Raw Redemption (Crossing the Line #4)(46)

“Yeah. That’s me. I’d be the big man who gets to f*ck the little screamer.” Henrik’s powerful arms banded around her hips, all of his strength now going into riding her body up his unforgiving flesh and grinding her back down. “Lucky man, they’d say. Wouldn’t they, baby? You’d be getting the whole building off, but I’d be the only one who gets this tight prize between your legs.”

“Yes,” she wailed. The desire to touch him rose to a fever pitch at the agony twisting his handsome features. So much pain. All because of her. And that’s what facilitated the quickening at her core. The repeated fullness of Henrik’s thrusts, hitting some undiscovered promised land over and over without cease—slapslapslap—his strangled grunts, the possession in his gaze…those addictive things joined forces to ruin her. The orgasm came on so strong, her body’s fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, her legs moving restlessly around his hips, as if she could run away in midair. Her hands strained for release inside the handcuffs; frustration and lust and sweet agony rose in her throat and left in a scream. She came, she came in such brutal fashion, no air would find her lungs. Henrik chanted words against her mouth and somehow they provided enough focus to suck in air, but the thrusting wouldn’t stop, and neither would her climax. It poured and poured over her like oil from an upturned jug, washing her in heat until she was burning up, on fire. “Oh God, I can’t take it…don’t stop.”

“Fuck, Ailish,” he growled into her ear. “Don’t make me live without this. Feel how you take me, baby? Like a hot glove, three sizes too small?” He moved in a frenzy, a man fighting for his sanity, which would only come with release. “Keep your legs up while I finish. High and tight. Let me get it so goddamn deep, my come seeps out of you for a week.”

His final word was cut off by the shaking of his enormous body, his flesh jerking between her legs one final time before warmth flooded where their bodies joined. Ailish watched through the haze of euphoria as Henrik was brought to his knees—literally. He fell into a kneeling position, Ailish still impaled on his erection. He dragged her up and back on his lap in uneven motions that slowed, slowed, along with the quieting of his bone-rattling growls.

Ailish stared at Henrik’s heaving chest, his sweat-dappled face, and felt like she’d been through a hurricane. She was in a similar state, her shirt a damp, twisted mess around her collarbone, moisture slicking every inch of her legs and stomach. “I don’t want to live without this either,” Ailish blurted, horrified to feel pressure welling behind her eyes, an uncomfortable buildup in her tummy. “Oh no. Oh God,” she panted, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m one of those women who cries after sex. I have a fifth fault now and you seem to be the one bringing them out of me.”

A moment passed where she couldn’t pinpoint Henrik’s expression. It was awe and amusement…but there was dread, too. Like he could see the future and it was so far from inside that forest, he never wanted to leave. No. No, wait, that was her. She wanted to stay right there until someone commanded them to leave. Panic over what was to come in Chicago bubbled up in her middle, spilled over into the perfection they’d created together.

Henrik seemed to sense her worry and cut it off with a long, slow kiss that blurred the edges of her apprehension. His hands slid over her hair, gathered some of it in his fists without tugging, just holding the strands, as if for safekeeping.

When he finally pulled away, the edges of her vision sparkled like firecrackers in the night sky. “Ailish, I’m going to take the cuffs off.” Another thorough kiss that felt like…good-bye? So much that she whimpered into his mouth. “I’ll get you somewhere safe and leave, if that’s what you want. I’m not going to force you back to Chicago, baby. I won’t do it. I won’t see you scared.”

This was it. He was offering her freedom. The one thing she’d always wanted, but it would be without him. Was she brave enough to go back to Chicago and face her demons if it meant being with Henrik when it was all over?

Yes. Yes…she’d always been brave enough. But now she had something to fight for. Something bigger than just her. This unseen force pushing her toward Henrik seemed almost detrimental to ignore. This man saw through her, and saw what she could be. It was there in his eyes when they looked at each other. Connection and understanding, heaped with the crazy lust she’d never thought to experience. And yeah, she’d never felt capable of righting her wrongs—and those of her father—before. But going back to Chicago and aiding the undercover squad, it would give her that power. It would ease the guilt of what she’d done, bookmaking for the mob while saving her sanity by pretending the consequences of calling in debts didn’t exist beyond the desk in her room.

Henrik scrutinized her, holding his breath while waiting for an answer.

“Take off the cuffs,” she murmured.

A heavy beat passed as Henrik reached down and tugged the keys out of his jeans pocket. As he wrapped both arms around her and undid the cuffs blind, he laid kisses on her forehead. Good-bye kisses that made her want to cry again, dammit, so as soon as the metal was no longer encumbering her hands, Ailish threw her arms around Henrik, tight as they would go. He dropped the cuffs to the forest floor and pulled her close, close as Ailish could get without climbing inside his barrel chest.

“I told you I didn’t want to live without this and then you give me the option of leaving?” She pressed her lips to his shoulder. “That’s very rude, you know.”