The water rushed around them as the blood pounded in his ears. What if this was all he would ever be able to do?
“It’s…” He searched for the right words. “Hard for me…to give up control.”
“Then don’t.”
Her fingers entwined with his. She leaned forward as far as his grip would allow. He sucked in a breath and held it as she pressed her lips to the cigarette burn on his left shoulder. A featherlight kiss. Barely there.
“I would never hurt you,” she whispered, her breath skating lightly over his skin.
Then she kissed the mark beside it. Then the one beneath his collarbone.
“I can be gentle,” she rasped, tracing her lips over the puckered circle that, years ago, had made him pass out from pain. “I can be as patient as you need.”
Her mouth moved across his chest with brutal patience, lips parting against each ridge of tissue, each silvered furrow, each mark the chancellor carved into his flesh with the casual cruelty of a man signing letters.
She kissed the lash mark that curved beneath his ribs like a parenthesis. The jagged surgical scar. The twin burns on his sternum sat so close together they almost overlapped.
Then she lowered herself.
Slowly, her back sliding against the wet stone, her hands rotating in his grip as her body descended. His grip trailed her descent, keeping her hands against the wall and above her head as she sank to her knees before him.
Water streaming over her upturned face, forcing him to step forward and use his body as shelter.
Her gaze found the brand. Those two ruinous letters, R.A.
“They can’t hurt you anymore.” She lifted and pressed her lips to the chancellor’s initials.
The sound that ripped from his throat was not human. He hated the hypersensitivity of the flesh around the burn as much as he despised the numbness below her lips.
“They’re only scars, Jack.” She kissed the tight, glossy edges, then the center where the pain had bit deepest.
The intimacy of it, the tenderness directed at the ugliest parts of him, awakened something dark and dormant inside of him, something he never wanted to let sleep again.
He staggered closer, so she wouldn’t have to strain as her lips dragged slowly over his hips and down his thigh. His cock stiffened, thick and aching, jutting between them with a desperation that shamed and consumed him in equal measure.
She looked up at him, then closed her eyes, grazing her cheek softly against his swollen flesh. Then, she gave him the only thing no one else ever had.
Choice.
“Tell me what you want, Jack.”
His grip tightened between her fingers, and he stepped closer. She arched her back, water coursing over her shoulders as her pert nipples drew into tight, ruby points.
Words strangled in his throat.
Her lips parted. Open. Waiting for him to decide. Giving him complete control.
His head dropped forward, and his breath left him in a rush as the smooth crown of his cock dragged across her lower lip. Their locked hands tightened, squeezing.
A groan escaped him as he shifted his hips, tracing her lips with the tip again. Her lips were impossibly soft. Her breath temptingly warm.
Transferring his hold of her hands into one of his, he gripped his cock, squeezing tightly in a useless attempt to stem off his need.
He swayed his hips, tracing the shape of her mouth, corner to corner, painting her lips with the evidence of how desperately he wanted her.
She didn’t reach for him. She just looked up with those devastatingly trusting eyes, her mouth open like an offering, as water drops beaded on her lashes like crushed diamonds.
A tremor ran from his hands through his chest, down into the marrow of his legs, where his knees threatened to buckle. He gripped his cock tighter and pressed forward.
