Page 9 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

A smouldering log left on the fire has kept the room warm.

The interior is cute; one large, quaint and old-fashioned room with modern fixtures like a small TV and a glass-fronted fireplace.

Besides the glowing fire, the only other light is from a lamp by the double bed, which is pressed into an alcove on the far side of the room.

A couch faces the fire, and behind it, a door into the bathroom, with a two-person dining table beside it.

The kitchenette is behind us to the left.

Feminine touches like the frilly cushions, a fluffy rug and a few pot plants make the place not exactly reminiscent of a killer's den, but that’s hardly something to go off.

I push the door shut behind me, thumb flicking the lock closed while my body blocks Paige’s view—though she appears to be focused elsewhere.

As she comes back into my arms, my hands snake inside her jacket, around her waist. I find her mouth again, and don’t let go.

We stay connected while she plucks her beanie off, shedding her scarf and sweater, stepping out of her shoes as we drift further into the room, until the fireplace warms the back of my legs.

I do the same, leaving a trail of shoes and gloves.

Paige is down to a white long-sleeved undershirt now, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her not either bundled up under layers, or in the shapeless uniform of a cleaner.

She's slender, a small hourglass, the same as I saw that night, clad in black.

Her rich warm-blonde hair, turned orange by the firelight, tumbles nearly to her waist, dishevelled by the wind we just came out of.

She’s gorgeous, and I know this is wrong as her hands trail up my bare arms, over my shirt and up my neck, running through my hair. It feels good to be touched again, her hands delicate but firm, and to feel her warm body. So welcoming. My voluntary abstinence is suddenly not feeling so voluntary.

How far is she willing to go? I shouldn’t find out, shouldn’t go along with this farce. Letting my cock make the decisions can't be a good route to take.

But I’m angry, and I want to punish her for what she’s done.

For luring me into her sphere like she was something sweet.

She’s not that, and knowing that I won’t be corrupting anything spurns me.

It’s licence to be rough, like even if I hate her for being the Wraith, it’s okay to fuck her too…

Which isn’t the kind of thinking that’s going to help here.

I need to stay on task. But reminding myself of what these hands that are now undoing my belt have done, doesn’t wipe away those traitorous thoughts.

We stumble back until her butt comes up against the arm of the couch. When she lifts her knee, my hand slips down, off the bottom hem of her skirt, finding bare skin and the lacy top of a stocking.

A low sound growls from the back of my throat as I grip that thigh, fingers digging into soft flesh. I grab her hair with my other hand and crane her head back so that I can sink my teeth against her neck until she cries out.

"John," Paige says with a sucked-in breath.

And that’s what brings me back.

I'm not who she thinks.

"What’s wrong?" she asks, bumping off the edge of the couch arm as I release her and let space between us for the first time since I locked the door.

How to answer that? I’m just not sure whether I’m morally obligated not to fuck you, and if I give a damn. "I just… I didn't mean to go this fast."

Paige smiles and steps towards me, finding me against the back wall beside the alcove the bed is in, and presses her slim body into mine, tilting her chin up to catch my lips.

She bites me when my hands tighten on her arms, and a sound catches in my throat.

She takes my wrist and guides my hand up to her chest, gently placing it over her breast. The material of her thin bra through her undershirt does not disguise the soft, plump shape under my hand.

God, this woman.

Since she's almost climbing me anyway, I reach down to her ass and lift her, bringing her legs over my hips, and she wraps around me eagerly.

I carry her to the bed like that, leaning down to press her into the floral spread.

As soon as she's on her back, Paige finds the base of my shirt and pulls it over my head.

I sit back to get it the rest of the way off, and her eyes land on my torso.

Her legs are open, skirt ridden up. Her panties are dark blue.

I see her lips pressed against them, the shape of it tantalising.

My hand lingers there, high on her thigh, fingers itching to slip under the edge of that underwear and find her.

“Whoa. I've never known a man like you before," she says, fingers grazing the ridge of my abs.

That’s probably true enough. Just not in the way she thinks it.

I lean over, propped on my fists, and kiss her.

The skin over her ribs is smooth, her shirt wrinkling back as my hand pushes under to the bottom edge of her bra.

Paige takes a trembling breath against my mouth, then traces her fingers up the front of my jeans, sending bolts through my groin, making my already swollen cock push even harder and even more constrained against the zip.

The uncomfortable sensation abruptly releases when she flicks open my top button, tugging my zipper down so that only my underwear holds me.

Before she can touch that and drive me any more mad, I lift her shirt, pulling it over her head as she lifts. Then she immediately reaches behind herself to unclip her bra. Now I'm looking down onto lovely round breasts, the nipples puckered and hard.

I’m wondering whether I should have bought a condom after all. Since I didn’t, thinking it might slow things down. “I don’t have…”

“You don’t need a condom,” she says, dragging her eyes up from where my cock is doing its best to tear through the front of my underwear.

Of course, she’s infertile. “Still…”

“Please. I want to feel you. Just you.”

Something lodges in my throat. I could almost believe her, the way she’s looking at me, so hungry, like she wants me inside her, skin to skin and nothing else.

I gently graze the underside of her breast with my thumb, and when her back arches, I lean down and swirl my tongue over one hardened peak. Her gasp comes again, this time with a hint of voice.

"Fuck," she moans, and I pull away. When I hitch my fingers in her skirt and pull it down, she bumps her hips up to accommodate me, and I slide it off her legs. Now she’s only in the thigh-high stockings and dark blue panties.

Those stay on , I tell myself. She stretched out so lovely and perfect in front of me, legs open, skin smooth.

I climb back up over her and this time I let my weight settle, feeling her underneath me, her breasts to my chest, my warm belly to hers, the smoothness of her stockings sliding against my hips.

She's flexible, her feet up around my hips, and she pushes my jeans down with the arches of her feet. Now is probably the time for one of us to stop this.

What’s her game? Will she stop? Is she expecting me to stop? I won't. I'm willing to go as far as she'll let it. At this point, I’m going to hell anyway.

I press my hips back to push my jeans and underwear down and kick them off.

My cock throbs harder, fuller and more distracting now that nothing is holding it at bay.

I push back and run my finger under the edge of her underwear, where the hollow of her inside thigh gives a nice access point.

Paige clutches my shoulders, her chest already panting before I’ve even gone any further.

The tip of my finger brushes the smooth, shaven side of her.

Paige bites her lip around a soft noise.

I slide my finger underneath the front of her panties and tug them aside.

There's nothing between us now. My cock feels taut, pleasantly stretched, and too swollen at once.

Her panties are wet where my finger has hitched around them. I know she'll gladly take me.

If this woman is who I think, I'm going to kill her; fucking her first feels like self-gratification. Much like hearing her moan and gasp earlier today was.

Before I can think, or unravel myself with a breath of un-horny air for a minute, Paige has reached down to find the head of my cock and is running her thumb over the tip, the heavy bead of precum sliding under her thumb.

That was already maddening enough, but when she lifts that thumb back to her lips and sucks the taste of me off her thumb, I can't control myself.

"Fucking hell," I grunt, and what starts as a nudge, parting her, and finding her wet, it turns into a slam, burying myself in her almost convulsively. My hips urge deeper, needing to fill her, to claim her wholly.

Her mouth is a neat little 'o', her hips pressing up to welcome me as she pants through my invasion.

I come flush over her, forearm braced next to her head, looking down into her face.

Her expression is caught between intense pleasure and something like surprise.

I feel entirely held in her pussy, squeezed in its slick heat.

Her hips roll with me as I thrust, dragging upwards to grind on her clit as well.

Still panting, gasping, her nails drag across my back. Small sounds turned to loud moans and cries as we move together. I feel her squeezing, tightening. She’s all I can feel, my world narrowing to this bed and her body.

I need to still myself, my body for a moment just to get a hold of myself, to ride out the wave of intense ecstasy that threatens to make me forget myself, to revert me into something primitive.

But stopping doesn't help, not when Paige starts to tilt her hips, micromovements that drag the muscles of her pussy along me.

I grunt, a deep warning sound that only seems to excite her more.

Her moans gasping out, her heartbeat thumping against my chest. Weighing a hand on her hip, I at last stop her, only for her to tighten around me instead, squeezing then releasing.

"Stay the fuck still," I grate out, rewarded by her trembling to a stop, her eyes widening with excitement.

But she stays still and stops driving me to the edge of madness for now, unless her heavy breathing counts.

Letting out a slow breath, I nuzzle my nose behind her ear, half-grunting, "Good girl."

"Please," her breath trembles, hands sliding across my shoulders where I can already feel the sting her nails have left behind. "I’m so close."

"Yeah? You want to come?"

"Mm-hm," she intones, a pleading noise.

Fuck . I take her hands and place them above her head, weighting my forearm on them to bring my mouth level with her cheek, and look down at her closed lids.

Starting to thrust, I drag upward against her swollen clit.

She lifts her hips to greet me, gasping out her pleasure.

I feel her twitch around me and bring my hand from her hip to her chin, tilting her face up, but don’t kiss her.

I only brush my lips against her open mouth.

She's close. She’d agree to anything right now. And I'm feeling cruel.

"Can I choke you?" I bite out, thrusting deep, holding, pulling out slowly to do it again.

At first, her eyes widen, then her answer is gasping out, "Yes, yes."

My grip closes around her throat, her neck long and thin, so my hand seems to nearly circle it. I press just slightly, and she jolts as that pushes her over the edge.

I ride her out through the orgasm, a violent, shaking thing that I want to feel the entirety of.

The way her muscles spasm to grip me, the bucking her hips try to do as I weigh them down.

But to my surprise and reluctance, her tightening pussy drags the climax I’ve been resisting.

Her pleasure giving me no choice in the matter, as the sudden release hits me.

Hot and thick, my release rushes from me, and I growl through it, my movements mere instinct with hot, primal need.

Everything else falls away, the past and the future, so that all I want, or need, are these moments.

Then the intensity eases, and I'm inside her, my hand still around her throat, just a slight pressure now.

Paige lets out a trembling breath, blinking herself back to awareness, gaze lifting into my eyes. My bliss falls away as reality comes back, and I don't move. I don't pull out of her; I don’t take my hand off her throat.

In fact, I tighten my grip.

For a moment Paige looks confused, a slight line appearing between her brows, then her head lulls in my grip, and I see her consciousness flitter away as the blood cuts off to her brain. It would feel just like falling asleep, the pain mild enough to not realise immediately what’s happening.

By the time she does, it’s too late.