Empire of Desire(Empire #1)(97)

The elevator dings as the doors open on the second floor, and I feel Jane stiffening even before I lift my head to see Knox standing there. A hand rests in his pocket and a blank expression covers his features.

“Come out,” he orders, his accent even more prominent.

I think he’s talking to me, but it’s Jane who jolts, and her nails dig into my arm. It’s the second time she’s done this in his presence. Or is it the third? I think I saw him that night at the club when Jane disappeared on us.

“I said, come out, Jane.”

She slowly releases me and steps out of the elevator. She faces me and murmurs, “Talk to you later.”

“Uh, okay.” I catch Knox’s lips twisting in a cruel smirk as the elevator doors close.

That was weird.

I’m still thinking about that scene when I get off in the parking garage. A hand wraps around my mouth and I shriek into it, but the sound is muffled, then it dies out when I recognize his warmth. The warmth mixed with spices and woods and belonging.

Nate drags me to a supply room and slams me against the shut door.

We’re both breathing harshly, and our chests are glued together so that we feel each other’s heartbeats. The bruises Dad gave him have faded to yellow and the cuts are slowly healing, but he’s still the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. The only man my heart would skip a beat and try to escape its ribcage for.

I run my fingertips over the line of his jaw and the cut on his lip. He closes his eyes, those beautiful, beautiful dark eyes that I don’t wake up to anymore. And probably never will again.

“Are you okay?” I sound emotional, heartbroken, and Nate must sense it, because he opens his eyes.

“Aside from missing the fuck out of you, I’m fine.”

“I miss you, too. I…it hurts, Nate. Everything hurts.”

“I’ll make it better. I promise.”

“But Dad—” The words come to a jolting halt when he places a finger to my mouth.

“Don’t mention him when I’m about to fuck you.”

A wildfire erupts in the bottom of my stomach and I gulp as he slowly removes his finger from my mouth and replaces it with his lips. I open up with a moan, reveling in how my nerve endings erupt to life.

I’ve been dead for so long and my resurrection to life hurts in a bittersweet kind of way.

For someone who doesn’t do kissing, Nate is the type who swallows you whole with the mere act. There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t belong to him right now. And the dominant way he grabs me by the hair and neck to deepen the kiss turns me delirious.

As if that’s not enough, he trails his lips to my neck and sucks on the skin of my collarbone. I hiss in sharp intakes of air, feeling the hickey already forming.

“I’ve fucking missed your vanilla scent.”

“I thought vanilla was boring,” I breathe out.

“Not on you.”

I’m so delirious, that I barely register when he places two hands under my ass and lifts me up, then places me on a surface after he knocks everything off of it.

My skin tingles and catches fire when he pulls my skirt up and cups me through my panties.

“I see you’re wet for me, baby girl.”

“Only for you.”

“Fuck. Say that again.”

“I only get wet for you, husband.” I reach for his belt, but he shakes his head.

“Not so fast. Let me take my fill of you.”

“Nate…please… Don’t you miss me?”

“Oh, I fucking do. But you’ll be my good girl, won’t you, wife?” He pulls down my panties and slips them in his pocket. I trap my lip between my teeth as I watch. I’ve missed that, him confiscating my panties.

“I didn’t hear an answer.”

“I’ll be your bad girl, too.”

“You will?”

“Mmm.”

He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to the edge. My fingers splay out on his shoulders and then I’m kissing him again because I love it. I love how his tongue toys with mine and how he nibbles on my lips, letting me know who’s in control.

And he is, because I completely let go and I still feel powerful as fuck. He makes me feel it with the way he worships my body, the way his hands are all over my breasts, my waist, and my thighs as if he can never get enough of me.

He makes me feel powerful by wanting me with a ferociousness that turns him animalistic, and I get off on that.

I get off on how he wants me, not caring about the consequences or what the world thinks of us.

While he’s still kissing me, he frees his cock and lifts me slightly off the table so he can drive inside me.

“Oh, God,” I mumble against his lips, my eyelids slowly closing.

“No. Look at me while I fuck you, wife.”

I open my eyes and our gazes lock as he thrusts into me slow and long and deep. So deep that he hits a place I didn’t think existed.

With each roll of his hips, he not only fills up the emptiness, but he also engraves himself into that large space in my heart that he’s been occupying for years.

The space that kept growing without my permission and wouldn’t stop.

His lips find my forehead, my cheek, my nose, my collarbone as he whispers, “You’re so fucking beautiful. So fucking addictive. So fucking mine.”