by Roni Loren
“Did you tell him I was coming?”
“No. He just came home a little while ago from another meeting with the FBI and went straight into his room.”
I took a shaky breath. “Wish me luck, then.”
“You’ll probably need it, doc. He hates the world right now and everyone in it.”
“How could he not?”
Pike nodded grimly. “Yeah.”
I set my purse down on the counter and headed toward Foster’s room. He may hate the world, but I loved him. And I’d waited far too long to tell him that.
I knocked on the door.
Chapter 40
There was no answer on the first knock, so I rapped the door again.
“Fuck off, Pike. I’m busy.”
I wet my lips. “It’s Cela.”
There was silence on the other side for a long few seconds. I started to wonder if he’d heard me, but then the door opened.
Foster stood there, clean shaven and put together on the surface, but when I met his eyes I saw the hollowness there. “What are you doing here?”
His tone was flat, and I had to swallow past the anxiety of barging in on him while he was going through all of this. Maybe I was overstepping, maybe our relationship was more of a fun, sexy thing, and I wasn’t welcome into his world for the big things like grief and tragedy and loss. Insecurity made me want to shrink back, but I pressed on, clearing my throat. “I wanted to . . .”
“Say you’re sorry? Offer your condolences?”
The words were sharp and his grip tight on the door, but I recognized this mode. The dagger eyes, the movements that seemed both like aggression and retreat wrapped into one. I’d seen it time and again with animals when they were injured. Even the sweetest, gentlest pet could turn into a fire-breathing hound from hell when they were hurt. Bad news for Foster was that I wouldn’t be scared off by it. Those were the animals most in need of help.
I squared my shoulders. “I am sorry. So very sorry, Foster. But I came here for you. To help with whatever you might need.”
He scoffed. “Help. Like there’s anything anyone can do. She’s dead, Cela. My beautiful, innocent baby sister, raped and murdered by that fucking monster.” Utter anguish crumpled his features for a moment before he pulled his expression back to its hard edge. “All because I gave him opportunity. I took my eyes off of her, and he took her. So, unless you have a time machine to go fix that, there is no goddamned help to be had.”
I closed my eyes, the despair of his words, the life sentence he’d assigned himself making me physically hurt for him.
“So, go home. It’s not a good time.”
He moved to close the door and I stepped forward, my hand smacking the wood as I blocked it from shutting, and strode past him. “Well, that’s too bad because if you want me to leave, you’re going to have to carry me out. And I may kick and scream. Just warning you.”
He turned, his face going blank for a moment at my declaration, then annoyed. “What the hell?”
“You’re grieving and you’re angry. I understand that. But now’s not the time to be alone.”
“The hell it’s not.”
“I love you.”
He stilled. “What? Cela, no, I can’t deal with this right now . . .”
I didn’t let that response deter me. I knew he loved me, he’d told me—even if he couldn’t quite access that emotion right now. My gaze flicked toward the open door, a crazy idea popping into my head. Last time when he’d tried to push me away, I’d let him. He’d needed an outlet for his anger, his anxiety, and I’d left him to call some other woman.
No way that shit was happening again. I loved him. And that meant all parts. Even the mean side that came out when his hurt or fear took over.
I put my fingers to the top button of my shirt, slipping it out of the hole.
His eyes followed the movement of my hands. “What are you doing?”
I caught his stare and went for the next button. “I told you I’m here for whatever you need. I’m tough. Take whatever it is going on inside you and let it out on me.”
“What?” His voice was a low roar.
“Flog me, spank me, fuck me. I don’t care. Take all of that crap you have raging inside of you and let it out. Give me your anger . . . sir.” I let my shirt fall to the ground.
“Put your goddamned clothes on, Cela,” he said, raking a hand through his hair like a man on the brink. “You don’t need to be around me right now. I don’t trust myself.”
I went for the button on my shorts and tugged them off, my heartbeat like a hummingbird’s wings flapping against my ribs. “I do.”
“You’re fucking out of your mind, then.” He glanced at the open door as if just realizing I was exposed if Pike walked by and slammed the door shut. “You think sex is going to fix this? Fix me?”
I discarded my bra and panties, my body quaking from the risk I knew I was taking. It was like taunting a caged animal who was ready to tear apart its next victim. I stood there stark naked in front of him and pulled my hair from the band that held my ponytail.
“No, I don’t think sex will. But owning me might.” I lowered to my knees. “Give me your worst, Foster. I won’t say no. And I won’t run away.”
He laced his hands behind his head, and I could see the utter agony there, the struggle. “Don’t say things like that. It’s a lie. Everybody leaves, Cela. Everybody. Anytime things seem like they’re going to be okay, life fucking blindsides you. And you’ll be no different. Why should I deserve to have you anyway? I couldn’t even take care of my own family.”
My fingers curled at my sides, my whole being yearning to reach out to him and hold him, reassure him. But I knew that it would do no good. Every instinct inside me told me he needed an outlet for all this emotion, action not talking. “I’m not going anywhere, so I guess you’re going to have to make me.”
He stared down at me like I’d been replaced by some pod person. “Did you not hear me? Can’t you see I’m fucked up right now? If I touch you, I’ll hurt you. Get. Out.”
On a surge of bravery and pure emotion, I pushed to my feet and shoved him hard in the chest—like I was picking some schoolyard fight. Surprise was on my side, and I managed to knock him back a step, his shoulder hitting the door. “I said make me.”
He blinked, momentarily stunned into silence, then outrage leaked into those blue eyes. He grabbed me by the arms, his fingers like vice grips to the soft flesh there, and spun me until my back was against the door. His mouth came down hard against mine in a clash of lips and teeth. I gasped into the kiss and opened to him, still scared for what I may have gotten myself into but ready to help him exorcise the demons. Bruises and bites would heal. I could handle his roughness. But I refused to accept the coldness, the distance, the shutting down.
I’d fallen in love with a passionate, beautiful man, and I wasn’t going to let that man be another victim of the killer who’d taken his sister.
Foster’s kiss was hungry and violent and like nothing he’d ever shown me before. I could feel the fury and frustration rumbling through him. He released my arms from the death grip and tangled fingers in my hair as he deepened the kiss, taking, taking, taking. I was breathless and panting when he finally wrenched away. “Make you, huh? You want my worst. You may regret that in a minute.”
“No regrets, sir.”
That seemed to make him angrier, his teeth clenching. Without finesse, he pushed me down to my knees via the tight hold he still had on my hair and unbuttoned his jeans with his free hand. I resisted the urge to grab for my head and rub my stinging scalp. “You think you can make it all better, angel? Think a good cocksucking can fix it all?”
The words were meant to be crude and ugly. He was trying to make me hate him, to make me leave, to prove himself right. But all I heard was that he’d called me angel for the first time tonight. And if he thought forcing me to give him a blow job was a hardship, he didn’t know just how good a submissive he’d trai
ned. My body was already responding to his commands. And I wanted nothing more than to offer him some sort of pleasure to break up all that torment he’d been suffering through.
I reached out, yanking down his boxers and pants, and smiled inwardly. Despite his anger and all of his protests, he was hard and proud, ready for me. Before I could lean forward to take him, he tightened his grip on my hair and guided his cock into my mouth, setting the pace, holding on to all the control.
I got the message. I was his to use however he wanted. He would offer me no kindness right now because I’d goaded him into this. Perhaps I should’ve minded that. Old me would’ve thought to object. But the move sent a buzz through my brain, activating all those lovely things that submission seemed to bring with it. I hummed with pleasure as the tip of his cock touched the back of my throat.
“That’s right. Make those pretty sounds. You like being used like my whore?” Foster asked through gritted teeth. “Because that’s what you’re asking for right now.”
The word whore would’ve cut me deep a few months ago. He knew that. And a rush of ire went through me. Hardheaded bastard. He was working really hard to run me off. But he wasn’t going to win this battle. I didn’t believe his bullshit. I lifted my gaze to his, determined, and rolled my tongue around the head of his cock, teasing and torturing. Seducing.
“Fuck.” He pulled out and stepped back, his hand still in my hair. I smiled up at him, challenging him. His mouth thinned into a firm, pissed-off line. “Get on the bed. On your belly. We’ll see how long you can hold that smile.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, quite demurely, embracing all the brattiness that I had in me. “You’re not going to break me. You realize that, right?”
His eyes flared—part fury, part unfettered animalistic lust. “Oh, is that right?”
He grasped me by the back of the neck and marched me over to the bed, bending me over the side of it. His hand came down hard on my ass and thighs in a quick, vicious volley of smacks. I cried out, unable to hold back the reaction, but holding still nonetheless, refusing to show any weakness.
“You’re so brave now, is that it? You think a few times with me and you can handle whatever I dish out?” He spanked me again, right on top of a fresh mark. I bit the inside of my cheek. “You have no idea what I’m capable of right now, have no idea.”
“I love you,” I said softly.
“Goddammit, Cela. Stop saying that,” he said, his voice strangled.
“No, sir.”
He stalked off and I heard the closet door opening. I braced myself, knowing that I’d pushed him even further. I was playing with fire near a propane tank, and we both knew it. The air shifted behind me, a cool breeze coasting over my burning skin as he moved back in place. Then whatever he’d grabbed was coming down on my back—biting, wicked lashes. Something he hadn’t used on me before, a belt of some sort maybe. One! Two! Three! I lost count after that, my thoughts blurring at the edges as adrenaline pumped hard through my veins.
I pressed my cheek into the sheets, my eyes starting to water. I couldn’t tell if they were tears or not. I didn’t care. I could feel the emotion behind every swing, the desperation channeling through him. Everything trapped inside him was pouring out into the blows.
Wham, wham, wham!
Finally, after what seemed like forever, I sensed the strength behind the hits draining. My skin was a raging fire—half-burning, half-numb. But everything else in me was soaring, endorphins flooding my system. I’d done this to push him to a certain place, but he was sending me to another edge of my own.
“Christ, Cela,” he said, the belt dropping to the floor. His breath was labored. I could feel his stare heavy against me. He ran his hands over my abused back, first simply touching, then kissing. One spot in particular made me flinch more than the others. “Tell me you’re still with me. That you’re okay.”
I reached back for him blindly, grabbing hold of his hand. Even that movement took all my effort. I felt . . . drunk. And so freaking turned on. “Very, very with you.”
He moved his hand between my thighs, finding me warm and wet and groaned. “So goddamned sexy. All this pain, and you’re turned on. Spread your legs.”
I made the effort, but he had to help me most of the way. I was still bent over the bed in the prone position and really had no energy to move anywhere else. There was the shifting of fabric as he apparently shucked the rest of his clothes, then his palms were spanning my hips. Without preamble, he pushed into me.
I groaned at the feel of him filling me, of my body clenching around him. He buried deep, a tremble going through his hands where he held me—like he was drowning in the sensation as much as I was. The last of my will slipped away. I was truly his in that moment, whatever he wanted to do with me, I was in.
He eased back and thrust into me again, hard, his thighs hitting the backs of mine, reactivating the burn there, but also rocking my clit against the edge of the mattress—a killer combination. I whimpered into the sheets. “I know it stings and that I should be softer with you right now. But I need to fuck you, angel. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You told me I owned you tonight, and I’m going to take you at your word,” he said, strain in his voice as he rocked into me with a steady, rough rhythm. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I gasped, release thundering toward me, the stimulation to my clit and the rushing endorphins almost too much to take. “All yours.”
“That’s right,” he said, his words labored. “Give me your pleasure. Show me how much you like me using you.”
My nails curled into my palms, every molecule in my body starting to quake, but I was trying to hold out as long as possible. “Foster . . .”
He caught hold of my wrists and pulled my arms behind my back, holding them at my tailbone, as he continued his punishing rhythm. I could do nothing but receive him and every bit of pleasure he was wringing from me. Sweat dripped down my temple, and with nothing to hold on to, I fell apart.
Wretched cries tore from my throat as every part of my body seemed to become laced with lightning—the sensitized skin on my back, my clit against the pressure of the bed, and the delicious fullness of being utterly, brutally taken by Foster. Tears leaked out my eyes mingling with the salt and sweat, and everything went hazy.
Foster let out a slew of filthy, dirty epitaphs and then let loose a grinding, primal groan as he buried himself to the hilt and spilled inside me, his hold on my wrists tightening until my fingers started to tingle.
When we were both gasping for breath, drifting down from our orgasm, he released my hands and draped himself over my back. All of my muscles seemed to give out and merge with the bed. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get them to function again.
Foster kissed my temple, my hair, his body blanketing me with heat that was both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because I couldn’t seem to stop shivering, but curse because now that the orgasm was fading, the pain from the belt was setting in.
After a few long seconds, Foster pushed up on his forearms. “Sorry, angel. I’m probably smothering you.”
“Mmm,” I mumbled, too spent to form actual words. My mind still seemed to be sparking in fits and starts—aftershocks.
Foster lifted himself from the bed and pulled out. A rush of liquid heat came with him, sliding down my thighs. I knew I should probably get up and get a towel or something—vaguely, in the back of my mind I registered that these were new sheets. But something about having the evidence of what had just happened marking me seemed sexy and dirty in the best way.
“Motherfucker,” Foster said, the harsh word cutting through my afterglow.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, angel.” Foster touched a spot on my shoulder and I flinched. “I fucking drew blood.”
I turned my head to look back at him. His fingertips were smeared with blood. He glanced down his chest, finding a streak of red there, too. When he looked
over at me, regret morphed his features. I let my head sink back into the bed. “I’m sure I’ll live.”
“Goddammit,” he said, obviously more disturbed by this turn of events than I was. “I just—fuck—what is wrong with me? You taunt me and I unleash on you, trampling over limits we haven’t even discussed. I should’ve never—”
“Don’t you dare take a second of this back,” I said, cutting him off with what little energy I could muster. “Or I will personally kick your ass—well, when I have the ability to move again. I told you to do what you wanted. And you did. Now you’re just raining on my afterglow.”
He let out a long, belabored breath. “Don’t move. I’m going to get you cleaned up and then there’s a bathtub with our names on it.”
***
An hour later, I was curled up in Foster’s bed, mellow and sated. He’d gently cared for me, bathing me, then treating the spot where the skin had broken and rubbing salve on the rest. Two ibuprofen had been swallowed down, the curtains had been drawn tight, and now I was ready for a nap. But even though his back was to me, I could sense Foster’s restlessness.
We hadn’t talked much after sex, and I was trying to leave him be. I’d pushed enough today. But there was also no way I was going to drift off, knowing he was still so tense next to me. I reached out and touched his hip. “You okay?”
He didn’t respond at first, but then reached back and laced his fingers with mine. “I don’t know what I am, angel.”
“That’s understandable. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through these last few days.”
He pulled my hand off his hip and drew it around his front side until I was almost spooning him. He traced my knuckles with his fingertip. “I thought I would feel better once I knew. I thought it would help.”
I pressed my lips to the back of his shoulder.
“But knowing all that happened to her . . .” A shudder worked through him. “I can’t even . . .”
