For once, I didn’t obey.
Sliding down his body, I lowered myself onto him. Breasts to chest. Pussy to cock. I lay on him, granting all my weight, touching him in every way I could.
This was heaven.
This was home.
A growl rumbled in his ribcage as I rocked my hips into him, imprisoning his cock between us. “Christ, what are you doing to me?”
“Anything I want.” I ran my finger from his jaw to his hip. “Isn’t that what you told me to do?”
He clenched beneath me, his eyes as black as coal. “You’re screwing me up, Pimlico. You have no fucking idea.”
My heart gathered up every word and tucked them deep into her pockets. The novelty of him telling me how he felt pushed me higher toward an orgasm without any other stimulation.
I became fixated on everything about him. I ached for him. I burned until I had no choice but to combust or die.
“I want you,” I murmured. “I need you,” I begged.
“You have me.” The cords in his throat stood out as I rubbed myself against him. “Fuck me, little mouse. Put us both out of our misery.”
Chapter Thirty-One
______________________________
Elder
I’D LOST THE feeling in my hands from the rope around my wrists.
I’d lost the chaos in my mind from the taste of Pimlico on my lips.
I’d lost the things that made me human as Pim blushed then rocked against me.
I trembled with lust so deep and profane, I wanted to flip her onto her back and plough as fast as I could inside her.
But as Pim gave me an impish smile—looking contented and comfortable and confident—I couldn’t take that away from her. I couldn’t command her to release me so I could take charge. By having me tethered, she was free to finally take ownership and understand that nothing was better than sex between two people who respected each other.
And I respected the fuck out of her.
My respect was the hardest thing to earn. My heart even harder.
So why did I rip both from where they lived inside me and hold them out to her in bloody hands, desperate for her to take them?
“Tell me what to do,” she whispered, her hips rocking like a tempest sea, smearing her lust along my length.
My tongue burned to lick her again. She was my acolyte and I was her tutor. I wanted to teach her everything I knew and everything I didn’t.
My law of once would never be enough. I needed to eat Pim for every meal. I needed her with me always.
How the fuck would I walk away from this? How would I survive having her on the Phantom as I escorted her home and not trap her every morning, noon, and night in my bed?
How will I say goodbye?
Pain fissured through me until I groaned from agony as well as ecstasy.
“El…you didn’t answer me.” Pim dragged her fingertip over my dragon. “Tell me what to do.”
My stomach clenched beneath her touch. “Take me.”
“That’s not enough.” She shook her head. “I need you to guide me through this. If you won’t touch me, I need your voice to keep me here with you.”
I forgot about the pressure in my cock and drowned in the sexual haze in her eyes. Pim had come so far since we’d met. She astounded me at every turn. But there were still insecurities, dread, and the finest sheen of aversion at the thought of sex.
Would she always battle? Torn between two polar extremes?
Giving her a gentle smile, I nodded. “Okay, little mouse. I’ll talk to you.”
Her answering smile was lethal to my jagged self-control. So beautiful. So kind. So strong.
“Come higher up my body.” My biceps clenched against the rope.
Pim scooted higher, removing her pussy from touching my cock, sitting just below my ribcage. She glanced down at my tattoo then back to my eyes. “Tell me more.”
“Arch your back, lean over me.”
She obeyed. Her face came within kissing distance. I’d never wanted anything more. “Kiss me.”
Her eyebrows rose, but a dreamy look negated her surprise as she bowed and pressed her lips to mine.
I tilted my face toward her, greedy for whatever she wanted to give. It started fleeting, barely-there, but then morphed into a proper seal. The first kiss she’d stolen completely from me, and I didn’t guide her. I let her set the tone and speed and groaned as her tongue flickered almost instantly to taste me.
I opened for her, welcoming her deep.
Her hair tickled my face and shoulder, strands velcroing to my five o’clock shadow. Her pressure was soft. Her languid pace enough to make me drunk.
However, the longer she kissed me, the more my irritation rose for more. I wanted her. And that want only grew worse the more her tongue teased me like a lyric I couldn’t remember or a place I couldn’t recall.
I wanted teeth to clack and tongues to war.
Frustration vibrated in my throat. I bit her—not as gently as I should—slightly afraid of myself. My grip on sanity was slipping.
My heart rate climbed as she whimpered at my nip, pulling away to look at me. Rubbing her mouth with her fingertips, she made eye contact with me. We both breathed hard as if we’d run a marathon and not just indulged in an innocent kiss.
“Harder,” I commanded.
With the slightest sign of hesitation, she returned to me, lowering her mouth to mine, licking deep.
She took me slower than I wanted and still too soft. The sensation of her possession trussed me up and made me buck for freedom. Freedom to direct the pace, the pressure.
She was lying to me. She acted demure and pure, but I’d seen glimpses of what hid beneath her strength and healing. Pim was a creature with intricacies, same as me. Where mine were bad, hers were very much right. I wanted to know that Pim. The one with a secret coiled deep inside her full of malevolent mistrust for men but with molten heat for love and passion.
She held herself back too much. She’d switched that distrust onto herself—not prepared for her own acceptance of pleasure and kink.
It pissed me off.
My hips surged upward, unsettling her balance and breaking the kiss.
I didn’t know where my anger came from, but it weaved through my sacrifice to keep her safe, smoking with blackness I wanted nothing to do with.
She rested her forehead on mine, making my heart pull in all the wrong ways.
“Elder…” Her voice cracked a little. “Now what?”
Now what?
We end this before bad things happen.
“Now?” I cleared my throat, fisting my fingers and focusing on why we were doing this.
It’s for her. Not you. You can do this…for her.
“Move back down and grab my cock. Angle it up so you can put it inside you.”
Our mutual body heat escalated as she did as I requested.
Her tiny hand wrapped firmly around my girth, shifting my length to spear up from my belly. “Like this?” Her legs widened around my hips as she blushed. Her breasts bounced. Her back arched. She drove me goddamn insane.
“Exactly like that.”
She paused, doubt filling her beautiful face.
“Don’t overthink it. Just do it,” I forced through clenched teeth.
Slower than before, she obeyed, hovering in just the right way above me. With wide eyes, she lowered down and down.
I jolted at the first feel of her. The heat. The wetness.
Holy mother of God.
Her shoulders rounded as she froze with the tip of me inside her. Her eyes snapped closed, and I didn’t know if it was from the same rhapsody I enjoyed or horror.
So I did what she’d asked me to do.
I talked.
My voice resembled a dried and scratchy riverbed, drought-riddled with desire. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
Her eyes opened, finding me, locking onto me. Tension vibrated around her as she pressed down another inch.
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I swallowed my groan. “It’s me. I’m here. You’re mine now.”
Another slide. She gasped as she stretched for my size.
“I’m never going to hurt you. You’re safe.” My hips rose, forcing myself inside her faster than she expected. She fell forward, bracing herself on my chest, her forehead furrowed with deep concentration.
I thrust again, unable to help myself. The crawling, cawing need eroded my walls, hijacking my body. “Feel me, Pim? Feel how much I want you? How hard I am?”
“Yes.” She pressed downward, granting me another intoxicating inch of her. “I feel it.”
I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t contented or appeased. I wanted more.
Now.
Immediately.
My ankles dug into the mattress as I rocked up again, climbing deeper into her.
Her head fell forward, chocolate hair cascading over her shoulder. She shuddered.
I hadn’t planned on participating, but goddammit, she made it hard with those sexy pants and nibbles of her bottom lip.
“Sink on me. Let me fill you.”
Pim took a deep breath then slowly switched from bracing against my urgency to sitting deeper into my lap. Each action and muscle clench sent her farther down my cock. Each inch sent my mind to places it should never go.
Don’t give in.
Promises and pledges whispered for me to just stop fighting. That I could let go and still be me. That I could fuck Pim with no holding back and somehow climb from the pit I desperately wanted to jump head-first into.
But I knew those sirens swimming inside my skull, and I knew they were the most artful of liars. I could never give in.
I need this over.
I’m too close.
Ignoring my cautioning, I threw my head back, eyes rolling at the sheer heaven of being inside her. “That’s it. Keep going.”
All I could think about was being surrounded by her. Ruled by her. When inside her, I thought of nothing else. No numbers. No quickness. Just her. Just rapidly building obsession bulldozing through my rules and whispering how good it would be just to always think of her. To never worry about other things again. To never have to conquer another task as long as I conquered her.
Forever her. Nothing but her.
Her.
Her.
Her.
The call was sweet, strong, seducing.
I slipped a little more.
Finally, she sat over me, her thighs imprisoning my hips, my entire length deep in her body. Her skin wavered between white with discomfort and pink with satisfaction. Her pupils dilated until I swore I could sink inside them and never find my way back.
I could so easily. I could stop clinging to a life where mania constantly tried to split me in a hundred exhausting ways and slip into one. She could be my cello. I could play her night and day.
The idea grew, billowing like mind-twisting smoke until I choked.
Her hands landed on my stomach, her fingernails pinpricks on my skin. “I’ve never…been on top before.”
A caveman rush came over me. Yet another first I’d taken. There were so many more I could steal. The thief in me sat up in lawless glee. Why did I want to stop at this? Why not teach her everything? Why not steal her every first and be inside her twenty-four seven?
The ceiling lights cast her shadow over me bound beneath her. With her pinning me down, the sensation of being owned scrambled my thoughts.
I didn’t like it. I fought my addictions hard, but how could I fight this new one? The new obsession that’d firmly planted itself into this woman who already had me shackled and prone for her use?
Wasn’t that what always happened? I gave in and became enslaved. I fought, yet I was already tied tight.
And then, she began to move.
The staggering hunger decimated my system as whatever mayhem inside me opened its flood-gates. A thousand things demanded I obey all at once. A million dirty, filthy things all swirling around this woman like a hurricane.
My wrists jerked in the ropes, my teeth ached, and my heartbeat relocated to my cock and fingertips.
I could only think about one thing.
I could only crave. One. Thing.
She rocked again, claiming me, making me goddamn insane.
“Elder, talk to me. Please.”
Her beg unravelled the rest of my sanity, and unspeakable things became the only things I wanted.
Once upon a time, I was addicted to the cries of men in pain as I hurt them for the Chinmoku. I’d shattered knees for pleasure. I’d fought, not for glory, but because I had no choice. I was trapped in my mind and the calling of my blood.
That calling had murdered those I loved.
That calling had caused me to live a life alone and unwanted.
And now it was back with claws and teeth, demanding I rivet myself to a new enslavement.
Her.
Whispers worked their way through me.
I felt it.
I heard it.
I became crippled with it.
I no longer wanted her to end this. I wanted her to keep going to finalize my fall.
I couldn’t talk without snarling. I couldn’t behave without breaking.
This wasn’t working.
I was losing.
I was restless and callous and fixated on the need to drive into her at my pace, not hers.
I was no longer the man I’d diligently groomed myself to be.
I was no longer in control.
No matter how much I’d promised myself, I was back to being the animal I’d tried to slay and never could.
Beneath the thickening welcome of obsession shined the tiniest sabre of light. If I could cling tight enough, I might be able to stop this.
Before it was too late.
“Pim…”
Her eyes turned to shimmering moons at the struggle in my tone. At the conflict tearing my skin from soul.
I couldn’t say anything else.
She studied my face. Her hips rocked of their own accord, believing I wanted her to fuck me when I wanted her to rip herself away and run.
Run!
She moved faster, deeper, plummeting me quicker and quicker into hell.
“Are you okay?” Her pussy clenched around me, keeping me with her while I tumbled and tangled. Her concern was treacherous, her willingness to be my addiction beyond precarious.
No, I wasn’t okay.
I was fucking terrified.
This was what I feared.
My history. My weakness.
A curse had been placed on me from birth, and staring into her sweet, expressive eyes, I knew I couldn’t let it take me again. I paid homage to it when I played the cello. I shook its hand when I practiced martial arts. I would be forever joined with this hard taskmaster, but I never wanted to be its bitch again.
“Pim, get off me.”
The servitude of it ate away at me faster and faster.
“What?” Her body shifted, revealing the tiniest bit of agitation.
My eyes locked on the shadows of her stomach muscles and the globes of her breasts. Language wasn’t going to be my saving grace tonight. Actions were.
Actions I’d tried to fight and lost.
Actions that would solidify everything I’d tried to run from.
I gave up.
My hips shot upward, filling her full, making us both grunt in harmony. And then I flipped her sideways with a move long since mastered from fighting. The moment she was on her side, I rolled again and pinned her beneath me.
The ropes on my wrists tightened. My circulation compromised. But I didn’t care. I no longer cared about anything but her.
Her!
With my arms crossed and bound, all I needed was to rut into this woman, feed the orgasm desperate for release, and end this. I no longer needed substance or light or air. I was no longer human with multiple concerns and responsibilities.
I was hers.
She was mine.
The simplicity of it took my breath away.
My lips slammed down on hers in apology. She’d traded Alrik for me, and I could no longer tell which one of us would be worst. My body locked tight with her legs spread and my cock deep inside her.
I should ask how she was. If she was still with me and not back in her past. But she’d pushed me too far, and I no longer had the capacity to care.
All I cared about was what the disease told me to care about.
And right now, that was ridding the heavy pulsation at the base of my spine. Coming until I couldn’t come anymore. I was itchy for the conclusion and empty at the thought of it. I needed to finish but was ravenous to start again and again.
There would be no rest now.
Once I came, I’d start the cycle all over again with no reprieve. That was how it was for me. I was never satisfied. Never sated. Always chasing something to make the crawling in my blood go away.
I could never say I’d mastered something because I never reached perfection.
Pim would be my instrument of finding that perfection.
We would never be apart. I would forever be inside her because that was the only place that made sense anymore.
“I’m sorry.” The words were acid on my tongue. I buried my face into her neck and drove harder.
She jerked beneath me, her fingers scratching my back. “Elder—”
I didn’t know if it was a beg for me to stop or a moan to keep going. Either way, it didn’t make a difference.
I bit her throat as if I hated her when the opposite was true. I held her with my teeth, fighting the need to consume her while holding her with a warning to let me do this. That there was no other way now. I was hard. I was inside her. It was over.
My mind became hypnotised on the countless ways I could take her. Instead of being excited at the thought of sleeping with this wonderful woman for the rest of my days, I wanted to scream at the moon and beg for mercy. To give me a bullet. Euthanize me. End me.
It was the best thing.
For both of us.
I couldn’t live with this sickness again. I couldn’t be so one tracked with no way free.
It was debilitating. Taxing and tiring and wrong.
Wrong? What the fuck are you talking about? It’s amazing.