Yet, even as my conscience screamed, a dark, intoxicating pleasure coursed through me, a terrifying validation of this forbidden act. With every stolen breath, with every shuddering gasp, I felt another piece of the man I aspired to be wither and die, replaced by the insatiable, unthinking hunger of an animal.
“Harder, Jackson!” she screamed, her voice a raw, primal cry that mirrored the chaos inside me. My hand tightened around her throat, a cruel testament to the loss of control. I thrust recklessly into her supple body, a violation I both loathed and craved. She welcomed the beast I unleashed, not with fear, but with a willing surrender, an acceptance of the savagery I fought so desperately to suppress. Instead of trying to tame it, she amplified it, begging me to delve deeper, to obliterate the last vestiges of my resolve. And in that moment, as my cock rammed deeper inside her, I knew I was irrevocably lost. The choice had been made, not by me, but by the darkness that had consumed me.
With no other choice, I let go and welcomed my beast and roared as I slammed my dick into her, taking what she willingly offered as her pussy walls gripped my cock, soaking my dick in her cream as she screamed out her release. Pumping harder, I thrust in one more time and stilled as my cock splashed herwomb with my cum. Gasping for air, I released her throat and leaned close to her as my dick still pulsed within her, the beast she’d unleashed finally sated.
“Are you okay?” I gasped, trying to find the right words when I heard her chuckle.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
I smirked, then slowly stepped back and watched as my dick slipped from her wet cunt, our mixed juices dripping down the inside of her legs.
Sitting on the bed, I said, “Come here, baby. Let me see you.”
A flicker of something unreadable crossed her face before she masked it.
“I’m fine, Jackson,” she said, her voice a tightrope walk between obedience and something else entirely, something I couldn’t quite decipher. She did as I asked, her movement lacking the usual surrender. Standing between my legs, I raised my hand, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. A part of me screamed at the thought of it, a memory of a different kind of touch, a gentler plea, but another, darker, more insistent voice pushed it down.
I moved her head to the side, my palm finding its mark.
The sharp intake of her breath was a knife twist in my gut. I saw the angry bloom of my handprint on her neck, stark against her skin, and a wave of revulsion washed over me.
Releasing her, I looked down in shame. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“Don’t do that,” she said firmly, her voice cutting through my self-recrimination. She lifted my head, forcing me to look into her beautiful eyes—eyes that held a fierce, unwavering conviction that both awed and terrified me. “I wanted it. Asked for it. You did nothing wrong. You gave me a part of myself back today. A part I thought I would never have again.”
Her words were a balm, but they felt like a betrayal of my own internal struggle. I wanted to believe her, to shed this heavycloak of guilt, but the image of the bruise, the visceral knowledge of the force I’d exerted, gnawed at me.
“I hurt you. Your neck is bruised.” My words were an accusation, aimed not just at her, but at the darker impulses within me I fought daily.
“So what?” she scoffed, her eyes blazing, a challenge I wasn’t sure I could meet without acknowledging the truth of my own actions. “You think I care? I don’t.”
But in the slight tremor of her voice, in the way she averted her gaze for just a fraction of a second, I saw the lie. And in that moment, faced with her strength, her manufactured acceptance, I felt a profound and crushing loneliness.
I had done what she asked, what a part of me craved, but the cost felt immeasurable. I had brought her pain, even if she claimed to welcome it, and in doing so, I had pushed a boundary within myself that I had sworn never to cross again.
?The victory, if it could even be called that, tasted of ashes and regret, and the silence that followed was a deafening testament to the man I was becoming, the man I was terrified of being.
Chapter Eighteen
Ravage
Karlyn was sleeping as I slipped from the room and headed downstairs to find Nav, Sypher, and Phantom all typing away on their computers. Looking around the small farmhouse, I asked, “Where are Eros and Indigo?”
“Outside, keeping watch,” Sypher stated, never looking up from his computer. “Take a seat, Jackson. We need to talk.”
Doing as he said, I leaned back in a comfortable but worn chair. “If this has anything to do with that shit back in Lincoln, I don’t give a fuck. Not my mess. Not my problem.”
“It has to do with the both of you,” Phantom muttered as she leaned toward Nav and pointed at something on his screen.
“Can the three of you stop what the fuck you are doing and just tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Sypher looked up at me then and asked, “You want the short, condensed version or a bedtime story?”
“Just fucking tell me.”
Smirking, the little shit began, “Once upon a time...” as I flipped him the one-finger bird.
“It all started decades ago, with the five founding members of the Golden Skulls. We already know about the Stone, Goldman, and Doherty lines, and the chaos their descendants caused, but what most don’t know is how the other two lines factored in.”
