Echo (Bleeding Hearts #1)(23)

He flipped me onto my back and left me lying there, flushed and on the verge of a psychotic break. I never knew that I could want something so much, but I did. I was worse than Norma with her pills. What the hell was happening to me?

I wanted to scream. I fisted the covers in my hands when he pushed himself back inside of me. His lips were on mine a moment later, covered in my arousal, but I didn’t care. I kissed him back fiercely, punishing him the only way I could as I nipped at his lips and tugged on his hair. He thrived on my reaction, giving it back just as good as he got. His teeth pulled at my lip until I tasted blood, which he sucked into his mouth with a groan.

I sank my nails into his back, and he responded by wrapping his hand around my throat in warning. For some crazy reason, it was making me wet. This vicious romp. The savagery of our connection. He had tapped into a part of my psyche that I didn’t know was there. The part of me that liked the pain and f*cked up things he was doing to me.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmured against me. “Tell me who you wish was inside of you right now. Making you come.”

I froze at his request. He couldn’t honestly expect me to answer that.

His thumb found my clit again, so swollen and sensitive that tears leaked from my eyes. I needed my release, and he was intentionally torturing me. It shouldn’t have surprised me. He was the worst kind of evil. A predator, and probably a sadist too. I knew this, and yet I kept forgetting whenever he touched me.

“Tell me,” he urged, nipping my ear as I bucked against him.

His cock glided in and out of me with agonizing gentleness while his hands explored my body. Somewhere along the line he had gained back control, and he was intent on proving it.

“It’s a simple request,” he insisted. “A name, Brighton. There must be someone.”

I shook when he bottomed out inside of me, taking me to the brink of destruction once more.

“Please,” I rasped. “Please, just let me…”

“A name.” He captured my lip between his teeth. “I need a name. Then you can come as many times as you like.”

He kissed his way down to my nipple and flicked it with his tongue. My eyes rolled back as I melted into the bed.

“Ryland!” I screamed. “Ryland Bennett.”

He grunted and slammed into me so hard I thought I might break. His teeth sank into my neck, causing a cataclysm of pain and release. It was cathartic. Poetic. Beautiful. The demon inside of me smiled in satisfaction when my scream echoed off the walls.

I’d barely finished when he let loose a vicious string of curses, his cock pulsing wildly as he emptied himself inside of me.

He collapsed on top of me, his legs still tangled in mine, his breath ragged. I expected him to say something once his breathing had calmed, but he didn’t.

Not a word about my mortifying confession, or anything else. I wondered if he was angry. Would he hurt Ryland? The thought crossed my mind. I had no idea what his motives were. It was one thing to mess with me, but if he involved innocent people, I wouldn’t be able to cope.

“What are you going to do?” I whispered.

“What do you mean?” his voice was soft. Relaxed. And he was still inside me.

“About what I told you,” I said. “You won’t… do anything to him, right?”

“Would you care if I did?”

“Of course I would.” I quivered. “You can’t drag other people into this. That wasn’t part of the agreement…”

“I know.” He toyed with my lip. “I’m not going to do anything, Brighton. There are very few things I don’t know about you. That was one of them.”

“Oh.”

I really didn’t know what to say to that. What we were doing was already so intimate. And yet he wanted to get into my psyche, uncover my darkest secrets. But why? It was unfair. I didn’t know anything about him at all.

He went to move away, and I pulled him back, gripping his forearm.

“Please…” I whispered.

“Please what?” his voice was colder now. More distant. But I wasn’t going to let it scare me. I wouldn’t let him win this game. I needed to figure out who he was, by any means possible.

“I don’t even know what you look like,” I said.

“You didn’t want to,” he retorted. “That’s the thing about actions and words. Once they are said and done, they can’t be taken back.”

“Just let me… touch you,” I pleaded. “Let me see you in the only way that I can.”

There was such a long pause, I wondered if I’d made a mistake by requesting such a thing. But then he rolled over, taking me with him. When he relaxed, I was straddling him, and my palms were flat against his shoulders.

“By all means,” he bit out, “touch me, Brighton. But don’t think you’re fooling me for a second.”

I swallowed the strange lump that had formed in my throat and started with his hands. They were much bigger than mine, and I had the sudden realization of how much he could hurt me with those hands if he ever wanted to.

I tried not to think about it as I felt my way down his forearms and up his biceps. Right away, I concluded these were the arms of a working man. Either that or someone who spent a lot of time in the gym. He was warm and hard everywhere I touched, even in his relaxed state. But that changed when my hands glided over his chest. It wasn’t just muscle there, it was something else too. I ran my fingers over the jagged skin several times before I understood they were scars. And when I touched them, his entire body stiffened.