Disclaim (Deliver #3)

by Pam Godwin

  With a deep breath, she twisted toward him and swung to hook her arms around his neck.

  He didn’t move, but something caught her hands, holding them to the pillow. The fuck? She tried to yank free to no avail, and her pulse detonated.

  The mattress bounced as he leaned toward the side table. The lamp clicked on, and a dim glow illuminated the bed.

  Lying on her back, she angled her neck and spotted two skinny ropes between her hands and the headboard. Her blood turned cold.

  She knew restraints intimately, had fought them and lost too many times. No amount of jerking and yanking would help her, and the ties on her wrists were the kind that constricted under pressure, the braided nylon so thin it blended with the white sheets. No wonder she hadn’t noticed it when she woke.

  “Don’t test the knots.” He crawled over her, easily restraining her kicking legs as he settled his hips between her thighs. Then he braced his elbows on either side of her head, studying her with a predator’s vigilance. “They’ll only cinch tighter and cut off the blood to your hands.”

  But her legs weren’t tied. She relaxed her arms above her head, her hands curling into fists. “Why am I restrained? I’m not—”

  “I want you this way.”

  “I have chlamydia and…and syphilis and—”

  “You’re clean.” He rocked against her, gliding the rigid length of his cock along her mound, breaths slipping, and lids falling half-mast. “We both are.”

  She turned her head away. “You don’t know—”

  “Picar drew our blood and took swab tests on the plane.” He gripped her face and forced her gaze back to his. “I’ve never had sex without a condom.”

  Neither had she, and she sure as fuck didn’t want to start now.

  Except she had always wanted this, with him, without anything between them.

  Not like this.

  “Christ, Camila, I’ve waited—” His fingers slid into her hair and dug against her scalp, eyes searching and voice hoarse. “I’ve waited an eternity for this.”

  Molten gold bled into emerald rings around his irises, the bones of his face sharp across his cheeks, square around his jaw, and exquisitely Matias. Women everywhere probably fell at his feet—with or without his command. How many had sampled his warm skin and tasted his firm lips?

  Her heart twisted. Why did she care? She didn’t, but it still hurt like hell lying beneath him and staring into eyes that had once meant the world to her. And it was only going to get worse. He was going to fuck her and make this ugly goddamn mess of feelings a thousand times uglier and more painful.

  A hot ember sat in her throat. She pinched her lips together, refusing to give voice to her weakness. There was no sane reason for her to feel anything but pure fucking rancor.

  Yeah, that. The anger, the murderous hatred… She grabbed hold of it and let it consume her. Snapping her teeth together, she crunched her abdominals and kicked a leg up and over his shoulder. With a twist of her hips, she landed a knee hard against his jaw, using his shock to drive him to the mattress and into a cry-angle choke.

  But without her arms, she couldn’t stop him from trapping her leg and rotating it. With her kneecap against his torso and the pressure of his upper body against his grip, her leg snapped straight, hyper-extending the knee joint.

  She cried out against the unbearable agony, and the cuts on her legs protested against the strain. She slapped her hands on the bed, thrashing her arms against the rope.

  When he released her, the pain ebbed. Until he tossed her onto her back and crushed her with two-hundred-plus pounds of ravenous need.

  “Fighting me like that?” He buried his face in her neck. “A huge turn on.” His hands frantically stroked every inch of her he could reach. “You’re killing me.”

  She shook with volcanic rage. “Then die already!”

  A muscle bounced in his jaw, and his eyes flickered with…hurt?

  Fuck his feelings. She dug her heels into the mattress and tried to buck off his heavy-ass body.

  He let her struggle for the span of a few heartbeats, while he rubbed and caressed and kissed her skin, the fucking bastard. Then without warning, he wrapped a hand around her throat and pressed hard against her windpipe, instantly subduing her.

  “If you kick your legs again…” He stared at her like a nocturnal predator, a creature at home in the shadows of hell. “I’ll restrain them to the bed, spread eagle.”

  Flashes of white blotted out his scowl. She couldn’t breathe beneath his hand, couldn’t speak, but she opened her mouth in a plea for air.

  He let go, and she gulped, lungs heaving. She yanked against the rope, unable to pull her hands to her aching throat.

  As she caught her breath, he returned his attention to her body, fingers roaming, his mouth feeding on her skin, licking and biting.

  “You’ve always been beautiful.” He kissed his way toward her pussy. “Your confidence. Your spirit. Your body.” He nibbled on her hipbone. “Look at you. Fuck, Camila. You can’t possibly be real.”

  She deflated beneath him, and tears gathered in her eyes. She couldn’t fight against his words. Why was she even fighting at all? She’d known this would happen before she left Texas.

  Because it’s Matias.

  The same Matias who chained her to a post and caned her. And he could do it again if she continued to push his patience.

  She blinked, and the tears knocked free, trickling down her temples.

  His shoulders lowered between her legs, his hands spreading her thighs wide and baring her cunt for his gaze. But he didn’t look down, instead holding her gaze for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then his focus drifted to the tracks of her tears.

  His expression clouded with an emotion she’d never seen there, not once in the countless times he’d witnessed her cry as a child. Was it guilt? Pity?

  Whatever it was softened his features and wrinkled his brow, giving him a brooding, contemplative visage. It only added to his exotic beauty, the stubble on his face dark and dangerous against a complexion that glowed like bronze in the sun. His allure was so intoxicating it was painful to look at him.

  “Don’t pity me, Matias.” She rolled her shoulders against the mattress, stretched her fingers to grip the bottom edge of the wooden headboard, and forced her gaze to his. “It’s the wrong feeling for what’s happening here.”

  The muscles in his face tightened, all softness gone. “Pity is not what I’m feeling right now.”

  He dipped his head between her legs and inhaled deeply. His fingers clamped tighter around the backs of her thighs as he smelled her, dragged his nose through her folds, then buried his mouth.

  She arched her back, stunned by the assault of sensations. It took several seconds for her lower body to rouse, but when it did, her pussy throbbed hard and greedily, soaking her with a rush of arousal.

  He moaned against her cunt, his tongue strong and firm as it lapped and swirled and dipped inside.

  Shame coiled in her belly, and a whimper escaped her lips. This wasn’t supposed to feel good. It was wrong, sick, fucked up in the worst way possible.

  His eyes stayed on her, his kiss aggressive, frantic, and so damn sexual. Then his fingers joined in, stabbing, curling, and stealing her air. His muscled shoulders contracted with his frenzied movements, pressing against the backs of her legs as he bit and sucked her delicate flesh.

  Each lick was a rasping whisper, liquefying everything in its path as it penetrated deep, coaxing and seducing the dark cravings inside her. She didn’t want this. She didn’t. Yet her entire body hummed with pleasure. It had never been this good. Ever. Not when he was younger, not with anyone, and she despised him most of all for that.

  His groaning kiss might’ve felt like heaven, but his demon tongue was an enticement to hell. This was worse than him fucking her dry. He was turning her body against her, using their familiar intimacy to make her wet and twist her up.

  Arms above her head, legs spread, and nippl
es erect in the lazy breeze from the ceiling fan, her traitorous body melted beneath the sensual slide of his mouth. She focused on the fan blades, watching them go round and round—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—in rhythm with her heart and the throb against his tongue.

  Eventually, his lashes lowered, concealing the predatory glow in his eyes. She found relief in that, until his fingers strummed against her thigh, tightening and loosening, as if he were trying to hide the shaking. He used to do that when they were teenagers, quaking and twitching his hands when he was overly excited and trying not to come.

  Her chest constricted. He was a rancid poison, injecting himself into her system. Circulating through her blood. Breaking her down and rotting her from the inside out.

  But the poison thinned as she climbed. He floated her up and halfway down again. The smell of his rotten intent still lingered, but underneath, she tasted ecstasy. Because he’d brought her to the cliff, and though she fought against the fall, his tongue was too talented, knew her body too well, and he pushed her over.

  She moaned as blissful shocks burst across her nerve endings, spreading outward, trembling her legs, and wiping her mind. She spun through a vortex of unimaginable pleasure where she didn’t need air or legs or wings, because he was there, catching her, holding her, and carrying her through the haze. He was with her, protecting. Mine.

  Her arms twisted in the ropes as she clung to the lingering sensations, quivering and gasping to catch her breath.

  When she finally came down, the weight of what just happened pressed against her chest.

  He’d made her come, and it left her feeling more alive than she’d ever felt in her life.

  And raw. So fucking raw it hurt in places she couldn’t identify or reach.

  Why hadn’t he just raped her without all the foreplay and eye contact? He could’ve fucked her, gotten off on whatever sick shit he was into, then left her the fuck alone to lick her wounds. She could survive physical pain. But this…this godawful ache inside her? She didn’t even know where to start.

  “How long has it been?” He kissed the hood of her clit and leaned up on his elbows.

  “How long for what?” she snapped.

  “Since someone ate your pussy.”

  “A week ago.” She considered leaving it at that, but since he wanted to stick his fucking nose in her business… “Larry McGregor had skills.”

  “What?” he bellowed and shot up off the bed, his face contorted and fiery red. He swung an arm out and sent the lamp crashing to the floor, spinning the glowing light through the room. “You fucked that worthless son of a bitch?”

  “No.” Heart thundering, she slammed her legs together and scooted toward the headboard. “I let him go down on me so I could—” Shit. She’d said too much.

  “So you could put him in a chokehold,” he said, voice cold and deadly calm. “Same thing you just tried on me.”

  Technically, it was a different chokehold, but she wasn’t about to point that out.

  He stood with his back to her, the brawn of his ass hard and flexed like a gladiator preparing for battle. She’d seen his nude body so many times, but that was before. This body was so much bigger, his thighs cut and dusted with dark hair, his waist narrow and widening into defined shoulders, and his spine straight and confident.

  He was power and danger and persuasion, and she was a quivering blob tied to his bed.

  Scrubbing a hand over his head, he dragged it down his face, his profile angled downward as he glared at the glowing exposed bulb on the broken lamp. The heave of his back slowed, and he seemed to be reigning in his temper.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his cock still hard and jutting upward as he shifted his gaze to her. “When was the last time you had sex?”

  She hesitated. Did the truth really matter? Would it reveal a weakness or some hidden psychological condition he could use against her? She didn’t think so. “Four years ago.”

  “Four—” He choked, his head tilting and expression perplexed.

  No, not perplexed. Possessive.

  Maybe she should’ve lied.

  He crawled toward her with a feral glint in his eyes. She tucked her legs close to her body, but he caught her ankles and dragged her down the mattress on her back.

  “Four years ago,” he said quietly and wedged his hips between her thighs.

  The last time she’d felt his weight on her, he’d been on the thin side of sexy, but now he was stacked with compact muscle, his shoulders beautifully sculptured, and his torso a rippling slab of intimidation. It was like being pinned by a fallen tree. With eight-pack abs.

  With a hand in her hair, his other reached down to cup her pussy. His mouth parted with the acceleration of his breaths as he sank two fingers in, teasing and tormenting.

  “What about you?” Her voice shivered as she tried to block out the warmth and pressure of his hand.

  “I’ll tell you.” He brushed his lips against hers. “But not right now.”

  Anger sparked in her veins. Typical evasive Matias, telling her exactly nothing.

  He sucked on her bottom lip, his fingers curling lazily inside her. “We always talked about our first time together, how perfect it would be.”

  She didn’t want that memory here. It was too sweet, too fragile. “Don’t do this.”

  “This isn’t going to be perfect. It’s going to be ugly and conflicted, because you can’t get out of that damn head of yours, and I’m too fucking worked up to draw this out. But when I’m inside you, it will always be honest.”

  Honest? She buried her fingernails into her palms. “Fuck you.”

  “In a second.” He slid his fingers out of her and gripped his cock, seating himself at her opening. Then he held her head in his hands and rested his forehead against hers. “I need you with me, mi vida. Forget about all the bullshit and just focus on us.”

  “There is no—”

  He kissed her, forcibly, hungrily, his mouth rough and wet and persistent. She tasted herself on his lips, a despicable reminder that she’d orgasmed on his forked tongue.

  His hips rocked, just enough to press his tip inside, and stopped. His legs shook, and his fingers curled against her scalp as if he were struggling with the need to slam all the way in.

  “It’s just you and me in this bed.” He licked her lips and kissed the corners of her mouth. “No history. No future. Nothing but right now and us.”

  The intensity of his eyes seemed to say so much more than his words. His pupils pulsed, dark and bottomless but not empty. There was something there, way down deep. Something huge and profound. She peered in, all the way inside his soul, and she felt it instantly. They both did, their breaths hitching as one.

  In that frozen space of time, she saw not the monster that sold women into slavery, but the boy who had kissed all her scrapes and scratches, taught her how to face her fears, and promised her he would never let her fall. The bond she had with that boy was still alive, right here in this bed. It was more mature now, scarier, stronger, but it held her just as tightly, demanding she give herself in return, and she wanted that. Desperately.

  She nodded her consent, a reflex that immediately warped into regret, then panic, but it was too late.

  He thrust, his head falling to her shoulder. “Ahhh, God. So tight.” He worked his hips, inching through her wetness and pushing, pushing, to fill her fully. “Fuck, let me in.”

  Desire thickened his voice and shivered through her. She squeezed her fingers against the headboard and tried to relax her inner muscles, but he was huge, his girth stretching and invading until, finally, he was buried balls deep and panting.

  “Oh fuck, Camila. Fuck.” His chest vibrating with a deep groan. “Hold on.”

  Then he fucked her, and she did hold on—to the headboard. Her emotions, however, were slipping through her fingers. She tried to separate, tried not to feel anything as he pounded inside her, his hands everywhere, caressing her chest, her hips, her legs. But it was the potency of his
eyes, his gaze never leaving hers, that held her there, commanding her to stay.

  He pressed her knees to her shoulders, deepening the angle as he hammered in and out, faster, harder, his passion unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Pleasure fired through her nerve endings, and she tried to pretend she felt nothing, tried to block it all out.

  But she felt everything—every slide of his cock and curl of heat, the spasmodic quivers across her skin, and the needy grip of her pussy. Her body wanted this, and she hated it. Hated herself.

  He kissed her urgently between heaving breaths, his grunts and groans unrestrained and his body a contracting tireless machine.

  With his tongue in her mouth and his bruising grip on her legs, he slammed against the back of her cunt, ignoring the flinch of her body. He took her harshly, fervently, as if he were fucking her with every torment, dedication, and dream in his soul.

  This was what was missing in all her one-night stands. This driving vehemence to give and take, the devastating risk to own or disclaim, to just toss it all out there, consequences be damned. She had no defense against this. No amount of shutting down or tensing up could overpower the force of his gaze or the urgency in which he consumed her.

  Each drugging stroke tore at the surface of her shields, burrowing into her secret places and unleashing dark things—filthy desires of being taken, used, dominated, and…loved. Exactly like this.

  The rope prevented her from moving her hands. His strength stopped her from lowering her legs. The steadiness in his gaze forced her to look at him, and in his eyes, she saw herself in a way that terrified her.

  She was a powerless woman beneath a powerful man. She couldn’t dictate positions and speeds or the degree of pain and pleasure. She wasn’t having sex to wheedle information, control the results, or search for meaning in her life.

  Yet there was power in just being, in letting it all go as he made the rules, led the movements, and determined the purpose. It felt…right. Amid the ugly, conflicted honesty of what was really happening, it was perfect.

  She didn’t just feel him between her legs. She felt him everywhere, ripping her apart and putting her back together in a way that served him. But somehow, it served her, too.