Page 98

Eden

When hot men want you to slake your troubles on their cock,

let them.

Dom’s door clicks shut behind me, pushing out the sobs and the groans, all the chatter and the rain. It all becomes muted, almost silent, as we’re enclosed together.

My back whispers against his door, but he doesn’t move back. Dom looms in my space, quiet and dauntingly large.

His heavy hand is still around my wrist, and my pulse frantically batters his fingers.

My breathing shallows.

His room is still a mess of blankets and empty cups, the remote control tossed carelessly on the floor beside last night’s DVD case. It looks lived in, its military edges blunted. Softened.

“Give me a truth, pet,” Dom says finally, and I close my eyes, wishing I’d never started this ritual.

Furious that he feels he has the right to turn it against me.

I tug at my wrist again, but this time, he slams it above my head, pinning it against the door, and I gasp, heat snapping through me. In seconds, he’s lifted his other hand, and his fingers bite into my cheeks as he forces me to look up at him. My glasses slip down, and I’m dazed as I stare.

He holds me with careless, casual force, like my struggles don’t mean anything against his size and intimidating strength. Like I’m not even strong enough to be worth fighting.

I hate the slow, slipping lust that rolls over me as his fingers tighten.

Rule three: Stay where I put you.

He’s infuriatingly calm, those brows still raised in dry expectation.

“Speak, Eden.”

I pant, looking up at him, my brain short-circuiting. Dom is... handling me. I can only remember two occasions he’s handled me like this, and both ended in me getting obliterated with orgasms.

The last few times we’ve talked, he’s kissed me. He’s even ordered me around, like he was testing our comfort with it, but this...

Dom is taking full control.

“You.. .” I try to swallow down the huskiness in my throat, but it’s hard with his blunt fingertips indenting my cheeks. “You smell like gunshots.”

It is a truth. His smoky metal scent is mixing with his usual dark spice, filling my head, my nose. He sits on the back of my tongue. Maybe that truth will be enough for him.

Right now, I think sex with Dom could patch every hole I have. Right now, him handling me might be enough.

I can feel myself melting into his touch. I want to turn myself over to him, like he did by the river when my world was crashing out.

I want him to handle it.

But Dom’s brows finally lower, in stinging disappointment.

“Is this it?” he asks quietly. “This is you talking to me?”

My anger flares again. Fuck him for pushing this. If he wants the truth, then he can have it, for all the good it does either of us.

“You know why I’m upset, sir. Alastair is out there , and he’s out there because of me .”

I yank away from him, but he just flattens me against the door, dragging my wrist up the wood until I need to slide up onto my toes. Until I can’t move at all.

His jaw is heavy, the stubble rough and dark over the tight planes.

His grip loosens slightly on my cheeks so I can talk.

“There are so many dead. So, so many. Fifty-three Reapers came here, sir. Do you know how many are left?” My throat is hot and choked, my guilt a miserable, sticky thing I can never fully seem to escape. Like it’s something that needs to be managed, rather than eliminated.

Dom is silent, watching. Waiting.

“Nineteen. Only nineteen lived.” My lips tremble, and I feel the way Pete looked. Raw and swollen and stripped to the bone. “I trusted him when I shouldn’t have. I was only looking at one way a person can be evil. I didn’t know... I didn’t see it . Now we’ve lost before we’ve even started.”

Dom sighs heavily, and he moves my wrist back down to a comfortable height. His thumb tracks shivering strokes along the sensitive flesh.

But his gaze is battered armor, used to this kind of battle. “I could have killed him when we had him captive.”

I blink, frowning, but he doesn’t stop.

“We could go back further? I could have killed Sam before he ever recruited his first Sinner. We could have moved. We could have made a deal with the Reapers sooner, been back at their farmlands with two hundred more men at our back. The Reapers could have grown a spine and asked for our help a year ago. My point is...” Dom’s voice is rough, impatient, and he rolls over my silent objections as he steps into me.

“Eden, we’ve argued about this already. We’re both taking a hit on this, and neither one of us is going to agree on who should be taking it.

We could go back and forth all night about whose responsibility this was, or who could have done what differently, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter. ”

I want to argue, bitterly, because I can feel it in my chest—this responsibility and guilt that is crushing my lungs, but Dom is hot and hard and so certain in front of me.

And the closer he gets, the less he smells of gunshots and the more he smells like spicy, hungry man. But he’s still keeping too much space between us.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dom repeats, limned in determination.

“Alastair’s here now, and we’re all dealing with it together.

Don’t count us out yet. This is just one battle.

Whatever mess of decisions brought the Sinners here also brought all of us together to fight them.

And we’re ready to tear Alastair and his whole fucking empire to the ground. ”

My pulse batters against his palm, and I can feel every callus on my skin.

For the first time since those torches sprung to life in the forest, hope ignites inside of me.

It’s just one battle.

One battle with... God, with so many casualties.

“Sir, I don’t know how to just... switch it off.

I know what you’re saying. I do, and I.

.. God, we’ll deal with Alastair. I’ll help, however I can.

I’ll help you beat him, somehow.” My wrist strains against his hand, just to feel his steely grip.

His inexorable control. “But my mind is racing . Jasper gave me things, exercises, and usually they help, but all I can see is Buck’s face, and?—”

“Give it to me.”

Dom’s voice is thick and dark. This time, when he steps closer, I can feel him through my nightdress. My nipples tighten painfully, budding against the fabric.

I lift my free hand to touch him, and he pins it beside the other one in seconds.

I feel the slickness welling between my legs, spilling out over the panties I shoved on quickly while I was in my room. The fabric presses wetly against my thighs as he nudges me back against the door.

Give it to him?

He can take it all. I’ve wanted him to, with biting, humiliating desperation, since the moment we met.

But he’s slowed me down every time. He wants it to be right. He wants me to trust him, and to trust myself, before he ever fucks me. Before he ever takes control.

Is he really saying . . .

Dom is fierce—forceful as he advances. “Give me your guilt, pet. Give me the stress. Give me all that fucking responsibility you’re carrying. Give it all to me.”

His shoulders block out the light, and finally, he presses against me. His cock is hard and shockingly thick, demanding and insistent against my stomach. Instinctually, my body yields to him, softening. Giving way to his strength and control.

Handing myself over.

I can feel the relentless pulse in his cock, see the locked strain in his muscles as he contains himself, but he’s steady when he meets my eyes.

He’s potent and powerful and kingly confident...and finally as sure about it as I am.

“I can take it, Eden. I want it all.”