Page 35

THIRTY-FIVE

BANE

She fucks my face, and goddamnit, I love the shameless way she uses me. Yes. This. This is how it should be.

I smother my face in her cunt. I can’t remember the last time I took a breath. My lungs are burning.

I don’t fucking care. I don’t deserve to breathe. She just keeps coming, and all I want in the world is to lose myself in this perfect pussy.

I dive deeper, nose absolutely buried in her cunt.

It’s only her nails digging into my scalp as she drags my head backward that has me relenting and finally taking a breath.

Even then, it’s only when she demands, “Breathe,” that I fully fill my lungs with life-giving air. But eating the sweet fruit of her cunt hardly feels like punishment at all.

“Smother me,” I growl. “Punish me. I deserve to be punished.”

She glares down at me. “Didn’t you just get your absolution?”

I rise on my knees, grabbing her thighs.

“It’s not enough.” I lick my bottom lip to get just a little more taste of her, and I fucking love the way her eyes flare as she watches my tongue.

Something inside me cracks.

No, shatters .

Like a glacier breaking free, crashing adrift into the sea with a force too powerful to stop.

“It’s not enough,” I rasp, my fingers tightening around her thighs like they’re the only thing tethering me to this world. “I never pay any consequences. I always get off scot-free.”

My voice breaks, and shame drags my gaze to the floor. I swallow hard, but it doesn’t stop the confession from clawing its way up my throat.

“I almost killed a man.” The words scrape out of me, raw and bitter. I force myself to look up and meet her eyes because I deserve to see the disgust that should be there. “And what happened? Nothing. I got to walk away and start over. Like always.”

I let out a breathless, humorless laugh. “It’s bullshit. My father made every consequence disappear before I could ever feel it. So please .” I hear the desperation in my own voice and hate myself for it.

But I deserve this. Every humiliating second.

“For once in my pathetic fucking life, give me the punishment I deserve.”

She stares down at me, and I almost choke on the frustration rising in my chest. Because there’s no disgust in her eyes. No revulsion. Just something softer, compassion I don’t want.

But then—she moves.

Her foot presses to my chest and shoves .

Not hard. Just enough to jolt me where I kneel.

I barely have time to process the sharp inhale of breath that burns my throat before the words tear out of me.

“Again.”

Her eyes flash. “Who says you get to demand things all the time?”

I let out a sharp exhale. She’s right.

But I still bare my teeth. “I’ve demanded everything my entire life. My father raised me to believe I was born special. That I could treat anyone however I wanted because it was my god-given right.” My throat tightens. “I say I hate liars, but I’m the biggest fucking liar of all.”

She folds her arms. “What have you lied about?”

I lift my chin, bracing myself. “Please. Kick me again. For real this time.”

“Maybe.”

She glares down at me, and I finally realize what I’ve been afraid of all this time.

Not that I couldn’t trust her.

But that she’ll leave if she really knows who I am. And all the things I’ve done.

“You almost killed someone?” she prompts, her voice steady.

I drag my hands through my hair. I need to rip myself open for her.

“When I was young, I think I knew it was wrong. The orgies my father held. How cruel he was to the staff. The women he fucked. His friends. My other half-brothers and sister. I mean, they’re all nightmares, but still.” I shake my head, jaw clenched so tight it aches. “But by the time I should’ve known better, I’d spent so many years trying to impress him that I was numb to it all. So when some girl tried to get with me by jerking me off while I was driving after a few drinks, why the fuck would I have cared?”

Moira shoves me again with her foot, harder this time, and I absorb it.

Crave it.

When I look up, something in my chest tightens.

For the first time—she isn’t looking at me like I’m a saint.

So I keep going. I need her to see all of me. Even the worst parts. Especially the worst parts.

I push to my feet to get closer so I can see every flicker of realization and revulsion on her face as I lay myself bare.

“I missed a stop sign. T-boned another car. There was so much fucking blood. The other driver was in the Critical Care Unit for weeks. Had to have three surgeries. There was even a moment when we didn’t know if he’d make it.”

My breath shudders out of me. “And even then, I was only worried about myself. About whether Dad would get me out of trouble. Like he always did.”

She leans away from me, mouth parted, horror slipping into her expression.

“ Hit me. ” I pound my chest with a wild, reckless need. “I’m a hypocrite. Fucking hit me!”

She shoves me with her palms on my chest, and I stumble back.

“What happened then?” she asks, eyes burning.

A laugh forces its way out of my throat, sharp and empty. “Nothing. My father took care of it, of course. He paid the guy off after he recovered. Buried the records. And I barely cared. I was such a selfish little shit. I didn’t feel a thing .”

“Until what?” she challenges. “What changed?”

My mouth opens—and nothing comes out.

Because this is the part I never say. The part I never let myself think .

“My mom,” I finally force out, voice thick. “She’d died a couple of years before.” I exhale hard, willing the words to keep coming, to cut me open like I deserve. “But my father always told me she was just another gold-digging whore. That she never wanted me. That he was the one who wanted an heir, and she just used the pregnancy to trap him.”

Moira stays silent, but I can feel her watching me.

I don’t look at her. I can’t.

I focus on her knees. The candlelight flickering against the floor. Anything but her eyes.

“I believed him.” My lips twist, bitter. “Because why wouldn’t I? He said she’d signed me away without a second thought. That she never fought for me. And then one day… I was looking for something in my father’s office.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat.

Say it.

“I found proof. Court papers. She never stopped fighting for custody until the day she died of cancer. She was still filing for visitation rights even when I was sixteen.”

Moira exhales sharply.

My jaw locks. “My father fucking stole her from me. He wanted a trophy for a son. An heir of his own creation. But my mother, she just wanted me . All that time. She’d wanted me. And I—I just believed him and never fought for her .”

I hate myself for how easily I let him shape me. How desperate I was for every ounce of his approval.

How pathetic I was, playing along with his game. Trying to be him.

I drop back to my knees.

And I look up at her.

I beg.

“Kick me again. But this time for real. I can take it. Please. Humiliate me. Hurt me.”

Her mouth presses into a tight line. Then, slow and deliberate, she points to the ground.

“Face to the floor.”

I don’t hesitate. I drop.

And pray for once in my life to feel the weight of my sins pressing in on me.

I hear her hop off the altar and watch, my cheek cemented to the cold wood. Her bare feet walk out of my sight and she pauses, maybe to get something from a pew? Then she comes back toward me.

“Shove your pants down.”

I obey immediately, lifting my ass enough to unbuckle and shove my pants down. Whatever she’s about to do, I just pray she makes it hurt.

Almost as soon as I’ve got my pants down, she smacks my butt with something thuddy that’s barely more than a gentle massage. I should know. I used it on her once.

A Bible.

Cute, but I’m selfishly furious at her gentle treatment.

How does she not get it yet? I am not a good man. I deserve all the punishment she has to heap on me. Real punishment . Not the gentle kind I’ve given her during training.

So I disobey, jumping up to my knees again.

The devil in me will goad her if that’s what it takes.

“You showed up on my doorstep that first night, bruised, and I never tracked down the motherfucker who did it to you. Fucking hit me for being a cowardly motherfucker because I should have ended him by now!”

She drops the Bible and slaps me.

It sends a rush straight to my dick.

Goddamn her. She slapped me correctly . In the BDSM world, there is a correct way to slap if one is trained. And Moira’s obviously been trained.

I’m being the biggest bratty asshole bastard right now, as much as I ever was in my youth, and she’s seeing me at my childish worst.

But she’s the one staying in control.

Which means, for once, I can let all my tightly wound restraint completely fucking unravel.

Holy shit. I really have met someone I can give my trust to completely.

It is possible.

“ Again ,” I beg.

She slaps me again.

My cock goes hard as fucking stone.

“I love you,” I gasp.

She slaps me again, this time on my other cheek, and I can’t stop the rest of my confessions from pouring out.

“I’ve been obsessed with you since the day we met. I stalked you night after night at the club and watched from the shadows to see when you’d come and go. I wanted you. Your body. I wanted to lose myself worshipping your cunt. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every hour of every day. You’re the only person in the whole world who wants the real me. Maybe you won’t now, now that you know everything, but I love you?—”

She drops to her knees and throws her body against mine, kissing me hard, bruising.

I meet her, kissing her back just as furiously.

She bites my bottom lip, and I groan, cock harder against her bare thigh, even though I wouldn’t have thought that was possible a moment ago.

“Please,” I beg.

Her hips rock wildly. “Fuck me on the altar.”

I climb to my feet, holding her face so I won’t lose the connection of our kiss. She comes with me, leaping up and wrapping her legs around my back. Her hot cunt lands against my cock, cementing it against my stomach. She wriggles back and forth to rub herself against me.

So wet. Fuck. It makes my breath catch.

She wants me.

She still wants me .

I choke as I gather her to me and lift her to set her back on the altar, careful of the candles in the corner.

She clings to my shirt, and I nod. She’s gloriously nude, and it’s time to come to her as I am. I yank off my starched shirt and black suit coat.

Finally, I heft myself up onto the altar to cover and warm her body with mine.

But she waves a finger, shifting to the side on the wide altar table. “On your back.”

Immediately, I obey, lying down.

Without a moment’s delay, she climbs on me, seating herself on my cock in a way that makes both of us groan with relief.

I lift up, kissing her again and wrapping my arms around her small waist. “Bite me again. Slap me. Punish me. Give me what I deserve.”

She kisses me again in a frenzy, sucking on the bottom lip she bit earlier. I shudder beneath her and groan when I feel her slim hands on my chest, shoving me back down to the table.

Then she stretches for something past my head, nipple bobbing right in front of my face as she pulls almost all the way off me. I lift to suckle her nipple, and she groans, clenching on just the tip of my cock. When she finally comes back and seats herself so that her pussy slaps back down on my balls, my eyes widen when I see what she’s got in her hands.

One of the candelabras.

She arches one eyebrow, and I nod furiously.

“Your dad sounds like a real evil prick,” she says, plucking out one of the thick candles with cooled wax dripping down the side.

I know there’s still a pool of hot wax in the top cup of the candle.

“Yes,” I respond eagerly. “And so was I. I deserve to be punished.”

Her eyes narrow. “You were eighteen when you changed your ways. Barely more than a child.”

Before I can argue, she tips the candle, and hot wax drips down my chest.

I hiss at the stinging pain, hips thrusting my cock deeper into her clenching pussy. I grip her hip as I fuck her slowly, lingering in the sweet burn of the candle wax as it cools into a pebbled slash across my chest.

“A child who thought he was a man,” she continues, and dips the candle again, dripping another slash down my torso.

I groan, neck muscles straining against the exquisite pain.

“Made to grow up too fast.” She nods. “I know what that’s like.”

My top lip twitches as I see her reach for another one of the full candles from the stand, bringing it to hover over my lower belly.

“Fuck them all for what they did to us,” she whispers, meeting my eye. She bites her bottom lip as she tips the candle and splashes hot wax down the center of my belly as if tracing the line of hair that leads to my?—

It drives me absolutely fucking crazy. I reach up and extinguish the flame with my fingers.

Then I flip her, barely remembering to brace her bottom with my hand before I thrust back into her roughly.

“You were right,” she cries, legs tangling behind my ass as her back arches. Her hand reaches up to tangle in my hair. “I do want you.”

“Say it again.” I bear her down to the table, pinning her there with my cock deep inside her.

Her fingernails dig into my scalp, and her pussy clenches around my cock like a vise. “I. Want. You . Just for you .”

I groan as need expands in my chest even though I’m already balls deep.

“Harder,” she whispers.

I pull out and pound back into her, over and over, the sound of my balls slapping her wet cunt and our moans filling the quiet, sacred space of the church.

“Oh god, yes, Bane,” she cries.

I bend over her, elbows on either side of her face, gaze locking as we fuck frantically. Her legs squeeze my hips, and then?—

Oh fuck.

She digs her fingernails into my shoulder blades and scratches them ruthlessly down my back.

At the same time, she arches up and bites deep into the muscle between my neck and shoulder, right above my collarbone.

Her cunt starts clenching and shuddering around my cock, tightening even further than I thought possible.

The spikes of pain mingled with the wild pleasure of fucking her on the altar while she comes shuddering around me?—

Pleasure more intense than any I’ve ever felt in my fucking life hits like a goddamn spike at the base of my spine, and?—

I release a feral roar as I come, clutching Moira to me as tight as humanly possible. Her teeth dig in as she bites down even harder, and I empty everything in my body and soul into her clenching cunt.

My second salvation.