Vipers and Virtuosos (Monsters & Muses, #2)(74)

I pull out, and she releases me with a loud pop.

“More?” she asks, and I swear to fucking God I almost combust on the spot.

“Are you begging, pretty girl?” Lifting my knee, I use it to pry her legs apart, fitting myself between them.

Rolling my hips against her hot center, I press my open mouth to her temple to try and stave off the visceral reaction I’m having to her.

“Do you… do you like when I do?” She clears her throat, and I feel her fingers tug on the hem of my T-shirt. “Beg, I mean.”

“I believe I’d like anything you did,” I say, pulling back just enough to maintain eye contact. “But yes, begging is up there.”

“Why?”

A frown pulls at my lips. “You want me to explain why I like it?”

Crimson crawls up her neck, embarrassment flushing her face. She turns her head toward the fire, gulping. “Forget it, that was stupid.”

“Stop doing that.” I grip her chin, tugging her back so she’s forced to look at me. “Stop immediately shutting down and beating yourself up when someone asks for more information. This is how humans communicate. You’re not stupid, Riley. Stupid girls don’t get away with the shit you have.”

She doesn’t say anything, but a shred of surrender splashes in her irises; it’s not complete, but it’s enough, and I rotate my hips again, notching my erection against her needy cunt. I can practically smell her already.

“It’s about control, Riley.” I lower my head, catching the gasp that escapes as I grind into her clit. “It’s acknowledging an imbalance of power and reinforcing it for the person who holds more.” Slow thrust. Grind. Repeat. “It’s you trusting me to use that power to please you. To corrupt you.”

The tie of her robe loosens with each gyration of my hips, and I push the cotton material aside, needing to see more of her.

“Are you going to corrupt me?” she asks, her voice saccharine—but not in an innocent, genuine way.

I look up at her as my fingers find her cunt, sliding deftly between already slick folds, and her lashes fan across her cheeks as she stares back.

Uncertain, but still somehow unwavering.

Circling her entrance with my middle finger, one of my eyebrows lifts. “I think I already have.”

Abandoning her tight little hole, I move back up and find her swollen clit, pinching it between two fingers. She jerks into it, and I fit our upper halves together again, swallowing her ensuing moan.

“We’re coming back to my questions,” I tell her between sloppy kisses, unable to tear myself away as she slowly undulates below me. “But first…”

Breaking away with a pained groan, I slink to my knees on the floor and pull her to the edge of the sofa, settling my shoulders between her legs. I reach up to push her robe farther apart, but her hands slap over mine, stopping me.

“Riley.” My voice is a growl, primal and irritated that she keeps denying me. “We’re doing it right this time, or not at all.”

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and she shifts, clearly trying to get away. I slip my arms under her, clamping my palms down on the insides of her thighs, pinning her in place.

“Please,” she whines, pinching her eyes shut, her hands coming to tug at the robe. I yank harder, and she chokes on a wail. “It’s fucking embarrassing.”

The air expels from my lungs like I’ve just been run over by a military tank and left flattened.

“What’s embarrassing? Your scars?”

She lets go of the robe, covering her face. “Yes. They’re disgusting, and I don’t want you to see.”

A beat of silence passes between us.

“Riley, I don’t give a shit about your scars.”

“How can you not?” Her voice breaks, emotion making it so thick that I find it difficult to keep breathing. “I hate them. Every time I look in the mirror, they’re all I see. These big, ugly flaws that I didn’t always have, and then one day, boom. I’m a freak. Everyone pretends, you know? They act like I don’t have these nasty reminders marking me. Like they don’t see them, and they don’t make a difference in how they look at me, but they do.”

Her hands come to her mouth, touching the scar there, and she continues shattering.

“I can’t even complain about them because so many people have it worse, and I should just be happy to be fully functioning. Alive. I should be happy to be alive.”

“Jesus,” I mutter, crawling out from between her legs to drag her down to the floor with me. She comes willingly, burying her tears in my chest.

“I’m not,” she sobs, and all I can do is stroke her hair, guilt and shame settling like a slab of broken concrete on top of my heart. “I’m not happy I’m alive. I’m not proud of my trauma, or the person it made me. It hurts, and I hate it.”

The concrete gets heavier with each admission, until the organ is crushed completely, its beats slowly dwindling to a halt.

Pulling back, Riley fists my shirt, anger and pain dancing in her baby blues.

They glisten, hopelessly anguished, and she just shakes her head back and forth. She sniffles, wiping her nose with her sleeve, and then she shifts, pushing me so my back rests against the sofa.

Widening her legs, she moves to straddle me, and I palm her hips, holding her still.