Hooked: A Dark, Contemporary Romance (Never After #1)(68)

This time, it’s me that leans in and kisses him.





38





James





I’ve never done a drug in my life, but I imagine it feels similar to the way it does when Wendy courses through my veins.

All-consuming.

I grip onto her fiercely as her tongue tangles with mine, wanting to bathe in her taste to drown the memories that are overtaking my mind. I was this close to losing it. Fear and fury pumped through my blood until all I could see was red, but I held it together, waiting to hear the name Tina Belle drop from Tommy’s lips.

And then Starkey, the blithering idiot that he is, put a bullet in Tommy’s head, saying that his finger slipped on the trigger.

He must be foolish to think I believe such a pitiful excuse. But I’ll deal with him after I deal with my demons.

Croc.

The name alone sends disgust racing through me, shame spiraling close behind. It’s impossible. Peter doesn’t know of him—no one knows of him.

Unless it was tortured out of Ru.

The thought of my closest friend spilling my darkest secrets to my mortal enemy creates an inferno of rage, one that I bleed into Wendy’s mouth and she laps up like water, as if she likes the way it tastes.

My insides seethe and spit, my mind warring between breaking everything in its path or cutting myself open until the imprint of my uncle’s memory is drained from my soul.

My mouth breaks away from Wendy’s when a sharp pain sears across my chest, nightmares from my childhood flashing into the forefront of my brain.

Wendy grabs my hand and places it over her heart, teeth nipping at my bottom lip. “Give it to me,” she whispers.

I shake my head, my body trembling. “I don’t have anything to give.”

Her mouth grazes along my jaw, pressing soft kisses to my skin. “So give me all your nothing,” she replies.

Her words tap into the deepest part of me, mixing with my fury until I break. My hands grip her tightly and I flip us around, bending her backward over top of the desk, raising her arms above her head, and locking her wrists in my hand. “Do not pretend you care for me,” I spit. “Not now. I won’t be able to stand it.” My voice catches on the burn scorching up my throat.

Wendy’s eyes widen as she stares at me, her lips swollen and kissed pink. “And what if I’m not pretending?” she whispers.

My stomach flips, chest squeezing at her words. “I’ve given you no reason to care.” I press my torso into her, my hips settling between her thighs, the papers on the desktop crinkling underneath our weight. “I am not a good man.”

“I know,” she breathes.

“I have tortured.” I dip my lips down, brushing them against her neck. “I have killed.” Lifting her shirt with my free hand, my fingers skim up her side, my mouth tasting her collarbone, then trailing over the swells of her breasts. “And I’ll do both again, without ever regretting a thing. I enjoy them.”

Her legs tighten around my hips.

My hand releases her wrists, moving to cup her face, her skin soft beneath the pads of my fingers. My chest twists as my heart bangs against my ribs. “But I regret, with every fiber of my being, that for even one moment you suffered under my hands.”

Her eyes widen, the beautiful shades of brown glossing over.

“You are, without a doubt, the only good I’ve ever known.” I rest my forehead on hers, my shaky breaths ghosting across her lips, my thumb rubbing against her cheek. “So… don’t lie to me, Wendy, darling. Because my heart won’t survive it if you do.”

She surges up, her mouth colliding with mine, passion exploding on my taste buds. I moan as she wraps her limbs around me, my cock hardening as it rubs against her.

All of my turmoil is funneled into her instead of on the world, and I lose myself to the moment.

I reach for the neck of her shirt, jerking until it rips in two, exposing her nipples that are pink and hard and gorgeous. I suck one into my mouth, twirling the bud under my tongue as my hands strip the boxers down her legs.

She gasps, her back arching into me. My heart swells with the need to make her see. To show her how I feel because I’ve never been good with words. Not the ones that matter, anyway.

I want her to choose me.

Not because I demand it, but because she can.

My fingers dip between the folds of her cunt, slipping through the wetness.

I work my way down her torso with my mouth, kissing and nipping—apologizing with my tongue and my teeth for all the ways I’ve hurt her—for all the pain I know I’ve caused.

My face lands between her thighs, and I inhale deeply, the aroma of her arousal making desire coat my skin.

“Always so wet for me, pet.” I slip two fingers inside, watching as her tight walls suction around them. “You’re such a good girl. Do you know that?”

Her legs tremble as they spread wider, opening herself for me to feast. She gets off on the praise. Twisting her fingers in the strands of my hair, she tugs me forward. I go willingly, swirling her clit into my mouth, her taste exploding on my tongue. I groan, pressing my face into her deeper, wanting to drown in her essence until I feel her in my soul. I glide my fingers in, curling upward before easing them back out, then dipping them down lower, to coat a different opening with her arousal.