by Hettie Ivers
“It’ll be okay,” Remy attempted to pacify me. “We’ll replace anything that breaks.”
“What if it’s not okay?” My voice sounded shrill, bordering on hysterical. “What if they break something irreplaceable?”
Something was very wrong indeed. Whatever Alcaeus had told Alex was bad. I could feel it as surely as I could feel Alex’s rage. And Kai’s arms tightening around me from behind.
“Kai?” I cried out in fear and confusion, not wanting to believe he’d betray my trust like this.
“Please, Milena?” he appealed. “I promise we’re not going to harm you.” His forearm crossed up over my chest as he said it, securing my back more firmly to his hard front until I was pressed so tightly against him I could feel the heat of his abdomen burning through the thin T-shirt material on my back, the pulse in his forearm racing directly against my runaway heart presently trying to beat its way through my chest.
“We just want your help with something. Will you hear us out a minute?”
“Just a little cooperation,” Remy chimed in, his chiseled features now a mask of contrition as he stepped closer.
“What help? What’s going on? What’s happening?”
“We need you to let Remy inside your mind,” Kai spoke in my ear.
“But Alex wanted us to wait. He wanted to be present—”
“I know. And he will be.” Remy cleared his throat. “Next time. Right now, Kai and I just want to look for something. And time is of the essence.”
“Wh-what? What do you need to look for?”
“We can’t tell you that,” Kai admitted. And after a pause, “We also can’t let you remember that this happened.”
My mouth went dry. “Why not?”
“Because sometimes it’s a necessary evil to fight dirty with dirtier,” Remy imparted with a sheepish half-smile that ultimately just came off looking sleazy.
“I don’t like this. I want to see Alex.”
“Alex is in San Francisco by now.”
San Francisco? As soon as Remy said it, I realized the house had fallen silent downstairs. Alex and Alcaeus were gone. Why San Francisco?
“You can say no, Milena,” Kai quietly advised.
I craned my neck back to look up at him.
“I only agreed to ask,” he informed me, his expression somber. Earnest. “That’s all I promised Alcaeus I’d do.”
Alcaeus was behind this? My brow furrowed as I realized it was true, Kai was asking. They both were. Kai was exhausted. He didn’t want this task; I could tell.
“I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to,” Kai said. “I’m the only one here who Alex gave the permission to enter your mind in his absence. But I won’t do it without your consent. And what I need to accomplish I can only do if you’ll allow Remy’s assistance.”
“But why?”
“We can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
Kai’s gaze flew from mine to the ceiling. “Milena—”
“Why can’t Alex know? Why do you have to do this behind his back? Why’s it so urgent?”
“Why’d you have to inherit such a complicated blood curse?” Kai countered. “Why am I still alive? Why’s Lessa such an unconscionable bitch? We aren’t likely to solve all the great mysteries of the universe in the next fifteen minutes. But with your cooperation, we might be closer to unraveling one small one. Please?”
“Is it really so very important?” I bemoaned, knowing full well I was about to cave. Because it was Kai. “Do you absolutely for sure need to do this?”
Kai nodded. “It will be brief and utterly painless, Milena. You won’t even know it happened.”
“Will you promise to tell me later, though? When it’s safe for me to know?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “You have my word.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I came to with a smile on my lips to the sensation of a warm mouth memorizing the contours of my facial structure, to familiar fingertips swirling lazily against my scalp. I was in heaven. Alex was back.
I remembered thinking that I would just lie down and rest my eyes for a moment while I waited for him to finish talking with Alcaeus downstairs. But I’d obviously fallen fast asleep listening to Kai and Remy drone on. I wondered how long I’d slumbered as I inquired groggily, “Everything okay?”
“Mm-hmm …” He nuzzled my earlobe. “Missed you. Miss me?”
I hummed emphatically in the affirmative and shifted halfway onto my side, struggling with uncooperative, heavy eyelids as his hand meandered soothingly along the length of my spine.
“You didn’t kill Alcaeus, did you?” I checked for good measure.
“Not yet, baby. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Alessandra really okay?”
“Mm-hmm,” he echoed, his lips barely grazing my own.
“Sure?” I managed to cock one eyelid half open as I leaned in to land a proper kiss to the temptation beckoning me.
“Rest,” he entreated, his knuckles brushing my jawline. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“But Lessa—?”
“Has a bit more healing to do. I promise she’ll be all right.”
“I hurt her. Didn’t I? It was my doing?”
“Not on purpose, baby.” He kissed me gently, nibbling my lower lip.
He was trying to silence me.
“But I did?”
“Let it go. She’s fine. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” His tongue traced and then swept between my lips.
I forgot my next question when he sucked my tongue into his mouth. And soon his hands were less calming and more insistent as they ran over my body, quickly divesting me of my clothing as they went.
I found myself naked within moments, shamelessly groping and ogling any part of Alex’s naked physique that I could get my sleep-impaired hands and eyes on in the darkness.
“Ah … fuck me, baby …” Alex encouraged as my fingers wrapped around and stroked his hard shaft. “That’s it … like that …”
“Mmm … can I try with my mouth again—” I started to ask, just before his fingers attacked back, scuttling all reason as they fondled my ready slit. My thighs parted on a willing sigh.
Growling with relish at my grasping dampness, he entered me with greedy fingers, slowly penetrating my channel from both the front and the back.
“Oh, God … oh Alex … so much …”
I knew there were critical questions I still had … about emotional shields and Luiza scenarios and all things Salvatella. But I couldn’t think of a one as I watched Alex lick my wetness from his withdrawn fingertips, while phantom digits still proceeded to enter and fuck me. That trick would never get old.
I was writhing against him by the time he flipped us so that I was on top, straddling him. Exerting slight pressure against the back of my head, he directed my mouth to the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “Bite.”
I complied, undulating and rocking my hips in frantic motion to his wraith invasion as he hissed with pleasure and urged me to bite him harder.
They were such dangerous words to tempt my hungry she-wolf with. My mouth mauled his flesh. And though I barely understood the animal-kingdom why behind this new canine biting obsession of mine, I couldn’t deny how heady it felt.
It was more than the taste and smell of him on my tongue—which in itself was divine; it was the knowledge that he would let me. When he offered his throat, it was as if he was wordlessly inviting me to take … whatever I wanted.
Delirious with the approaching precipice of my pleasure, I whined my discontent against his throat when the phantom hands abruptly stopped.
“No … don’t stop now … ”
“Don’t want to stop, pretty girl. I want you to ride me now.” His fingers dug meaningfully into my ass. “To fuck me.”
Nervous excitement winged in my belly, and I lifted my head from his neck, gazing down at him with glassy eyes as I realized what he’d done—how he’d positioned me on top, his hard d
ick poised at my gate.
“Not sure … don’t know how …” My sleep-addled, lust-drunk brain struggled to form a coherent argument. “Just want—”
“Then take,” he offered, licking his smiling lips as his eyes canvassed me in the dark. “Take, baby.”
He cradled my face in his palms; his fingertips traced my flushing cheekbones. “I love you, Milena. There’s nothing I won’t give you.” His words were difficult enough to process, but his sweet smile was my undoing. “You understand that, right?”
I swallowed. And inside I choked. How was this so easy for him? It was all too soon. His thumb stroked my bottom lip. “Don’t,” he shook his head. “S’okay. I know.” His smile of delight blossomed into one that made my heart ache it was so … completely … adorable. So sincere in its contentment that it baffled me. Then he giggled—like a schoolboy with a naughty secret.
“I don’t need your words,” he told me, one hand leaving my face in favor of latching onto my greater lesser cheek again. He shifted my hips. His bulbous head pushed into my slick entrance. “I’m a big boy.” He thrust halfway up inside of me with one brutal shove—illustrating this fact.
I moaned, my insides clenching against the unexpectedly fast, yet most welcome, invasion.
“We have a lifetime to play with words.” His long fingers stroked through the curls behind my ear, then fisted my hair at its roots, as his teeth scraped down my throat. That fist twisted and tightened, pulling my head back for better access to my neck. His other hand palmed my ass, urging my frozen hips to roll.
“Ride me,” he mouthed against my throat. “Unleash your animal instincts on me.”
When his canines pierced, I almost came undone. I mewled in pained approval as he too-gently lapped at the fresh wound. My inner muscles seemed to pulse around him in time with each delicate lick—a slow, exquisite torture.
“Fuck me, princess,” he purred, simultaneously thrusting upward and yanking my hips down until I was fully impaled. I gasped.
He groaned.
He was so big inside of me in this position. “So full,” I panted.
“Ah, my sweet girl”—he tilted his hips and rocked up into me—“you will be. So full I’ll feel every precious beat of your heart in the pulse of your clit, in the grip of your rippling heat.”
He was the devil. And I was probably definitely maybe for sure totally in love with him.
He took my mouth, entrancing me with teasing, sensual flicks of his tongue, and I was helpless to stop my hips from rolling. Soon they were circling. Grinding. My whole body undulating with need.
His large hand rhythmically massaged and squeezed my backside, fingers dipping into the cleft of my ass cheeks, stroking down to where his girth was buried inside of me, then back up again. My brain all but short-circuited.
Slick fluids drooled freely from my hot center as my pelvis squirmed and jerked, my insides clamping, embracing every unyielding, hard ridge of his huge meat as it twitched and expanded within me. So hot. So unbelievably tight.
“That’s my girl,” he praised, using his hold on my hair to tug my head back, separating me from his mouth. “Brace your hands against my chest. Try lifting up and sliding back down,” he coached. “See how that feels.”
I did as suggested, his proprietary hand upon my ass a gentle guide as fingers continued to squeeze my flesh, to stroke my rear cleft in that sinful caress. And fuck, did it feel amazing!
“That’s it,” his hypnotic voice coaxed. As I raised up over him, his other hand caressed my stomach, found my breasts, stroking and kneading, pinching and pulling. “Take it slower … faster … whatever feels good.”
I took his invitation to heart, moving tentatively at first, then faster, alternating back and forth. I shifted my hips and tried different angles, as up and down I went, his thick pole shunting in and out of my soaked depths. Back and forth my pelvis rolled, angling forward so that my fluttering clit found glorious friction against the rock wall of his lower abdominals, then leaning back to feel his shaft stroking against my sensitive G-spot. Decadent, wet, sucking noises filled whatever quiet might have otherwise existed amid my incessant moaning and panting as his big dick dragged in and out of me.
No matter what I tried, he praised and encouraged me, urging me onward until eventually I found a preferred angle, a speed and motion that seemed to come naturally and offer the most pleasurable sensation. I was fast approaching that glorious precipice again as my body rolled up and down, back and forth, muscles straining with tension as I impaled myself, over and over.
But then I caught something in Alex’s eyes that gave me pause and caused me to slow my pace—those half-lidded dark eyes that were studying me with such rapt enthusiasm and calm satisfaction. His eyes hadn’t shifted, and anytime Alex the man willingly gave over control to me like this, it made me wary, knowing how well he coveted control in all things.
I couldn’t help but wonder what game he might be playing with me now—my beautiful, ruthless destroyer. My lost little boy, who’d broken most of his childhood toys and set Alcaeus’s house on fire.
“Princess … princess,” he sang, those mischievous eyes slanting up at me. “Still so suspicious of the Goliath you’ve fallen in love with?”
I shook my head in denial without even thinking. It was pretty much a conditioned, reflexive response at this point where Alex was concerned, regardless of the topic or question at hand, and it clearly amused him—if his beatific grin was any indication.
“Mm-mm … if you could only see yourself now. I love you like this: flushed, pupils blown wide … eyes glazed over.” His words caressed me as his fingertips did the same, ghosting up my arms, circling my shoulders, and tracing down my spine. “So far gone. So willing … so wanting. So open for me …”
I shook my head sharply again. This time it was deliberate—knowing my denial would keep him dirty-talking. His words alone could bring me to orgasm.
He smiled, a slow, lazy grin. My stomach flipped and my pussy seized at the sight.
He growled at the sensation, his hips jerking up into me. I shook my head again.
“No? Ah, baby, can’t you feel your puffy lips wrapped around me?” His fingertips drifted down my stomach to those swollen, slick lips, lightly rubbing where they engulfed his shaft. “Your gushing cunt squeezing and sucking my prick? Your little bean throbbing—so hard and engorged for me?”
The convulsions began, deep within my womb—a burning ache searing me apart as I teetered on that razor’s edge I wanted to reach but didn’t want to reach.
“Does my girl want to come?” he taunted, all phony choirboy innocence as his thumb grazed my screaming button. He pressed too lightly. Released too soon. His brows drew together in false concern and he inquired, “Does it hurt? Shall I make it better?”
Press. Roll. His thumb moved in slow, slippery circles.
My head fell forward. My hands scrabbled for purchase against the muscled wall of his chest as my body was racked by tremors.
Release. Scrape. Flick.
I moved on him … over him … up and down as if possessed, my pelvis grinding and pressing into him with such brutal, rapacious need, I was virtually mindless to all else.
“Will you come apart for me now, princess? Milking my cock like a greedy girl?”
I made such noises—frantic, foreign sounds.
Another hard press to my slickened clit … a light roll … another flick …
“Alex!” I gasped, my eyes pleading.
The bastard paused, jerking my hips to a grinding halt.
“There it is,” he murmured in reverence as his eyes held and plumbed the depths of my tormented ones. “That lost look you get; the one that tempts my darker side and baits my self-restraint. So sweet … yielding …”
He raised his upper body to mine so that our noses brushed and my eyes crossed. My lips parted to taste his sweet breath as it fanned my mouth. He took my lower lip in his teeth and bit down, just as his thumb found and s
troked me once more.
My nails scored his shoulders as he sucked the small wound he’d made on my lip, his hand on my rear encouraging my hips into a slow, steady roll. I didn’t hesitate.
“That look that says you’ll give me anything I ask for,” he assessed, as I lost the final vestiges of my self-control, my hips jerking and twitching erratically against him, nails digging into his back as I moaned and whimpered and shattered apart. “Let me do anything I want to you. Won’t you, baby?”
“Yess!” I was sure I’d screamed it as I shuddered and climaxed, my inner walls strangling him. He growled low and continuously in my ear, offering sweet praise interspersed with crass words about how hard he was about to fuck me.
And my mind seemed to blank and reset. I lost track of where and who I was. But somehow I found myself on my back, moaning and babbling, hips rising up to meet his thrusts, my insides still squeezing him as he moved over me, plowing so deep inside. Ramming his full length so hard and fast into me it stole the breath from my lungs.
He had my thighs in an iron grip, spread wide, my pelvis tilted high for his invasion as he shifted my body, angling it as he saw fit to receive the full, driving force of his penetration.
I felt like a boneless, weightless being, my mind free-falling, immobile hips still uselessly twisting and reaching, pussy clenching spasmodically, every cell in my body taut with the tension of anticipation, existing only for the fucking I was eagerly receiving.
“Mine.” He shunted to the hilt inside of me as he gave, hard and fast.
I took. And I came.
And I came again.
And he kept going.
“I’m a fucking glutton for control,” he groaned in confession over my babbled cries. “Power intoxicates me. And it’s true, I broke every one of my damn toys.” His cock was expanding, swelling even bigger inside of me; and I knew he was close to his own climax.
“But you—you break apart for me because you want to, princess … because you trust the way I play with you.”
I was so close again. Shaking. Slipping. Losing myself …
“Once more, baby,” he demanded, his grip on my thighs turning almost painful, his controlled breathing changing to rough bursts of air—to animalistic pants and grunts as his hips pounded between my thighs at a more rapid pace, making wet, slapping sounds against me as his cock pistoned in and out of my gripping channel. “You fucking love the way I break you apart,” he growled. “Because you know I’ll put you back together again. Fill you up and make you feel more whole than you felt before. Every. Fucking. Time.”