Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

LUCILLE

I’m trembling so hard that I think my bones might actually rattle apart. Theron drives back to the condo, picking me up out of the car and carrying me upstairs. Doing it all without saying a single word.

Only when we’re in the condo does he lower me to my feet. Stumbling a step backward, I look into his eyes. His face is covered with what is now dried blood. Dark, dried blood. Emmie’s blood and others’ because he was covered before I walked into that room.

“I think it’s time you tell me exactly what’s going on, Theron. You don’t just own a security company, do you?”

His lips twitch into a smirk, and he lets out a snort. I can see his white teeth in stark contrast to his dark, blood-covered face.

“I do just own a security company, Lucille.”

Opening her mouth, I watch him for a moment. He doesn’t say anything more right away. Instead, he closes the distance between us. He lifts his hands, his fingers curling around the side of my throat before he inches his face forward.

“You do more than just that,” I whisper.

He hums, and his lips touch mine. He doesn’t deepen the kiss, even though I want him to. I need to feel his whole body against my own. I need to feel alive. Arching my back, I press my body against his. He grips my waist, then pushes me away slightly as he takes a step backward.

“I don’t. This was different.”

His gaze searches mine silently. I need to know what I heard him say to Emmie. There is something more. Has been since the moment I met him, but he isn’t telling me. Reaching between us, I grip his shirt with my fingers and hold him tightly so he can’t get away.

“Tell me, Theron. Tell me right now.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever been this desperate in my entire life. If I don’t find out what this big secret is, then I might actually lose my mind. I’m also ignoring the fact that he killed two people in front of me. I have to compartmentalize everything right now. And at this moment, I am focused on the past, on Theron’s past.

I’ll deal with the present later.

Something shifts in his expression. He releases me and takes a step backward, and then he clears his throat and turns around, so I am looking at his back. I watch as he moves toward the window and looks down at the street.

“The boys today,” I whisper.

“Those boys were in an auction line. Ready to be sold off to the highest bidder,” he snaps.

I gasp, and my knees weaken at the words he’s said. He turns around, and his gaze finds mine. His expression is cold and dead, but the longer he stares at me, the more he shows me that he’s not cold or dead—he’s traumatized.

“Theron,” I exhale.

He shakes his head once, his expression returning to guarded. “I was one of those boys,” he murmurs. “An orphan who nobody gave a single fuck about. Sold to the highest bidder, used and abused in ways that no human should ever have to endure, let alone a child.”

My stomach twists at the idea. Pinching my eyes closed, I breathe deeply through my nose, then let it out my mouth, once, twice, three times before I open my eyes and focus on his again.

“Theron, I don’t…” I attempt to begin.

“You don’t have to say a single word, but this,” he says, lifting his hand and twirling his index finger in a circle, “this is about revenge and protection. Nobody else should ever go through what we did as kids.”

The words he says paint a picture that makes my stomach turn. I open my mouth but then snap my lips closed because I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure there is anything to say.

“And Emmie?” I ask.

I suck in a breath and hold it for a moment as I wait for the answer. I’m not sure I want to know what it is at this point. Learning that Theron was abused that way makes my whole body hurt.

“I didn’t know Emmie was involved.”

“Until?” I ask.

He takes a step forward, but he doesn’t reach out to touch me. Instead, his gaze just searches mine before he speaks. “I found out about the time you did. Asher wanted us to install some more security cameras in his place and on his shipments.”

“On the boys?” I ask in a whisper, shivering.

Humming, he lifts his hand between us, and I watch as he scrubs it down his face. He glances down at his palm, wincing before he shifts his gaze to meet mine again. “I’m covered in blood.”

“You saved them, didn’t you?” I ask.

Theron stays quiet for a moment. Then he reaches out toward me again. This time, he doesn’t touch me but shows me his hand instead. His palm faces upward. There is blood all over it. I want to guide him to the shower and wash him clean of all of this.

“Do you see this?” he asks. “This is the blood of those monsters. I have their blood on my hands.”

I wrap my fingers around the sides of his throat and look into his eyes. “But you don’t have the blood of those boys on your hands,” I whisper.

THERON

You don’t have the blood of those boys on your hands.

Lucille is right, but she’s also fucking wrong. The blood of countless boys is on my hands. I wasn’t there to stop them earlier. And this isn’t even getting to the core of the issue. This shit, it’s low level compared to how deep it goes.

I turn my back to Lucille and walk away. Moving through the condo, I make my way toward the bathroom. I’m not sure if she follows me. Right now, I don’t care either. I need a moment with myself to think.

I lost control, and I fucked everything up.

Starting the shower, I let the steam fill the bathroom before I strip out of my blood-soaked clothes and step under the warm water. It washes over me. Tipping my head down, I watch as the blood moves from my body to the floor and down the drain.

When the water eventually runs clean, I lift my head and reach for the shampoo right as the shower door opens. Turning my head, I watch as a very naked Lucille slips into the space, closing the door behind her.

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to. Instead, she lifts her hands, placing them on the center of my chest before she turns her head and rests her cheek against my skin. I wrap my arms around her and run my fingers through her hair for just a moment.

Without a word, Lucille releases me before she sinks to her knees. When I feel her mouth wrap around my cock, my eyes flutter closed. She moves expertly, gently, and far too fucking sweetly.

Reaching down, I grip the back of her hair, tugging her head backward and tilting it so she can look up into my eyes. “Open your mouth. Do not fucking move.”

She does as I demand. I need this right now more than anything else. I need that sense of control I lost. And this is the only way I can think to regain it. Slowly, I sink down her throat, watching as her eyes water almost instantly.

Pulling out of her, I paint her wet lips with the tip of my cock before I slip down her throat again, inch by inch. She spreads her thighs, breathing out of her nose, and finally relaxes her body—taking me inside of her.

On my third downstroke, tears stream down her face. I’m sure I should stop, maybe pick her up and fuck her against the shower wall, but I need this. Gripping her hair tighter with my fingers, I hold her still as I fuck her mouth.

And that is what I do.

I fuck her mouth.

My other hand, I wrap around the front of her throat so I can feel her neck bulge out from my cock sliding in and out of her mouth. Fuck me, but it’s goddamn gorgeous. It’s out-of-this-fucking-world amazing.

Stroke after stroke, I feel my control returning to me. And when I’m close to coming down her throat, I pull out of her. Lucille pants, no doubt catching her breath because I haven’t given her much time for that.

“Please,” she whimpers. “Let me swallow you.”

Shaking my head, I reach down to the backs of her thighs and carefully pick her up off the wet floor. Then I grip them tightly as I lift her so her back is against the warm wall and her legs are wrapped around my waist.

Slowly, I sink inside of her pussy, feeling her warmth wrap around me. My eyes connect to hers, focus on hers, and I fuck her. It’s not hard and fast the way my body is screaming for. It’s the exact opposite of the way I just fucked her mouth.

It’s slow.

Soft.

And all for her.

Rolling my hips, I grind my pelvis against her clit with each downstroke. She gasps every fucking time I do that, and it fills me with a sense of prideful accomplishment. I need this moment to build back up from my loss of control.

Her nails dig into the flesh of my shoulders, and I can feel her pussy clench and pulse around me. I know she’s close, so fucking ready to explode, and I want it—crave it. This fucking shit that’s been going on is too much, and it’s finally accumulating.

Lucille cries out, her cunt clamping down so goddamn tightly that my orgasm is wrenched from my body without a fucking second of warning. Filling her with my cum, I bury myself deep and stare into her eyes.

Her mouth is open, but no sound is coming out, her body trembling in my arms.

Fucking amazing in every goddamn way possible.

“You’re mine,” I growl.

“Always,” Lucille whispers.

I’m not sure what the hell comes over me, but I decide to make it clear that she doesn’t have a choice in the matter. She is mine. Bought and goddamn paid for.

“No, sweetheart,” I rasp. “You are fucking mine . There is no out. There is no walking away. You’re mine until your last fucking breath.”

She also can’t leave me, not just because I paid for her, but because she knows way too much now. She’s seen too much now, too. Shifting forward, I touch my lips to hers. “Until you’re last goddamn breath. Just know, there is no leaving me. Not fucking ever… at least not alive.”