I pounded into her. Over and over.
Every goddamn thrust, her back slammed against the tile, her head banged into the wall, and air punched out of her lungs.
Out of my mind, I kept fucking her.
Her grip slipping, her legs shaking violently, I bottomed out in her over and over. My head swam, and my cock grew harder. Fighting from coming, grunting through every thrust, I assaulted the very body I’d dreamed of every goddamn night for seven years. Brutally fucking her like she deserved it, I hated myself.
I hated myself more when her cunt started to constrict around me.
No control, my balls drew tight.
Pounding into her two more times, I let go.
Filling her womb with my seed, giving her my anger, I fucking detonated.
Pulse after pulse, my breath short, my body shaking, I roared into her neck and bit her flesh.
I’d fucked her. Used her. Come inside her.
Then it happened…
The violence in my head quieted.
Hot water hitting my back, my cock still hard inside my woman, my lungs took the deepest breath they’d taken in seven years, and I opened my eyes.
Teeth marks on her shoulder swam into view, and guilt hit.
My gaze cut to my woman’s green eyes.
Before I could open my mouth to beg for forgiveness, an exhausted smile touched her swollen lips.
“There’s my Tarquin,” she whispered, barely strong enough to cling to me.
My shame compounded.
Guilt contorted his features, but I didn’t care.
I saw what was hiding behind it. I saw it, and I was high on it.
My Tarquin.
He was back.
Not Candle, not the Ranger, but my digger from the swamp who shot like a hunter, killed without mercy and took my virginity without apology.
I loved that man.
But the anger and rage he was ca
rrying were crushing him, and I’d had to chip away at it. Or he had, by rough fucking me.
And it’d worked.
Still hard, still inside me, his impossibly huge cock pulsed, and my pussy contracted with aftershocks even though she was on fire. My back was screaming, my head was pounding and everything hurt, but I did not fucking care.
The digger from the swamp, the boy raised in a cult, the man who was above all else alpha to his core, he’d needed to fuck me until he wasn’t angry anymore.
And sweet mercy, was he angry—at me, at himself, at our past. I didn’t blame him, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna judge, because I felt everything that was written across his face and straining his tight shoulders. But I also saw something else.
Looking up into his austere eyes, I saw what he couldn’t hide from me.
Every time he took me, he was a little less angry, and we got a little closer.
I could feel it in my heart as sure as hope, and I wasn’t giving up on that. No way in hell. I’d do whatever I needed to get my Tarquin back. And God help me, when he took me like that just now, my body didn’t simply respond, it sang.
I’d never come like that before, but now I was paying for it.
Every muscle going on strike, I reached for his face and gave up holding back words I wanted to give him. “I missed you.”
Inhaling sharply, he grasped my waist and lifted me up slowly.
His hard length left me, and I immediately felt the loss. Sheer emptiness where he’d been was quickly followed by his release rushing out of me.
Sorrow touched my heart, and I wrapped my arms around him as I leaned into his chest. “Don’t let go. Not just yet.”
He set me on my feet, but for a long moment, his hands didn’t leave my waist.
I soaked in every second of it.
Tarquin Scott didn’t cuddle. He wasn’t even affectionate. Not seven years ago, and even less so now. Most of the time, I was okay with it because when he had his eyes on me, I knew I had his attention as sure as if he were holding me tight.
But right now, I just needed to feel him close.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Without so much as a nod, he released my waist, but then he grasped my face and tilted my head back into the spray of lukewarm water and brushed my hair from my eyes. Then he gently angled my body so the water was running down my front, and he reached between my legs.
I flinched.
The lines between his eyes deepened with a heavy frown. “I hurt you.”
“I’m fine.” It hurt more when he didn’t touch me.
His chest rose and fell three times as he stood there, cupping me, staring at his hand. Then he abruptly used his fingers to lightly rub the water running down my body between my sore folds and rinse away his release.
Turning the shower off, he reached for a towel, but instead of handing it to me, he held it up.
My heart soaring, I stepped into his offering, and he wrapped the towel around me before grabbing one for himself and brusquely rubbing it down his hard body.
Suddenly, I was too tired to stand, let alone dry myself off, and I swayed.
“Hey,” Tarquin barked, grabbing me.
“Sorry.” My forehead fell to his chest. “I guess it’s all just catchin’ up to me.”
Silently picking me up, towel and all, he walked us into his bedroom and laid me down on the bed. Before I could free my arms from the towel and reach for him, he pulled back.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded, unsure of his quiet mood but needing him close.
“Wait,” he quietly reprimanded as he strode to the glass sliders that looked out over the backyard and beach beyond. Closing the heavy curtains with two quick pulls, his muscles bunched and flexed across his naked body, and the room fell into darkness.
Sad to have my view of his body thwarted, but thankful for the dark, I inhaled the scent of him that lingered all over his sheets as he walked toward the bed.
Pulling the covers back, he slid in.
I was expecting him to keep his distance, but he didn’t.
Tugging the towel from around my body, he tossed it on the floor, then he slid an arm under my head and easily turned me.
My back hit his warm chest, and I sighed. “That’s what I was waitin’ for,” I admitted, closing my eyes.
Not saying anything as his breath fanned over my shoulder, his hand came to rest on my hip.
My eyes closed, and I didn’t care about anything except this very moment. I was in his arms, his hand was possessively on me, and his hard length was pressing into my lower back. Lord help me, I loved that I had that effect on him still. And he on me. My aching core was already humming with need, and I wondered if he was going to take me again.
Thinking such wayward thoughts, I didn’t notice that his breathing hadn’t evened out until he spoke.
“I want you to see a doctor.”
My muscles stiffened, and the ache to have him between my legs again instantly disappeared.
“Why do you not want to go?” he demanded, reading my body language.
Feeling vulnerable, I gave him the truth. “Because then it will be real.” I turned to look up at him. “You’ll know for sure that I can’t give you a son.” The seven-year-old ache in my heart blossomed like yesterday’s hurt.
“What if you can?”
His tone, void of emotion, only made my heart crush worse. “Please don’t do this.”
“I am doing nothing,” he argued, his compound speak in full bloom.
“You’re askin’ for hope where there is none.”
Pushing my knee wide with his thigh, he rolled and moved between my legs. Settling his weight on his forearms as they caged me in, his hardness pressed against my sore pussy, and I was suddenly aching for him again. “I will not be irresponsible with you this time.”
Even in the darkened room, his eyes were so clear. “I don’t know what that means.”
He stared at me a long moment. Then he gave me more words in a row than he had since he’d found me.
“I served with Rangers who had wives who bore children. The women sent pictures of the growing child in their stomachs. They went to doctors regularly and were monitored. I did not do that with you before. I did not know that that kind of care existed coming up, nor that it could protect the females and unborn children. I want you to go to one of those doctors because I am releasing inside you.” He inhaled, and his cock pulsed against me. “I will not risk your health again.”
I couldn’t help it, I smiled as I reached for his face. “You said all that in compound speak.”
He frowned. “I am serious.”
My smile dropped. “I know. I just…” I had to look away, because I didn’t want to see his eyes when I said what I needed to. “I don’t want you to be disappointed if the doctor says I can’t have babies.”
His rough fingers gripped my chin, and he turned my face back to his.
The intensity in his eyes, his stern expression, they were so fierce, I sucked in a sharp breath.
“Hear me now,” he demanded. “I bonded myself to you. Not a child.”
“Tar—”
Hard and swift, he drove into me.
His name died on my lips as a groan erupted from my chest and filled the space around us. My body already sore, my core still wept for him as I brought my knees up.
He sank deeper, and I was home.
This man, his body inside mine, this was where I belonged.
He was my everything.
“Tarquin,” I breathed, wrapping my arms around him.
His unwavering gaze on mine, the intense look in his eyes both breaking my heart and putting me back together, he slowly pulled out and pushed back in until he was seated so deep inside me, he couldn’t go any further.
Pleasure mixed with the bite of pain as his length and his thickness and his invasion consumed me. Tears welled, and I didn’t know a better feeling.
Saying more with his eyes and his acti
ons than he ever could with words, my Tarquin swept his thumb across my cheek and thrust into me even slower.
Without speaking, without kissing, he kept his eyes on mine, and the boy from the swamp made love to me.
The sweet build of fire happening faster than ever before, desire swirled low in my belly, and I couldn’t hold back.
My back arched, my pussy constricted, and I let go. “Tarquin.”
Never breaking his controlled, measured pace, he drove in and out of me three more times before a guttural sound, part groan, all roar, erupted from his chest and shook his whole body as he filled me with his love.
Clinging to him as wave after wave of aftershocks rocked through me and tears of joy fell down my face, I let my heart speak. “I love you, Tarquin.”
A tremor went up his spine, and his chest rose with a sharp inhale.
Then he fingered a strand of my still damp hair that’d fallen prey to its natural curl. “I want you wild.”
“Good mornin’.”
Her voice, sweet and still rough with sleep, made my dick stir. “Morning.” I took a sip of my coffee and glanced at her as she walked out onto the back patio.
She’d fallen asleep in my arms yesterday after I’d taken her a second time. When her breathing had been even for over an hour, I’d allowed myself to close my eyes. It was the first time I’d slept without nightmares in seven years. In fact, I’d slept so damn well, I hadn’t woken until early this morning.
In only my T-shirt, her hair untamed, she sat down in the chair next to me. “It’s a beautiful sunrise.”
I didn’t comment. It was a sunrise. I was only up to make sure the ID I’d ordered had been delivered last night because I’d slept through the drop off. After I found the packet in the garage, I didn’t want to disturb her by crawling back into bed, so I’d made coffee. Any other morning I would’ve been lying next to her, taking her again the second she’d opened her eyes.
Pulling her legs up, she tucked her arms around herself in the early morning chill. “I ain’t…” She cleared her throat and started again. “I never saw an actual sunrise before stayin’ at your house.”
I glanced at her.
“I mean, I’ve seen ’em,” she amended. “Through the trees in the Glades, but not like this.” She nodded toward the ocean. “Not watchin’ the sun come outta the ocean like it’s bein’ born.”