She gasped as I manhandled her to the bed.
Her legs twined with mine.
We stumbled.
We kissed.
We groped.
I grabbed her from the floor and toppled onto the mattress.
We fell together. Her beneath. Me on top. Collapsing in a pile of messy, desperate limbs. Everything was on fire. Everything was in pain. Aches and bruises—torturing desire crippling every inch as my lips dominated hers, and her hands skated down my back.
Passion I’d never let myself indulge in set us alight and made us burn. Blaze. Cremate beneath the mastership of longing.
Her legs parted, allowing me to slot against her. Her back bowed as my hips arched into her, pressing everything I wanted to give her into the one place I couldn’t stop craving.
Her fingernails sliced over my spine, making my skin char beneath the white t-shirt I’d thrown on at the first sign of the coastguard. My track pants did nothing to stop the heat in my balls or restrain the need swiftly spiralling out of control.
I was past common sense or rationality.
I had no impulse supremacy or dominion over my unbreakable rules—they’d all turned to useless dust.
“You disobeyed me.” I bit her bottom lip. “You deliberately put yourself at risk.”
She wriggled beneath me. “I did it because I care.”
Care?
Fuck, that word was pathetic compared to the wealth of emotion she caused.
I needed her. I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t have her.
Somehow, she knew that without me telling her. Her legs opened wider, her fingernails digging deeper into my back with commands this time and not just reaction. She rocked against my length, moaning softly, sweetly, entirely seductively.
If she was any other woman, I’d guess it was a coy way of saying ‘take me...now’ but with her background, it could be a cry for help. Even in my current lawlessness, I wouldn’t accept her invitation unless I knew for certain...
Through the red haze in my brain, I did my best to look at her and not see sex, sex, sex but rather a woman who’d stolen my heart and therefore was owed civility even when I had none.
Instead of seeing the wide eyes of someone desperate to run away or the white skin of someone petrified, she looked back soft and calm and ready—the exact opposite of how I felt.
Her hand came up to cup my cheek—shocking me stupid with the tenderness of it. “Elder...you have me. Do whatever you need.”
I swallowed some filthy reply. Some terrible sentence accepting her gift even knowing how wrong I was to do it but then her eyes filled with pure love, bathing me in redemption and approval.
She fucking slaughtered me.
I fell on her, clawing, clinging, mauling, thrusting.
My lips sought hers again as I ripped at my waistband and shoved my track pants out of the way. I didn’t want to do this so fast, but I had no choice. I had to be inside her.
Now!
Tearing her mouth from mine, she wriggled beneath me, hitching her nightgown up over her hips.
Bare skin touched bare skin.
I shuddered, my balls clenched in eagerness, and the softest of whispers fell onto my ears as I lined up my erection with her entrance. Her voice entered my skull like spun sugar. “I trust you...”
And that was it.
The three little words most men kill to hear. More than ‘I love you’ or ‘I adore you.’
I trust you.
Because that one untouchable, highly tangible notion was priceless and so often undeserved.
Trust was the epitome of what a woman could give.
Trust was Pim giving me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted because she trusted me to keep her safe. I could kiss her, fuck her, do all manner of debasement to her, and she’d let me because she trusted me. I could take her swimming at midnight in the big wide ocean with predators beneath the waves, and she would go because she trusted me.
She would let me lose myself in her and use her mercilessly again and again because she trusted that eventually, I could stop. That I wouldn’t hurt her. That I wouldn’t cross certain boundaries.
I trust you...
Christ.
The furious fire in my blood suddenly clogged my lungs with choking smoke. I coughed with horror, crawling back onto the precipice I’d almost leapt from and collapsed on top of her.
It wasn’t enough.
I could still feel every swell of her breasts and every hitch of her breath. I was too close to the warmth and wetness of her pussy.
Grabbing my waistband, I hoisted my pants up as I rolled off her, landing with my arm over my eyes, breathing tormentedly on my back.
She didn’t move.
She didn’t speak.
The bed rocked as she hesitantly sat up and faced me. “What—what happened?”
You happened.
You and your perfect trust happened.
I couldn’t have her here any longer. The need to discipline and my rage were gone.
I’m done.
I sat up in one quick jack knife then leapt off the bed. “Go to your room, Pimlico.”
She scooted her legs up, sitting on her knees—so similar to the time when I’d first demanded a night with her and spent most of it prying into her brain. Her hands wedged like a bowling ball against her stomach. “Just like that?”
I looked at the ceiling and not her. “Just like that.”
“But why?”
“Because I can’t have you near me right now.”
Her gaze flew to the wardrobe where I kept my cello. “Are you going to play?”
The thought of frets and bows did nothing to quiet the chaos in my head. Raking fingernails over my scalp, I shook my head. “No.”
What would I have to do to tame the rioting need in my blood? How would I exterminate the acidic guilt in my veins?
“You could play me.” Her soft voice wavered as if her offer wasn’t given entirely willingly. As if her trust made her say it and not her lust. Pain and confusion once again lived in her gaze.
I’d done that.
I’d taken her trust and twisted it into doubt.
I whirled on her, pointing at the door. “Get out.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Get out. Now.” I couldn’t look at her without snapping. I couldn’t touch her without breaking. I needed her so goddamn much, but I couldn’t have her. She trusted me to keep her safe. This was me honouring that trust even while she begged me to break it.
She was the worst kind of creature.
Never trust me, Pim.
I don’t trust me.
My family doesn’t trust me.
Never fucking trust me.
Slowly, she climbed off the bed and came toward me.
I turned around, keeping my back to her, doing my best to keep up the barricade and icy request for her to leave.
She sighed softly. “I don’t want to go. And I think you don’t want me to go, either.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“It matters, El.” Her touch landed on my shoulder blade making me shudder with supernovaing desire. My gut twisted into knots as I shrugged her off. “Everything matters.”
The aggression in my spine turned to barbwire as her palm returned, heating my muscles, delivering love even while I was cruel.