Forsaken (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #3)(29)

“Ironic, now that I really don’t have a choice, do I?”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I repeat, sealing the promise with a brush of lips against lips, my tongue caressing past her teeth, licking into her mouth in a gentle seduction meant to echo my words, meant to calm her nerves and excite her arousal, to erase her fear. “You even taste stubborn,” I murmur, sliding my fingers between her legs, lightly teasing her clit. “Don’t trust. That’s the rule you need to learn. No more. No one. Ever. The one time I did, I ended up tied to a chair.”

“I can’t live that way.”

“You don’t have a choice.” I squeeze her backside, then command, “Don’t trust anyone.” Not giving her time to argue, I slide my fingers between her legs, into the slick heat of her body. She gasps and then moans. “You’re wet,” I observe, desire thickening my blood right along with my cock. “You’re about to be wetter.”

“What does that mean?”

I dip my fingers lower, deeper, distracting her and intentionally shocking her. I slap her backside, not hard, not even close to what I would do in an erotic game, but it’s a message. It’s about possibilities, about open doors she can never shut again, and I don’t stop at one. I repeat the action. Another smack, and another, until I reach five. When I’m done, she is panting, and my fingers take over, stroking her, teasing her until she shatters for me, her body quaking with the impact.

I bring her down, waiting until she slumps slightly, moving between her and the wall, fitting my cock between her thighs, and laying her on top of me. She buries her face in my shoulder and I press my hands to the side of her face, tilting her face forward. Her cheeks are flushed, but it’s her glassy eyes that do me in, that make my intentions waver. “Tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

“No. No, it wasn’t pain. It was . . . I was helpless . . . vulnerable and . . .” Her voice trails off, the red in her cheeks darkening.

“And what?” I press.

“Exposed, and yet aroused. I was turned on, and I don’t even understand why.”

“Because it’s sexy, baby. You have no idea how much I want to be inside you right now, but you need to understand the message I was sending you. I wouldn’t do anything but please you, but someone else might not be so nice. You can’t take risks, no matter what the circumstances are. Don’t trust.”

“Does that still include you?”

“Yes. I’m toxic, Gia. I will bleed poison into your life. I’m going to get you to safety, but then I’m gone.”

“That’s why you hid from your sister.”

“Yes.”

She studies me a long few moments, searching my face, and there is a shift between us, a spike of passion, a darkening of the mood in the most erotic of ways. “Untie me,” she says. “I need to touch you. I need to touch you, Chad.”

A rush of wild emotions beats on me from all directions. I feel responsible for her. I feel the impact of the decision I made years ago, and how it’s bled into her life. My fingers flex on her face. “Tell me you understand first,” I demand.

“More than you can imagine,” she whispers, and I don’t know what it means. I want to know what I sense she’s hiding. “Untie me,” she repeats. “Please. And yes, please means please do all those things you said to me before. Please make me scream your name. Please make me never forget who you are.”

Her words crash over me, stirring more of those dark emotions I’d awoken with, and that I live with every day of my life. I kiss her, and it’s deep, passionate, tense with all the emotions I’ve suppressed since waking up from that nightmare raging to the surface. The only means to my relief is this woman.

I tear my mouth away from hers, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. I don’t know what it is that’s between us but it’s far more real than anything I’ve felt outside of pain in a very long time. I unbuckle the belt, quickly loosening it and tossing it away. The instant it’s gone, we are kissing again, her fingers delicate, soft and warm on my skin, and yet somehow as demanding as I feel.

My fingers close around her neck, under her hair, and I pull her mouth to mine harder, kissing her, consuming her, and finally I am touching her freely, exploring her body, her breasts, her nipples. I turn our bodies so her back is now against the wall, lifting her leg, sliding my cock along her core and pressing into her. Driving deep. Hard. Burying myself in the farthest part of her. Our eyes lock and hold, and the shift between us, that connection I’ve felt ever since she walked into the interrogation room, blossoms and grows. There is heat in my blood, heat in my chest that I do not want to feel. But it’s here, alive, real, and it stretches between us, a tight band of desire that snaps.

Suddenly, we are kissing again, and I grab her backside and pick her up. Her legs curl around my waist and I carry her to the mattress, laying her down, going down on top of her. And then I am driving into her, pumping and thrusting, my hand still under her, arching her into me. Fucking. We are f*cking, and it’s that wild, primal, animalistic rush that I need, that she needs. And she’s making these soft, sexy sounds that drive me insane but they travel through me, too, whispering in a way no other woman’s soft sounds ever have. I’m f*cking her, trying to get to that dark, oblivious place where the woman doesn’t matter, only the sex does. But I can’t. I pull back slightly, burying my face in her neck, forcing my body to slow down, to calm. Inhaling deeply, I slow down to allow her to get to the same place I am.