Page 21 of Ugly Truths (The Veiled Truths Trilogy #2)

I can barely see the scars anymore, not with the way lust clouds everything as she opens for me, exposing the pussy I’ve been dreaming of but haven’t allowed myself to think about outside of the darkness of my bedroom. Pink, glistening, and so fucking perfect.

Why does she have to be so perfect?

I grip her thighs and fit my face between them. She’s already trembling when I lean in and give her one, slow sweep of my tongue, from the base of her slit all the way to the top.

She exhales a shaky, wrecked whimper—her whole body shuddering like she wasn’t ready for it. I groan .

I thought I’d built this up in my head. The grief and confusion gave me a warped sense of reality, but it’s exactly how I remembered it.

And it’s fucking delicious.

Without thought, I go in for another taste, working her with my tongue. Her thighs quiver around my shoulders, muscles taut like she’s trying to hold herself together.

Every twitch, every choked little moan she lets slip just makes me harder. Her raspy mewls fuel me, especially when she tries not to rock against my face but fails, over and over again. She pushes just enough to bear herself down on my tongue and feed me more.

All summer I’d been chasing this high, convinced that I’d romanticized it, turned her into some perfect illusion, and that her body never responded to mine like this.

Now, there’s no denying it. Not with the way she soaks my beard, how her body seizes every time I circle her clit just right. It’s in the quiet, breathless way she whispers for me not to stop.

Goddamn it.

It was always this good.

Elena starts to unravel. Her voice turns into broken little begs as she pushes harder into my mouth. Just when I feel her about to tip over the edge, I pull back.

She groans, hips twitching to follow the friction. My chest hums.

I rise to full height, watching the way her back arches, a sheen of sweat highlighting every curve, every muscle coiled with need. I bow over her body, pressing the hard length of my cock into the dip of her spine, and she whimpers at the contact.

My hand slips between her thighs again, cupping her as she grinds into my drenched palm without shame, chasing anything I’ll give her.

I lean down, lips grazing the shell of her ear, breath hot as I whisper, “Don’t worry, Lena.” I nip at the lobe. She gasps. “I’ll give you exactly what you need.”

The nickname slips out before I can stop it. She might be El to the rest of the world—to that fuckhead Luis— but Lena is mine .

I pull back just enough to move between her thighs, sliding my cock into the slick warmth between them, not entering but instead nestling in the delicious heat.

My hand follows the swell of her ass until it finds one of the larger scars across her left cheek.

I trace the edges with my fingertips, slow and reverent, even as something dark flares in me.

How the hell did I end up here?

I don’t know what I’m doing. Not with her. Not with any of this. She’s had me in a chokehold since the beginning, and I don’t know how to get free.

I haven’t moved in seconds. Maybe longer. That’s when she turns her head, still propped on her elbows, one flushed cheek pressed into the sheet and the other visible to me. She glances back like she’s about to say something, but my frustration bubbles over before she can.

I rear back and bring my hand down.

The sound cracks through the room. Her body jolts from the force of it, and a broken moan rips from her throat before the noise fades completely. Every vertebrae bows, pushing into my touch, chasing the sting. My body blazes at her reaction.

“Fuck,” I rasp, smoothing my hand over the reddening flesh like I might soothe it and show mercy. Then I do it again.

Harder.

Elena buries her face in the mattress to muffle the sound, but I can still feel her hips jerk and thighs shake. I keep going, watching the bounce of her ass after each hit. My handprint becomes more defined as her skin starts to turn a subtle purple.

Between the strikes, she speaks—barely above a whisper. “Keep going,” she breathes. “I can take it.”

Goddamn her.

Each time my palm lands, I can feel her dripping down the length of my cock. It’s obscene. Addictive. Infuriating. She’s supposed to hate this. I’m not supposed to want to bury myself inside her right now.

She’s taking it like it’s a gift. Giving me softness when all I want is something to wrap my fury around. To break. To burn .

It shouldn’t be like this.

Another wave of heat rolls straight through her and then me. She shudders, fingers twisting in the sheets. “Silas—”

I don’t let her finish. My hand moves to the back of her neck, forcing down her upper body until she’s pinned against the mattress. The sheer control of holding her exactly where I want her sends a violent shiver down my spine.

I lean over her. “You love this, don’t you?” My lips run along her shoulder blade before I bite down, leaving indentations on her creamy skin. “I should make you beg for this,” I hiss as I straighten, grab her hips, and push into her in one unrelenting stroke.

My mind blanks.

She’s tight. So fucking tight. Wet, hot, and pulling me deeper. Welcoming me home.

It’s salvation and ruin.

My pace starts slow, each thrust sending heat racing up my spine as I watch the way she takes me, swallowing me down like her body never forgot.

I can’t look away.

She fits around me so fucking perfectly, and I don’t understand it. Don’t understand why she has to feel this good.

Why it has to be her.

It only takes a handful of pumps before she’s pushing back into me, her ass meeting my hips with a small smack , matching me stroke for stroke. Each one sends a jolt straight to my balls—tightening, pulsing—and suddenly I’m hunting it down, needing to feel it again and again.

My hands tighten on her hips, fingers digging into muscle as I drive into her.

Broken thoughts spilling out in gasps and growls.

It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t hear me anyway.

She’s too far gone and so am I. All I can focus on is the way I press her into the mattress like I can fuse her to me as the pleasure coiling inside me becomes unbearable .

“Yes, yes, yes,” she pants, voice muffled against the bed. “I’m… I’m so close.”

I press my chest to her back to reach around her waist and between her legs. My fingers find her clit instantly, tracing the circles her body craves. The reaction is immediate. A sharp inhale, her muscles locking up like a bowstring pulled impossibly tight, and then she shatters.

Her back bends, body clenching so hard around me that my vision whites out. I ram into her, chasing the edge until I slam straight past it. Searing pleasure crashes over me. My hand fists in her hair, holding her as I ride it out, each stroke wringing more from me, making it last.

Only when my rocking subsides do I give her more of my weight, and she sinks down flat onto the bed, my sweat-slicked skin pressed fully against her back.

For a long moment, our ragged breaths are the only sound in the room.

I’m not sure how long I stay like that, but eventually, when I can no longer feel her heart racing, I shift to slide out of her, smoothing a hand over the curve of her ass where the skin is slightly raised.

And somehow, this one touch breaks the spell as the reality of what I just did crashes into me in violent waves.

I let myself touch her. Taste her. Take her. I let myself forget.

And I shouldn’t have.