The next day came in a rush. I slipped out of bed without waking Elle and found my brothers waiting in the basement in the gym, ready to brush up on our hand-to-hand training.
Thomas was right. It was quite possible that I could no longer kick his arse. Five or six months ago, I had taken a blade to the shoulder and a bullet in the side. Those injuries left me with not only scars, but also permanent muscle damage. I had been at the top of my game before that, my strength incomparable.
John popped up from the thick mat covering a section of the wood floor, where I’d just put him on his back. “So, you’re a little leaner these days, but, Christ, you’re still a fucking beast, old man,” he said.
I wiped the sweat from my neck and lifted my arm to stretch the weakened muscle tissue beneath it. “Careful, boy. Your tongue grows rather sharp.”
His eyes dropped to the floor, and he mumbled an apology.
“Hit the shower, John. The three of us will talk about the ink this afternoon.”
John was the youngest, about to turn eighteen, and he was anxious to get the same tattoo on his right shoulder as our father had inked onto mine. Thomas wore the shield tattoo as well, as had Ethan. It was a Hastings rite of passage, but what was more, it committed the men who had it to uphold the family protection pact. Wearing the ink was a pledge to protect Elle’s bloodline from reformation of the Order. In the present, the pact meant only one thing—the protection of Elle and her children. Our children.
Thomas waited for John to hit the locker room before speaking up, “He’s going to be a relentless shit about the ink. Have a think about creating something different. Something symbolic but with new meaning that we can give to John and the next generation.”
“It is a good idea, but do you really believe John would accept family ink different than what you and I have? I don’t want him to feel as if he were something less. Shit like that could affect his behavior for the rest of his life.”
“We start with our sons then and a new family tat,” Thomas said. “I worry for John, is all. He’s been shaped differently. He never endured our father the way we did. The way you did.”
I gripped my brother’s shoulder for a moment and shoved away the mental image of my father’s fist connecting with my abdomen—one of the countless blows that had taken away my breath, leaving me on my hands and knees, waiting for my eyesight to return.
Shame rushed through me. I’d never fought back. I’d allowed my father to create another monster in his own image. More shame. Because I had done the same thing to both of my younger brothers.
No fucking more. I won’t punish them with my fists again.
“You and I will meet privately for about an hour this afternoon before the security team joins us in the war room. Let them know to be there, Thomas. And make sure no one misses Elle’s brunch beforehand.”
I walked away without hearing whatever it was he said.
I needed my wife.
Elle was in the shower, facing the gray-and-white marble wall, when I got back to our bedroom suite. The length of her wet hair fell down her back and teased the sensual dimples where her backbone met her hips. Her curved arse widened perfectly from that point into the shape of a heart. I worked like hell to burn the image into my brain. It was another one that I would use to block out the rest of the fucked-up world when the weight of it bore down on me.
“I know you’re there, watching.” She turned her head to meet my stare over her shoulder. “Are you going to stand there in your gym shorts, or are you planning to join me?”
“Witch,” I said in response to the beautiful, mischievous smile on her lips.
My stiff cock and aching bollocks howled for a fast, hard fuck, but my heart needed more than that. I dropped my shorts and approached her slowly through the center opening of the glass barrier. My fingers burned with the need to feel her skin. I flexed them and waited for her to turn to me. I used my height advantage to hover without touching, rounding my shoulders until she was confined within my space.
Our bodies were so close. I could feel the heat of hers reaching out to mine.
Warm water rained down over us from multiple showerheads and rinsed away the sweat from my body. We held each other’s gaze, her soulful eyes diving into mine with an intensity that told me she could see into the depths of my ugly mood.
“Need you,” I said hoarsely.
Elle nodded. “All of me is yours, and I love all of you much more than I can say. Touch me. Please.”
I skimmed my hands along her wet curves, and my eyes followed. “There are no fucking words good enough for you.”
“No words,” she repeated, lacing her fingers together behind my neck, pulling my eyes back to hers. “We don’t need them. We’ll never need them.”
“Promise you won’t ever leave me.”
“How could I? We’re bound together in so many ways. I could never live without you, Will.”
Soothed by her words, I let go of the past and the future. She was mine, and I was about to take everything from her to make myself whole again, to come out on the other side as the man she needed. The man who would crush the present to give her the world.
I moved in tighter and pressed her back against the smooth sheet of marble. I removed her hands from my neck and gently raised her arms above her head, locking both of her wrists in one of my hands as I pushed my hard cock against her stomach.
“Elle, I’m going to touch you. Taste you. Love you.”
Her lips parted, and a soft moan slipped past them.
“Spread your legs.”
She held my eyes while obeying my command, spreading her legs to the extent that she could with the weight of my body confining hers, then circled her hips to create friction against my erection.
I used my free hand to force her hips still and growled a reprimand close to her mouth. My mouth watered from the thought of how sweet her tongue would taste when I kissed her.
“Do as I say, nothing more.”
“Make me feel you,” she whispered, her breath sweeping over my lips.
“Oh, but you will, my angel.” My ego—the self-righteous bastard who had remained in hiding all morning—joined the party, and I smirked. “You’ll feel all of me, and after you scream my name, you will beg me to stop touching you.”
She knew there was utter truth in my words, so she tugged against my hold on her wrists. “Let me touch you first. Let me go down—”
I shook my head and cut off her words, the smug smile still plastered on my face. “You can do that later. Right now? You’ll do as you’re told.”
Whenever she took me into her mouth, it was mind-blowing, but right then, I wanted the first sensation that hit my cock and flowed through me to be the rapture that came with my initial thrust into her tight little cunt. Nothing would ever beat that.
Elle relaxed her arms and lifted her face to mine.
I claimed my wife’s mouth, kissing her soft lips tenderly before leading us into a fiery, endless abyss. She broke the kiss to catch her breath. I lowered onto my knees and fucked her with my tongue, and as promised, she cried out and pleaded with me to stop touching her there.
Allowing her to catch her breath again would have been the right thing to do. But I didn’t do that. Madness consumed me. I jerked her into my arms, seated her on my cock with a harsh thrust, and took all of her heaven.