That’s what he honestly believed, but she wanted—no, needed—him to know that she cared for him. Deeply. Irrevocably. “Every single thing about you matters to me,” she said, unable to stop the rise of emotion that made her voice quiver. “Including how you got those scars.”
“Let it go, Samantha,” he warned darkly.
A wiser woman would have hightailed it out of the kitchen and back to the safety of the bedroom, but there was nothing about Clay that she feared, except losing him, and that was going to happen anyway. Standing inches away from her, he was like a brewing volcano about to erupt and unleash a firestorm of emotional fury.
She instinctively knew that all those years of suppressing a childhood of suffering were trying to claw their way out, and when all that overwhelming agony detonated, it was going to be brutal and violent.
But like a festering wound, he had to be cleansed before he could heal.
So she pushed a little harder. “Was it that man who came in today? Did he hurt you?”
Clay fisted his hands at his sides, his breathing deepening. “Leave. It. Alone.”
She couldn’t, because that meant leaving him alone, with all the pain. “You don’t have to keep everything bottled so tight inside of you.”
His stare was hard and cold. “My past is dark, twisted, and ugly, and the last thing I want to do is put those gruesome images in your head that don’t need to be there,” he snapped, but the sudden heat in his eyes was at odds with his harsh tone, making her shiver with longing. “Leave me alone before I do something we’ll both regret.”
The sexual undercurrents in his tone made it clear what that something was. Despite his attempts to push her away, there was no mistaking he wanted her. And if the only outlet she could give him was a physical one, then she’d grant him the permission to use her body to slake his emotional needs.
“I will never regret anything I’ve done with you. Ever,” she said, hoping he remembered those words long after she was gone.
Before he could say anything else, she boldly closed the distance between them, wrapped her arms around his neck so her body was pressed tight against him, and lifted her mouth to his.
The touch of their lips was all it took for Clay to come unhinged. With a raspy, guttural groan, his hands came up and gripped her hair near the roots, and she welcomed the slight sting of pain. He pulled her head back and slanted his mouth across hers so he was in complete control of the kiss, and she had no problem letting him take charge. This carnal, primitive mating was all about him, and she’d surrender to anything he wanted or needed from her.
He pressed her back against the nearest counter, his muscled body pinning her there while his tongue thrust deep and his mouth ravaged hers until her lips felt swollen and bruised. His chest rose and fell rapidly as his breathing escalated and his hunger for her intensified. She pivoted her hips, a soft, needy sound escaping her lips, a sensual plea for him to satisfy the ache building and expanding inside of her.
Releasing her hair, he shoved his hands beneath her long sleep shirt and cupped her ass in his palms, raising her and pressing her sex against the enormous bulge straining behind the fly of his jeans. She rolled her pelvis against his, and a huge shudder shook his strong frame. He slid his hands down her thighs and lifted her until she was able to wrap her legs tight and secure around his waist.
They both groaned into each other’s mouth as his rigid cock rubbed and pressed against the wet silk covering her sex. He ground his hips upward, hard and brutally, again and again, fucking her through the clothing separating their bodies, determined to achieve the pleasure he sought, clothing be damned. Fisting her hands in his hair, she arched her back, so hungry for Clay, and even more desperate to feel all that firm, solid flesh filling her so exquisitely. So perfectly, in a way no man ever would again.
With a sharp hiss of breath, he ripped his mouth from hers and buried his face against her neck, his hot, damp lips near her ear. “Samantha…” he groaned, his voice desolate and emotionally shattered. “I need you so fucking bad.”
The admission nearly broke her heart. A man like Clay didn’t want to need anyone, yet he was letting her in the only way he knew how, allowing her to see a vulnerable side that truly left him emotionally gutted and defenseless.
She wouldn’t take that gift for granted. “Take me any way you want,” she whispered back. “I’m yours.” And no matter what happened after tonight, she knew she would always belong to this man. Heart and soul.
His groan was filled with pure relief. With her arms and legs anchored around him, he carried her into the bedroom, laid her back on the mattress, and pulled off her nightshirt and panties in quick succession. He stepped back, stripping off his jeans and briefs. After retrieving a condom from the nightstand and sheathing himself, he moved onto the bed, between her already spread legs.
He brushed the tips of his fingers reverently through her soft, wet folds, his tender caress so at odds with the possessive heat blazing in his wild eyes that told her this joining was going to be demanding and greedy. That once he was buried deep inside of her, it was going to be a relentless, merciless ride to the finish.
The thought made her stomach quiver and her nipples peak into hard, needy points. She was already drenched and sensitive, her body so attuned to his touch. Another dip and swirl of his skillful fingers, and she gripped the comforter in her hands and shuddered, knowing it wasn’t going to take much at all for her to come.
Once he was assured that she was ready for him, he lifted her legs up, resting her ankles on his shoulders. He aligned the engorged tip of his cock against her opening and leaned all the way over her until his arms were braced on either side of her head. With his dark, glittering eyes locked on hers, he reared back slightly and drove inside her with one hard, ruthless thrust.
She sucked in a shocked breath—at the initial twinge of pain and surprisingly tight fit, and the way her hips naturally tilted up to take him so impossibly deep. She was pinned beneath him, her body completely open to him, completely his, no doubt, just as he intended. This unconventional position gave him all the power, all the leverage he needed to take her any way he wanted.
His taut body trembled, and she realized he was holding back. And she instinctively knew why. “There is nothing you can do to hurt me, and I’m not going to break,” she assured him huskily, giving him what he needed to hear. “Fuck me, Clay. Fuck me hard, because it’s what I want, too.”
Her words made him snap, and he started to move, driving into her, again and again. His hips surging faster and faster. Pounding harder and harder. Sliding deeper and deeper, each time dragging the head of his cock against sensitive nerve endings just inside her channel until the sensation had her trying to shift in counterpoint to Clay’s aggressive thrusts. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She could only let the climax build, as Clay’s control finally shattered.
He bared his teeth with an animalistic growl, his hips pumping, pumping, pumping, until the relentless friction set off her release. Her entire body splintered from the inside out, exquisite sensation taking her over the edge and keeping her there. She moaned and tipped her head back, feeling her internal muscles continue to flutter, tighten, and squeeze around his cock as she came and came and came—so long and hard she couldn’t hold back her scream of pleasure.
With one last brutal thrust, he followed her over with a hoarse shout, his body jerking hard, releasing not only his orgasm but, she hoped, his demons, as well.
It was the last gift she could give him, and she wanted it to matter.
Chapter Thirteen
The calm after the storm. That’s what it felt like as Clay lay on his back on the bed with a warm, naked Samantha curled into the crook of his arm and her head resting on his shoulder. While he was still worried about the situation with Wyatt, the anger and barely suppressed rage he’d been carrying with him all day and night were now just a dull ache in his chest. Thank God.
Samantha had gotten
him through one of the worst days in recent memory, had given herself over to him so selflessly, her body and, he suspected, even more. She’d surrendered everything to him, not thinking twice about allowing him to slake his primal need inside her, to release all the pain he’d kept buried since he was a kid because he didn’t know jack shit about how to deal with his emotions. It had been so much easier to suppress the pain and misery, despite the dark memories lingering just below the surface, always there, silently festering, just waiting for the one trigger to cause an eruption when the past resurfaced again.
Seeing Wyatt after all these years, remembering all the horrific things he’d endured at the man’s hands, and him threatening Samantha, had been the catalyst, causing him to unleash all the ugliness in a firestorm of rage and bitterness that had threatened to consume him. And it would have, if Samantha hadn’t come out of the bedroom and been strong for him. She’d been the anchor he’d so desperately needed to keep him grounded when he’d been so damn close to losing his mind and fracturing in two.
She’d asked about the scars on his back, and after everything Samantha had just given him, along with the fact that Wyatt had her in his sights, she deserved to know the truth. About everything. But first, he owed her an apology for being so rough on her, for taking her like a fucking animal.
With her head resting against his shoulder, he lifted his hand and gently stroked his fingers through her soft, silky hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice raspier than he’d expected it to be.
“I’m not,” she replied quietly, understanding the reason he was apologizing before he could even explain. “It was what you needed, and I’m grateful that I was here for you.” Her warm breath drifted across his chest as she spoke.
He was grateful, too, more than she’d ever know. God, she knew him so well. Had known what he’d needed even before he had. “Then I guess what I should say is thank you.”
Before she could respond to that, he quickly pushed out the next words so he couldn’t change his mind. “You asked about the scars on my back and what happened back when I was a kid.”
“Yes. Will you tell me?” She was quiet and hopeful but not demanding.
He realized she was giving him a choice, and for the first time in his life, he found himself wanting to share the most personal, private side of himself with someone. With Samantha. And so he did, starting from the beginning.
“My mother was a crack whore and a prostitute,” he said, bracing himself for some kind of negative reaction from Samantha—flinching, shuddering, something to indicate her disgust. But the only thing she did was rest her hand on his chest, right over his beating heart, as if she needed that emotional connection to him as much as he needed her.
He swallowed the thick knot in his throat and continued. “Mason, Levi, and I, we all have different fathers. Each time our mother got pregnant, it was with a different john, so we don’t even know who our fathers were. We never had a man’s influence in our lives. But there were many jerk-offs who lived with us in our one-bedroom apartment, and they were all drug addicts like our mother,” he said, unable to withhold the disgust he harbored. “And since she was never aware or conscious enough to take care of us kids, I took on the role at a very early age.”
“That must’ve been hard,” she murmured, her hand still lingering over his heart.
He didn’t acknowledge just how difficult it had been. “I was six when Levi was born, and even then, I was the one who made sure he had his bottle, and I changed his diapers the best I could. I made cereal and sandwiches for me and Mason—at least when we had food in the house, but a lot of times we went to bed hungry.”
She lifted her head and met his gaze, her blue eyes filled with compassion and a flicker of anger, too. “Why didn’t social services step in?”
He wasn’t surprised someone as pure and untouched as Samantha still believed in the system. “We lived in the projects, and nobody cared about what happened with their neighbors. Nobody noticed, so my mother was never reported. And in her lucid moments, when I complained, my mother instilled the fear of God in me, warning me that if I told anyone that she was rarely home or that we had no food, social services would come by—to take us away and split the three of us up forever.”
“That’s awful,” she said, her voice an aching whisper.
He shrugged. “That was my life.” Exhaling a deep breath, he gently pressed a hand to the back of her head and brought her cheek back to rest on his chest, and continued to stroke her hair. It was much easier to talk to her about his past without looking into her sad, somber eyes.
“So at the age of six, you became the caretaker for your brothers.”
“Mmm-hmm. And I went to school because I had to or someone would notice and they’d split us up. And I was a good kid because I was always so afraid that if I did anything bad, I’d lose my brothers forever.”
“They were lucky to have you,” she murmured.
He shrugged. “I did what I had to do. I raised Mason and Levi the best I could and tried to keep them out of trouble. Then, when I was fifteen, my mother got involved with Wyatt. He moved in and kept her even more doped up on drugs, pimping her out for cash while running his own seedy side businesses. And while she was out at night prostituting herself, Wyatt would terrorize us.”
A full-body shudder racked his frame at the memory, but he’d started this, and he intended to finish. “He was an abusive, sadistic prick who preyed on the weak, and because my brothers were still so young and couldn’t defend themselves, I’d deflect as much of the abuse as I could, turning it my way. And one of the things that Wyatt liked to do the most to assert his authority was to pin me down on the floor and press the burning end of his cigarette against my back, until it literally burned a hole in my flesh.”
Bile rose in his throat at the hellish memory, while beside him, Samantha stiffened and a soft choking sound escaped her throat. But Clay wasn’t done. “The sick bastard would get off on my screaming. The more I squirmed or cried, the more he’d laugh and press the cigarette harder and longer against my skin.” He closed his eyes, seeking to escape the memories he lived with every single day. “But at least he didn’t do it to my brothers,” he said, repeating the words that had gotten him through the pain and allowed him to take the abuse. “And though there were times when Mason and Levi watched helplessly, I’d warned them not to get involved.”
Samantha made another small sound of distress. She wrapped an arm around his midsection and cuddled closer to his side, holding him tight and silently comforting him. Her warmth and silent understanding soothed his frayed emotions, enabling him to go on. He felt like the story would never end, just as he’d felt while living the horror.
“This went on for months, until one day our mother was arrested for drug possession and solicitation. Since it was her fifth offense on various charges, she was sent to state prison for eighteen months.” He absently rubbed his hand along the arm still secured across his abdomen. “I don’t know the legalities, but somehow that stupid bitch was able to appoint Wyatt as our guardian until she was released, and during that time, the abuse only got worse.”
Samantha’s head abruptly snapped up, her expression horrified. “Why would she do that to you and your brothers?” she asked, appalled.
“I honestly don’t know.” And he never would. “But I’m guessing it made the most sense to her drug-addled brain. He lived with us anyway, and her kids had never been a priority or a concern. Her only worry had always been how she was going to get her next fix.”
“What happened to her?” Samantha asked.
“She’d served three months of her sentence when she had a fatal stroke and died. Probably because of the drugs. Anyway, that’s when Wyatt decided that we were now his property, to do with as he pleased.”
Samantha stared at him, her eyes wide and horror-filled. Someone like her, who’d been born into wealth and privilege, had never been exposed to such harsh realities, or the cruel reality of
living in poverty.
“The thought of Wyatt being our legal guardian, until each one of us reached the age of eighteen, scared the shit out of me. I knew he’d do everything he could to intimidate and corrupt Mason and Levi. I was afraid he’d turn them on to drugs, pimp them out, or worse. So one day, I stole a butcher knife from a store. Just in case.”
Samantha was watching him so silently and intently he had to glance away, unsure of whether he could admit to the rest. It had been the worst night of his life, and he hated that he’d had to resort to such violence. Yet he’d do it all over again to protect his brothers.
She touched his jaw and turned his face back to hers. “Tell me,” she said softly, her gaze imploring him to trust her with his past, his pain.
So he did. “One day, I came home and Wyatt had Levi cornered. He’d already backhanded him a few times. I told Levi to run and he did. He locked himself in the bathroom, and as soon as he was out of the way, Wyatt came after me like I knew he would. I pulled out the knife. There was so much fury running through me and I was so amped up that I swore I was going to kill the fucker. Back then, Wyatt was damned strong, and he came close to overpowering me.” Samantha sucked in a breath, remaining silent, waiting for the rest.
Clay swallowed hard. “Somehow, I managed to push back, and I used the blade to slice a deep cut along the side of his face.”
She blinked at him in disbelief. “You gave him that scar?”
“Yes.” He didn’t feel any pride in the memory. “I stabbed him in the arm, too, and it was enough for Wyatt to realize that he couldn’t screw with us anymore, and he finally left.”
Yet Wyatt was back in their lives, which once more told Clay he must be desperate. But Clay wasn’t. As a teenager, he wouldn’t have hesitated to slaughter the asshole if it meant keeping his brothers safe. But now he had way too much to lose to go to prison for the rest of his life for murdering the scumbag.
“Wyatt knew I was serious, and he left, and we haven’t seen him until now, when he obviously needs cash to get himself out of some kind of trouble.”
Dirty Sexy Saint (Dirty Sexy #1) Page 16