“Rachel. Rachel.” She refused to respond, fighting him like a wild animal. As he held her hands away from her throat, he saw terrible things in her face, desolate things. The woman he knew wasn’t in control. This feral, wounded creature didn’t understand soothing words, meditation and balancing chakras bullshit. His heart wrenched, a combination of shared anguished and deep fear, as he realized he was seeing the darkness that had likely made her pick up that gun four years ago.
He believed in Fate. Fate had brought them together, and no matter how bad this was, Fate had meant this moment to happen, to give him the chance to go head-to-head with her past, prove that she had someone in her corner who could help her put it to bed, let those wounds heal.
He pinned her, forced to abandon gentility or finesse to unlatch the lock on the collar before she could strangle herself. It tumbled from her neck, but when he had to shift his grip, she scrambled to the far side of the limo, breathing hard. She curled up in the corner, fists clenched, body drawn tight as a bow.
Damn it, he’d told her he’d be whatever kind of Master she most needed, even if he had to set aside rational thought and answer uncontrolled animal instinct with the same. He’d told Cole the truth. He would protect her with everything he was, even the darker side all men carried inside of them. From the lingering effect of the club performance, he had more than enough banked animal lust willing to roar up to the forefront and help.
“Don’t touch me. Get away from me. Leave me alone.”
To hell with that.
His two instincts flip-flopped, the primordial eagerly surging forward, the protective shoved to the background. But they were one and the same in this instance. And he was a lot f*cking stronger and faster. Yanking her out of the corner, he banded an arm around her waist and flipped her to the limo carpet on her hands and knees.
She tried to turn on him with nails and teeth, giving him her rage. He was pleased to see it, even as he controlled her, shoving her back down to her elbows. He held her there grimly, one hand on the back of her neck as he freed himself from his trousers. The skirt was so short that this position fully exposed her ass, the p-ssy still ripe from their earlier f*cking, wet from that and the girls’ shower play. As he slammed into her, he heard her snarl, her cry of protest.
He gave himself over completely to that instinct, his cock hard and thick, knowing what was his to take, but he wouldn’t leave it at that. He was driving into her like a battering ram, but she was getting hotter and wetter, and when he slapped her ass, a hard spank to command her attention further, she contracted on him, a short gasp breaking up the outrage.
“Stop. Stop it.”
As her arousal built, her furious, frantic demand became an anguished plea. A plea that stabbed him in the heart, for she was pleading for his help, to drive all the rest away, to make all the shrieking pain in her heart and head stop. Stop it. Please stop it.
There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. So in answer, he let go of her neck and braced his body over her with one arm, reaching beneath with the other to find her * and rub it with knowledgeable fingers, feeling how swollen it was. Her hand latched onto his braced forearm, her forehead against his elbow. Her teeth sank into his arm, but as an anchor, not an attack.
She was still pleading, incoherent, and the tearful sound of it, the way the nails of her other hand dug helplessly into the carpet, tore something apart inside of him.
He would give her pleasure, but that wasn’t the end goal. He was striving for pure possession, the message it sent. What he’d told her. Mine to protect. Mine to cherish. And she did deserve to be cherished, god damn her ex-husband to hell, and all the evil in the world that had taken her son from her. She was the only one who didn’t see it.
The message might not be getting through, but the elemental force he knew dwelled within her was surging up to balance the madness. He was thrusting hard enough to give her rug burns. Good. Her breath was pumping as hard and fast as he was now, punctuated by short, jerky sobs. Her cunt was so slippery it was making provocative sucking noises while he f*cked her. She cursed him with a creative viciousness that demanded an answer.
Dropping down over her then, he put his arms on either side of her shoulders, back pressing into hers as he kept working her. When he pulled the dress down, her breast filled his palm, the nipple firm as a new cranberry when he pinched it. She tried to buck him off, but her body was in control now, softening to the claim of his, and her hips were rising to meet him. Ramming home, the deepest thrust yet, he seized her throat, bringing her to a full halt, holding her still with his weight and strength. She shuddered and quaked against him, her p-ssy rippling against his cock.
“I don’t need a collar to know I’m your Master, Rachel. And neither do you. You curse at me like that again, and I’ll have my cock down your throat for the entire ride home. I’ll pull your wrists back and tie them to your ankles so only my fist in your hair keeps you on your knees while you’re sucking me.”
Something broke then, something that deflated everything in her…desire, passion, anger. She went limp and shuddering beneath him, the throbbing of her p-ssy like a tiny ticking clock in an empty room, evidence of the life that was there, but so much space, a space that echoed in the pit of the belly and made the heart ache.
He could have pushed her on to climax, but he knew her body’s arousal had balanced her emotional pain. He’d leave the two at odds for now, and give her what he most wanted to give her. When he cautiously eased his hold, she had her head pressed to the carpet, sobs now taking her fully. He slid out of her, rearranged his clothes and then picked her up. Bringing her back up to one of the seats, he cradled her close in his arms, holding her fiercely, her face tucked into his neck as she cried.
“I’m here,” he muttered. “I’ll never leave you alone. You’ll never be lonely again.”
But as she cried, her knees drew up against his side, her arms folding over her chest. Those sobs seemed to have the power to break her, no matter how closely he held her. It alarmed him, how it suddenly seemed she was more alone than she’d ever been, more shut away from him than he’d yet experienced.
The Master in him could reach her body, certain parts of her soul, but how did he reach her heart if grief and loss amputated it? What if it was now out of anyone’s reach, even her own?
* * * * *
Once the tears stopped, she didn’t want him near her. She didn’t fight him, didn’t draw away, but he felt it in every resisting line of her body. She looked brittle as glass, her face tired and worn, makeup smeared. She sat docile, unresponsive, as he used ice and his handkerchief to clean up her face.
After they reached her place, he told Max they’d get a few things and then be back down. He didn’t want her at her apartment tonight, and maybe not ever again. She could bring the things she loved to his place, and turn her back on the isolation, loneliness and escape her home had too often represented.
When they got to the fourth level, one of her neighbors, a sharp-eyed older woman with a small load of laundry topped by a spy novel, was coming from the elevator. As they passed her, Jon nodded courteously, but Rachel stopped, reached out and touched the woman’s arm. “Mrs. Lowery, can you hold on a moment?”
Turning on her heel, she faced Jon, extricating her elbow from his grasp. Her hazel gaze was as flat and empty as a swimming pool. “Thank you, Jon. I’m staying here tonight, and I need you to go home and leave me alone.”