• three •

You’ll release dark shit.

Rumor

The warmth of the body covering my back woke me. I opened my mouth to scream when a large hand muffled the sound.

“Easy, sweets. It’s just me,” King’s deep voice said close to my ear.

I stared at the wall, trying to decide if this was a dream or real. King didn’t get in my bed anymore. He obeyed the rules and lines I had set. Even when I lay in bed at night with him in the other room, wishing he would defy them and come to me.

“I’m gonna remove my hand, but don’t scream. Or Maeme will be in here with her Glock pointed at my head within seconds.”

I nodded as his hand left my mouth to caress my arm.

“Good girl,” he praised as if I had done something worthy of it.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked quietly.

He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “You’re here,” he replied as he left another kiss on my neck.

I closed my eyes and attempted to will my body not to react. Which was a joke.

“You … you’re in bed with me.” My words came out as a stammer while he nuzzled against me.

“Mmhmm,” he murmured. “And you feel like heaven. I’ve missed you.”

This wasn’t fair. All my good intentions seemed weak when tested. King’s body, his scent …

I gasped as he pressed his erection against my bottom. Nope, not fair.

“I know there are rules and lines,” he said against my skin as he brushed his lips close to my collarbone. “But I need you, sweets. It was a real fucking bad day, and I need to be reminded of the good. The exceptional. Please.”

I sucked in a deep breath and tried not to tremble when his hand cupped my breast.

“Just give me tonight. I need you.” The pleading in his tone was close to desperation.

What had happened that shook him like this? And how was I supposed to tell him no? I couldn’t when he sounded so vulnerable.

Slowly, I rolled over onto my back and stared up at him as he hovered over me. Those blue eyes searched my face. The haunted look that gazed back at me was my undoing. I reached up and cupped the side of his stubbled jaw.

What had happened today?

His eyes closed briefly, and he leaned into my touch. Lines were about to be blurred. I had set them in place to protect myself, but right now, all I cared about was helping him. Fixing whatever was wrong. Gone was the woman who had questioned his intentions. He was able to make me forget so easily.

No words seemed to be needed. It was as if he was reading my thoughts. The relief in his eyes was overpowered immediately by the man. The one who wanted me. The one who made me feel things I’d never known were possible. I had gone to sleep tonight, jealous. Of the woman he was with. I had even imagined that they would sleep together tonight. But he was here. With me.

King moved over me then. His knees on either side of my legs. I lifted my hips as he slid my panties down to my ankles, then tossed them aside. “Open your legs.” His tone was commanding, even in a hoarse whisper.

The intensity of his focus as I did as I had been told made me shiver. I’d missed this too. Being with him. How he made me feel.

“I want your pussy leaking with my cum again.”

A whimper escaped me as he stood up and discarded his boxers. His eyes never leaving my body. The way he looked at me made me feel as if I were the most beautiful woman on earth. While I knew that wasn’t the case, when I was with King, I almost believed it.

“Can you be quiet?” he asked, lowering himself over me.

I wasn’t sure. I blinked up at him, and he grinned.

“It’s okay, sweets. I’ll cover your mouth if you need to be loud. You can even bite my hand.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but whatever it was slipped my thoughts as King filled me with one hard thrust. His hand clamped down over my mouth firmly to muffle the cry that tore from me.

“FUUUCK,” he groaned near my ear, then rocked his hips and did it again.

My body bucked beneath him from the sharp sting of being stretched.

“You take my dick like such a good girl,” he snarled.

I lifted my gaze from his biceps flexing as he held himself up enough so that I could breathe to meet his eyes. There was a sinister gleam in them that shouldn’t excite me, but it did. Although I was completely willing, the way his blue eyes darkened as he held me down, muffling me, was thrilling.

He eased back slowly, then shoved deep inside me again, throwing his head back, displaying the veins standing out on his neck. I was mesmerized by the sheer beauty.

When his eyes met mine again, he gave me a wicked grin. “Fight me,” he said.

Fight him? What did he mean?

He moved his hand from my face and ran a finger over my bottom lip. “I want you to fight me, sweets. While I fuck you, bite me. Hit me. Get out all the anger, hurt, everything you’ve pent up. Take it out on me while I sink into you over and over.”

I stared at him. He wanted me to hurt him? I shook my head.

His hand fisted in my hair and tugged my head back until my neck was bare to him. “Every time you felt helpless, scared, terrified, and didn’t have the strength to fight back, do it now. Use me to get it out.”

A panicky tightness started in my chest. I didn’t understand this. The things he was talking about were things that he hadn’t caused. Why would he want me to use him to release that? And during sex?

“Why?” I choked out.

He jerked on my hair and lowered his face to my neck and licked it in one long motion. “It’s therapeutic,” he said, then licked me again. “You’ll release dark shit,” he whispered. “It’ll make me come so fucking hard.”

King continued licking me as he made his way down to my chest. I watched him while his reasons replayed in my head. Just as he was about to reach my nipple, I grabbed a handful of his hair and snatched his mouth away. His eyes flared brightly as they locked on mine.

Then … I slapped him. That beautiful face barely moved from the force, but the approval in his eyes only seemed to push me further. Grabbing his shoulders, I dug my nails into his skin.

King snapped into action then. He slammed back into me hard while his eyes blazed with a ferocity I’d never seen. I slapped him again, and the grin that spread across his face was almost evil. If he wasn’t so stunningly perfect, it would have been terrifying.

“Keep on,” he encouraged me as he licked his lips. “Hurt me.”

He had set off some trigger inside me I hadn’t known existed. I began to claw at him, shove him, hit his chest, as he pounded into me over and over. The spiral was closing in on me quickly, and if I wasn’t so desperate for it, I would have tried to put it off for more of whatever this was we were doing.

“Harder!” I shouted, and his hand came over my mouth again.

“That’s my little wildcat,” he said, then bit his bottom lip hard.

I fought against his hand on my face, and his fingers flexed.

“You don’t always have to be good,” he told me. “You get to be bad too, sweets. You get to act out. Fight back.”

My hand was wrapped around his wrist, but I stopped trying to take his hand from my mouth. While I stared up into his eyes, I felt my body ignite, then explode as I screamed against his palm.

“Fuck, baby,” he grunted.

Then, his body jerked against me, and I felt it. The warmth. The heat rush into me. His hips pumped into me twice more as he let out a deep, low moan.

When his hand moved from my face to tangle into my hair, he rolled off me, pulling me with him until I was sprawled half on top of his chest. I could feel his heart racing against my cheek.

King ran his fingertips along my side as his breathing slowed, along with his heartbeat. “I missed being inside you,” he said in a raspy voice.

I had missed it too. The connection. The feeling as if I’d found where I belong. Even after the lies, I’d ached for this. For what King could give me.

“I don’t want the lines and rules,” he said then. “I understand why you think you need them, but you don’t. This, us, it was never a lie.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “I want to believe that.”

King shifted so that I was on my back on the mattress again and he was the one looking down at me. “It’s the fucking truth,” he said in a fierce tone, then reached for my right leg and pulled it back, opening me up to him. “That right there. My cum is leaking out of you. I don’t do that, sweets. I don’t come in women. But with you, I need to do it. I need to mark you. It’s twisted, and I don’t understand it, but I can’t help it. This is why you can trust me.”

I started to attempt to close my thighs, and he held me firmly open. His gaze flicked from me to between my legs a few times before he ran his knuckles over my tender flesh. I winced and trembled simultaneously.

“Nothing eases the shit in my chest like this does,” he said just above a whisper. “Don’t keep it from me. Let me have this back, you back.”

As much as I wanted to give him whatever he asked for, I knew I had to be careful.

“What happens when you tire of me?” It was more vulnerable than I had ever been with him. Stating my fears aloud. It didn’t go unnoticed. I realized that King did in fact have some of my trust.

“Sweets,” he said as he slid a finger inside of me, “I can’t imagine that day will come, but who is to say it won’t be you who gets tired of me?”

There was a difference that I wasn’t going to verbalize. I’d been as open with him as I could be. Telling him I was in love with him wasn’t an option. If I wanted to get rid of him, I already knew that would be the way to send him running. I couldn’t love enough for both of us.

“Fuck, that’s slick,” he murmured. “Spread them. I need more.”

Unable to hold on to my good sense, I opened my legs for him again.