Page 26 of Darkest Kiss

"I know what you need." His voice is sandpaper. "Take it. Use me. Just don't ask me to take your first anything while you're like this. I'm barely holding that line as it is."

Your first anything. The phrase snags in the soup of my brain. He knows I’m a virgin? How? My cheeks flush as I realize that bit of info must have been available at the auction.

No matter how far humanity has come, in my world, taking a girl’s virginity is still a prize to be auctioned.

At least Rian’s giving me a choice. He’s saving my virginity for some future version of me who can sign for the package herself. That’s something, right?

Lust burns hot in my veins. I pull Rian’s lips back to mine, kissing him with a needy desperation. The shower head pulsing on my clit drives me higher. I’m a being of pure want, pure desire. My tongue meets his, my kiss sloppy and impatient.

“Fuck, Rian,” I moan into his mouth.

“Just let go,” he whispers.

I come apart against him with the showerhead in one hand and a fistful of his ruined shirt in the other, mouth open against his neck, no sound coming out at all. He holds me through every second of it. He murmurs things I don't catch, but his hand never once strays off the safe little square of my back.

My pulse pounds as the orgasm drains away. The wave subsides after a moment. The heat I’m feeling, however, doesn't. I make a sound of pure betrayal. “Rian, I’m still… horny.”

“Here.” He scoops me up and sits down, resettling my back against his chest. “I’ll hold the nozzle. You just direct me, okay?”

I whimper, writhing. Sitting against his big body like this, I can feel the press of his cock against my ass, giving me explicit thoughts. When he directs the spray between my thighs, I grind down on him.

"I've got you.” He eases me back, pushing my hand down toward my pussy. “Relax and let it wash over you. Think about… us fucking. How wet your pussy would be after I ate you out, made you come over and over. Then I’d stretch you out on my cock. Ruin you for other men. You’d be mine. All mine. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?"

I nod, slightly redirecting the hand holding the nozzle. Lifting my hips and parting my pussy lips, I feel the water hit my clit, the man beneath me, the sheer overstimulation of the moment. “Fuck! Fuck, I’m going to–”

Clenching my eyes closed, I come so hard I swear for a second I can taste colors. It goes on and on, me writhing in Rian’s lap, out of my mind with ecstasy.

When that wave recedes, I’m still frustratingly horny. Shifting my weight to one of his thick thighs, I reach for him. He lets me get my hand around him through his soaked jeans. “Fuck. Can I have your cock?”

My voice sounds drunk and needy. I hate being this person, hate these things I have to ask for.

Okay, maybe I don’t hate everything. I run my fingers along the outline of his cock. He grits his teeth and pulls away, pressing a kiss to my wrist, unhurried, like we have all the time in the world.

"Next time," he says. "I promise you next time."

"Why not now?" I say, which comes out less like a demand and more like an actual question.

He looks at me for a long moment. Then he shakes his head. “You’re not yourself.”

He turns off the water. He wraps me in a towel that probably costs more than my rent, and carries me back to bed.

I don't fight it. Somewhere between the bathroom door and the pillow the heat finally, finally starts to ebb, replaced with an exhaustion so complete it threatens to overtake me.

The drug is still in my system. My nervous system has been running in crisis mode for days—the paralysis, the auction, the specific horror of being fully conscious inside a body I couldn't control. I held it together because I had to.

Because my anxiety disorder taught me a long time ago that if you white-knuckle it hard enough you can survive almost anything.

I am no longer white-knuckling. I’m warm and completely wrung out. Rian’s right here and some very stupid part of my brain has decided that means I'm safe.

I sag as he gently lays me on the bed. My eyes stop cooperating. My nervous system has run out of everything it had.

“You okay?” he asks.

I can’t answer.

His hand is in my hair when I go under, the only thing grounding me.

My dreams, when they come, are deep and dark.