Now it is time for a new game, a new adversary, and I don’t belong anymore. He will find another pawn. Another distraction. Another tactic to take down the enemy.
I bolt up with a start as the door to the room swings open, bouncing against the wall harshly. Matthias stalks into the room, looking worn and disheveled.
“What do you want?” I snap at him, glaring angrily.
“You wanted to tell me your side of the story,” he mutters gruffly, but his voice is soft. “So, I’m here to listen.”
I suck in a deep breath; a sob lodging in the back of my throat as tears spring to my eyes. He sits down at the end of the bed and stares at me, waiting patiently. The smell of whiskey and smoke wafts around him. The whiskey is his comfort, and the smoking is a habit he hasn’t quite kicked when he is stressed.
Knowing that he has been sweating over coming in here makes the cold parts of my heart warm.
“Are you sure you want to hear it?” I ask, tilting my head to get a better view of him. He’s changed into a pair of gray sweats and a white T-shirt from the stash of clothes keeps in a duffel bag in the living room.
“There’s a difference between want and need, Ava.” He fixes me with a hard look. “I may not want to hear it, but I need to. You were right when you said I was using it as a reason to push you away.”
His eyes are dark, haunted, and I can see the pain etched into them like a chisel on stone. Rough, chiseled, and covered in cracks. I am no stranger to how much vulnerability Matthias shows when he places his trust in someone; it is so rare. The man has more than two hundred men under his command, but the only people he ever trusts are the men of his inner circle, and me.
I betrayed that trust, even if it wasn’t willingly. Hell, it wasn’t even deliberately. But the air needs to be cleared. There is one thing that needs to be addressed, and that is the issue of his brother.
A name I never uttered outside this bedroom to anyone.
So, I tell him my story.
From the moment Jonathon Archer walked into my apartment and threatened to throw me in prison for Elias to kill to the moment Seamus and Kiernan saved me. I leave nothing out because there is nothing for me to hide.
When I finish, I expect him to leave. To shout. Anything. Instead, he turns to me, tugging my body toward his before slowly and methodically removing my pajamas piece by piece. Then he lays me back against the pillows.
“What are you…?”
He silences me with a stern look while his large, tattooed hands roam my naked body. It’s been a couple of weeks since I was rescued from the stables, and although my superficial wounds have mostly healed, there are many that still haven’t.
His touch maps out the scars like a road map, memorizing each burn of the cattle prod, each scarred line from the knife, the still healing graze of the bullet I took for Kiernan. Not that my brother appreciates it.
Asshat.
Touches turn to kisses as Matthias turns me every which way, inspecting, caressing, committing each wound to memory.
I have no doubt that he is tallying each one to personally inflict them back on Christian.
Matthias’s tongue darts out to swivel inside my belly button. The erotic gesture causes me to giggle. His head dips lower, his nose running through the soft curls of my mound. I draw in a deep breath as he parts my thighs. I feel a rush of wet heat sweep through me at the primal action.
“Always so wet for me, Krasnyy,” he growls, the vibration sending a jolt straight to my cunt. My pulse races, chest heaving as he sweeps his tongue over my center, causing me to whimper.
“Only you,” I gasp as he flicks his tongue over my clit. I moan loudly, my back arching off the soft duvet as I try to push my hips closer to his mouth.
“That’s right, Red.” He smirks against my pussy lips. “Only me.”
“Matthias,” I whimper his name as he begins to lap at me in earnest, a string of embarrassing sounds leaving me, but I don’t care. He sinks two of his thick digits into my wet heat, sliding his fingers in and out a few times before curling them in just the right spot that has my hips bucking off the bed.
“Easy now.” Matthias’s arm presses down on my hips, keeping me in place as he assaults me with his tongue, his teeth, and his fingers like there is no tomorrow. Just when I think I will reach the end, when the coil in my lower stomach can’t tighten anymore and I will fly over the edge, he stops.
“No,” I whine when the heat of his body leaves me wanting and aching for more.
“Don’t worry, Red.” He smirks as he removes every stitch of clothing that separates his skin from mine. “I won’t leave you wanting.”
He crawls up my body, leaving hot, electric open-mouthed kisses in his wake until his cock is in my face.
“Open wide, baby girl.”
