“I offered you the option?—”
Making a derisive sound, she snaps her head to face me, her expression angry and lost and hurt all at once. It’s a look I haven’t seen in a long time, not since I first brought her back to me. “You didn’t give me an option. Go to school surrounded by goons and never have a moment of privacy, or sit home alone while you watch me like you think I’m going to sprint from the room at any moment.”
“Those sound like options to me,” I say with a shrug.
“Why are you doing this?” she questions. “Why are you trying to make me hate you?”
“Because clipping your wings is the only way to make sure you don’t fly away,” I confess, hating the way my heart starts to thud, because even though I know that I need this control over her, I don’t want to fracture our already splintered relationship.
“You’d rather I wither and die in a cage?”
“My cage.”
A broken half laugh, half sob falls from her trembling lips. “I was never leaving, Sebastian. But when you do things like this, it makes me wish I was. If I leave you, it’ll be because you’ve forced me into it.” Pushing up from the sand, she slowly rises to herfeet, then turns and starts to walk back down the beach toward our home, her shoulders slumped, her posture defeated.
“I’ll drive you,” I tell her.
“Fuck you, Sebastian,” she says coldly, ignoring me as she pushes her legs into a slow jog.
Unable to watch her run from me again, I chase her, curling my arms around her waist the moment I’m close enough. Lifting her off her feet, I spin her in my arms holding her so we’re eye level. She’s too light, her tiny body smaller than she was before she helped Bunny run away. Neither of us speaks as I stare into her depthless, pain-filled eyes.
I know I’m fucking things up, but I don’t know what else to do. As her lips part to speak, I hoist her over my shoulder, ignoring her protests and weak fists against my back. Walking us straight into the water, I ignore how cold it is, flipping her back upright only seconds before I sink us both below the surface. The moment we’re hidden beneath the waves, I start to yank her sodden shorts off, wishing I’d stripped her before I got us both wet.
“Get off me,” she shrieks when we surface, trying to push out of my hold, her hair wet and dripping in her face.
Wrapping my hand around her throat, I drag her to me, slamming my lips against hers and kissing her hard and rough, forcing the kiss on her, until her body starts to melt into mine. Sex has always connected us. It’s always been a language we both effortlessly understand, and even when we’re angry, we never say no.
Her hands stop pushing me away and instead start tugging at her clothes, kicking in the water as she pushes her shorts and panties down and rips her tank and bra off until she’s perfectly naked.
Removing my pants, I don’t bother with my shirt before I’m lifting her into my arms and sinking her down onto my hard andready cock. Groaning as I fill her, she buries her face in my neck, sinking her teeth into my throat hard enough to leave a mark. But I don’t care. Mimicking her action, I bite her back, wishing we were animals and I could claim her, and bind her to me like this.
Fucking in the sea is not as easy as it should be, but the waves help her move up and down my dick as she clings to me, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around my hips and neck so the water doesn’t carry her away.
Curling one hand around her ass, my fingers sink between her cheeks as I grip tightly, teasing her ass with my fingers as I help her ride me.
“Oh god,” she moans when I roll my hips, pushing up as she sinks back down.
“I love you,” I tell her, wishing every moment we had felt as connected as we do right now. But it’s only while I’m inside of her that the constant fear of losing her abates.
The familiar crescendo of her orgasm starts to sound in my ears as her body tightens, her muscles dragging the cum from my dick as I pump into her, working her up and down my length until we both splinter and fall over the edge together.
The moment the heat of her release starts to fade, Starling starts to tremble, the cold water making goose bumps pebble more vividly across her skin. Wading out of the water with my dick still inside of her, her body still wrapped around mine, I spot a folded blanket on the sand and quickly cover her with it, not giving a fuck who sees me.
The houses are set far enough back from the water that I doubt anyone would have been able to see us fucking, but honestly, if they did, they’d have seen a husband fucking his wife until she was a melted pile of goo, and I’m good with that.
Carrying her up the beach, I take a second blanket from a silent James, who is waiting on the path from the street onto thebeach with his eyes averted, and wrap it around my back as I carry her to my car, reluctantly lifting her from my cock to lower her into the passenger seat.
“This doesn’t mean I don’t hate you right now,” she tells me as I step back to close her door.
“I know, Little Bird. I know.”
THREE
STARLING
My handsand feet feel numb by the time Sebastian turns his car off the road and through the high-security gates that keep our land private from the rest of the world. Neither of us has uttered a word since he climbed into his seat and started the engine. Sex has always connected us, but despite the orgasm he just gave me or the way my body is that awesome brand of sore and satisfied right now, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough to close the gaping chasm that’s growing bigger and bigger between us every day.
I knew that he’d freak out when he realized I’d not only made a plan to escape him but that it was good enough that if it had been me, not Bunny, who had fled, he would never have found me unless I chose to be found. But honestly, I never expected that it would make him lose his mind quite this much.
