Don't Let Go (Dark Nights #2)

I begged. “God, please. I want to feel you inside me. I need to… Let me…”

My words ended on a gasp and a sudden sense of fullness. I couldn’t breathe. Could only gasp against the bed, sucking the fabric against my lips and muffling the sound of my pain. I was still sore here, something I hadn’t known about before coming here. I didn’t regret it; like his kisses before, his touch on the bruises left behind made everything richer. Layers of pleasure on pain, an indulgence of sensation. I gripped him with my cunt, and he pulsed inside me, a shared and private communion I could feel and observe but not change. Along for the ride as he picked up his pace, pushing inside me faster and deeper, finding a spot that made me gush all over his cock and down my legs.

“Feel me,” he grunted. “Feel me.” It became a chant, muttered under his breath, indistinguishable from his rough, needy sounds.

I knew exactly what he meant. More than touch, more than words. He wanted to leave his mark somewhere deeper, but he’d already done so. Before I’d even been captured, I’d fallen for him. What we did now just retraced those lines on my body, over my heart.

The pressure built and tightened through my body, centering around the invasion of his cock, exploding over me and raining down sparks I felt in every cut, in every bruise. I moaned against the sheets, out of breath and mindless, giving myself over to the utter weightlessness of hope and the breadth of desire. Open, trusting. Finding exactly what I needed around the pulsing hotness of his erection. He stiffened behind me as he rocked against my ass, the sound of his low groan filling me and sinking deep into my core.

There wasn’t any place to hide as his body sank down on mine. Not any way to lie to myself about how much I wanted him like this, sated and spent, bonded and broken. The feeling seemed to be mutual. He let out a quiet sigh, acceptance and need wrapped into one.

*



The acceptance was too much, too complete. I couldn’t believe in it, especially when I’d only just admitted the full extent of my father’s abuse to myself. I tried to warn him about the poison inside me—the shame and the guilt. To protect him. From me.

“Do you remember the story,” I whispered in the dark, “of the scorpion and the frog? The frog carried the scorpion on its back as they crossed the river. The scorpion stung the frog, and as they both were drowning, the frog asked the scorpion why he’d done it.”

“Because I’m a scorpion,” he finished.

I stayed silent, my point made.

He made a small sound, a puff of air, incredulous. “You are not the scorpion.”

“But—”

“You’re not. Now shh. Come here.”

And he proceeded to make me forget I’d ever doubted. We made love countless times over the course of the night. Each time I woke with hands on my body and his cock deep inside me. I’d opened a dam, and he rushed forward, poured forth, unstoppable in his passion. And I received him, made myself a vessel to hold whatever he gave me.

As yellow light filtered through the waffle-patterned curtains, I grew to trust in what he offered me. It wasn’t forever. Even better, it was now. He was used to dealing with some of the toughest criminals in the world. And sure, he wasn’t trying to date them. But the point was, he didn’t fear me. Not what had happened to me as a child or what had happened with Carlos. I didn’t need to warn him away any longer. He understood. He stayed.

At least until I woke the final time. I stretched and felt…nothing. Just a warm spot where he had been. I could hear the shower running. I could imagine him naked with water running down his body, winding its way over his skin like a liquid web, catching him for me. That made me the spider. I was the cautionary tale, but he’d always been a risk taker. Tackling the toughest cases at the FBI. He didn’t feel fear like normal people, which made him perfect for a girl who’d been afraid her whole life.

In the bright morning light, I couldn’t quite believe I’d confessed to him about my father. It felt like a dream, but then everything related to my father felt that way. The memories of him coming into my room. Repressed memories. I sighed. A psychologist would have a field day with that one, but I was done with that. It hadn’t fixed me. Nothing could.