by W Winters
She’s not ready for my dick to take her ass though… not yet.
I settle on pushing the head of my cock inside her, only the head and wait for her reaction. A small moan escapes her lips as she rocks gently, finding the aftershocks pleasurable. I know there will be a bite of pain, but there’s nothing better than when pain and pleasure mix.
“Grab my cock,” I give her the command, and she reaches around to take my cock and stroke it. “Harder,” I say then put my hand over hers and show her how to jerk me off. She only has a grip on the base of my dick, but her unsure hold and the lust in her eyes are enough to get me off. Even without her pussy clenching around the head of my cock.
“Fuck,” I groan as she rubs me and slowly pushes more of me inside of her. With my hand on her hip, I stop her from pushing more of me inside of her. Even with her getting off, it’ll only make her worse off and all I need is this.
“I want you every night, however I can have you.” My words are tense as I sit on the edge of my release.
The air between us is different now. There’s a raw quality neither of us can hide, although I’ll never admit it.
Her pressure is firm, her strokes even and deliberate, and then her pussy spasms around the tip of my dick as she cums again from me rubbing her clit.
But it’s the way she’s looking at me that gets me off. Like I’m hers to play with. I’m hers to fuck, to use.
Like she owns me, as she strokes my dick and I cum inside her.
My eyes beg me to close them as I revel in the sweet burst of satisfaction and I mark her again. But her gaze stays on mine, our breath mingling, and I’m forced to get lost in her hazel eyes. I’m still cumming when she releases me, turning and kissing me hard, crashing her lips to mine and devouring me.
My cum leaks from her and onto the sheets, but she doesn’t care and neither do I.
Her heart races as she presses her breasts to my chest and belly to mine. Once again wanting to get closer to me, and I feel for the first time today I have her back. She’s mine again.
The day I stop fucking her will be the day I lose her. She needs my touch like I need the air she breathes.
“I think I might be able to sleep now,” she whispers and then smiles against my lips.
“Sleep well.” I keep my voice calm and soothing, rubbing my arm up and down her bare back as she settles her head on my chest, a new habit of hers. One I approve of.
Looking up at me with her head resting on my arm she tells me, “Sweet dreams.”
I kiss her gently as she drifts off to sleep in my arms with the faint taste of lust still on her lips.
Addicts will get high on anything. My father’s words ring in my ears. The white lights are too bright. I wince.
Where am I? My head lolls to the side; it’s so heavy I can’t lift it. Everything hurts.
Slowly, I feel each of my limbs. My wrists won’t move, pinned against a metal chair. The same with my ankles and every inch of me is in pain, but the worst is radiating from my stomach.
I heave up a breath that squeezes my chest, coughing up blood.
Fuck.
My right eye is swollen, and I try to open it, remembering how my mother’s pills fell into the gutter. No, we needed that money.
My father said the addicts would buy them, but hardly any of them did. I stayed out all day, and only two buyers paid me anything. And then the men showed up. Talvery’s men.
“How long was he there?”
I hear someone from across the room ask the question and open my eyes to see a swinging light and a man in a crisp suit with long black hair slicked back tossing my wallet across a metal table littered with tools.
A groan tears from me as I try to move. Try to get away. I know he’s going to kill me. I know it.
But it’s hopeless.
“I’m sorry,” I spew and more blood spits up. “I didn’t know,” I try to say but my throat is so dry and feels bruised. I don’t think they heard me, so I repeat myself, pleading for mercy. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know what, kid?” a man hisses in front of me. Pain spikes at the back of my scalp as he grips my hair and shakes my head to look at him. “You didn’t know you were dealing on my turf?” His eyes are a pale blue and ice cold. “The whole east side knows it now. So, you’re fucked.” He spits out the words then leaves me, picking up something from the metal table.
Every crunch of bone, every rip of my skin, every deep gouge pushes me closer and closer until I’m holding on to life by a thread.
I even cry out for my mother.
They all laugh in the room. But still, I cry out for her. Praying she can’t see this and what’s happened only weeks after her death. Shame and regret and pain make my head feel light and slowly I feel weightless. So close to death.
Please, just end it. I don’t want to live anymore. I can’t.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
At first, I think they’re guns that wake me, stopping me from drifting to lifelessness.
Bang. Another bang at the door so close to me, yet impossible to reach.
“Please, I need you,” someone says, and her voice sends a chill through my body, but at the same time, warmth. “I need you.” The words are feminine and soft, but with a plea that begs me to listen.
She needs me.
The pain is still vivid with every move of my limbs, but I can hear her if I listen.
The voice turns harder, colder and the air goes frigid.
“I need you, Carter,” she says again but this time there’s no negotiation in her tone. “I need you!” she yells at me.
The anger rising and a storm brewing around me, she screams at me, her voice reverberating in the room, “I still need you!”
Chapter 42
Aria
His arm feels so heavy. I can barely hear my groan as I wake up and try to push away Carter’s arm.
I struggle, but he only squeezes tighter.
My shoulders twist and I push against his arm, but the muscles are coiled, and his grip is too much. I can’t breathe.
My eyes shoot open, realizing this isn’t a dream.
“Carter!” I cry out in a strangled breath, fighting his hold and letting the anxiety rush through my blood to make me kick backward, shoving and heaving to get him off of me. “Wake up!” My heart pounds harder.
I struggle to breathe. My voice croaks and my lungs burn as I yell, “Carter!”
My chest flies forward as he jolts awake, instantly releasing me and leaving me breathless and crumpled on the bed. The mattress dips and groans as Carter gets up. I push the hair from my face and then try to steady my ragged breathing.
It was only a moment – a small moment – maybe a minute in time, but I thought he was going to kill me, he held me so tight.
“You scared the shit out of me.” I barely get the words out, my eyes still burning.
Without an answer, I turn to him and it’s then I see he’s breathing just as heavily as I am. With both palms against the wall, he leans over and tries to calm himself down.
My blood runs cold at the sight of him. “Carter?” My voice carries across the room to him, ignoring how my muscles are screaming still from fighting against his grip.
Getting onto my knees, I crawl to the edge of the mattress. His shoulders are tense, and he won’t look at me.
Cautiously, I climb off the bed and go to him. “It’s okay.” I try to keep my voice soothing, but my body hasn’t caught up to the fact that he needs me. “I’m okay,” I say, trying to reassure him.
With my heart hammering, I gently place a hand on his arm but he’s quick to rip it away and stalk to the bathroom, leaving me with a pounding fear racing through my blood.
“Carter,” I say hesitantly, but he doesn’t respond to me at all.
The question is clear in my mind, go to him or let him be? I’m still catching my breath and waking up as I push my hair from my hot face, registering what just happened.
If I’ve ever
seen a man who shouldn’t be left alone, it’s Carter. He’s too broken, and there’s no telling what he’ll do.
“Was it just a nightmare?” I ask him innocently, wanting him to give me anything. I can feel the rug end and the wood begin as I walk toward him in the dark.
He flicks on the light in the bathroom and runs the water. And I walk toward the sound and strip of light from the bathroom that guides me.
“Carter?” I ask him softly as I push the bathroom door open and see his back to me again. His muscles ripple as he washes his face.
“Please, talk to me,” I whisper weakly when he still doesn’t answer me. Even after he’s dried off his face. “Are you okay?”
I can see him swallow in the mirror. I can see the weary expression of a man who’s led a horrible life. The fatigue in his eyes. The pain etched in the faint scars on his back.
He presses his palms to his eyes and breathes in and out. “Go to bed,” he commands in a harsh tone I don’t expect, although, I don’t leave as asked.
My heart squeezes with pain. I won’t leave him like this. “I don’t want to,” I tell him with barely any courage, the words coming out shaky.
“What happened?” I ask him in a comforting whisper. “It was just a dream,” I tell him, hoping they’ll have more comfort for him than those words do for me.
For the first time, he looks at me in the mirror, and the sight of him sends a chill down my spine. The power, the anger, the man who rules and gives no mercy expecting none in return, pierces me with his gaze.
“Don’t tell anyone.” His words are soft and they hang in the air with a threat. An unneeded and ridiculous threat.
“Tell anyone what?” I question his sanity at this moment, only to realize he doesn’t want me to tell anyone that he had a nightmare. “I wouldn’t. I would never.” My words come out quickly as tears prick my eyes. “That’s not why I’m here, Carter.”
“Go to bed,” he tells me again, although this time his words are softer.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, taking another small step toward him, but still not sure if I should touch him. All I want to do is hold him, pull him close to me and tell him it’s all right. Just like the way he’s held me over the past few weeks. But I don’t even know what happened.
With his grip on the edge of the sink and his head lowered, his voice comes out quietly and nearly menacing but more than that, heart-wrenching.
“Look at me, Aria.” He speaks to me in the mirror, his eyes bloodshot as they stare back at me. “Look at who I am. Nothing about me is okay.”
I stand there shaking, my words and breath caught by the intensity of the man in front of me. Even as he turns off the light, leaving me in darkness as he walks around me, his skin barely grazing mine, I tremble. His pace is ruthless as he leaves me, slamming the door and I’m left stunned and shaken. More than anything, I’m saddened by everything that just happened and so aware of how alone I am as I cry myself to sleep.
Chapter 43
Carter
Somehow, I fucked up.
She’s the one who was supposed to change when I gave her the knife.
She’s the one who should need me.
Not the other way around.
I can’t shake last night or the knowledge that every day Aria seeps deeper into my blood and every thought that I have.
I’m consumed by her. I can’t deny it. She brings out a side of me that should have stayed dead.
“Are you listening?” Daniel asks me, tearing my eyes away from the drawing Aria made yesterday.
He looks as worn out as I feel. It’s because of Addison. She’s not okay being back here. She didn’t realize what this family became after she left. Time changes everything, but she didn’t know. She couldn’t have. And this lockdown leaves us nowhere to hide.
“She needs more than this. She’s not handling the transition well. She needs... she needs to not feel trapped.” Daniel hunches over in his chair, both hands on the back of his head, his elbows on his knees. When he looks up at me, I feel like I truly am the monster Aria calls me for putting him through this. For putting both of them through this. With tears in his eyes, he tells me, “I’m losing her. I don’t want this for her.”
“You’re protecting her,” I remind him. She’s the one they went after and tried to kidnap, to kill, to do whatever they wanted with. She may have been safe if he’d never chased her. If they hadn’t realized he loved her. But you can’t change the past.
“She doesn’t care,” he tells me as he swipes his eyes with the heel of his palm, hiding his pain with a look of anger and annoyance I know is just a ruse. “She thought at first I was overreacting. That it was all in my head and over the incident at her place.” He shakes his head silently before looking me in the eyes. “She said I was being ridiculous. She had no idea. So, I had to tell her.”
“You told her what?” I ask him, just now realizing he’s told her more than she needs to know.
“That men are going to die, and those men want us dead first. I told her we’re at war. She still wants out. She doesn’t like this. And I don’t like keeping her here against her will.”
My voice feels tense and catches in my throat watching him in pain over this.
“She didn’t agree to this. This wasn’t what it was like when we were kids. She had no idea, and I brought her back blindly. I was selfish.” His words are laced with regret. The last sentence comes out in a harsh whisper. “So fucking selfish.” The pain radiates off of him. “I can’t lose her again.”
“You can’t risk her safety either,” I reply and I’m firmer with him than I usually am. We’re at war, and Talvery and his men will attack us the moment they can. “If I were them,” I tell Daniel, “I’d be waiting and any chance I could take to strike first, I’d take it.”
“I know,” he murmurs and hangs his head. “They know they’re dead men; they have nothing to lose. And they’d kill her just because I love her.”
“It’ll all be over soon,” I say to try to offer him comfort as he rests his elbows back on his knees and steeples his fingers, keeping them against his lips.
“I don’t know if she’ll still love me then,” he whispers his pain.
“I know what you mean.” The words slip out and I can’t stop them. Daniel’s eyes hold a question, but he takes a moment to ask it. Waiting and stretching the silence.
“Have you thought for a moment, that maybe keeping her locked up is putting her more at risk? There’s only so much you can control for someone until it turns on you.”
“What choice do I have?” I retort, and his gaze moves to the floor again. “We’re all prisoners of war,” I remind him. “But it will be over soon.”
“When it’s done with… she’ll stay? Aria will stay with you?” he questions me.
I search his face for the intention, why he would even consider her leaving.
“She won’t hold it against you?” he asks me as if knowing what I needed to hear him say in order to answer.
“I don’t know. She’s mine. And she’ll stay with me. Forgiveness will come.”
He starts to say something, readjusting his footing but then he shakes his head.
“I came in to tell you something else, although I’m not sure you want to hear it,” he tells me and straightens in his chair.
I gesture for him to go on. Although, I don’t know why I’m in a rush. I’ve barely spoken to Aria this morning and I’m not sure I’m ready to, not after last night.
I expect him to tell me the same shit Jase has been saying, that Marcus is up to something. Marcus is going to strike. That we have three enemies now, not just one.
Without any proof other than the word of dead men. A single word. The enemies will fall in order: Talvery, Romano, and then Marcus. When we have more proof. I’m not in the habit of starting a war over a single word from the lips of a soon-to-be-dead addict.
“Nikolai is asking around for her,” Daniel tells me and that catches me by su
rprise.
“Is that right?” I ask as my thumb taps against my lip. Resentment stirs inside of me. He brings out a side of jealousy in me that I’ve never felt before. He had her first.
Daniel nods with the hint of amusement at his lips. “Ever since Romano confirmed it.”
“And what’s he asking?”
“How he can get her back.” He doesn’t hide the thrill in his eyes from delivering this news to me.
“You’re a prick for loving this as much as you do.”
“It certainly adds an interesting dynamic, doesn’t it?” he asks and a mix of curiosity, hate, and jealousy mingle in my blood.
“He has nothing to bargain with and even if he did, there’s nothing I’d want in her place.”
“He’s already been told that and that it would be pointless to even ask you, but he demanded you be told.”
“Did he?”
I can’t blame Daniel for being so amused. “He seems to really care for her.”
“Is this the first or second time I’ve told you I want him to die first?” I ask Daniel and he only snorts a laugh. Every night in the cell that Aria spoke his name, my hate for Nikolai grew. And she did it often. I’m fully aware of how close they were. Too fucking close for him to keep breathing when all of this is over.
“You really think she’ll forgive you?” he asks with a cocked brow. I don’t think he realized what his question would do to me.
She’ll have to forgive me. There’s no other way.
I don’t like leaving Aria or being away from the estate right now, especially knowing that every moment I’m away is a moment that threatens to make her question what she should do. That’s a dangerous thought to leave her with; all she should do is what I tell her, but I have to be present for this.
There are times when it’s required to be seen. This particular instance is one of those times. With slicked-back hair and a sharp suit, Oliver looks younger than I remember him. Maybe it’s the wide grin on his face that adds to his youthful appearance. Maybe it’s the shot of what looks like whiskey that he clinks against Frank’s beer and then throws back as he takes his seat. Neither of them sees me, but the security and Jared notice the moment I enter. They tense as I let the back doors close easily behind me, listening to Frank’s hard slap on Oliver’s back in congratulations.
