Page 15

FIFTEEN

THE SWEET, SWEET FORBIDDEN

Natalie

Never had I been fucked so thoroughly. And never had I imagined I would enjoy it so immensely.

I wanted everything he said he would give me. I wanted him to mark me, use me, and make me come. I wanted to be his slut. I wanted him to make me his little whore.

If what he was doing to me was the outcome, then I’d never be left wanting again.

Each thrust of his hips was brutal and tried to propel me forward, but his hand was steadfast on my shoulder. He held me in place with his other hand around my hip and only allowed me to move if it was to push back onto him harder. Which I did over and over again.

He was so big and long—especially in that position—and his movements were so unforgiving that there was a bite of pain in the stretch and fullness. But that made me crave it even more.

My face pressed into the couch, I moaned loudly. Delirious with pleasure and my body primed for a second orgasm, I begged, “Use me. Please , use me.”

His hips stuttered for the first time a split second before his hand around my shoulder hauled me backward. Still unbelievably deep inside of me, he repositioned me until my back hit his muscular front.

His hand collared around my throat, and the subtle squeeze of his fingers made my eyes roll back. Suddenly, his mouth was at my ear, his warm breath sweeping over my skin like a promise. “You want me to use this cunt? Use your body for my own pleasure?”

I nodded weakly and pushed back into him. He was still moving, but his thrusts were slower, more measured, and taunting.

“Such a dirty little slut,” he mused and bit down hard on my ear as he tightened his hand around my throat. “And so fucking perfect for me.”

I turned, searching for his mouth, but I met his eyes that glimmered with a predatory gaze. A part of me was a little scared of what he could inflict. But that fear didn’t diminish the trust I’d quickly gained, nor did it make me want him any less. If anything, it made me want him more because I knew he would make good on my request.

He slanted his mouth over mine and ran the hand that wasn’t around my throat down the center of my body. His touch was hypnotizing and contradictory to the ruthless pace he set, driving into me with reckless abandon.

His fingers danced between my breasts over my stomach, circled my belly button, and finally cupped my pussy. I moaned, but the sound quickly transformed into a yelp when his touch turned from pleasurable to painful. I heard his hand connect with my skin before I felt the sting of pain against the top of my cunt.

Theo’s chuckle in my ear was dark and devious. “You scream like you hate it, but your cunt is telling me a different story. The way you just clenched and gushed around me…I think you might actually like the pain, Natalie.”

A sound between a moan and a sob broke free from my lips as he rubbed the tender area he’d slapped. My entire body rocked with the movement of his cock pumping in and out of me, and if it weren’t for his hand around my throat, I wouldn’t have stayed pressed against him.

“Do you want me to do it again?”

My vision went blurry and I tried to nod my head, but it didn’t work.

“Say it,” he warned, kissing down my neck. My hand clenched around his forearm, still rubbing my clit while my other held on to his powerful thigh behind me, hoping to keep myself grounded.

“Please do it again.”

And he did. His fingers left my body only to reappear a second later, a sharp sting of pain in their wake. He slapped me a third, then a fourth time, and I could feel the tears brimming.

“Look how responsive you are. Such a good little whore, taking everything I give you. Are you going to make me come?”

I nodded.

“Where? Do you want me to pump you full or paint your back?” Each of his words was more forced than the last, and I loved the gravel-like quality of his voice when he was right on the edge.

“Inside of me. Come inside of me,” I pleaded. The dire way I said the words sounded foreign to my own ears. I’d never begged or pleaded before, especially for that , but in Theo’s arms, if it didn’t happen, I felt like I’d combust.

“So, you’re a cumslut, too. So fucking needy,” he said against my neck.

The warmth of his body seeped into me as his fingers assaulted my clit. His hand around my throat shifted, and he tilted my head until I found his amber-colored eyes. They were gold with a small ring of green on the outer edge as they reflected in the last rays of the sunset streaming through the back window.

And it was with our eyes locked, breath mixing, and him thrusting into me with perfect precision that he said, “You want my cum? Then I need to feel you clench around me. Come for me. And make this cock come for you.”

I fought to keep my eyes open as the orgasm ripped through me. I wanted to see him fall apart, too.

He pushed into me hard one final time and stilled, his entire body tensing behind me as I pulsed around him. With the first warm rush of his release, I saw a little part of his walls shatter. His jaw went slack, and a deep groan ripped from his chest.

He moaned my name, and it sounded so much better on his lips.

We stayed like that for a while, probably far longer than was necessary, letting ourselves find our equilibrium once again. I tilted my head forward, and he pressed an unsuspecting kiss to my forehead. Then he spun us until he was seated on the couch, and I was straddling his lap. He sat back into the cushions and guided me to lay down on top of him until my head rested on his shoulder. The steady, quick beat of his heart and his even breathing were the only sounds I heard.

He began to run his fingers through my tangled hair, and I found myself getting a little too comfortable. It almost felt too good and too intimate when we’d just been fucking like we hated each other.

“I need to clean myself?—”

“No,” he cut me off quickly, and I was in no position to argue. If he was fine with making more of a mess of both of us, then I was, too.

“What’s happening right now?” I asked, unable to tamper my curiosity as his fingers continued moving through my hair.

“What do you mean?” Theo’s voice was rough and tired. I liked the way it sounded more than I cared to admit.

“Why are you being so…sweet? That’s not…I just—I wasn’t expecting this.”

He chuckled, and the sound took me so off guard I tried to sit up to look at him. But he pressed my head back down. “It’s called aftercare,” he said simply. “Have you never heard of it?”

I rolled my eyes, and he must’ve felt it because he tugged at my hair lightly, looking down at me like he wasn’t impressed with the gesture.

“Yes, I’ve heard of it,” I said, not mentioning that I’d just never been on the receiving end. “I just didn’t think you would be interested in it.”

He shrugged, and he settled farther back into the couch. His warmth and our non-sexual skin-to-skin contact was soothing. “It’s just as much for me as it is for you. You let me degrade you and spank you…I enjoy doing this part, too.”

For once in my life, I was at a loss for words, so we sat in a comfortable silence until the sunlight had completely disappeared. Running his fingers down my back, the darkness that fell over us was comforting.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” Theo asked quietly.

I liked his voice, I thought, and I wanted him to keep talking. But I didn’t know if I wanted to talk. It wasn’t really one big thing, as it was a million small things that kept piling and piling up until I was buried in an avalanche of never-ending problems.

“Only if you talk to me,” I countered, and he stilled beneath me.

“What do you mean?”

I chuckled and ran my hand down the center of his chest, tracing the outline of the detailed ink. “I wasn’t so caught up in my shit that I didn’t miss the way you looked. Something’s going on with you, too.”

“I don’t?—”

“Don’t deflect,” I warned, and he sighed. He reached behind him, grabbed the blanket I kept there, and tossed it over the two of us. I hadn’t realized until I was cocooned in warmth that I’d begun to shiver slightly.

“You first,” he prompted.

I groaned, but I knew he was more likely to open up if I did.

“Work is just a lot. I have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of people depending on me, so when something goes wrong…”

“It’s automatically your problem,” he finished for me, and I nodded.

“Not to mention, something Caroline said the other day really…it’s stuck with me.”

He chuckled quietly. “Not Caroline again.”

I smiled, and he resumed running his fingers through my hair. Goose bumps spread down my neck, back, and arms at the familiarness—the easiness—of the touch.

“She says a lot,” Theo added. “She talks more than you do.”

“She’s the closest person to me. She’s my best, and really my only, friend. So, when she says something, I take it to heart.”

“What’d she say?” he asked, and I could tell that he was genuinely curious and not just asking to ask.

“She said that I’ve put off what I’ve wanted for too long. She said I stayed in a marriage I didn’t want to be in for Ryder and that I deserve something for myself now.”

He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Something for yourself as in me?”

He correctly took my silence as confirmation.

“Do you agree with her?”

Over the last three days, I’d done a lot of thinking on the topic, and whether I deserved something for myself or not, I wanted Theo. Caroline’s reasoning was just a convenient excuse for my guilty conscience.

“To an extent. Raising Ryder and making sure he had the upbringing he deserved was what I wanted, but now that he’s older and Mark and I are divorced, I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“And that bothers you? Not knowing what you want?”

“Of course it does.”

“That’s when some of the best things happen,” Theo said thoughtfully. “When you least expect them and when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.”

I accidentally brushed his nipple as I continued to trace the outlines of his tattoos in the dim light, and he jumped. I chuckled at his reaction but continued dusting my fingers over the planes of his muscled chest and stomach.

“Is that what happened to you then? With the Haven City?”

I felt him nod and continued, “Fess up. What made you look like you were going to beat someone’s ass?”

“My mom,” he said simply yet with enough disdain that I had to swallow before I responded.

“What about her?”

He shifted beneath me, and I could feel the tension thrumming through his body with the change in topic. For a moment, I considered telling him that he didn’t have to tell me, but I didn’t. I hardly knew the man who held me, who’d been inside of me. And I knew Theo wouldn’t say anymore if he didn’t want to.

“She called me,” he said.

“Yes, moms tend to do that sometimes. It’s in the handbook. It’s required,” I supplied with a laugh. But his responding chuckle was humorless and hollow.

“Except the only time she calls me is to ask for money.”

My hand against his chest stopped, and he didn’t keep me from rearing back and looking at him. His expression was hard, jaw tight and eyes unyielding. He stared forward, and the faint light from the lone lamp in the entryway cast shadows across his face.

“What does she need money for?” I asked softly, and a flicker of something crossed his eyes.

He licked his lips and glanced down at my shoulder where the blanket had fallen off. He replaced it and sat back, guiding my head back down on his chest.

“She’s a compulsive gambler. When she can’t afford it, or when she loses big, I’m usually her first call.”

My heart broke for him, and I swallowed down the bubbling emotion.

“What about your dad? Didn’t you say you had an older brother, too?”

My head on his chest moved up and back down as he stole a deep breath.

“My dad left when I was sixteen, mostly because of my mom’s addiction,” he began. “She gambled away their savings and started selling our belongings. He tried for a while to get her help but finally got fed up and just left. Not long after that my brother left, too. He was already eighteen and had graduated high school, so it wasn’t a big deal for him,” he said, and I sat quietly, listening intently hoping he’d continue.

“My dad got remarried and started over again. I think they have two kids, but I’ve never met them. My brother pretty much disappeared, too. I haven’t heard from him since. After they left, I stayed for a while, going to high school while also trying to keep my mom from spiraling. But I was still just a kid, and there wasn’t much I could do. On my seventeenth birthday, I left. I slept in my car for a while, showering when I could in the locker room at school before anyone else got there and finding what food I could. I got lucky a time or two and crashed on a few friends’ couches. I…uh…found an abandoned house in our neighborhood. I stayed there for a while.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I couldn’t find the words. He glanced down at me briefly and shook his head.

He took a breath and continued faster. “Long story short, I got run out of that abandoned house and then got arrested when they found me in my car one night, and I apparently matched the description of a suspect in a robbery that had taken place nearby. The next night, I had to find a new place to park so I could get at least an hour or two of sleep, and that’s when Robbie, the owner of Haven City, found me. He took me in, fed me, and gave me a place to stay. He’s the only reason I finished high school and eventually started college. I took two years off because I didn’t think I’d actually go.”

It was no wonder Theo was so closed off—the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally had either left him or wanted to use him. I was angry for him. My heart shattered for him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I know you probably want to, but you don’t need to.”

“I can’t believe you don’t talk to your dad or your brother anymore” I said quietly, and he shook his head.

He didn’t want my placations or “ I’m sorry’s .” Telling him everything would be okay seemed idiotic and unnecessary after everything he’d been through. It sounded condescending in my head if I called him strong or resilient.

There was nothing I could say that he hadn’t heard before. But I wanted him to know I appreciated him telling me. That he felt comfortable enough to tell me was amazing. If I had to guess, I bet one or two people knew his story.

He gave me a part of him, and I wanted to return the favor.

“I got pregnant when I was fifteen,” I said, the story also not one I often shared. “Mark was a year older than me, and we’d been dating a few months. My parents were not the type to talk about safe sex, and Mark was a typical guy who didn’t want to wear a condom, so we didn’t. The day I told him I was pregnant, he’d come over to my house to break up with me. I didn’t learn that until later, but…my parents kicked me out when I told them. No one wanted me to have an abortion, but my parents also didn’t want to have a pregnant teenage daughter. So, they threw me out. Mark’s parents were furious, but they let me move in with them if we got married. It wasn’t like I could get pregnant again,” I said with a laugh that sounded sad even to my own ears.

Theo’s hold on me tightened as I continued, “I ended up getting my GED while Mark finished high school. I eventually had Ryder, which was terrible with his parents hovering over us constantly. At the first opportunity, we got our own place. It was incredibly hard for so many years, but we finally dug ourselves out of the hole. The only time my parents ever reached out was when Ryder was five. They actually called Mark and asked if they could meet him. They didn’t want to see me, and I told them it was either both of us or neither of us. They didn’t put up much of a fight, and we haven’t heard from them since.”

“ Fuck, ” Theo mumbled against my hair as he ran a soothing hand down my back.

“Yeah, they were fucking assholes my entire life, so good riddance to them both.” I hoped Theo didn’t hear the lingering sadness in my voice. Even twenty-one years later, it still hurt. But it wasn’t as sharp as it once was. The pain of losing my parents to their own egos was more of a dull ache that reared its ugly head every so often.

“At least you got Ryder,” Theo said, and I smiled. Somehow it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable talking about Ryder with Theo. Apart from me and Mark, Theo knew Ryder better than anyone else. It was kind of nice to know he also cared about him.

“I did,” I said, reminding myself of all the good memories.

“Seeing you now, I never would have suspected that you went through what you did.”

“Yes, well, I don’t really advertise the fact that I was a teen mom whose parents kicked her out before she could drive or before she opened her first bank account. Not that I’m ashamed, but…people tend to look at you differently.”

“I know how it feels.”

“Is…” I began but stopped, worried that I’d cross a line if I asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue.

“Go ahead,” he instructed. “Ask.”

I bit my lip nervously but asked, “Did your mom have something to do with why you had to move out of your last place and move in here?”

I wasn’t sure what made me ask, but something in my gut told me to.

“Yeah,” he answered instantly. “But probably not in the way you think.”

“What do you mean not in the—” I began, but my question was quickly cut off with a gasp as Theo moved and rearranged me on his lap until his semi-hard erection pressed between my thighs.

Both of his hands clasped my cheeks, and all evidence of sadness, hurt, or anger had disappeared from his eyes. Replaced by a heat I wanted all over me again.

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore. I want more of you.”

I nodded weakly, suddenly more concerned with his rapidly hardening cock than his answers to my unending questions.

“Okay,” I said breathlessly and he smiled. His tongue darted out and licked at my lower lip. I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his, opening for him and welcoming his tongue. But the kiss was brief.

“Are you sore?” he asked with real concern in his voice.

“A little,” I answered honestly and ground down on his cock to show him I still wanted more anyway.

It wasn’t too bad, but there was a definitive ache that I knew would last a while. I enjoyed it—it reminded me of everything we’d done. Like he’d made good on his promise and marked me both inside and out.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we,” he said with a smile. Before I could argue, his hand disappeared between us and tenderly ran the length of my lower lips. He pressed a finger to my clit, and teased me softly.

Then he shifted and laid me down on the couch. My legs fell open, and he crawled between them. He inserted one finger slowly, and I gasped at the intrusion.

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

He ignored my question and kissed my clit. His broad, flat tongue licked at the bundle of nerves, likely tasting a mix of both of our releases.

“My slut should always be ready for my cock, and if you’re sore, I can’t fuck you the way I want to. So, lie down,” he instructed, pressing his hand to the middle of my chest and forcing my back to the soft cushion. “And let me kiss this pussy better.”