by R. J. Lewis
He muttered under his breath, words that made me groan. “Oh, I missed this, dove.”
I could hardly concentrate as he cursed into me, murmuring more things. Telling me he wanted me to come, but also wanted to feel me pulse around his dick. He went on and on, and then he came back over me, and his free hand explored my sex. He watched my face as he probed my entrance with his finger, gliding it in and then out.
“You’re right, dove,” he said, entranced. “No one’s been here.”
My hips jerked up, inviting his touch. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”
“Eight years, Char.” He looked incredulous. “Eight years is a long time for anyone.”
“Well, it’s true. Believe it or not.”
His eyes looked brighter now, appearing satisfied. “Baby, I just agreed no one’s fucked this sweet pussy. My finger barely fits.”
I smirked at him, cheekily saying, “You always did have big fingers, though.”
He smiled softly, looking so relaxed now that he had the control. “How’s my dick gonna fit, dove?”
When his thumb rubbed my clit, my eyes rolled to the back of my head. “You’re just going to have to break me.”
“That’s cold, don’t you think?”
“No.” I gave him a hard look now as he continued to move his finger in and out of me, gritting out, “I need it to hurt, Conor. I want to be sore in the morning. I want to believe this is real and not some cruel dream.”
His finger slowed as he took my words in. He slowly pulled his finger out of me. I was so wet, I hardly felt him leave my body. I needed something bigger. I needed his cock stretching me. I was so hungry for him, I couldn’t contain myself.
He swiped at my pussy and rubbed my wetness on his length, lubricating himself with it. It was so erotic I could have come just watching it. I spread my legs wide for him, and he smiled at that, glancing at me briefly, a knowing look in his eye.
“I’m going to let go of your hands, pup,” he told me, pumping his cock a couple times as he settled between me.
“I won’t touch you,” I promised.
He looked bothered by that. Leaning down, he delivered a chaste kiss. “I want you to touch me, Charlotte, want your nails down my back. Just don’t grab my dick, okay?”
I nodded, swallowing hard at his edgy expression. I could see he was troubled when he let go of my hands. He went still as I slowly brought my hands around him, settling them on his back. I was suddenly very aware of his bruises.
“It’ll hurt if I hold onto you,” I whispered. “The bruises…”
“I hardly feel them,” he assured me.
I didn’t buy that. They were fist sized bruises, like he’d been punched by a massive hand. How big was the man it belonged to?
“Dove,” he said, bringing me back to the present. “I need you here with me.”
I nodded. “Kiss me, Conor.”
He kissed me tenderly, parting my lips to stroke against my tongue. It was sloppy kissing. Perfect kissing. I was vaguely aware his tip was pressing into my entrance. I was saturated for him and yet my body seemed to reject his prodding.
“Oh, dove,” he groaned against my mouth, panting into me. “Oh, dove, I can’t fit.”
My hand wandered down his back. I gripped his ass and pressed him to me. “Try.”
“Look at me.”
I did. I looked into his eyes as he pressed himself into me. I still rejected him. It was like my body wouldn’t allow his invasion. He kept rocking his hips, trying to press into me, trying to gently find his way to my centre.
Didn’t he understand?
“Break me,” I gritted out, digging my nails into his ass.
He pressed his lips together tight and, finally seeming to understand, he thrust suddenly into me. The move was violent; my body acted like he parted me by force. I shook, the pain of it pulsing through my body. Blinking back tears, I tried to accept him, but he sat so full and painful inside me, stretching me unbearably.
“Charlotte,” he sounded concerned, the tendons in his neck protruding now as he restrained himself.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Dove…”
“Please.”
He withdrew his cock and then plunged into me again with equal force, groaning at my walls gripping him. He fucked me, watching me closely as he parted my walls and delivered blow after blow. I felt him at the end of my channel, and he moved deeper still. How did I ever let him in before without this pain? Or was I so weak now?
Sliding into me again, he stopped when he was all the way in. I could feel his heart hammering against my chest.
“Why have you stopped?” I bit out.
“So you can feel me,” he answered. “Get used to me.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Just takes time.”
Time, of course, the healer and destroyer of all things.
I concentrated on the fullness. Drawing lazy circles on his back, I looked at him still watching me. Revering me. A look of utter worship in his gaze.
It brought back a flood of memories.
“God, I love you,” he breathed out, his body shuddering with restraint.
I blinked back tears. “I love you.”
“I must be dreaming,” he whispered, looking momentarily frightened. His body tensed over me. “Maybe this is a cruel dream, then. Maybe I’m still back in my cell, dove. I think I might die if I wake up.”
“You won’t wake up,” I assured him, though my emotions felt like they were sitting heavy in my throat. “I promise.”
I kissed him slowly, lightly biting his bottom lip. The tension in his body eased as he shut his eyes and kissed me back. Tender kisses, a light flick of my tongue against his. I was instantly warm everywhere. Slowly, very slowly, my body began to adjust to him. I felt a pleasant pressure replace the pain. I wriggled under him, and when my clit rubbed against his flesh, I moaned lightly.
Ah, yes, this is what it felt like.
Good God, I was going to come in no time.
“Now I know why I waited,” I smiled faintly.
“Why?” he questioned solemnly.
“I’d never find a cock like yours.”
He groaned, kissing me harder. “Fuck, I missed you, Charlotte. I missed your dirty little mouth.”
“I wasn’t aware I had one.”
“Oh, you have one. You rile me up. I came so many times in that cell just thinking about you.”
Warmth settled into every part of my being. “I missed your dirty mouth too.”
He groaned, lightly biting my lip back. “I’m dirty everywhere now, Char. It’s in my soul and in my touch. Can you feel the difference?”
My heart broke. “Yes.”
“You still want me, pup?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
He began to move, delivering unrelenting thrusts, sending my body over the edge. I breathed heavily, feeling his girth stretch me deliciously. I watched him get lost in the feeling. I stroked his face, holding back the tears swimming behind my eyes.
He was here.
This was real.
The pain was proof.
He was still the Conor I knew. I saw it in his eyes, a shadow of the man he used to be. I felt it in his touch, gentle and strong at the same time.
My body loosened, allowing him entry now. I shook, approaching that delicious high. I tensed beneath him, sucking in feverish breaths as I came apart. The orgasm tore through me, washing over me from head to toe. I shook, gripping the back of his neck, bringing him to me for a final hard kiss.
He kissed me roughly, and as I began to climb down from my explosion, I was suddenly feeling him everywhere. His hands were all around me, touching me, exploring me. He moved at an animalistic pace, his dick pulsing and swelling. I realized something very quickly.
“I’m not safe,” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure he heard me because he remained unaffected. He sent a few more thrusts inside me,
stilling suddenly. He looked pained as he came, spilling himself into me, marking me. I felt his cock twitch long after he’d come down from his high. He buried his face between my neck and shoulder, panting.
“You’re mine, Charlotte Miles,” he declared with finality. “You’ll always be mine.”
THE HOLE
They couldn’t find him.
They’d been searching for hours. The sun in the sky was moving and Conor was panicking.
“Max!” he shouted, frantically. “If this is a joke, it’s gone on too long, bro. We won’t get mad if you come out.”
He checked under the slide, and under piles of leaves, and in the bushes, and even in the nasty abandoned house. He lingered longer in the house, ripping apart the dilapidated doors, checking the closets, even wading into the black basement. All of it stunk of soil and damp and sheer panic.
Max was small. He was the smallest of them all. Maybe he had found a crevice he could slip his bony little self into.
Maybe…
“Conor!” Dominic called from the top. “He isn’t down there. You know he’s scared of the dark.”
Conor thought he knew what fear was. He’d felt it every time his dad had come home drunk and ready to start a fight. But this was a different beast altogether. It was the first time Conor felt the fear seep into his bones, rattling him to the core. He felt the fear in his lungs when he breathed.
He ran up the staircase, past Dom and Jem and stepped out into the open yard, into the quiet little corner of town that lay abandoned and empty. It was a wasteland after the flour mill nearby shut down and people lost their jobs; it’d been the boys’ little adventure map.
Now it was a turning into a nightmare.
Where was this kid? Did he fall? Did he get lost? How could he have vanished?
Conor didn’t feel so strong. He didn’t feel like the leader amongst the four of them. He felt small and helpless.
He felt… like a little boy.
Standing there, tears springing to his eyes, Conor’s scream came from the deepest depths of his soul.
“MAX!!!!!!!!!”
Chapter Nine
Thames
She wasn’t safe and he’d come inside her, flooding her pussy with his seed. He wasn’t even concerned. He wanted his cum inside her, all over her. He wanted to mark her until her scent and his were one and the same. It was purely visceral, this possessive need to recapture her forever, to keep her.
Thames spent way too many nights envisioning another man in this bed. It destroyed him. He wasn’t going to lose her again, not this time, not ever.
As he lay there, her draped over his chest, he wanted to know all the years he’d missed. He wanted to get to the bottom of Locke and his interference in her life. He needed to know who was behind the fire, and why it felt like Jem was more there for her than anyone else.
What about his mother, and Ember? Where did they fit in all this?
Where was Dave, and what did Locke mean when he said Reid had Blackwater under his thumb?
And how was he going to get the Raven crew off his back? Holden would be wondering where he was.
Daunted, he shut his eyes and tried to work through the mind-fuckery. Being free didn’t feel so freeing. He held Charlotte to him tight, afraid to let go, afraid of feeling the emptiness again.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him then, rousing him back to the present.
“I have so many questions, Char,” he answered quietly.
“Anything you want me to answer?”
He looked down and met her gaze. She was so much older than he remembered. She was all woman. Unable to help himself, he murmured, “You’re so fucking beautiful, Charlotte. All woman, curves everywhere.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I worried you wouldn’t like what you saw.”
He groaned in dismay. “That is crazy talk.”
“My body’s changed –”
He cut her off by moving back over her. His hands roamed every inch of her body he could grab. He silenced her with a long kiss, brewing with passion and need. She responded straightaway, letting out these breathless sounds he used to daydream about during the lonely nights.
“You are my everything,” he told her when they came up for air. She needed to see the solemn look in his eye as he delivered the truth to her. She went still, her chest slowing as she devoured his expression with a heavy look of her own. “You were always in my heart. I carried you inside me every single day. You pulled me out of my madness and you healed me in my pain. You didn’t have to belong to me to be there for me, dove.”
She stroked his cheek, her own flushing as he tenderly kissed her.
“Fuck, how I longed for this,” he murmured, shutting his eyes tightly.
The next kiss was longer, more languid, filled with tongue and taste. He sensed her urgency and her need. He shuddered through his own. He wanted to take her again, wanted to feel her panting beneath him, but he stopped right then. Breathing heavy, he dropped his head between her neck and shoulder and waited for the urge to pass.
She’d witnessed his grief as he came undone before her, and he couldn’t bear to be so exposed again. Sliding off her, he brought her back to his side and held her tightly.
Right now, he just wanted to sleep. He didn’t want to think. The day had been long, and everything was so different now. In prison, he’d been assigned to a rehabilitation class. It was meant for prisoners nearing the end of their prison term. They said adjusting was going to be tough. The world was going to look different, and not in a technological or dogmatic way, but overall, with the feel of everything.
He didn’t understand it entirely at the time. After all, he’d never been locked up for so long at a time. He’d never anticipated spending such a huge chunk of his life frozen in time. How did he fill his time before incarceration? He’d forgotten the small things, like what food he enjoyed eating the most. Why did rebuilding vehicles give him so much pleasure? What music had he listened to? Because the only beat he heard was his heart, and it’d felt dead for a while.
The questions mounted over top of one another. He had to shut off, the way he learned to in his cell. But this didn’t feel like his cell, and he sort of didn’t understand why he missed his fucking cell, either.
No, to be truthful, he did.
He didn’t want to confront all this head-on.
Because he was terrified, so fucking terrified of how he’d react to it all. He wanted to believe he would never make the same mistakes again. While he knew in himself that violence wasn’t the way, being out meant he would be forced to examine just how much stronger he was than he used to be.
Freedom was the ultimate trial.
Thames couldn’t afford to fail again.
Sometime in the night, while she lay half-asleep in his arms, he found he couldn’t hold back. The urges were too great. The need to touch her hit him suddenly, and he felt like a runaway train, all control absent as he sought to claim her.
The room was flooded in darkness as he climbed back over her again and slid between her legs, groaning the second his cock found her centre. Soft and tight and warm and just fucking perfect. To feel the heat of his woman again, to hear her breaths quicken – it was paradise and bliss and all good things.
Words spilled from his mouth.
“You waited for me. You actually waited.”
And,
“I thought you’d move on. I thought you’d find happiness.”
And,
“It would have been selfish to ask you to wait. Don’t you understand? It would have been asking too much to sacrifice such a big part of your life for garbage like me.”
And,
“But I’m glad. I’m glad you waited, dove.”
Her legs immediately curled around his hips as he fucked her. Stroke after stroke, more punishing than the last. She couldn’t see his eyes drooping from pleasure, from pain. She couldn’t see how much it hurt him to feel good because he didn’t feel deservi
ng of it.
Then she had to whisper, “Stay with me.”
And he knew she’d sensed his peril.
Her hands slid down his back, over the pained bruises, over his tight muscles. She dug her nails into him, holding onto him as he ruthlessly fucked her. He felt possessed. He felt like he ought to slow down, but he couldn’t. His demons were all around him and he needed to mute them, and he needed to do that by feeling every inch of this good woman.
This woman that had waited for him.
His eyes squeezed shut. She waited for him.
Her breaths came out quicker, her moans fell all around them as the muscles inside her tensed, squeezing him.
He came hard straight after, utterly consumed by her.
“Charlotte,” he whispered, feeling his heart battering inside his chest. “Charlotte, Charlotte.”
She held him tightly as he dropped his head to her chest and felt her own heart beating against his ear.
She ran her fingers through his hair and he closed his eyes again, relaxed.
He fell asleep quickly, unable to handle the weight of her love for him after so many years feeling nothing but the void in his chest.
“He pleaded to play a different game. Sometimes I ask myself why we didn’t listen to him. He never looked at me or Jem the same way again, but he was always okay with you, Thames. I never understood why. Any clue?”
The ventilation in prison had been non-existent. The smells were so pungent, of men and musk. It was a microcosm of filth and staleness. You never got used to that stench. When he woke up, he’d forgotten where he was, and he didn’t feel right. The smell was all wrong. The air was too fresh, tinged with the hint of lavender and fruit; he’d forgotten what those smelled like.
