Paradise Found: Cain (Paradise #2)(69)

Silence poured between us.

“Sofie?” His voice was a whispered response. I shook my head, denying I’d said those three words. I couldn’t face his rejection. Maybe the emotions of his father’s threat were catching up to me, after all.

Within an instant, my shorts were yanked downward, my underwear heading south with it. Large hands fumbled and jiggled my body, and the shock of being wrestled undressed kept me quiet. Suddenly, he was in me without foreplay, filling me to the hilt. My legs were spread wide without thought, as my body drew him inward, until I didn’t think he’d end, but burrow through me. I cried out in surprise and fulfillment, wincing with pleasure at the intrusion. His voice echoed mine in a prayer of obscenity, as our foreheads came together. He pumped inside me three times. His fingers dug into my hips, as he rocked hard over me. The mattress squeaked from the sudden pressure. My hands came to his shoulders as I was about to get the ride of a lifetime. Then he stopped.

Buried within me, the sack of him fighting for entrance as well, he paused to look down at me. His dark eyes were alight with flecks of flame. He looked scary and terrified at the same time.

“Say you mean it. Say it again,” he pleaded, his eyebrows pinching, while he balanced above me. There was something empowering about the tone of his voice. He was the night sky staring down at the shore. I was the liquid ocean under him, hoping to reach him with every rolling wave. He was tender, frightened, uncertain of what lay below him, but he wanted it. He wanted those words as reassurance. My hips curved, pleading with him in my own right to continue what he’d started. His heavy hand forced my body to still. His eyes begged me.

“Say it again,” he groaned low. The intensity in his plea filled me. Drawing strength from his vulnerability and his need for those words, I grew bolder.

“I love you.” He was rough, rougher than he’d ever been with me, and I craved it. I wanted this wild, raw Cain, who was frightened and fierce in the same moment. I hadn’t realized the power those three words could wield on this man. I rolled my hips again, forcing him to move inside me.

“I love you,” I repeated, confident, for the moment, in the strength of my words. He withdrew from me and I thought I’d lost him. I thought I’d scared him so much, he realized that being in me was nothing he’d ever want again.

He surprised me a second time, by taking his time to re-enter me. One. Slow. Pulse. At. A. Time. When his balls kissed my core, I cried out again in a low chorus of monosyllabic praise. I carried that note until he repeated the process, beginning again the slow, rhythmic ritual of making love to me in the most tender manner. The vanquished speed of moments before was cut short by my words that turned this uncontained beast into a god of passion.

He dragged the length of himself through my center, caressing every inch inside me before sliding back, until I clamped my thighs in attempts to hold him in. He held himself over me, watching where he joined me, then closing his eyes in response to the sounds of my pleasure. My fingers crawled over his ears and clasped the back of his head, struggling to pull him down to me, to connect our lips, as well. But he had other plans, to watch the amazing show of our bodies connected as one.

The slow penetration was too much for him, and eventually the motion increased to rapid thrusts. My ankles wrapped over his thighs, as I pulled him upward and into me, with the full force of my strength. I couldn’t get him deep enough, fast enough. I braced myself for the celebration of a lifetime that was building inside of me. Tingling prickles crawled up my legs, scrambling to find an escape as they reached my center and burst forth from me into a million shiny stars. My legs fell off of him, and my body fully surrendered to his. Limp and ragged as the euphoric sensation of him filling me, exploded throughout me, I quickly ignited for a repeat display. Cresting again when I felt the final beat of him thrust forward, I sang out the words that prompted it all.

“I love you.”





Basking in the afterglow of sex seemed almost as foreign a concept as the words she’d said to me.

I love you.

Her voice played on repeat as we rested only briefly, before I had to have her again. I had to make certain she was real. This wasn’t trickery or magic or something unheard. She was under me. I was inside her. We were together.

In the morning, she was slipping out of bed when I reached for her.

“Don’t go,” I commanded, but her sweet smile was the precursor to the brush off.

“I have class,” she said in the dim light of a new day. My heart skipped. I tried to calm my fears that daylight would break the spell of her and I again. I wanted to wrap her up and keep her in this bed for all of eternity. This would be our paradise from the world outside.

She slid out of my grasp and headed for the shower. I fell back on the pillows, ripe with the scent of her. We’d been together twice last night before sleep took her. It had been almost two months, and I wanted her again and again. I’d never be satiated by the fruit of her, but yesterday had been another tough day. She needed to know I was here for her. My father was a viper, and his intimidation of Sofie was not washed away by one night of reunited sex.

On the other hand, her words gave me hope. She was loving me. She was trusting me. She’d come to me wanting answers about Kursch. She came to me with her fear of my father. Sofie wasn’t a simpering girl after me for riches or fame. That glory went number one to my father. A new day reminded me that I had to respond to his threats, because they were meant for me.