Scarred(Never After #2)(82)

And then she explodes, my name pouring from her lips, and that’s all I can handle, my muscles coiling tight and my vision blanking out as thick jets of cum spew from my tip, pulsing as I coat the inside of her. My fingers dig into her hips, and I glance down, watching as thick white gobs seep out of her pussy and glide back down the shaft of my dick.

It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.

Panting and spent, I collapse on top of her back, leaving lazy kisses along her spine, and knowing, without a doubt, that she’s the only thing that’s ever mattered, and the only thing that ever will.





CHAPTER 46





Sara B.





Tristan’s fingers trail up my arms, his front pressed against my naked back as we lie in his bed. It’s the first time I’ve been in his room, but it’s exactly as I imagined it would be; rich burgundy furniture and black silk sheets. Remnants of his cum sticks to the inside of my thighs, but I’m too exhausted to clean it up, my mind and body waging a war inside of me, collecting the last particles of my energy and grinding it to dust. My ass is raw and my emotions are spread thin. And I still feel unsettled.

But I won’t lie to myself. I can’t kill him, even though I know I should.

Whether that makes me a selfish woman or a weak one, I’m not sure.

Maybe it makes me both.

“What happened to Timothy…” he blurts.

My lungs cramp up tight.

“I didn’t send them there,” he continues. “I expressly forbade them to touch you.”

His words trickle through me and root around in my chest, trying to find a place to settle. I believe him, and that probably makes me the stupidest woman to ever live, but if he feels even a fraction of what I feel for him, then I don’t doubt for a moment he never meant to harm me.

I held a blade to his jugular and still couldn’t follow through.

“My father was my best friend,” I blurt out, rolling on my back until I’m caged between his arms. “He taught me from a young age that just because I was a girl, that didn’t mean I needed to be meek and mild.”

Tristan smirks. “He taught you well.”

I narrow my eyes, swallowing around the sickness that talking about my father causes in the depths of my gut.

“Yeah, well. He was a duke. Did you know that?”

“I did.” He nods, his fingertips tracing along the edge of my hairline.

“He loved our people. So when the funds stopped coming, the businesses shut down, and the people lost their homes… he was sick over it.” I swallow. “He used to hand me bits of money he could scrounge together and warm wool clothes and send me out in the thick of night to take them to people in need.”

“Sounds like a great man.”

“He was.” The knot swells in my throat. “When he died, the grief overwhelmed me, but more than that, I remember drowning in anger.”

“I know that feeling well,” he replies.

“All he wanted was to ask for help.” My teeth clench. “He traveled here to Saxum, and bent the knee, all to beg for your brother to just see us, because for so many years, we’d been brushed aside and forgotten.”

My hand reaches up to cup Tristan’s face, trailing over the raised edges of his scar, feeling the ridges and marred flesh beneath the pads of my fingers. He flinches, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he leans into it. I flick my gaze to the tattoo on his chest. The hyena on top of bones with a phrase scrawled underneath. I should have known from that alone. I was so enamored with the words, I didn’t take in the rest.

“Coming here was supposed to be vengeance against those who took him from me.”

I expect to see surprise filter through his eyes, but there isn’t any to be found. Just warmth and understanding. It makes holding on to my anger incredibly difficult, and a bit chips away, falling to the ground and smashing into pieces.

“My cousin brought me in to marry your brother… but you know that already, of course.”

His eyes harden, his grip tightening from where it rests on my waist. “He cannot have you.”

“He never will,” I respond, hesitating before I continue. “I saw you when I followed Sheina and Paul last night to the shadowed lands.”

He nods, again with no surprise lighting across his face. “I know.”

Tears well in my eyes, even though I thought they had long since dried. “I saw you, Tristan.”

“I know,” he repeats, his gaze never leaving mine.

“You have my cousin caged.”

His mouth parts then, blowing out a deep breath, his fingers pausing from where they flick against my skin. “Not anymore, little doe.”

My heart stutters, but it’s slight. “You killed him?”

“Would it help if I said he deserved it?”

Maybe I should be enraged, but I’m not. I barely feel anything at all. Truthfully, I was never close with Xander, only having met him once or twice when I was a child. The relationship between us was built on loyalty to family, but as I imagine Tristan ending his life, I can’t find it in me to care.

Turns out, some things bind thicker than blood.

“What did he do?” I ask.

“Killed my father.” He says it with no hesitation, no inflection in his tone. It’s just stated as fact.