The Wrath of Cain (The Syndicate, #1)(23)
“One, you let me worry about your parents. I’m doing everything I can to protect everyone, and that includes them. Once Kryder and his men know you’re here, if they don’t already, they could be targets. The less they know, the safer it is for them. Two, your phone has been destroyed. There’s ways to track those damn things. Three, I need you to f*cking trust me, goddamnit. Four, when we’re alone, you can come at me with everything you’ve got. I get you feel like you walked into a ring of fire, and you’re trapped. The things I just told you are things you needed to hear. You need to know what’s happening here, and me being an * is the only way I seem to get your attention. And five, I’ll be as kinky with you as you want me to be. You can dominate me, or I can dominate you. I’ll take it either way, as long as the end result is me burying my cock into you.”
“You dick! You manipulative *!”
“Been called a lot worse, babe.”
“Fuck you!” she spits.
“I would love to f*ck you, in many different ways. Maybe I should start with this mouth. When was the last time someone f*cked this pretty mouth?”
Her lips part at my crude remark. She better not have let anyone else f*ck that lush mouth. It belongs to me. This is my territory, my body, my every f*cking thing. I dive in for the kill, my mouth crushing down on her brutally. I plunge my tongue inside, demanding that she kiss me back. She doesn’t. Her tongue lays flat, not moving as she fights to try and escape me.
I want to seize what is rightfully mine, damn it. To taste, to devour. I become more intense; rougher, even, doing my best to try and make her kiss me back. This is why I have never kissed a woman since her. Her mouth and her lips belong to me. As mine do to her.
I feel tears against my face, making me pull away from her. The hurt in her eyes guts me. I said I’d stay away from her, but I can’t help myself. I can’t. I’ve waited too long for this. I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes. Anything I can do to stay close to her until she decides to push me away.
“Cain, please don’t do this. There’s too much bad history between us, and you’ve divulged too much information about your present life. I’m just not that girl anymore.”
“You’re right, you’re not. I’m not that same young man, either. But one thing that has never changed is the way I feel about you. If after all of this is done, you do walk away from me and I never see you again, walk away with that.”
Her gorgeous blue-green eyes are glazed over with more unshed tears caused by me. Love should never hurt, damnit. It’s one of the few things in life that are free. I happen to have fallen so deeply in love at the age of sixteen that I will never come out.
I love her. I’ve been without her because I love her so much, I would do anything for her. If she only knew how many nights I would lie in bed with a restless mind and pretend we were still together, planning our future, telling each other everything. Crawling into bed together. Making love at night, then turning around the next morning and doing it all over again.
A hint of a smile curves upwards on her mouth. I will do whatever it takes for her to realize my deep-seated feelings will never change. Her safety is my top priority.
“You’ll see I’m telling you the truth, sweetheart. I promise. Just give me time to find him, to make sure you’re safe, and then we can talk about us.”
There’s so much more I would love to say to her, but I’ll leave her with the information she needs to digest for now. Backing off, I settle at the opposite end of the couch in silence. Neither of us speaks for the longest time until the loud rumble of her stomach cuts through the stillness.
“You’re hungry, and you probably want to get cleaned up,” I observe.
“Yeah, I am. This is your house, I take it?”
Her walls are back up, I can tell by the icy way she says ‘your house’.
“It’s mine,” I confirm. “I’ll make us something to eat while you shower.”
I stand and turn to her. She’s so lost, her expression blank.
“One more thing and I’ll leave you to it. We are a club. Most of us do respect our women around here, but some of these guys are old school. They’ve been in those bad gangs, the ones who treat their women like shit. I’m not going to tell them what they can and can’t do outside of here. If the women hear you smart off to me, they might get to thinking that if I let you do it, then they can, too. I just don’t want that shit to be on me or on you. We’ll talk more later, but for now, just please do what I ask.” I point down the hallway. “There’s a bedroom with a private bathroom right down this hall. Everything you need to clean yourself up is in there.”
She still doesn’t look up from the spot she’s fixated on. If time is what she needs to adjust, I’ll give her that. She needs it. I get it. She came here expecting to get rid of me and instead, she has to live under my roof and be with me twenty-four seven.
I asked her to trust me, but what she doesn’t know yet is that I don’t trust her. She’s bound to run; therefore, my wife will be sleeping with me while she’s here. Something tells me I may have to tie her to the bed when I tell her that. Gag her even. In different circumstances, I would love nothing more than to do just that, while I suck on the sweet spot on her neck, lick every inch of her skin, and screw her into a f*cking sex stupor. I’d give her all the kink she wanted.