Her back arches and I have to push her shoulder down to keep her right where I want her as I pull my touch away from her in order to leave her wanting. Her small moan of frustration is met with another slap of my hand on her bright red skin. Smack!
Her head flies back and those gorgeous lips of hers part with a deep gasp of longing. It’s no longer pain. She’s too close to the edge of pleasure to feel anything but.
Soothing the pain of the smack with my hand, I rub her right cheek and then pull back for one more strike.
“You would have learned sooner if I’d been rougher with you, wouldn’t you?”
She moans her answer with her eyes closed and her body still, knowing another punishing blow is coming, “Yes, Carter.”
Her answer is absent of sincerity. She’d tell me whatever I wanted to hear right now as she sits on the edge of pleasure and pain.
The days come back to me. Each of them and what I’d planned to do with her is in such stark contrast to what I’ve done. I let the fingers of my right hand trail over her ass, my blunt nails gently scraping along her tender skin and making her squirm on my lap. My left hand grips her throat, finally releasing her wrists, and I pull back, forcing her to look at me.
Her hazel eyes are filled with longing and lust. The haze is a fog in the forest. Unable to see, but so tempted to go forward.
“I should have fucked you so much sooner.”
I remember that first day, how she screamed and cried for me to let her go, back when I hated her and she hated me.
Even with my tight grip on her throat, with my touch sending sparks through her body, she forces her head to shake, not taking her eyes from mine.
“No,” she whispers, and my dick hardens, even more, begging me to punish her for daring to defy me. But then she adds, “This is how it was supposed to be.”
Her breathing is heavy as she closes her eyes, her body bowed on my lap. She’s completely at my mercy and her pouty lips are there for the taking.
All of her. Every piece of her is mine and she knows it.
Mine.
Chapter 28
Aria
* * *
Yesterday was full of regret.
The moment I saw Carter again, I wish I’d taken back those hours he was gone.
He always keeps his word. And true to form, he took me back to the cell and fucked me on the mattress. Maybe it was the drunkenness, maybe it was something else, but the fear of the cell was absent and instead, I did everything I could to please him. My body begged me to.
Not because I felt the need to obey.
I wanted him to kiss me.
I needed him to. And every time his lips trailed down my neck, I tried to capture them. Tried and failed. He knows I want him though. A shudder runs through my body at the thought and it’s met with the dull ache between my thighs.
He fucked me until I couldn’t move anymore and even as I laid on my belly on the mattress, unable to grip onto it, unable to keep my back arched as he commanded me to. Even then he rutted behind me, pistoning into me and giving me a punishing fuck.
Last night I was his whore. He balled my hair into his fist and pulled back so he could rake his teeth along my neck and force my body however he wanted it.
And I wanted nothing more.
The realization should startle me more, but instead, all I can think about is that he knows I want him to kiss me, and yet he didn’t let me.
It’s different when he’s with me. The security I have with him is everything.
The sane part of me knows it’s not healthy and that I should keep fighting, but the sane part of me is the only part of me that’s held captive in this reality. If only I let it go, I feel free.
Free enough to feel safe for another day.
Free enough to know that what happens in the war will happen regardless of whether I’m here or not.
Free enough to slip on the dress that Carter’s laid out for me and stare at the image of a beautiful woman in the mirror. One who I envy. One I can’t believe is me.
With my hair smoothed and clipped at the side, the bit of makeup adding a definition of beauty to my porcelain skin, I feel so much like a songbird who sings soft melodies of hope, with her wings clipped in a gilded cage.
My fingers graze over the delicate lace and my eyes close, remembering last night.