Page 75 of Ricochet

I paused only long enough to see her hands roving her tits, shamelessly feeling herself up while I went down, and I sank into something foreign, the undertow so strong, I feared I’d never surface from it. It’d been a long time since I’d given pleasure, and I wanted to give everything I had inside of me, all the fury and pain and desire—soul-stripping desire that left me a hungry and insatiable bastard. I wanted to give it all to her, watch her brows come together in an agonizing string of curses before she fell back, so glutted with satisfaction she couldn’t move.

Her muscles tensed, and the pleas faded, until all that filled the empty kitchen were her broken breaths and small squeaks that ruptured into full-blown screams.

Her fists thumped the countertop on either side of me before unfurling and gripping the edge. “Nick! Oh, God! Nick!”

Tiny contractions beat against my fingers as her orgasm crashed over her. She slid over the edge, and I caught her, lifting her into my arms. Cradling her like a child, I kissed her with the same desperation that hammered through my body.

I needed to bury myself inside of her, so deep it’d have her clawing at my back, caught between begging me for mercy and praying I’d keep going.

Lips locked, I blindly carried her up the stairs, to my bedroom, my body strung the fuck out, with her arms wrapped around my neck, her fingers digging into my nape. I could hardly breathe after the long trek up, but I didn’t care. I was so frantic to have her in my bed, I’d have crawled on my goddamn knees with her in my arms to get there.

Once inside, I lay her back against the mattress. With her dark hair fanned across the sheets, her eyes hooded, cheeks flushed, lips full and swollen with kisses, she damn near stole my breath.

Dread struck the pit of my stomach and spread to my head. That same dread stole the enticing image of her sprawled across my mattress, blackening it to darker visuals of her chained to my bed, trembling at my approach. It wouldn’t end well. Sex in the last three years hadn’t.

The thought was enough to make me pause. Because I didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t even want to take a chance. Pleasuring her might’ve kept the blackness at bay , but if I took her, if I selfishly fucked her to sate myself, was there a chance I could kill her? The injury to my head had fucked with my brain. I didn’t know what I was capable of anymore.

“Stay here. I’ll be back,” I said.

Her brows came together in what I could only surmise as confusion, but still, I slipped into the adjacent bathroom and turned on the water.

From my holster, I nabbed the long blade and set it to my skin. Purge it. Get the poison out before the shit consumes you. I made three small slices on my forearm, a hiss escaping me as the crimson venom slid down my arm, and my cock painfully hardened inside my briefs.

Quickly undoing my belt, I pushed my jeans to the floor and reached down, gripping my dick as I braced a hand on the edge of the sink.

I had to make the moment about her. Not me. If I fucked her, things would end up the way they always had.

My expression in the mirror carried pain—the pain of needing release so bad it had me bent over myself. Pain of knowing there was something dark inside of me, capable of hurting her.

Long strokes along my shaft left me wanting more, wanting to be buried inside of Aubree, with her ass high, screams muffled into the pillow.

I closed my eyes and pictured the scene, so vivid in my head. “Fuck yes,” I whispered, imagining myself sliding into that slick pussy, until I became lost, so lost.

Hands drifted down my stomach, and I jerked back when she grabbed hold of my dick. “Shit!”

“Shhhh.” Her grip tightened, and she kissed my arm, ignoring the wounds there. “Turn around.”

“I can’t do this.” Through deep breaths, I fought the urge to stroke myself in front of her.

“Because of me? Because I’m married?”

Shit, there was that, too. Not that I gave a fuck about Michael Culling. “Because I can’t.” I attempted to stuff my dick back into my briefs, but she batted my hand out of the way.

“I have to tell you something. Please.”

With some reluctance, I turned to face her.

“Nick …” Her gaze fell from mine, as if she suddenly couldn’t look at me. “I’m so used to men taking from me. Using me. From an early age, sex has always been about getting them off and enduring their pain.”

The thought had my stomach clenching, and, like a crazy bastard, I wanted to punch every motherfucker who’d ever laid a hand on her.

She shook her head. “I’ve never felt what you made me feel downstairs. No one has ever … left me wanting so much more, the way you did. Please.” She fell to her knees, looking up at me while her tongue circled the head of my dick in a way that shot hot bullets of lust straight through my veins like a drug. Those crazy fucking pistol lips of hers, slipping along my shaft in slow torment, left me weak in the knees. “Let me do this. I want to. I need to.”

Everything inside of me roared a warning. Don’t do it. Except, her tongue … that fucking tongue licking and sucking my head had me messed up like a bastard on a monster dose of E.

When she took me all the way to the base, while cupping my balls, I had to grab the edge of the sink again. Up and down, up and down, she bobbed, twisting and circling, like a goddamn pro.

I tangled my fingers in her hair and tipped my head back. Fuck, yeah.