Page 9

LIA

I t wasn’t worth pretending I had pride anymore. And if I was going to have to pretend to be in a relationship with Senator Marcus-fucking-St-Clair while I waited for Rhaim to rescue me, being an actual goddamned damsel in distress, then I needed to know my monster was coming to save me.

Because if he wasn’t, I would shiv Marcus to escape the first chance I got.

But Rhaim was taking too long to speak…which meant maybe I needed to shiv him, too.

Then he said, “I do,” quietly. Like we were at an altar, in a private wedding ceremony. “I shouldn’t—I should’ve never—but God help me, I do,” he said, before sliding one of his hands up my back, neck, and into my hair. “And you?”

“I’ve loved you ever since you bandaged up my knee.”

The words came out of me in a rush, and I watched him thinking, trying to remember when that had even been—and then his eyes went wide. “That’s not entirely sane, Lia.”

“I’m a Ferreo. I don’t have to be.”

That earned a dark chuckle—and then he picked me up high enough and shifted so that his dick fell out of me and landed between us, making me worried he was going away.

“How old were you then?”

“Thirteen,” I said, feeling color rush to my cheeks, and all over my body.

“And you just decided?” he asked.

I opened my mouth—how was it less frightening to tell him that I’d loved him for a decade, than for me to tell him the rest of the goddamned truth?

That up until that point in my life I didn’t think anyone would ever save me from my uncle?

“I’m not judging,” he said, stroking his thumb across my cheek. “Just curious.”

I bit my lips together and nodded hard.

“So…you…don’t actually want Corvo,” he said slowly, making me look up—and the second I did I felt better, because he was giving me an impish look.

“Fuck you,” I muttered, and then laughed, and he laughed too.

“Too bad, little girl—and at least know I know why you like that name.”

“What do you mean, too bad?” I protested, as he pulled me up his chest before rocking me back onto him.

This time he slid in like magic—like my body knew that he belonged there. I gave a soft moan, as he rocked my hips.

“Too bad, because I’m going to give it to you anyways,” he clarified. “And also this,” he said, thrusting up.

I closed my eyes at once.

I wanted to concentrate on what was happening inside of me.

The way he fit me, the way he took up the perfect amount of space—and the way my heart felt, now that it was finally free, expanding enough to feel like it occupied my entire chest.

And then I heard him purr below me, and felt his fingertips tense against my ass. “Is faster all right?”

“Yeah,” I breathed, blinking my eyes open at last, and finding him watching me intently.

His five-o-clock stubble was streaked with drying red and he smelled like me and copper pennies.

He looked like he’d just eaten someone’s beating heart—and judging from how mine felt, maybe he had.

And then his jaw dropped, as he moaned, stroking himself inside me again.

“Just like that,” he said, the corners of his lips lifting wickedly.

“Fuck,” I whispered, feeling him land deep. I curled over a little with a grunt.

“Still good?” he asked.

“Yeah. Just—right there?” I said, turning it into a plead.

“If you think you’re ready—” he said, right before doing it again.

“Fuck,” I hissed, this time more loudly.

“Touch yourself,” he demanded, and one of my hands flew down to do his bidding.

I felt him rise his own hips up, pressing deeper into me, catching the pad of my middle finger against my clit to grind.

I rocked forward and back, because it was easier than moving up and down on him, and then realized how that stirred him deep inside.

“Oh God?—”

“Keep going?—”

I made a small sound. It didn’t matter what he told me—I didn’t think that I could stop.

“Ohhh, my little girl likes that, doesn’t she?” he said, moving his hands from my hips, leaving me entirely pinned on him. I tried to catch my heels on the metal bars of the chair again, but when I managed one, he swatted it off. “You’re trapped.”

I growled at him, a silly sound I knew, but I meant it from my heart. “I want more.”

“Yeah?” he taunted—and then grabbed me, lifting me up several inches before dropping me.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck!” I shouted, as his eyes gleamed.

“How much more?” he asked, one eyebrow arched—and I lunged for him, my teeth snapping at his neck. One of his hands flew into my hair and held me back, so that all I could do was kiss him.

“You know me,” I said, when I rose back up. I was used enough to being full of him now, so I ground down into him and heard him grunt. “I want everything.”

I watched him breathe three times, his eyes earnest in their danger, then it was his turn to whisper, “Fuck, and when he moved to stand, carrying me with him, I squeaked.

“Shush,” he reprimanded. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.

Much,” he said, as he walked back across his apartment’s open floor plan with my legs scissored behind him.

I’d assumed we’d be going to his bedroom, but was surprised when we instead landed on his wide couch.

My knees caught on the cushions on either side of his thighs, and he rocked back and gave me a command. “Ride.”

I blinked at him, then rested my hands on his shoulders.

“You heard me,” he said, spanking my ass sharply with one hand.

I swallowed—and then started to do as I’d been told. Rising slowly up and then sinking, while he made a pleased sound beneath me.

“Take it,” he purred, as our hips met. “You’re good at taking it, aren’t you, Lia. Taking it for Daddy.”

My hands clenched into fists and I gasped, realizing the actual reason he’d brought me over to the couch.

So that when he said filthy things like that—like I wanted him to, like I needed him to, things that for some obscene reason my ears— my very soul needed to hear —I could be riding on top, in control of the situation.

Not him.

“You’re so good for me, little girl,” he breathed, his gaze traveling over my body, the same as his hands, making me feel wanted, yearned for, and more importantly than anything else, protected.

Safe.

I felt special, not in a horrible way that made being me different or sad, with words I had to swallow down to survive—but as if for the first time I was earnestly cherished in a way that I had been longing for my whole life.

“I am,” I whispered, nodding quickly.

“Watching you tonight,” he went on, cupping one of my breasts to rub its nipple with his thumb, while the other ran up my cheek.

“Before things got shitty—I was so fucking proud of you. Watching you work the room, knowing you were saying all the right things, just like I taught you—made me so fucking hard.”

I nodded again and leaned forward, rocking against him, my jaw dropping as I took him in and out.

“Fucking beautiful—fucking smart,” he growled, and I could both feel and see the restrained intensity of him, in his voice, that was half-a-snarl, in the way he breathed, and in the way he thrust himself up between my legs. “Take it, Lia— fucking ride me .”