Page 3

RHAIM

I knew the second I got inside her, Lia hadn’t forgotten she belonged to me.

This could only be a frantic, frenzied thing, we were both needed downstairs, and who the fuck knew when Senator St. Clair would actually show up, but I would be damned if I didn’t get the chance to rail her again while she still trusted me.

I needed her to believe that I would never give her up, and actions counted more than words.

She made a quiet sound as I bottomed out, teetering on her heels to hold me as I took her deeply, and in the mirror I watched her entire body relax, like she’d been waiting for this moment her entire life.

She was so beautiful.

So responsive.

And so mine.

I didn’t care what I had to do, or who I had to kill.

I had to be smart…but I didn’t have to be sane.

Then her eyes fluttered open, her eyelashes as delicate as the moth tattoo on the inside of her wrist. “Rhaim?” she whispered.

“Shh,” I said, running soothing hands down her sides, to grasp her waist. “I’ve got you,” I said, and rocked forward into her again.

I thudded into her, feeling her sheath me, and I wanted to come inside her at once, like a teenager in a backseat after prom. Two months of nothing but my hand and my memories had prepared me poorly for the real thing, but I knew I couldn’t use her like that.

Not if I wanted to keep her.

She put one hand out against the mirror’s glass, to help her brace herself against my rutting, as her other hand raced under her skirt to rub her clit.

No other man had had her since I’d taken her last—I had Sable keep an eye on all her electronics—but even if I hadn’t, right then I would’ve known, by the way her full lips parted, the tiny gasps she gave every time I filled her, and the way her half-lidded amber eyes met mine in our reflection.

When we fucked, it was like she was made for me, and she fucking knew it.

“Rhaim,” she quietly whined, arching her ass up, letting me shove a few more precious millimeters inside.

“I’m here,” I growled back, quiet and low. I held her hips steady with my hands, and was taking her in fast, full, unapologetic strokes. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not through with you.”

It was the closest I could come right now to telling her the truth.

That, and—I reached down and grabbed the back of her knee, hauling her leg up over the sink’s edge entirely, dancing her body forward so that the porcelain lip was beneath her, my whole body wrapped over hers in an obscene fashion, and I planted my much larger hand over hers, on top the glass.

And if I’d thought she was pliant before that, the second my hand covered hers—she melted.

“Rhaim,” she pleaded, pulling her hand from between her legs to wind it back around my neck as I took her in short, sharp strokes.

I wanted to bite her neck, I wanted to cover her in claiming bruises, I wanted every man who ever saw her for the rest of her life to know she was owned by me—but failing that I needed to make her come.

“Rhaim—I—” she hissed, her eyes squinting, her body tensing up, as I took her at punishing speeds. “Don’t—stop?—”

I couldn’t if I’d wanted to. I could feel her pussy starting to clench, and it felt so good I wanted to scream, at the same time her lips opened for a silent orgasmic howl.

Her nails clawed against my neck, her ass shoved against my cock, and then I was coming too, I couldn’t help myself, I needed to lose myself inside her, at the same time she rose up on her toes and slammed back as best she could.

And for a moment, we were divine. Not just me fucking her, but we were drenched in meaning , the way she needed to take my cum, and the way I had to give it to her.

I felt the kind of holy clarity you only got after doing something extremely bad—like kicking in the face of someone who didn’t quite deserve it—or extremely good—like when your car flipped and somehow you fucking survived.

A strange moment of stunned, worshipful, sweaty perfection.

“You’re mine,” I said, leaning over her, shoving myself inside of her again so hard it made her squeak. Her eyes met mine in the mirror, her pupils wide, her lush lips open. “Say it,” I commanded her, with a hand still around her throat.

I felt her pulse thunder, as she caught her breath, and then her lips pursed as she considered me. “You’re mine,” she repeated, obedient via technicality, attempting to claim me in return.

I let go of her neck and stepped back, breathing hard. I’d come in her like a bull, and so I wasn’t surprised when a gush of cum squeezed out of her still tight pussy, to spatter on the sink’s porcelain, slightly pink, which made sense, because everything I touched always became bloody.

“You okay?” she asked, looking back at my reflection.

“It’s not a little girl’s job to ask that,” I said, harkening back to what for us counted like olden days.

At hearing the nickname she wanted me to use for her, her gaze softened, before tensing again. She hobbled back from the sink, and indecorously straightened herself out, until she could turn to look at me. “Did you mean what you said?”

“Which part?” I muttered, pretending to be an oblivious asshole as I shoved myself back into my slacks.

“Fuck you, Rhaim,” she said, trying to kick her underwear back on over her heels, almost tripping, and I caught her, holding her in front of myself.

It was now or never—to let her know how I felt, even if in half an hour she hated me.

“I’ve meant everything I’ve ever said to you.”

I watched the words flay her, as she gave a soft gasp—and then I heard the sound of a footstep in the hall. I flipped the light off, pulled her to me with one arm, and reached the other back to hold the door—I’d locked it earlier, but I didn’t even want the knob to twist.

She curled up against me at once, quietly shaking.

I fought the knob turning once, twice, and then heard the steps depart again as whomever had been snooping outside walked away.

My phone hadn’t buzzed, and neither had Lia’s, so no one was missing us yet—but when I flicked the light back on she hadn’t stopped shivering.

I picked up her coat and wrapped it over her, then was tempted to give her my suit jacket, though I knew it would look bad—and that’s when I realized the position I’d put her in.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew what being with me would mean.

One of us would die before the other. It probably wouldn’t be natural causes, and it definitely wouldn’t be her.

I took her shoulders in my hands again, pressing the green silk against her. “But if you don’t want to do this, with me, Lia—I understand.”

It was the most goddamned selfless I had ever been.

I watched her, still shaking, barely controlled, on the verge of tears—and then she flung herself at me, her arms wound around my neck, rising up on her toes as she lunged forward, and I had no choice other than to catch her.

Her lips met mine and I drowned in them.

“Little girl,” I whispered, when she finally let up, breathless and swaying in my arms, giving me room to kiss her back, and suddenly that kiss was more consuming than anything between us that had come before—it was like I was falling into her, and I knew as it was happening, as I tasted her like I was searching for her soul, that there was no coming back from this.

We were what we were, and there would be no return.