Seared

by Suleikha Snyder

  Again, two choices loomed before him. Neither one involved barricading himself in his bedroom, since he was already there and quite defenseless.

  In the end, Lachlan picked the road not taken, the path not plowed. Something, something, diverged in extremely painful wood.

  He turned to his side, grasped Naya’s thigh and pulled it over his hip.

  And then he stuck his dick in her.

  * * *

  I was ready for him—so ready—but I still gasped when he sank into me. Because this was Lachlan, and the sense of fullness, of stretch and then of give, was something we’d craved from each other for years. It should’ve been awkward—my killer dress, having done its job, was practically hiked up around my ears, and he’d just finished laughing his head off like a lunatic—but it was perfect. This man had flogged me. He’d whipped me. He’d come in my mouth. We had no barriers left, no walls to climb, but this one.

  He fucked into me slowly, pulling out and then stroking in deep. I could hear him breathing, the harsh, rasping, sounds of him trying to master his control and make this last. And we were face to face, eye to eye, watching every blink, memorizing every nuance. No more hiding. No more lies. There was nothing between us but skin and sweat and our mingled essences.

  We’d talked about birth control, and about fluid transfer, in general terms during one of our play sessions. Clinical terms. Like laying out the details of a formal contract. There was nothing clinical or formal about his bare cock inside me now. About his body slapping into mine. About reaching out and wrapping my arms around him and whispering “thank you,” before I kissed him with my heart and my tongue.

  He trusted me. With the truth. With himself. With the whole sticky, messy, beautiful package. “Thank you” wasn’t even enough.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “We’re not discussing my love life.”

  “Ugh. Lock. The list of things we don’t discuss is way longer than the things we do discuss.”

  “There’s a reason for that, brat.”

  “Is she prettier than me?”

  “Keep stirring, you don’t want the milk to curdle—and no one is prettier than you.”

  He’d been wrong all those years ago. Because he was prettier. Golden and ginger and rough. He fit into me like a puzzle piece. Like I was the lock and he was my key. But we still weren’t close enough. Still not entirely skin to skin. I wanted the friction of his chest hair against my breasts, and his lips tasting the lines of my collarbone. I wanted to feel him neck to groin, head to toe. My dress felt like the wrong kind of armor now, like a chastity belt or a nun’s habit. Keeping me too covered, constricting my movements.

  I can’t...I need...take it off me...please. All of a sudden I was stifling, trapped, stuck. Desperate to be free of this lovely designer thing I’d put on just a few hours before. I pulled back, conscious of the slick sounds between us as we separated, of the question in his eyes as I circled the head of his cock with my fingers. “I want to be naked,” I told him. “I need to be naked.”

  I got no argument. Lock proved he was just as masterful at removing clothes as he was at cooking and beating me and making love. By the time my push-up bra joined my shoes in some far-flung corner of the room, we were finding our rhythm again. Him on top, me below. My legs over his shoulders. The angle brought him deeper, harder, closer. He slammed into me again and again, my name a strangled groan spilling from his parted lips.

  He was so pretty, so unbelievably gorgeous. I could watch him forever. I could take him forever. I would love him forever.

  On some level, I’d known that for ten years. But, here and now, in this bed—where I saw nothing but him, felt nothing but him, knew nothing but him—it was crystal clear. He was my stepbrother, my partner, my teacher, my lover...and the man I would love for the rest of my life.

  And, God, it was good. So good. Fucking him like this was a different rush than subspace. Not flying, but grounded. Anchored by Lock. Everything was here. Everything was now. His feral grunts. My high, keening sighs and moans. I could hear us. Hear me. No flowery script, no choreographed love scene on a closed set, could compare to reality. To the sexy-unsexy sounds of animalistic fucking.

  “Naya...my Naya,” he groaned, wrapping one hand around my knee and spreading me wider Impossibly wider. Like he could fit his entire body into my needy cunt if he just tried.

  I was happy to let him attempt it, arching off the bed, canting my hips, holding the pose like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat on a silken tether. Every muscle, every nerve, every synapse, was alive for this moment. Yes. Deeper. Harder. More. I could feel it building, tightening, strangling me and setting me free at the same time. So close. Almost there. Please, Lock. Please.

  “Come,” I heard myself beg in a voice as breathy as a porn star’s. “Come in me. I need you to come in me now.”

  “With you,” Lachlan growled as he drove his cock into me one more time. “Only with you.”

  And I listened to him. Every part of me heard him, especially the needy ball of tension that was my pussy. When he began to pulse with climax, so did I. OhGodohGodohGod. Oh. Lock. It ripped through me, wrecked me, and pushed me off the cliff. We went over the edge together, hand in hand and heart to heart.

  I almost did the cliché thing and whispered “I love you.” Almost. I bit the words back, clung to Lachlan and shuddered until the last ripples of orgasm faded to sated bliss.

  And then I did the second-most cliché thing: I wept.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lachlan tasted her tears. They were salty and silent. Born, he knew, of exhilaration and completion and not sadness. The same emotions collapsed him atop her, overwhelmed and overcome. Or perhaps just the right amount of come. They were both sticky with it. He’d flooded her, she’d bathed him. And he knew he should get up, find a cloth, wash her clean...but there was a basic, primal part of him that just wanted to howl. He’d marked her in the most animal of ways, given her his seed. He understood, on a visceral level, why wolves mated for life.

  No one could ever take Naya from him now.

  He’d been an idiot for thinking that they could survive apart. Arrogant for thinking himself that capable, that powerful. Wanting to dominate her in bed didn’t mean he could master their fate, their bond.

  He breathed her in. Kissed her mouth once more before rolling to his side and pillowing his head on his arm. I could look at you forever. She was always beautiful, but with her makeup smeared and the sheen of sweat cooling on her golden skin she was luminous.

  Her brows furrowed, and she reached out to trace his...as if he’d mirrored her and scrunched up his own. “What are you thinking?” she wondered.

  How much of the truth should he tell her? There was really no debate. He could only ever be honest with her now. “I’m thinking that I was utterly stupid in Mumbai. And that I never should’ve hurt you that way.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.” She stretched like a cat in the sun, her arms going above her head and her fingertips dusting his wrought iron headboard. He’d have to chain her to it sometime...hurt her in the way that they both craved. “Trust is a two-way street,” she murmured. And then she sat up, the curtain of her hair spilling to one side as she shook her head and glared at him. “Did you think I wouldn’t understand blackmail, Lock? Seriously? I write for a soap opera.”

  He had to laugh. “We are a soap opera.”

  She could hardly maintain a proper scowl in the face of that. She giggled. “Good point.”

  “I’ve been known to make a few.”

  “But you make mistakes, too.” Too quickly they were back to serious matters. Well, as serious as things could be when they were both naked and had just fucked one another senseless. Naya drew her knees up to her chin, a siren in a child-like pose. “Don’t shut me out anymore. I need to know what’s going on. I need to fight whatever this is beside you, not packed away in a boarding school or sniffling into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.”

  Lachlan loat
hed having to say it all aloud. The last thing he wanted to do was put his father’s ugliness into words.

  “Silence gives it power,” Naya pointed out, as if she could read his mind. And perhaps, after all this time, she could. “You know how it works in all the stories. Naming the monster is what lets it be killed.”

  He tried to mask his trepidation, his attack of cowardliness, with gruffness. “How did you get so bloody smart?”

  “I’ve always been this smart,” she scoffed. “You just noticed my boobs first.”

  Lachlan sputtered. “Naya, you were sixteen when we met,” he reminded. Sixteen and then seventeen and utterly engaging. Damn his eyes. Damn his soul. “Your breasts were not that impressive.”

  “Ah-ha...so you did notice!” She grinned at him victoriously.

  “Brat.” It was his turn to glare. And to circle back to the more pressing topic of the hour. “Ranulf hated it from the start. How we clicked. How I took to you. He wanted me to use Jyoti for her skills, for her connections. Not to be distracted by a girl.”

  Neither he nor Ranulf could have anticipated the sort of girl Naya would turn out to be. The kind that inspired obsession and devotion and a fierce protectiveness. The kind that made all other conquests, including professional ambitions, seem meaningless in comparison. From the very beginning, Lock had needed to know her. As if some unnameable corner of his heart knew he’d be poorer for the lack.

  Naya’s snort of disbelief yanked him back from the realm of romantic musings. “Did he expect you to be a monk while climbing up the culinary ranks? Because that was unlikely.”

  “No.” Because of his kinks, not only was it unlikely but it was impossible. “I think I was fourteen or so the first time he told me that I could shag all the women I wanted, but I wasn’t to form any ‘unnecessary attachments.’”

  “And being friends with me was totally an ‘attachment.’” Scorn dripped from her words, but Naya’s gaze was warm and loving. So was the way she reached out and patted his shoulder, offering sincere comfort for something said and done so long ago.

  Lachlan caught her fingers and brought them to his lips. Then he sat up, grabbing some pillows and stuffing them behind him so he had something to lean on. If he was going to delve into Ran’s psyche, he certainly didn’t want to do it lying down. “I think he knew it was more than friendship even before we did,” he confessed once he got comfortable. “The old buzzard always did have a knack for finding people’s weaknesses. And you were there. You saw how it all was: the comments, the coldness, tracking our outings. He couldn’t stand the sight of us with our heads together.”

  In fact, Lock was ninety-eight percent convinced that his father hadn’t spoken more than ten words to Naya for the duration of his and Jyoti’s marriage.

  She shrugged, the motion pushing up her tits in the most delightful manner. “I thought he was just being controlling. Taking the whole gothic asshole-Lord-of-the-Manor thing too far.”

  Ha. No. Nothing was ‘too far’ for dear ol’ Dad. “There was no ‘just’ about it,” he assured, grimly. “Ran was having us watched. Followed. Photographed.”

  “Photographed?” The blood drained from her face. “But we never...there wasn’t...”

  “No. We never did anything untoward,” he agreed. “But pictures can be altered.”

  She cursed in Marathi. Words he didn’t even realize she knew...but she’d probably picked them up the same place he had. Her mother’s kitchen. “So, the pictures are why I was sent away. He blackmailed you and laid down the law and had me shipped off to Europe,” she concluded. “And they still exist, don’t they?”

  He didn’t want to confirm it for her. Hell, he didn’t want to confirm it for himself. He wanted to live in denial. But there was no chance of that happening as long as Kyle Attwood held all the cards. “Oh, no, darling,” he sighed, dragging one hand through his hair. “It’s much worse now. Now, there’s video.”

  “Oh my God.” She turned from death pale to green. For a moment, he expected her to bolt from the bed and toward the en suite bathroom. But after a few seconds, she seemed to marshal herself. She took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled. “That’s completely vile,” she said, still sounding a bit queasy. “What kind of parent does that to their child? What does he even have to gain by holding this over your head now? He’s dead, for God’s sake.”

  “I wish I knew.” Lachlan grasped her ankles and pulled her across the tangled sheets, tipping her into his arms. He pressed his lips to her hair, her temple, and the stubborn arches of her eyebrows. Naya was his touchstone. His center. His home base. He would never give her up. Never lose her again. Even if they were never rid of his father’s shadow. “I was naive to think him kicking off would set me free...would set us free.”

  Naya tilted her head and peered up at him. “I think only we can do that,” she pointed out. “This is in our hands now.” She entwined the hands in question, her fingers interlacing with his and squeezing. “We’ve got to beat this.”

  Easier said than done, unfortunately. He’d gone over several scenarios during the past few days and come up largely empty. “Short of killing the lawyer, how precisely do we manage that?”

  His adorable little sex goddess wrinkled her nose in distaste. Murder was such a nasty business, after all. “Hold your horses there, Shakespeare,” she admonished. “There are other ways. Less violent, equally effective, ways.”

  He would say he didn’t like the look on her face, but he actually quite adored it. Devious. Glowing with Machiavellian possibility. It got him hard all over again, and he nudged his cock between her thighs for another go. “Do tell,” he urged, as he locked her legs round his waist and sank into her delicious heat.

  Naya accepted him with a cry of surprise that morphed into a moan of pleasure. She slowly began to ride him, settling back on his knees and bracing her palms on the mattress. Her beautiful mouth curved into a predatory smile.

  “How do you feel about hacking?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  When you asked for a man's thoughts on cybercrime in the middle of sex, chances were the answer would be significantly delayed. Such was the case for Lock. And, if I were to be honest with myself, I had other things at the top of my priority list, too. Ten years of repressed longing to work through, for one. Learning what rhythm and what position made him come the hardest, for another.

  We'd already done kink together, loved each other with hands and mouths, but this was our first time.

  Him inside me. Me taking him. Bare. A skin to skin commitment. No less intimate than a whipping. No less of a promise than a flogging. But, yet, somehow more. Because we'd wanted it so much, denied it so long, and now there was nothing stopping us.

  “Again,” I whispered over and over. Until we were exhausted in both flesh and spirit, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, sex-scent heavy in the air.

  “You're insatiable,” Lachlan groaned, one arm thrown across his eyes as he shuddered like a thoroughbred who'd just run the Derby. “I can't keep doing this. I can't keep up.”

  “And I haven't even hit my sexual peak,” I pointed out. “Give me a few years.”

  “You're going to kill me, Woman. I'm going to die of fucking you.” The Scottish burr that had got buried in a mishmash of proper British diction and Americanisms emerged, and he sounded so much like Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons that I giggled.

  “What?” He peeked at me from beneath his arm, but I wasn't about to explain my friends’ obsessions with American cartoons. It was right up there with my '90s male power ballad fixation.

  I began humming “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You” as I slowly sat up and stretched my sore limbs. I could feel Lachlan's gaze on me, lingering on my throat, my tits, my belly. Everywhere he'd explored with his kisses and his touch. There were red marks all over me from his beard stubble. If I was lucky, black and blue ones would join them soon.

  “You're so fucking lovely,” he said, giving up all pretense of
exhaustion and watching me openly. “Do you even know how beautiful you are?”

  “Yes.” And it was true. I did. I'd been lucky—possessing confidence in my abilities and looks that had buoyed me through both adolescent heartbreaks (thanks, Lock) and adult failures. And though it was weird to think of Mom while I was naked, I had to give her credit, too: She'd fostered my self esteem, made me value both my body and my brain. But knowing I was beautiful didn't make it any less wonderful that the man in my life thought so, too. I grinned at Lachlan, my skin tingling with the heat of a blush. “Feel free to say so as often as possible.”

  “Brat,” he murmured, reaching out and dragging me against his chest.

  Would I ever get tired of him growling pet names at me? No. Just like I would never tire of how he ducked his head and kissed me, frying my neurons with the calculated siege led by his lips and tongue.

  Lachlan, Lachlan, Lachlan. Together we were going to conquer the world. And we would start with one weasel of an attorney. Maybe not right this second, though, I reasoned as Lock's cock swelled between us. Maybe payback could wait another two hours.

  I arched my eyebrows at him. “So, I’m a brat, huh? Then maybe I deserve a spanking?”

  He laughed. “There’s no ‘maybe’ about it, Naya.”

  The flat of his hand came down on my ass before I even had time to assume the proper position. And I gasped and wriggled. The slight sting was the perfect tease before I lay across his lap for a proper punishment. Thwack. He hit me again. Harder. Controlled and yet wild. His dick throbbed with every blow, and I could feel his pre-come warm against my belly. Thwack. Thwack. The throb I felt was different, A steady vibration as consistent as the pain. He alternated cheeks, hitting me with the same artistry he displayed with a flogger.

  I loved this. The kind of hurt that only came from trust. The bruises that were better gifts than rings or roses. Other men had tried to give me this, but they'd been stand-ins for Lock. He was the only one whose hands I wanted on me. He was the only person who could even try to master me. And I craved it as much as I fought it. Because that was part of what got me off: resisting, pushing back, stealing the reins from him. I only wanted to break if he shattered, too.