Page 83 of The Hunter

Every time she ground against his arousal was pure agony… but he couldn’t stop. Not yet. He could feel her climax building inside of her, and if it was the last thing he did before he died, it would be to watch her come for him.

A searching finger found her opening, and his thumb continued its gentle assault on her flesh as he sank inside of her.

Christopher could sense the moment the stars beckoned her to join them.

Her release drenched his fingers in a warm rush and with it came a surge of wild, primal satisfaction he’d never before known. Her knees clenched around his hips and a strangled sound escaped her. Her hands clawed at him, and she curled forward, her teeth bearing down on the sinew of his shoulder as waves of shudders gripped her.

He stayed with her as she rocked over him, lost within the pulsing of her flesh. She was ready for him, soft and wet and yielding. His cock reached upward toward her, offering to replace his hand, hoping she would allow him inside her goddess’s body.

Somewhere in the house, a high voice rose in an unmistakable call.

“Mama?”

Millie tensed under his touch as Christopher bit out a string of harsh curses she’d likely never heard used in the same sentence. Heaving them both up, he set her on her feet and pulled away when she reached out to steady herself.

“Mama? Where are you?” Jakub called, closer now.

She stood on unstable legs, blinking as though trying to orient herself, placing a trembling hand low against her belly.

“Go,”he barked.

Her brows drew together, as mystified by his sudden burst of temper as he. “I… I—”

“Go to your son.”

“Mama?” An element of anxiety injected itself into the boy’s call, and that seemed to pull Millie back into herself.

She cleared the pleasured huskiness from her throat to reply.“I’m coming,kochanie,stay where you are.” Sending him one last voluminous look, full of meaning he couldn’t begin to identify, she brushed at her skirts and hurried out. The click of her shoes made a sharp, lonely sound as they carried her away.

Once the door closed behind her, Christopher allowed his legs to give out, using one of the pillars to support his weight. The warmth of her release chilled on his hand as a memory gripped him.

Mum?He’d called his mother that, rather thanMama. But he’d found her in the dark, much like Jakub would have found his mother here had he not warned them. Christine had been grunting beneath a man, spurring him on with foul words he could tell she did not mean.

It was the first time Christopher had ever felt the urge to kill. Hatred had filled his young body with a force he’d not been old enough to understand.

That night they’d filled their bellies with warm food that had tasted like ashes on his tongue.

Because his mother fucked for survival… just as he’d forced Millie to do.

The pillar abraded his back as he slid down to the floor. Fate was indeed full of cruel and heartless irony. He’d murdered every man he could remember touching his mother. It had taken him years, but he’d done it as a sort of tribute to her. As a promise that he’d never take a woman beneath him and trap her there for his pleasure. That, whatever atrocities he committed, he would never be like those men.

And now…

Burying his head in his hands, he emitted a low sound that echoed accusingly back at him in his empty room of terrors. Of all the men he’d learned to hate, he never felt such loathing as he did for himself.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

Whenever Millie couldn’t sleep, she tiptoed to Jakub’s bed and snuggled with him for a moment. She reveled in the little-boy smell of soap and sweat with the slight chemical tinge of the paint permanently stained to his hands.

Perching her candle on the bedside table, Millie lifted the long, thin wrapper she’d brought from home, and rested her hip on the bed before leaning over him. He slept on his back with his mouth agape, and she pressed a finger to the bottom of his jaw to shut it before kissing his downy cheek and taking a moment to stroke his hair a few times.

A bath had soothed her aches and cleaned away any remnants of the day, and brushing her hair out and braiding it by a crackling fire had made her pleasantly drowsy.

However, the moment she’d crawled into bed, she’d come alive. Her body was tired. Exhausted, really. But her thoughts tumbled over themselves like a litter of unruly puppies. The events of the past few days revisited her. Some intriguing, some troubling. Some repulsive and some titillating.

Lord Thurston, Jakub’s father, and his dour-faced wife, Katherine. Poor Mena St. Vincent and her awful husband. The encompassing fear she’d faced when a white-faced stagehand had told her someone had attacked her son.

The sweet relief of holding him in her arms.