Page 24 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Millie

The ride to my place didn’t ease the tension.

Not even close.

I could smell my arousal the entire way, and I had no doubt Ben could too. The car felt hot , stifling, no matter how much I cranked the AC. Every breath felt thick with anticipation.

The moment he shifted the car into park, I bolted.

Out the door. To the elevator. I jabbed the button like it might make the damn thing move faster.

Come on. Come on.

The numbers blinked down—Seven. Six. Five. Four—

“Where are you running off to, Mills?” His voice was close. A whisper against my neck. “Can’t finish what you started?”

My eyes fluttered shut, goosebumps breaking out all over my body. God, his breath was fire . His presence? A storm I’d dared to summon.

I hadn’t realized what I was doing when I teased him. Hadn’t realized letting the leash slip would come back to strangle me with need. I’d kept him at arm’s length for years. Told myself it was safer that way.

But with just a few words... I’d given him a green light.

And there was no taking it back now. Because I saw it in his eyes.

Raw. Primal. Owned.

He wasn’t asking. He was coming for me. And I’d already lost every weapon I had.

I barely squeezed through the doors as they opened, hoping the separation would give me a second to breathe. I pressed my back to the far wall of the elevator, trying to create space—any space—between me and what was about to happen.

He stepped in slowly and hit the button for my floor.

I stared at it like it was both my salvation and my sentence.

The beginning and the end. My misery and my undoing. My peace and my destruction.

Because that button meant no going back. Not ever.

I didn’t have to love him. Not yet.

But Ben would let me use him. Because I needed it.

And he’d do it because he needed me. He’d let me call it whatever I wanted, as long as it meant I finally acknowledged that I belonged to him.

I’d spent years denying it, shoving the truth into that damn box and burying it beneath excuses.

All I’d done was torture myself. Torture us.

And now, I was opening the cage I’d kept him in, giving him full access to the prey.

He never stepped closer. He didn’t have to.

I looked up, met his gaze, and the corner of his mouth lifted in that barely-there smirk that had haunted my dreams more times than I’d admit.

It was nearly my undoing. My fingers curled around the metal railing at my back, clinging to it like it was my lifeline.

Like it was the final tether before everything unraveled.

The elevator doors opened, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. We were fire and ice right now, and all I wanted was for him to cool the flames licking under my skin.

He let out a breath of laughter. Low. Dark. Just enough to let me know he’d already won whatever game I thought I was playing.

“If I have to carry you out of this elevator…” he murmured, voice thick with promise, “we won’t make it past the hall.

Everyone will see me devour what you’ve been denying me for years.

” His gaze raked down my body—slow, deliberate—and back up before locking on mine again.

“And Mills?” He smirked. “We’ll be there all night. ”

I was used to being the one in control. Not being controlled. But I’d heeded his warning, and now my feet couldn’t move fast enough. I fumbled the keys to my condo, cursing under my breath as they hit the floor just as he stepped up behind me.

I bent down to grab them.

That’s when it snapped. That invisible thread I’d been clinging to—gone.

Severed.

His hand gripped my waist, yanking me flush against him, and I felt it.

All of him.

Hard. Unrelenting.

I shot upright, heart hammering, and shoved the key into the lock with trembling fingers.

I didn’t even get the chance to open the door myself.

In one swift motion, Ben pushed it open, lifted me like I weighed nothing, and slammed me against the wall—his mouth claiming mine in a kiss that felt like years of tension combusting into one white-hot second.

My legs wrapped around his waist without thought. Without hesitation.

Like they knew where home was.

Home.

I dropped everything.

My keys. My guard. My goddamn sanity.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, dragging him impossibly closer, our bodies already smoldering.

His tongue tangled with mine, desperate and bruising, until his hips pressed forward—his length grinding against the heat between my thighs.

I moaned. Loud. Unrestrained. And whatever restraint he had left snapped with it.

He didn’t stop claiming my mouth as my legs dropped to the floor.

His hands moved fast, undoing the button on my jeans and shoving them down with practiced ease.

He dropped to his knees, stripping each shoe off one by one, leaving me in nothing but my shirt and panties.

I was breathless—clinging to the wall for air I couldn’t seem to find.

Then he stayed there. On his knees.

Staring.

Right at the place he wanted most. The place I needed him to be most.

His eyes flicked up to meet mine, wild and feral like he couldn’t decide where to taste me first. And then—

Rip.

The sound of my panties tearing was the final warning. A declaration. His decision had been made.

One second, I was looking down at him, and the next—his mouth was on my clit, and my whole body buckled. I gasped, my head hitting the wall behind me as I fought to stay upright. His tongue flicked and thrust, his teeth teasing and tormenting until my legs shook.

He lifted them. Wrapped them over his shoulders. And pinned me to the wall with nothing but strength and hunger.

He ate me like he was starving.

Like I was the last meal he’d ever have.

My hips rolled forward, chasing every flick of his tongue, every swirl and suck as my fingers knotted into his hair, pulling him deeper. My thighs clenched, my moans echoing off the walls as I lost myself in the heat, in the taste of something I’d denied us both for far too long.

He growled something I couldn’t make out—didn’t need to. Not when his tongue curled in just the right spot and sent my hips flying forward, a cry spilling from my lips before I could stop it.

My head slammed back against the wall as pleasure rolled through me in punishing waves.

He didn’t let up. Every motion was methodical and unrelenting.

My hands gripped his hair like reins I couldn’t loosen, my legs trembling around his shoulders, my body barely hanging on as I chased the next wave.

He teased. He tormented. His fingers dug into my thighs like he had to hold me together to keep me from falling apart.

Then his tongue dipped lower, tasting me from a new angle—probing, licking, thrusting until I arched so hard my spine scraped the wall. His name slipped past my lips like a prayer, breathless and broken, as he buried his face deeper against me.

My walls fluttered, clenched—then pulsed harder as my climax built to a height I didn’t know I could reach.

And when it finally hit, it shattered me.

A cry tore from my throat as wave after wave crashed down, his mouth catching every drop of release like it was the only thing he’d ever thirsted for.

He stood in one fluid motion, mouth slick from everything I’d given him. My legs nearly gave out without his shoulders, but he caught me—his entire body anchoring mine. My head dropped against the cool surface behind me, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Then he shifted. Spun me. Pressed my chest to the wall with his body molded to my back, one hand gripping my hip while the other dragged my shirt up and over my head in a single pull. My bra snapped open a beat later, falling to the floor without ceremony.

His mouth found my shoulder first—biting, tasting, breathing me in. I could feel the hard press of his cock through his pants as he ground against my ass, his hand sliding between the wall and my breast.

It groped. Squeezed. Claimed.

I cried out—arching, burning, needing.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered against my skin.

I didn’t even hesitate.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Mills,” he said, voice ragged—laced with carnal warning. “There won’t be any going back. Once I’m inside of you again, you’ll be mine. Forever.”

“Yours.”

And I meant it. Whatever I’d locked away in that goddamn box would have to stay there. Because I wasn’t coming back from this.

That was all he needed.

He shoved his jeans and boxers down just enough to free himself. I felt the hard length of him against my ass, and then—one hand gripping my hip, the other sliding between my legs to guide himself—he pressed into me.

He didn’t ease in.

He claimed.

The breath was knocked from my lungs as I took him all at once, his cock filling me so deeply, so fully, my vision blurred. He stayed there for a beat, buried to the hilt, his chest against my back and his lips at my ear. He wasn’t breathing right. Neither was I.

"Fuck, Mills…"

It was a promise. A confession. A line we could never uncross.

Then he moved—long, brutal strokes that made my body jerk with every thrust. The sound of skin slapping echoed in the entryway. I gripped the wall, my forehead pressed against the cool surface, eyes squeezed shut as I lost myself in the rhythm.

Every thrust was a punishment. Every moan a reward. And when my hand reached between my thighs to rub circles over my clit, Ben growled low in his throat, grabbed my wrist, and replaced it with his own.

"You don’t get to finish without me," he murmured, and then did something that sent me spiraling.

He bit my shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin, but just enough to mark me.

Just enough to say mine. The pressure inside me built fast, so sharp and overwhelming I could barely stay upright.

And just when my release was about to crash down, he pulled out completely, leaving me empty and gasping.

“Ben, what the fuck—”