“Please,” I gasp, the word a choked, desperate plea. “Please, let me come. I need it. I need you.”
“Look at me,” he orders. I manage to twist my head, my gaze locking with his in the rearview mirror. His face is a mask of raw, untamed emotion, his eyes blazing with a dark, possessive fire. “This is who you belong to. Say it.”
“I belong to you,” I cry out, the pressure inside me reaching its breaking point. “I’m yours. My body is yours. My cunt is yours. Please, let me come for you!”
A dark, triumphant grin splits his bruised lips. The command breaks something inside me. “Come for me,” he snarls, his thrusts growing more erratic, more forceful. “Come all over my fucking cock. Now.”
The dam bursts. A tidal wave of pleasure crashes over me, so intense it borders on pain. My back arches, a silent scream tearing from my throat as my body convulses around him, the spasms so strong they steal my breath. I feel my gushing hot fluid soaking him, me, the seat beneath me.
“Fuck, yeah,” he growls, a raw, ragged sound of satisfaction. “That’s it. Soak my fucking cock. Good girl.”
He doesn’t stop. He continues to pound into me, drawing out the pleasure until it’s almost too much, a blinding, overwhelming force. My body is a limp, quivering mass, but he’s not done with me yet. His grip on my throat loosens, but he doesn’t let go. He pulls out and I feel a moment of loss, of emptiness.
He slumps back into the driver’s seat, breathing heavily. I can feel the sticky mess on my skin, the ache in my muscles, the delicious soreness between my legs. I’ve never felt more used, more claimed, or more alive.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks, his voice a low rasp.
“No,” I breathe, and it is the truest word I have ever spoken.
Forty Eight
Cassian
Theworldcomesbackinto focus slowly. First, the scent. Sex,blood, and her perfume; a heady, intoxicating combination that is already the official scent of my obsession. Then, the weight of her, pliant and trembling in my lap. The frantic rhythm of her heart against my chest is the only music in the world.
The red haze of my rage has receded. The adrenaline has burned itself out, leaving in its wake a profound, unnervingcalm. I look out at the city glittering below us, a kingdom of fools and mortals, and I feel nothing for it. My world is no longer measured in skyscrapers and stock prices. It is measured by the warm, living weight of the woman in my arms.
I look down at her. Her face is buried in the crook of my neck, her breathing slowly evening out. Her clothes are a disaster, ripped and askew. A dark, purplish bruise is already beginning to form on her hip where the wooden box was jammed between us. More will bloom on her neck, on her arms, where my fingers dug in. I should feel guilty. A normal man would be horrified by the marks he’s left, by the violence of the act.
I am not a normal man.
I feel a surge of dark, profound satisfaction. The bruises are not a sign of my brutality. They are a map. They are a treaty signed on her skin, a declaration to the world that she is mine.
She stirs with a soft murmur against my neck, and lifts her head. Her hair is a wild tangle, her lips swollen and red. Her eyes, when they meet mine, are not filled with the terror I saw in the loft. They are not filled with the suicidal defiance I saw in my father’s house. They are wide, dazed, and shockingly clear. She sees me. Not the monster, not the captor. She sees the man who just burned down his own life to keep her.
She doesn't pull away, she doesn't cry. She simply watches me, her gaze steady, as if she is waiting to see if the storm has passed or if it is merely gathering strength for a second assault.
She breaks the silence first. Her voice is a hoarse whisper, stripped of all its previous fire, leaving only a raw, terrifying honesty.
“He was your brother.”
It’s not an accusation, it’s not a question. It’s a statement of fact, laid bare between us in the wreckage of the moment. The first elephant, dragged into the light.
My eyes are still on her profile. “Yes.”
I see her swallow. “Jade was my sister.”
“I know,” I say, my voice a low rasp.
She finally turns her head, and her eyes—those endless grey voids that have haunted me from the moment I saw her—meet mine. They are shockingly clear. There is no fear. Only a deep, searching exhaustion.
“Were they… in love?” she asks, the question so fragile it feels like it could shatter in the air between us.
I think of Leo. My brilliant, reckless, beautiful brother. A supernova who burned too bright for this world.
“Leo loved everything, Aria. Too fast. Too much.” I pause, the memory a dull ache in my chest. “He loved the idea of her. He loved that she was this perfect, bright thing that wasn’t a part of our world. But he didn’t know how to hold onto something without breaking it. Or letting it break him.”
She just watches me, her expression unreadable. She’s processing, connecting dots I didn’t even know were visible.
