Page 115 of Atone

For once, I think he’s right.

Alex strips off his pants, and his hard cock juts out at me. He’s always been somewhat out of reach, so I appreciate how he stands in front of me now, letting me see him. Reaching out, I stroke him base to tip, loving that he lets me.

“Your touch.” He grips his hand over mine, tightening it around his cock. “You have no idea what it does to me.”

“Oh yeah? I guess that’s bound to happen when you go without it for a while.” I drag my teeth over my lower lip. “How long was it before me? You’ve been celibate since the trial that sent you to Montgomery, right?”

Alex pauses, pulling my hand off him so he can grab my thighs and flip us on the bed with me on top.

“Yes,” he answers, lifting his cock under me.

But when he tries to impale me on him, I resist, toying with him for a change. I lower an inch—enough to feel the wide stretch—before pulling back.

“Fuck, Mila.” The veins in his neck tense when I do it again.

“How long?” I ask again, sinking an inch farther this time before denying him.

Alex’s grip on my thighs is painful, but I don’t mind the bite. I need that pain. That tension. His eyes meet mine, and when I try and lift again, he stops me.

“Twenty-two years,” he answers finally, grabbing my hips and shoving me down on his cock.

Sound turns to white noise while my body stretches for him. My ears buzz as I process what he just said.

“What?” I must have heard him wrong because there’s no way Alex was a virgin.

Alex sits up, wrapping his arms around my waist. His cock settles deep, and I’m completely full as he kisses the center of my throat.

“There was nothing but pain before you.” He kisses the mound of one breast, then the other.

“You were—” I stutter when he shifts my hips. “I was your first?”

“And only.”

“Why?” My eyebrows pinch, and even if he’s rock-hard inside me, he doesn’t move.

“I’m fucked-up in more ways than you know, and the last thing I deserve is to feel anything good. But you…” He steals the knife from my thigh, dragging it up over my stomach—my breast—dancing the cool blade on my skin. “I can’t resist you, Mila Bianchi.”

“You have me.” I grab the handle of the knife, pausing it at my neck.

“And you have me, my angel.”

“Technically, I share you with Sigma House.” I brush my fingers over the marks carved into his chest.

“You want to mark me like they did?” Alex hands the knife over, slowly lying back on the bed. The ripples of his abs flex with the movement, and he grins when I grip his cock harder at the sight of him.

“Mark me, Mila. You know you want to.”

He’s right, but it’s wrong. I don’t know if he’s a masochist or just thinks that little of his body at this point that he doesn’t care what else mars him.

“Stop overthinking it,” he says, rubbing my thighs. “I’ve taken marks for things I’ll never wash from my soul. I’ve taken them for other people’s greed. I’ve been scarred by things that mean nothing to me when you are everything. Give me something to look at that reminds me you love me.”

It hurts that he sees himself that way. A body that’s been broken, burned, used, and manipulated. And he wants me to do the same, but for different reasons. He wants something that proves he’s worth more than anything that’s happened to him before this moment.

So I lower the blade to his chest, rocking my hips and riding his cock as I drag the tip of the knife across his skin.

Alex groans as it bites through, but it’s more from pleasure than pain. Maybe I should stop. But I can’t. I rock my hips while drawing a gentle swoop beneath his collarbone. I drag the blade down and the pain mixed with pleasure has his cock stretching me to my limits.

I’m unbearably full, and he’s grabbing my thighs like he’s barely holding on. With a final swoop, I complete the heart, lifting the bloody blade.