by Sybil Bartel
As he pinned my hands behind me with my ass in the air, I realized my naivety had been laughable.
Holding my wrists in one hand, he dragged his other hand over my ass. “Tell me, Songbird.” He fingered the edge of my panties. Then in one swift yank, he pulled them halfway down my thighs and cupped my bare pussy. “Who’s touched this cunt?”
Sucking in a shocked breath, my entire body jerked. My heart in my throat, my voice trapped, I couldn’t verbally reply. Groaning as his finger stroked through my heat-slicked core, my unfaithful body betrayed my heart and exploded with desire.
Needy, I pushed into him.
It was so fast and sharp, the slap echoed through the bedroom before the impact hit my brain and traveled to my nerve endings.
“Did I tell you to move?” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand for submission.
My ass bloomed with stinging heat, and I panted. “No.” Oh God.
Stroking over his offending assault, he rubbed my cheek. “Answer my question, Songbird.” Grabbing my core, he pressed his thumb down through my slick folds.
Oh God.
I couldn’t stop it.
My hips swayed to a song they’d never heard, and tight pain clenched deep inside me. “Please.” I didn’t know what I was asking for. I’d never felt anything like this, but I needed more, and I needed it that second.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
I wanted to tell him no one. I wanted to tell him I belonged only to him. I wanted to tell him I’d waited. But I couldn’t. He stroked again, and my mind fractured. “More, please.”
The slap hit my ass fast and viciously hard.
Tears sprung and my body jumped, but a flood of wetness surged between my legs. “Oh God.” What was happening to me?
“Answer, Songbird.” The demand no sooner left his mouth and his fingers my sex, then brutal, rapid-fire slaps hit my empty, pulsing core and each cheek of my ass.
Crying out in pleasure-laced pain, I had no room for lies. “Only one person,” I admitted, praying for him not to hate me, but a twisted, sick part of me was desperate for him to punish me more.
“Who?” he barked, repeating his slaps.
Flinching at his assault, dripping with desire, breathless from his fierce demand, the name left my lips before my mind could censor it. “Leo.”
The cold metal of his necklace brushed against my shoulder blades a second before his chest covered my back. Trapping my hands between our bodies, letting go of my wrists to grasp my hair, he gripped a fistful and yanked it out of the way. My head tilted, and his mouth landed on my exposed nape.
Biting then lapping my heated skin, he mercifully stroked his rough fingers through my soaked sex as he lowered his voice. “Did you give permission to him, Songbird?”
Instant and uncontrollable, a vivid memory lashed my conscience. I didn’t realize I’d made a sound until his hand stilled against my weeping core.
The tight pressure of his grip on my hair loosened, and he gently but firmly cupped me. Then his voice dropped to an achingly tender whisper. “Did Amherst force himself on you, Sanaa?”
I burst into tears.
Horrific shame eclipsed every single point where his body touched mine, and I tried to push him off.
But he didn’t budge.
My Ronan, the man who’d promised to fuck me but not keep me, the boy who’d said he was going to marry me, the Marine who carried a gun to protect me—he didn’t let me go.
He didn’t comfort me.
He didn’t use words to console.
He didn’t make angry threats of retribution.
He calmly, dominantly pushed the back of my thigh, lifting my knee onto the bed. My thong fell to my ankles, and he spread my leg wider.
Then he dragged the head of his engorged length through my heat, and without pause or mercy, he drove into my body.
TIGHT.
So fucking tight, my eyes rolled back and I forgot who the hell I was.
But I couldn’t forget her tears.
Gutted and enraged, I made a vow. Amherst was going to pay. He was going to fucking pay hard.
Right after I erased every memory of him touching her.
Deep inside the only woman I’d ever given pieces of myself to, I stilled even though I knew giving her a moment to adjust was a joke. She was virgin tight, and I was going to hurt her more than the heated tint on her ass from my hand. Stretching her, using her, she was going to feel me later, and the bastard in me fed off it. He fucking relished in it.
Grabbing her hips, I pulled back and thrust deep.
Her tears of the past mixed with my invasion, and she cried out.
The tortured sound triggered the beast in me.
Pulling back, slamming into her harder, my mind bent, and ten years came to fruition.
One moment I was finally taking my siren into my arms, the next I was pounding out a decade of anger and thrusting to erase every goddamn memory she ever had of sex.
Wrapping an arm around her, grabbing her breast, holding her to me, I drove in and out of her tight cunt to the sound of her cries. My thumb on her clit, every thrust making her wetter, I demanded more.
“Cry for me, Songbird.” I worked her hard nipple. “Show me how my hands on you make you sing. How I make your body come alive.”
Strained and nothing like her voice on stage, her guttural cry filled the room.
“That’s it.” I increased the pressure on her clit and nipple. “I’m going to push you over the edge. My hands, my cock, my body—I’m the one doing this to you.”
Her cunt spasmed, then tightened around me.
“Beg for it,” I demanded, releasing her clit. “Beg me to let you come, Songbird.”
Her thighs shaking, her hips moving with mine, she fucking submitted like a dream. “Please, please, please.”
Driving deep, bottoming out on her, I caught both nipples and gripped hard before I twisted. “Show me how I make you hum.”
Her head fell back, and she moaned like an animal.
“I own your orgasms. I own this cunt.” I released her nipple and grasped her clit. “Remember that.”
“Ronan.”
“Give it to me, Songbird,” I demanded, grinding my hips. “Come.”
Her mouth opened, but her voice went silent, and I could feel the moment her body fractured from her mind.
A tremor wracked her entire frame, and tighter than I ever imagined, her cunt constricted. Clamping down on my cock, milking me with pulse after pulse of her orgasm, she fucking detonated.
Every goddamn thing in the world fell away, and I came inside her.
Jesus.
Jesus.
Songbird.
My Songbird.
I fucking came inside my Songbird.
My head spinning, possession caving my fucking chest in, I didn’t want to pull out. I wanted to bury myself deeper and never come up for air.
But time.
Fuck, we didn’t have time.
Forcing myself back to reality, I glanced at my watch.
Shit.
Running my hand down the perfect arch of her back, I held her hip and slowly eased back as my fucked-up head told me to thrust back in deep. My cock soaked with both of our releases, the beast in me fantasized about her on her knees licking me clean, and it hit me.
I wasn’t going to be able to let her go.
Her chest heaving, her ass still in the air, one knee on the bed, she was a fucking vision and all I could think was mine.
Fuck, she was mine.
Zipping my pants, I watched my release drip out of her and run down her leg, but she didn’t move. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, I never considered pulling out when I came, and that alone told me how fucked my head was.
“Stay,” I ordered.
Buckling my belt, I strode into the bathroom and wet a washcloth. Walking back out, seeing she hadn’t moved, the corner of my mouth tipped up for a brief second.
I brought the
cold washcloth to her thigh, and she jerked.
“No time to let the water run warm.” Wiping her, letting my thumb coast over her entrance, I pressed against her clit.
Her back arched, and she moaned softly.
My cock, still hard, pulsed. “That’s how you respond to me, Songbird.” I dropped the washcloth and sank a finger inside her swollen cunt. “When I touch you, you show me how it feels.” Leaning over her, I brought my mouth to her ear. “You remember only me when you think of fucking. You remember me inside your body. No one else. No lies, no hiding.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, grinding against my hand.
“You’re done with the apologizing.” The time for that had passed. I pushed off her back. “Stand up.”
“You’re… you’re still…” She tried to shift away from me. “Your hand.”
“My hand, what?” I rotated my finger, feeling her walls for tenderness.
“You’re still… oh my God,” she breathed, fighting her body’s natural inclination to give in to my touch.
“Yes, my finger’s inside you, exactly where my cock just was.” I slid a second finger inside her, and she startled. “Do you want a third?”
Breath short, she braced her hands on either side of herself. “No.”
“Then stand up, Songbird.”
Careful of my hand, she gracefully rose.
“Good girl.” I brushed my thumb over her clit and kissed her shoulder. Then I withdrew my fingers. “Turn.”
Slow, her hair in her face, she turned toward me, but she didn’t look up.
With the same hand I’d just had inside her, I grasped her chin and brought her face up.
Gorgeous, sex-drunk dark eyes met mine.
Leaving her tearstained cheeks, I brushed my thumb across her bottom lip and searched her face. There were a hundred things I wanted to say to her, but only one thing I wanted to hear from her lips. “Are you done with the lies?”
Simple, immediate, she answered. “Yes.”
I tested her. “Why did you really come to Miami?”
She reached up, and same as she’d done all those years ago, she feathered her fingers across my Adam’s apple. “Vance wanted to use you as bait. He thought if all three of us were together, Kyle wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to come after all of us at once. He said it would draw him out, then he could take him down once and for all.”
Hiding my rage that Vance would use her as well, I asked the next question. “You agreed to this?”
A frown creased her brow, and her hand stilled on my throat. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I? The notes were clear. Kyle wanted to make me suffer. If not kill me, the next best way would be to come after you. He could come out and tell the authorities what happened that night, and you could go to jail or, worse, he could hurt you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Anger like I’d never experienced ripped through my veins, and I grabbed her wrist. “You will never, on purpose, put yourself in harm’s way ever again. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes went wide, and she blinked.
“Do you understand me?” I roared.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Holding her in my grasp for one more second before letting go, I picked her dress up off the floor. “Arms,” I rasped.
She stood motionless. Then, “You came inside me.”
Inhaling to switch gears, I didn’t deny it. “Yes, I did.” I slipped her dress over her head. “And we’ll talk about that later, but right now you need to get dressed.”
“I’m not on birth control.”
I paused for only a fraction of a second, then I fed her arms through. “I never suspected you were.” She’d told me years ago she’d wanted children. A dozen sweet, happy faces all with your eyes were her exact words.
“Ronan—”
A knock sounded on the door.
Cupping her cheek, I made her a promise. “Later.” After pressing my lips to hers for one brief second, I retreated to put my shirt on, and the knock came again.
Grabbing her underwear off the floor, I shoved them in my pocket.
Then I went to answer the door.
HARM, VANCE, TYLER, AND TY all walked into the suite.
Tyler smiled, Vance glanced from my hair to my dress, Harm looked everywhere but at me and Ty smirked.
My head swam.
“Did Harm fill you all in?” Ronan’s hands went to his hips.
I couldn’t help it, I stared at his long fingers—fingers that had been inside me. I could feel the heat creep up my neck and across my cheeks as I remembered what else his hands had done. My core pulsed, and I fought to school my expression.
“Right.” Vance shifted his attention from me to his brother. “Now we’re looking for women as well.”
“Not all women,” Ronan corrected. “Suspicious or unusual behavior, nonregistered guests, restaurant and bar clientele. There was a woman in the lobby loitering, anything like that.” He looked to Harm. “What happened with her?”
“She went to the pool area, then we lost track of her,” Harm answered.
I didn’t know sex could be like that. Fucking, he’d called it, but it felt like more.
Ronan glanced at Tyler. “Anything else happen with the incident at the loading dock?”
“Just an unscheduled delivery that was a day early,” Tyler replied. “Delivery driver and company checked out.”
Ty said something, but my mind left their conversation.
All I could think about was him.
More than any sparring session, completely different than pouring my heart out through my words on stage, Ronan’s body inside mine, leaving his seed, it did something to me.
I was different now.
I could feel it, taste it, breathe it, but I couldn’t explain it.
I only knew one thing.
I was his.
My heart, my soul, they were his now, and I was never getting them back. I had been in love with Ronan Conlon all my life, but this? This was so much more.
This was connection.
Threads woven together like melodies intertwined with harmonies, I was connected to him as sure as my lungs drew air and my heart pumped blood, and I wanted to sing about it. I wanted to write words about it, this feeling I couldn’t explain. But I also didn’t want to share. I didn’t want my fans to have a piece of what I was feeling now.
I didn’t want to share it with anyone except him.
I wanted to tell him everything I was feeling, but nothing I could say would be big enough, and no words would undo what he’d said about any other intended consequence. My heart wanted to cry while my body wanted more, and I didn’t know which end was up. Adrift, without thinking, I searched out his beautiful eyes. Then it happened.
The connection I was feeling wove tighter.
Because the second I looked up, his intense gaze met mine.
Amber brown and sea green, there was an ocean full of depth in his eyes, but more, a new light swirled, and I knew as sure as my next heartbeat that he saw my thoughts.
Ever so slightly, he lifted his chin and gave me a Ronan-style public display of affection.
My heart fluttered, and my soul soared toward the heavens above.
This was it.
This was how it should’ve always been.
I loved him, I was in love with him, I’d never stopped loving him—one of them, all of them, it didn’t matter. I smiled. He was mine.
“Darling?” Vance clipped. “Don’t you agree?”
My love’s eyes darkened as his gaze cut briefly to his brother’s.
“Agree to what?” I didn’t apologize for not having been listening to the conversation. Ronan had said no more apologizing.
“That staying is the better option, even though my brother wants to move you?” Vance asked impassively in a tone I knew all too well from him.
“We want to move her,” Ty corrected Vance.
Ronan stared at me.
Harm
scanned the suite and the balcony.
Smiling, his arms crossed, Tyler looked from Vance to Ronan and back again as if watching a tennis match.
Vance played hardball. “We’re not moving her. Not unless she wants to be relocated,” he added, as if I’d actually have a choice if five bodyguards decided they were moving me.
Ronan’s gaze never left mine. “Sanaa,” he stated in the same quiet, commanding tone he’d used when it was just the two of us only moments ago.
My core pulsed, and my womb ached as if it was too empty, and I wanted to drop to my knees for him for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain. But then I remembered every reason why his brother and I had come here, and I couldn’t ignore my instincts.
“I think it’s better to stay.” I spared Vance a glance before looking back at Ronan. Then I rushed to explain. “Not because I think Vance is right and you’re wrong. Simply because the bomber knows I’m here.” I carefully didn’t say we in front of the other men. “It should draw him out now. We’re closer than we’ve ever been, and the sooner we catch him, the better.”
“Absolutely agree,” Vance added. “We’d be starting over at another location, and we’re running out of time before she has to be back in London.”
“Yeah, great plan, Conlon.” Ty snorted. “Because we all know how much importance you put on her safety.”
Harm turned away from the window and somehow managed to look at all of us without making eye contact with any one person. “She’s right.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ty muttered.
“I knew this week was going to be epic.” Tyler grinned, then looked at me and feigned seriousness. “No offense, ma’am.”
“Everyone out,” Ronan ordered. “I’m going to speak with Sanaa. Do your patrols. Stay alert. Reconvene in one hour.”
Vance lifted an eyebrow at me.
I ignored him, and one by one, they filed out of the suite.
SHE WAS DOING IT AGAIN.
The door shut after Vance, and I fought to keep my tone in check. “Let me explain the concept of not putting yourself in danger.”
“Please.” She held a hand up. “Hear my reasoning.”