Chapter 23

twenty-three

Olympia

“What are you doing?” My head is reeling. I can’t figure out what’s happening right now as Tav carries me, naked, into his room.

“Told you, from tonight on, your ass is in my bed.”

“Tav,” I start, struggling to take in his space through the white light of the moon that spills in through his windows. “This is crazy. You’re acting crazy.”

“I’ve never been more sane.” He sets me down on his bed, and I can’t help but cover myself with my hands, even though he’s already seen all of me. I feel vulnerable.

“How much did you have to drink tonight?” I huff.

He smirks. “Not that much.” His smirk falls away as he takes in my attempt to cover my body. “Don’t hide from me, Olympia.”

“I need my jammies.” When I think he’s going to refuse me, I add, “Please. I feel—I’m not used to this.”

Without a word, Tav turns and disappears into his closet. He reappears with a white t-shirt. I take the offering and hurry to shove it over my head, swallowing audibly when he gestures me under the covers. I think only once about refusing before I slide between his black sheets, settling tensely against the pillows.

I’m afraid that come morning light, Tav will suddenly remember he hates me and kick me out of his bed and his life. I’m terrified, because my tender, bruised heart has already gone through so much. I’m not sure I can withstand the pain of that. Not after everything that happened tonight.

My thoughts stop as Tav’s big hands move to the buckle of his belt. He’s already deliciously shirtless, something that has kept my thoughts on fizzle. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to my thoughts—to my body—if he removes all his clothes. I don’t think I can handle it.

Swallowing, my mouth sandpaper dry, I force my eyes to hold his as his big fingers work the buckle of his pants before he drops his jeans, kicking out of them. He’s impossibly big and impossibly hard behind the white fabric of his briefs. So hard that my core knots with need all over again.

Under the covers, I clench my thighs together. I wish I had panties right now. Panties would soak up some of the wet that’s pulsing with every sensitive throb of my pussy.

God, how can I need to come again? Already?

Embarrassment flushes my face, Tav’s dark eyes taking it all in as a grin lifts his lips. Arousal is a hook drawing me nearer to him as he plants a knee in the bed, hovering over me.

I want him to kiss me.

I want—I don’t even know what I want.

I need—but I’m not even sure what I need. I just know I need him.

I’m a mess. This—us—it’s a mess.

“Tav.” His eyes search my face, the scent of him invading every part of me. “I—you⁠—”

“Words, Princess,” he teases. “Use your words.”

“You’re aroused.”

His eyes search mine. “And you?”

Twin flames light up my face, singeing my cheeks. When my hands fall over my face, he gathers my wrists in one of his, pinning my hands to the bed above my head. I can’t hide from him now. Can’t escape his dark eyes.

“Tav,” I protest, but it comes out more as a moan.

“If I touch you between your legs, are you going to be wet for me?”

A shuddering, “Yes,” sounds between us. It crackles like a firecracker, hot like lightning, violent as thunder.

“What do you want me to do about it, Princess?”

I catch my breath before it bursts between us, lifting my chin in challenge. “What do you want me to do about your arousal?” To push my point home, I lift my hips to feel his hard length against my core. Only the fabric of the shirt I wear, and his briefs separate us. It’s both too much and not enough. This is dangerous, and yet I’ve never felt safer.

“Are you offering?” he dares.

I wet my lips, watching as his eyes chase the action hungrily. “Yes.”

“Christ,” he curses.

Then, he kisses me.

Like all his other kisses, it’s fire. It burns through me, wild and unforgiving and claiming. His tongue slips inside, warring with my own. He feasts on my lips, nipping and sucking and licking until I’m a breathless, panting mess beneath him.

I’m not thinking as I grind my core into his, moaning into his mouth at the feel of his hard length pressing into my tender, aching core.

Tav tears his mouth from mine with another curse, before he’s kissing my throat. Something has snapped—his control—because he’s no longer stiff above me. He’s grinding into me, rocking his body into mine, stroking his length over my core even with the material between us.

I hate that it’s between us.

“Take them off,” I beg, wishing for my hands even as I fight the restraint of his.

Tav shakes his head, his forehead falling to my shoulder. “You’re not ready for me, Princess.”

“What?” Is he joking?

“Not tonight.”

“I want to feel you.”

“I want that, too.” He bites gently where my neck and shoulder meet, a shiver erupting violently within my body. “I want to feel you. I want you to feel me, baby, but we can’t go there tonight.”

“Where can we go, then?” I ask quietly, hesitantly.

Why is he holding back?

“I can make you come.”

“What about you?”

He shakes his head. “I’m good so long as I please you.”

“But I want—” I don’t get the chance to protest before his mouth is on mine again, and he’s kissing the defiance out of me.

When I’m a puddle of acceptance on his bed beneath him, he releases my hands. Bracing his weight with one, he moves his other between my legs. The instant his skin touches mine, I whimper, my body beginning to tremble with a violence that threatens to ruin me.

“Fuck, so wet.” He sounds pleased. “Pretty little clit is swollen for me.” He makes a low sound that is suspiciously like a growl as he moves his fingers to my opening. As he pushes two fingers slowly inside, he murmurs, “I want to be inside you more than I want my next breath.”

I have a sneaking suspicion he’s not talking about his fingers.

“I—want—” I moan. “That—t-too.”

God, I can’t think. Every part of my body, every thread of my being is tethered to the pump of his two fingers in and out of my body. He plays me like an instrument, my pleasure entirely, agonizingly at his mercy.

When he pumps deep, his fingertips stroking upward as he pulls out, my back arches and I squeeze my eyes closed as a noise I never could have imagined I would ever make sounds into the space between us. My pussy is sore as pleasure peaks, and I clamp tightly around his digits.

“That’s it, beautiful. Ride my fingers,” Tav encourages, and then his face is in the crook of my neck, and he murmurs darkly through kisses and nips as I ride the wave of my orgasm. “So beautiful when you come apart for me.”

I’ve never been so shattered in my life. Who knew falling apart for someone like this could be so wonderful?

Tav doesn’t give me a moment to escape when he pulls his fingers from between my legs. I’m horrified and aroused when he sucks them clean.

Oh, Lord. That’s—hot.

Before I can say anything, Tav moves onto his side before he hooks me around the belly. Tugging my back into his front, he settles in as though he’s ready to call it a night. But that can’t be right. I can feel his arousal practically threatening to impale my ass.

The thought of Tav impaling my ass with his hard dick!I almost snicker.

Instead, I press cautiously, “What about you?”

“Tonight is about you.”

“That’s not fair. I—um—I came twice.”

The hard band of his arm pulses around my belly. Firmly, he rumbles, “I’m good, Princess.”

“You’re hard.”

“With your ass pressed up against me, I’ll always be hard.”

“So—” I wiggle said ass in a move that’s way braver than I feel. “Let me please you.”

He groans, but his arm doesn’t loosen. “You’re killing me.”

“I want to, Tav.”

“Tomorrow, Olympia.” There’s a finality in his tone that tells me he’s done with this conversation, so I say nothing as I do my best to rid the tension in my body and snuggle into the man who, only this morning, was my enemy.

God, what am I doing?

Thoughts spin on a reel in my mind. Years of memories, and years of longing. A love unrequited and, when I finally found the courage to run to him for safety, being shut down hard and painfully.

With the way he’s holding me now, it’s hard to reconcile the brutal man who told me over and over how much he hated me, with the man who has now made me come apart at the seams twice.

I can’t process. What happened? What changed?

Why now?

“You’re thinking.” His deep rumble is rough as it moves through me.

I can’t help but tense. I don’t mean to say it—I don’t mean to say anything—but somehow words still sound in the darkness lit only by the moon.

“Is this because you want the will? You think you can seduce me for it?”

“No.”

“If you’re going to play with my heart for it—I’ll just give it to you.” Emotion rattles in my chest and tears spring to my eyes. I feel oversensitive and entirely too vulnerable. “I’m not strong enough for this kind of game.”

He’s silent for a long moment, so long, I make to wiggle from the prison of his arm.

I fail.

His breath is warm in my hair, so warm that it makes me shiver.

His arm loosens around me, and I think this is it. He’s letting me go. But he doesn’t. Instead, his hand moves to the hem of the shirt, slipping under the fabric to slide the length of my torso, between my breasts, to my throat. Gently, he wraps his large hand around the base of my neck, his touch possessively tender as his thumb caresses my wildly beating pulse.

I’m stupefied because—this is comforting.

Honestly, there’s so much wrong with me.

Quietly, he murmurs, “I already have the will, Olympia.”

My entire body stiffens as surprise and ice fill me.

I gasp, “What?” I try to wiggle unsuccessfully in his hold. “When? How?”

“Ian.”

“Ian?” I’m sure he hears my confusion, because he explains, “He hacked into the lawyers’ files. Found the original will. And the forgery. I’m now in possession of both.”

My throat feels like sandpaper. “H-how long?”

“How long have I had it?” I nod, because I suddenly can’t speak, and Tav says, “I’ve had it since last weekend. The night of the pool party.”

When I fight to turn in his arms, he finally lets me. I’m pretty sure the only reason I’m able to move is because I’m moving toward him, and not away. If I’d been trying to escape him, I’m confident I would have found the iron band of his arm an impossible prison to flee.

Searching his dark eyes in the dim moonlight, I breathe, “Why am I still here?”

“Because that was the night you became mine.” He leans forward to press his mouth to my forehead in a move that threatens to cleaver my heart in two. This man.

“Tav—”

“Sleep, Princess.” He delivers another killing blow to my heart and soul in the form of a tender kiss to the tip of my nose. “We have the rest of our lives to have this conversation.”

When he rolls onto his back, pulling me onto his chest, I don’t make a single attempt to escape him. When his hand lifts to the back of my head, fingers sinking into my hair, I let my eyes close. When he turns his head to press his lips to my hair, I know I’m a goner for this man.

My heart, and any hope of it coming out of this intact, has officially been obliterated.