Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

R uby

Kirill didn't give me long before he came into the room, Simba in tow. He doesn't reprimand me, as I'd expected, for the way I'd run. He doesn't tell me the pain I bore was on me. That I'd asked for it. Even though, in a way, I had.

He says nothing at all as he crosses the floor with sure steps, his arms closing around me as he pulls me tight into his chest. And I shatter all over again, somehow feeling safe enough in his arms, against his chest, surrounded by the scent of cedar and flame, to spill every drop of grief I have. Until I have no more inside me to spill.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice gruff. "I am so fucking sorry."

He doesn't give me a chance to reply, and I'm grateful because I have none, before he lifts me into his arms. He sets me down on my feet at my side of the bed, Simba already curled close on the carpet. Then, his jaw set hard, he sets to undressing me. I don't protest. Not a single refusal slips past my lips as he removes my pants, and then my sweater and shirt, my bra.

When I'm standing before him entirely exposed but for the simple blue panties I wear, a muscle in his jaw clenches. He drags his eyes over my skin before he drags his shirt over his head. Then he's pulling it down over my own, covering me even though I suspect it's the last thing he wants to do.

The material is warm on my skin, the heat of his body a memory clinging to black fabric. And suddenly, I want—no, I need —to be closer to him. It hits me like a punch, and I lurch forward a step, my body colliding with his as my arms lift around his broad, naked shoulders, to loop around his neck.

Surprise flashes in his eyes before he catches me against him, and then I'm crushing my mouth to his. The taste of my desperation mixes with his worry, and the brew is toxic. I no longer care. I just kiss him harder. He catches the back of my thigh as I lift my leg around his waist, pulling myself up against his body.

Desire spills into my despair as I feel his arousal between my legs, and I moan against his mouth as I press into him, rolling my lips, and savouring the low growl that rumbles into me through his kiss.

He lays me on the bed, and I'm already moving to tear his shirt from my body when he catches my wrists in his grip. He's hovering above me, his knee in the bed, not giving me his weight as he searches my eyes with his own. Then he rejects me. "Not tonight, Ruby."

"What?" I wheeze. This isn't happening, is it? "Are you rejecting me?"

"No. Never."

"You are." I don't think I've ever been so shocked in my life. I feel betrayed.

"I'm trying not to take advantage of you."

I scoff. "That's rich."

A new burn of tears stings my eyes. I'm a mess of emotions. I'm seeking comfort from a monster—but he's my monster—and if I don't take comfort from him, then I have none at all.

"You're hurting tonight," he reminds me. "Here." He presses his knee into my core. "And here." He releases my wrists to tap my butchered heart.

Rolling onto my side, I try to hide the sting of rejection from him, the ache of an unfulfilled need. He climbs onto the bed behind me, tucking me quickly, and firmly, into his chest in that way he does. I grasp for sleep with the sting of his rejection nipping like hellhounds at my soul, his arousal notched into the crease of my butt.

He whispers, "I'm always here, my lovely wife. Always."

Heartsore and turned on, I finally find sleep.

Something pulls me from the depths of a tear-heavy slumber, and I realize, as I listen, that Kirill isn't behind me. His warm, hard body I've come to expect always in sleep, isn't blanketing me.

Is that what woke me? Am I no longer capable of sleep without him? And what time is it?

Looking toward the window, I see a deeply dark night with a spackling of bright stars. There isn't a hint of sunrise in sight.

It's late.

Where is Kirill?

Still sleep heavy, I push up to sit, and notice a dim light under the bathroom door. Beside me on the floor, Simba lifts his head to watch as I hold my breath, my ears trained to the bathroom.

That's when I hear it. A thickly rich, deeply male sound.

My skin heats, prickling with awareness. Hot arousal spills into my panties, unbidden. My breaths rush faster, and my breasts feel heavy as a newly familiar ache throbs in my core. Quietly, holding my breath, I push back the blankets and tiptoe across the room.

The wood floor creaks and I freeze, my heart pounding in my chest as I listen for sound beyond the bathroom door, hearing nothing but the running of the shower. I could have sworn I heard his groan, not unlike the ones he gave me as he pounded into me over the sled earlier today.

It feels like a lifetime ago, and yet the memory is vivid enough in my mind to have arousal dancing across every inch of my skin.

I don't hesitate as I reach for the knob, twisting, and pushing the door open. It's a big bathroom, but I see him instantly. He's there in the shower, rivers of water running over his body. In the calm glow of the dim light, he looks like a devil cast in sin, and shrouded in desire. He's power, and ink, and man—and I can't look away.

His head is angled back, jaw hard, lips set in a firm line as he grips the hard pipe of his arousal in a big hand. Muscles ripple in his chest as he strokes his thick length, the tip an angry, desperate bloom of burnished red, almost purple. Every inch of the man is hard. He's muscle, and power, and brawny strength wrapped up in sex appeal and sin. He shouldn't appeal, but my panties are soaked through now. I can feel the sticky heat of my need between my thighs.

I shouldn't be watching this. I'm a terrible person.

Taking one step backward, I'm about to flee when his black eyes snap open, locking on me. He doesn't stop stroking, but I see the way the cords in his throat work as he swallows.

Then he commands, "Stay."

I freeze. What's happening?

He gives himself another long, slow stroke, that has the knots in my belly cinching tight.

Is he really going to keep doing this? In front of me?

Am I really going to watch?

I feel so hot. Prickles of awareness needle my flesh, but I do as he commands. When he angles his body to the glass, I can't help myself—I walk closer.

I'm transfixed. I've never seen anything like this ever before.

He gives his length long, slow pumps. There is a darkness to the expanse of his eyes that threatens to suck me in like a black hole. I've never been more willing to be consumed than I am now.

Closer like this, his dick is thick and lined with bulging veins. It looks both shockingly sexy, and terribly painful.

"Fuck," he curses, his free hand colliding hard with the glass in front of me. "Keep looking at me like that."

His thick accent, infused with sex and need, turns me on like never before. I can't help myself as I squeeze my thighs together, trying to relieve just a little pressure. Dark eyes heating, his big hand around his big dick squeezes so tight—too tight. The tip bulges angrily, and a bead of glistening cream oozes from the slit.

I am struck with the shocking urge to fall to my knees and lick the cream.

I don't realize I've done it—slid to my knees—until the cold bite of the tile nips into my knees. He's looking down at me through the glass now with a ravenous hunger that is just a little crazed. He's no longer squeezing his dick, but pumping himself with rough, hungry strokes. I wet my lips, hating the glass between us as I watch, spellbound.

He's bucking into his hand now, those rich, deeply male grunts of sharp pleasure spearing from his lips. A ribbon of white splashes from his tip to hit the glass directly in front of my face, before another ribbon follows. Then another. The bulging veins in his hand and arm match the raging lines in his still hard dick. And I watch, a dark hunger growing wild and unchecked inside me as sticky release slides down the glass.

Slowly, my eyes lift to find his fixed on me. There's a dangerous need lurking within those dark eyes as he growls low, "I tried to be a good man and take care of myself in here, alone. Away from the temptation of you. Of sinking deep inside your tight little cunt, fucking you raw until you screamed. Until you begged." Another hot surge of wet drenches my panties. I nearly moan. His eyes flare as they spear my parted lips. I'm panting. "You better run back to bed, little wife, before I catch you."

"What happens if you catch me?" I'm breathless.

"I'll fuck you. And I don't know that I have it in me to be gentle right now." He swallows hard and hungrily. "So, like I said, run."

Slowly, I rise from my knees, my eyes never leaving his.

I don't know how or when it happened. When I was reborn from the Godfearing obedient I'd forever been, to this wanton, sex-crazed, woman. But it happened, and I'm finding there's no turning back now.

Holding his gaze, my own challenging, I lift his shirt over my head and let it fall to the floor. I've never willingly bared myself to him, and I don't miss the desire that flashes, or the sound of his low, animal growl.

"Ruby," he warns.

My thumbs hook the band of my panties, and I slide them down my legs. Inside my chest, my heart is a sledgehammer. But the throbbing ache in my core is a wrecking ball of need that trumps all.

"I'm not running, husband," I dare him to take me. Use me. Ravage me. Wreck me. "Not anymore."

"Oh," he clucks low. "Little wife. What have you done?"

My heart gives a quick little flip as he throws open the door of the shower, his wet body hitting mine as he slams his mouth to mine. His tongue invades, hot and hard. His lips sink into my lips, my jaw, the tender flesh at my throat, skating over my shoulder. My head falls back as he lifts me into his arms, my legs wrapping around his waist as the hot tip of his burningly hard arousal prods at my core. It's so good—so painfully, decadently, wrongly good.

My back arcs as he bows to pull my nipple between his teeth, rolling his tongue around the tight bud. Cries spill from the depths of me as my hips begin to roll, sliding my slippery wet core over the hard length of him.

"Fuck." He sucks my breast so hard into his mouth, I whimper. "You feel so good, little wife."

And then he's moving. His strides are long, and with every one, I feel the shift of his erection against my core, teasing me. Taunting me.

I feel so empty.

We fall to the bed, his body blanketing mine, caging me against the mattress beneath him even as I spread my legs to cradle his. Every inch of him is hard against all my soft. His fingertips bite into the flesh of my hips as he grips me in place, notching his tip and thrusting home in one violent push. My back arcs, chest slamming into his as I scream into the night.

I feel as though I'm being torn in two, the sting is sharp, and he gives me no time as he growls, "I told you to run." And then he's hooking my thigh with his big hand, lifting it high as he pulls back and thrusts in again, deeper.

"Oh!" I grip his shoulders, nails tearing into flesh. Blood pebbles in the half-moons I leave behind as he wrecks me. It's not kind and loving, this collision. It's unchained obsession. There is violence within this need. "God. Please." I'm praying or pleading—for what, I'm not sure. I only know that I don't want it to end. I never want this to end.

He unlocked something inside me, and now that it's free, I think it'll die if it's ever caged again.

This pain—I need it. Within this act, everything else is seared away.

He's fucking me so hard now, his hips slapping into mine, grinding so violently, I can feel the base of his pelvis grinding into my clit. It drives me wilder, still, and my legs fall open as wide as they can, inviting him into the ruins of me.

"Can't get close enough—to—you." He grunts roughly, hips bucking. "So tight. I want to climb inside you." He falls over me, pistoning into me again and again, his thrusts erratic—frantic. Desperate. "Scream for me, little wife. Come all over my dick, and scream for me."

His words, sinful and deviant as they are, send me soaring over the edge.

And I do exactly as he commands.

I come all over his dick as I scream his name into the night. Again. And again. And again.