With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(88)

Regardless of his chore, he still felt his groin tighten at the sight.

Swiftly, so as not to prolong her apprehension, he administered the injection.

Facing the basin, the minute the toxin entered her body, both of her hands flew out to clutch the basin and her head lowered. She sucked in a tortured breath and her pretty face twisted with suffering. Callum dropped the syringe into the sink, yanked her skirt down and wrapped his arms around her, trying to tear his eyes from the mirror that exposed her pain and failing.

His body absorbed the tortured shudders rending their way through hers until she unconsciously dragged in calming breaths as the pain slowly burned itself out.

When it was over, she lifted her head until it rested on his shoulder, her cheek against his. His chin was lowered to her and her hands glided along his forearms until her arms were crossed and her fingers curled around his wrists.

“I even feel it in my hair,” she whispered, the ghost of pain veining her voice and Callum’s scalp stung unpleasantly in hearing the comprehensiveness of his mate’s pain.

He buried his face in her neck.

“Baby doll,” he murmured there as there was nothing more that he could do.

And he f**king hated the feeling of powerlessness that was thrust on him night after night.

Her fingers tightened on his wrists and she said softly, “It’s over, Callum.”

It wasn’t over. It would happen again the next night and the night after that.

If it was indeed a disease, it would happen until he stood beside her burning pyre.

He didn’t respond, just tensed his arms, drawing her closer.

“We have guests.” she reminded him.

He took in breath through his nose, her scent, already surrounding him, intensifying and his body relaxed at the smell and her uttering the fact that they had guests.

She did not say “I” but “we”.

Callum liked that.

He nodded and lifted his head, his eyes catching hers in the mirror where she, who’d endured it, gave him, who’d only witnessed it, a reassuring smile.

Then he stood holding her while she reapplied her lipstick and unnecessarily rearranged her thick, beautiful hair.

Then he led her downstairs and stood at her side as she entertained, having lost his enjoyment of the evening and as it continued finding himself losing his patience as his need for her grew.

She, however, continued to enjoy it and that was the only reason Callum could endure.

It was late. The caterers had swept away their wares, leaving the house tidy but Sonia still wandered it. Finding a discarded napkin here, the remains of wrapping paper there and throwing them away while Callum shut down the house for the night.

When he guided her up the stairs, he led her to the bathroom deciding that he’d give them a better memory of a space that had become, for him, as it had to be for her, dreaded.

At first she was confused and hesitant but that melted, as Sonia always did, when he gently placed her hands on the basin, ordered her to keep them there and yanked up her skirt. He pulled down her panties and she stepped out of them before he commanded she open her legs. He saw, reflected in the mirror, her face grow hungry and his need for her deepened before she did as she was told and, at once, as her reward, he slid his hand between her legs from behind, giving her what she craved.

Callum watched her in the mirror thinking distractedly, because he so liked what he saw, that he’d have to have a room paneled in mirrors at his castle in Scotland. The vision of her growing excitement erasing the earlier, painful one as he brought her to orgasm with his fingers. Then, while she was still moaning her uninhibited release, he watched as he entered her and f**ked her, her skirt bunched at her hips, her sweet ass willingly tilting up to take all of him. And he kept watching as he brought her to orgasm again moments before he had his own.

Then, keeping Sonia impaled on his cock, he gazed in the mirror, her hooded eyes, he noted, doing the same, as he slowly disrobed her, baring her beautiful, little body still intimately connected to his. Once she was na**d against him, he took his time, running his hands along the skin of her midriff, her belly, her sides and up to her br**sts as he, and Sonia, watched the trail of his hands and as he, alone, felt her sex shudder around his c**k in response to their travels. And he held her, his forearms crossed, his hands cupping her br**sts, his thumbs idly stroking her ni**les, his shaft still hard and buried to the root, as he memorized the look of them together. The smell of their mingled essence. The beautiful feel and sight of all that was her.

She twisted her neck and, with her lips against his skin, he watched in the mirror as she whispered there, “How do you stay so hard so long?”

“Sensory incentive,” he replied softly (and truthfully).

She emitted a fluttering sigh.

He smiled.

Then he lifted her off his shaft, turned her, seated her on the basin and lazily pulled off her boots and slid off her stockings.

Then he carried her to bed, his sweet little Sonia, took off his clothes, joined her and pulled her close, on their sides, his face in her hair, her ass snug in his crotch, his body pressed to the length of hers.

His voice was gentle when he asked, “Did you have a good night, my little one?”

“Yes,” she whispered sleepily, hesitated, then enquired, “Did you?”

“Yes,” he answered and his arms gave her a squeeze. “I liked the way it ended the best.”