25. Ash

Chapter Twenty-Five

ASH

“ D ie !” she screeched, pressing the blade into my throat. “ Why won’t you just die !”

I lurched from the darkness, my hand jumping to my throat. Pain throbbed against my fingertips, but my skin was dry with no blood in sight.

It was not real.

I had had plenty of nightmares, more nights with than without. Often, they involved her , and normally, I could fall back asleep afterwards, even just for a brief period, knowing she could no longer hurt me. But sometimes, on rare occasions, they had him . Those nights, I would not sleep at all.

As my heart began to calm, I squinted around. Wind rapped against the window, rain showering down on the panes with natural ferocity. I heard the rumble of thunder in the distance, and not long after, a burst of light flashed across the room.

It vanished, and I was enshrouded in darkness, the short fracture of light glimpsing off the unfamiliar furniture and room. It took a few moments, but eventually, I realised where I was.

Lamb’s room was sparse; nothing more than a bed, a dresser, and a side table. Only a small stack of books on top of the dresser would give away its owner. I could not read the titles at my distance, but I would probably be able to guess the general genre.

I reached up, once again probing the tender bruising around my throat, the small bandage that had covered my self-inflicted wound no longer there. I missed the soft sound of its crinkling touch in the void of noise in the darkness. Even the sound of the storm was dulled behind the strong, fortified walls and watertight window frames. From the lack of noise around the clubhouse, I assumed it was the early hours; the time after people had gone to bed, and well before any would arise. Those were the hours that were the most silent. The most suffocating.

I jumped at the warm hands around mine. I stared hard at the large hand tugging mine down to the bed, a curious finger tracing over the ridges of my knuckles and the veins of my hand. Even in the darkness, I could see the glimmer of white light in his eyes as he stared deeply at his movements as if mesmerised by himself.

“I slept longer than I expected,” I whispered, needing something to fill the air.

“In fits and starts,” Lamb responded, turning over my hand to focus on my palm. With his thumb, he ran circles around the soft centre. “But yes, about four hours.”

I could not remember waking before, but it was not unusual. I often woke up more exhausted than before I went to sleep.

I considered his world idlily, my eyes drifting away from Lamb’s quiet musing, back to the room around us. “There is nothing here …”

Lamb, considering my words, paused from his musing over my hand and followed my gaze around the dim room. He only briefly scanned it, either from familiarity or the fact that there was little to look over. His head tilted with that tiny, subtle gesture of confusion working its way into my heart like a parasite. I fought the traitorous smile pulling at my lips.

“I meant your room,” I elaborated. “There is not anything … personal in it. It looks like a guest room.”

Lamb gave a half-shrug, the sheets rustling with the movement. “Is there a need for something like that?”

“Not a need per se, but …” I drifted off, unsure where I was going with that statement. Having never had a room for myself, I was not confident I could be the authority on what to do with his room, or his house, for that matter.

“This is the colour thing again,” Lamb interrupted my thoughts. I scowled in response, not liking how that synced up in my mind. The last thing I needed was for Lamb to be able to read my thoughts. He saw too much already.

“It is just …“ I paused, the words sticking to the tip of my tongue. I toyed them over in my mouth, my hesitation growing.

Lamb’s fingers threaded through mine, squeezing tight onto the back of my hand, drawing my attention. “Tell me,” he pressed. “I want to know.”

I sighed, my free hand finding clasped ones as I mimicked what Lamb was doing before. My fingers trailed over his, the self-soothing gesture of tracing the length of his fingers feeling hypnotic. “I have never been allowed to personalise anything. Never had a single thing with my name on it. Or an ornament of something I liked, or a book on something I enjoyed. I just assumed everyone would personalise their room if they ever had the chance.”

Neglect was the most accurate way to describe my life. But it was not simply that my parents never paid attention to me. It was more that they wanted to scrub the earth of my existence. My neglect was intentional, even encouraged. I had been abandoned by the world around me, forced to live as a ghost, barely alive, barely existing. I always felt like I could disappear into the air if I wished for it. The world would go on, and nothing would have changed.

“Saying I’m not like anyone would feel cliché.” Lamb pursed his lips in thought. “I’ve always done what I thought I should do. What people wanted of me. What I was expected to do. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised people did things because they felt like they should. At that point, it didn’t take me long to realise the difference between me and them.”

“How old were you?” I asked. “When you realised?”

“Young,” Lamb answered. “Self-awareness came to me faster than it did other children. Something to do with my brain’s development; that’s what my psychiatrist said—my mom made me go.”

It was the first mention of a parent I had heard from Lamb, and it piqued my curiosity. I had not seen a photograph or overheard a distant phone call that would have indicated their presence. “Your parents, are they …?”

“They’re alive,” Lamb filled in the gap. “They live overseas, but I don’t visit them much, and they return the sentiment. I think pretending to be a normal family got too uncomfortable for them in the end.”

I knew the feeling. Only, I wished my family had long since abandoned me before I had no choice but to flee from their side.

“Do you know your mom?”

I jerked in surprise; I had not expected Lamb to whip the table back on me so abruptly. Processing the question led to an uncomfortable ache throbbing in my chest and my hand abandoned our joint ones to rub away the phantom pain.

Light splashed across the room, catching the sharp glint of Lamb’s golden eyes, piercing through the vague darkness and straight into my soul. Knowing who Lamb was, along with everything he had just explained, I knew there was nothing behind those words. To him, it was a simple question. Fortunately, I had a simple answer.

“No.”

Lamb tipped back, one hand bracing behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. “Does it make it easier for you? Not knowing?”

I frowned at the man sprawled on the bed beside me, reconsidering the words I had just thought. “Are you asking about how I feel?”

“As someone incapable of gauging it myself, I must ask; otherwise, I’ll never know.”

“You are slow,” I corrected him, shuffling down the bed until I was propped beside his prone form. With my free hand, I reached to brush aside the wisps of golden hair framing his face. “But you are not incapable of feeling. I find it hard to believe you are incapable of anything.”

Lamb measured me softly, his head turning into my hand, those piercing eyes flushing heat across my face and down beneath the covers where our naked bodies lay inches from each other. His own free hand slid from beneath his head, turning and cupping my own pressed against his cheek. Electricity tingled from his hand into mine, washing over my arm and chest, rushing straight south. He laced his fingers around it, holding it still as he turned his face towards me. His lips pressed into the valley of my wrist, teeth grazing the slight raise of my veins. “I’m not perfect,” Lamb whispered against my skin, and I tried not to squirm.

Even in the dark, Lamb would see my smirk. “I would rather you not be.”

Lamb’s mouth pressed back into my wrist with bruising brutality, his teeth scratching and nipping at the tender, flushed skin. I winced but did not pull away, my eyes tied to his actions with avid fascination as he began to turn the dial on my temperature higher and higher with each bite of pain.

He watched me like a predator, capturing every detail of my face, his own transforming with a keen fixation that had my heart thundering in my chest. It pounded to the sound of the storm rapping against the window, and I became unsure what was the storm and what was me.

“You stir something in me,” Lamb purred, thunder rumbling in tandem. “Something I can’t control.” He tugged on my arm, lips skimming up the inside of my elbow, to my bicep where he pressed another hard kiss into the soft muscle. His tongue darted out to soothe the reddening area, and I struggled not to pant.

“Cannot?” I breathed, my chest tightening, my stomach flipping to the beat of the growing storm. “Or will not?”

Lamb paused; his breath bated against me as thoughts stirred behind those burning brown eyes. “I’m not sure.”

He tugged harder, giving me no room to protest as he pulled my body closer until I was on my knees. One arm pressed into the pillow, holding my body aloft above him.

Weak limbs trembled as his lips continued their trail up my arm, over my shoulder, sinking into place at the nape of my neck. He breathed so deeply it was as if he might steal the oxygen from my lungs as our scents mingled.

“That sounds unlike you,” I whispered, trying to find sense in my quickly narrowing world. I struggled to grip my words, more questions wanting to bubble to the surface, but his lips were making quick work of my priorities.

A flash of lightning buried my hiss as a sharp sting of pain bolted down through my core and a searing burn burst up my stomach.

“Lamb,” I panted, my voice losing any authority. “Do not bite.”

“Stop talking,” Lamb growled back, snaking his other hand up around my bare waist. With light pressure, my body did little to stop me from collapsing on top of him, my breasts rubbing against his tightly muscled chest.

The world flipped, my back pressing into the soft cradle of the bed as Lamb braced above me. He stilled. His pause travelled through every wired fibre of my being, his persistent weight holding me in place, pinned by his pelvis pressing into mine. I fought to adjust, or ease the pressure of him, but only felt the solid mass pressed into my belly harden.

“Lamb,” I whispered, my eyes jumping up to the dark, shadowed face above me, his expression neutral and quiet.

Our hearing was drowned by the storm ramping up outside, and I knew my words landed on deaf ears. His focus was far from my voice, eyes hardened just below my chin. He stared like he might burn a hole through my skin, and it sent hot, flaming shivers down my spine.

I flinched as the whisper of fingers grazed over my throat. My breath caught in my lungs as his palm spread over my oesophagus, his fingers finding placement around it. There was no pressure behind his touch. Only his fingers rested on the tender bruises mottled across my skin.

“I made those marks,” Lamb uttered, pressing his thumb into the nook where my artery tremored beneath.

My blood was pounding in my ears, louder than the storm and stronger than the rain. It shook with neither fear, nor weakness, but something else entirely.

I shifted against him once more, his long, hard length rubbing against my skin. The phantasmal energy that started at my centre, flooded my stomach, scorching the skin where we met.

“Lamb,” I whimpered, feeling both charged and overwhelmed, hips bucking against him, reaffirming the feel of his length against my abdomen.

“Hmm?” Lamb purred, his tone absentminded as his thumb pressed into my neck. “Your heartbeat … I can feel it.”

That tiny little bit of pressure made sparks ripple over my skin and down to my breasts, my nipples standing to a hard, painful point. My hand jerked to his, fingers clasping around his wrists with a powerful strength I was unaware I had.

Lamb, snapped from his daze, relaxed his arm. His eyes, for the first time, reached up to my face. I could feel the flaming red of my skin and knew my eyes fluttered with lust and anticipation.

I held tighter to his arm, the pressure fading from my skin, a rushing desperation jumping through my mind. “Do not,” I breathed, pressing his hand back against my throat. “Do not let go.”

Confusion rose to the surface of his eyes, jumping back and forth across my face, as if trying to find the answer within. I did not understand it either.

All I knew was the feeling of his hand around my throat, the pressure of it there, holding me stiff … I did not want it to end. It made my body weak, my chest heavy, and my heart pound. His touch was usually like ice on my skin, but now it was the only thing able to taper the mad fever rushing through my veins. I was delirious with lust, and my brain had already melted into a puddle. But this, the feeling of his hold, it anchored me.

“Hold me,” I breathed, my neck straining further into his palm. “Like this.” I slid my hand from his wrist, sliding down over his knuckles, my hand overlapping and fingers threading between his, reapplying the lost pressure.

Lamb’s eyes tracked the motion, and I saw the understanding creeping into his expression. Those curious, confused eyes darkened, and the Lamb that sought control began to fade into the background. Energy surged through him, his presence feeling larger and heavier above me.

“Let go,” he said, his tone calm and controlled, his eyes not leaving mine.

“I—”

Lamb’s hand flexed around my throat, my breath flinching in reaction. I searched his face, and the more I saw, the more heat bloomed in my chest.

“Let. Go.”

I understood.

I let my hand slip from his, falling limply into the soft cotton of the sheets. I fought the tingling electricity rushing over my skin, desperate to move and find friction between them. I remained still beneath him, completely submissive to his touch.

“Don’t move,” he growled, his weight shifting back, releasing my hips and leaving me yearning for its return.

He pulled back his hand, cold rushing over my throat as he pushed back onto his haunches. Disappointment and panic flooded my veins, the heat turning to ice as I opened my mouth to protest, pushing up onto my arms to—

“ Don’t ,” Lamb snapped. “ Move .”

If I thought the heat had faded, I had been wrong. It burned twice as bright, my body immediately melting under his command as I sank back into the comfort of the sheets.

Lamb’s eyes ran over my body, slowly tracing and devouring each soft shape that made my body whole. I fought not to wither beneath his gaze, holding my breath steady and my muscles relaxed beneath his control.

Satisfied with what he saw, Lamb’s fingers found my knees, tucking slowly underneath. One at a time, he skimmed down from my knee and under my calf until he was able to lift my ankle up and over his waist.

I nearly buckled under the hot weight pressing back into my pelvis. His scalding length was like a burning poker, slowly pushing its underbelly against my wet and throbbing folds.

I moaned at the feel of him. His heat against mine. I longed to move, to recreate the slow crest of his dick pressing against me and the pleasure it stirred there, but I could not. Lamb’s eyes pinned me with a dark, intense gaze that had my limbs pinned to the sheets, ignoring the screaming from down south that begged to find more pleasure.

Lamb said nothing as he settled himself against me, both of my legs now wrapped and pinned around his waist, my ankles hooked over one another. Both arms braced against the bed as he leaned down until his chest pressed against mine, our skin, already hot, flushed and sweaty, melting into one another.

One large hand pressed over my abdomen, pushing me into the mattress and pinning me in place as he adjusted his weight on top of me, but the hand did not stay put. It travelled a slow and lingering path up over my belly and over my sternum, neglecting my aching breasts and sliding up over my collarbone.

My mouth watered at the feel of him growing closer and closer, my lips dragging through my teeth as I fought to help him on his way.

His fingers found my throat and settled where they belonged, the staggering mix of anticipation and satisfaction riding the quiver raking through my body.

His other hand found its way down between us until his fingers wrapped around his hot length. His knuckles brushed the top of my mound, my hips bucking up and into him in response.

Lamb rocked his hips a little further down. He rested his dick against my tilted centre, my legs still hooked tight around him before allowing his body to push forward, the long, hot length of him sliding between my wet lips.

I tremored against him, his dick rubbing across my clit, sending shivering sparks all across my body. “Lamb,” I whimpered, my throat rubbing against his palm. It only intensified the pleasure.

Lamb stopped, and I was ready to swing at him for it before his dick slid down further than it had before.

The tip of his cock pressed against my entrance, and a bubble filled my chest.

A low, quiet growl rumbled from Lamb’s lips, and it took a second to fight through the delirium to realise that it had been words.

“What?” I breathed, struggling through the haze.

“Stop me,” Lamb spoke, a little louder. His eyes were locked down on his dick where it sat against my core, as though if he looked away for a moment, it would slide straight into me without thought.

I realised what he was asking, knew what he wanted and why he had paused where he did. I was a virgin, and he was about to go to a place no one had been before, and it was something I could never get back.

I had not ever fiercely defended my virginity, but it had not been something I had ever felt pressured to give away. In fact, I had not thought much of it at all. With the way my life had been, the concept and concern many had over my first time hadn’t even make it onto my list of priorities. It was a luxury I had been deprived of.

Yet here I was, a man holding onto the last string of his sanity, giving me that consideration. Any other time, I would have been warmed by the gesture. Right now, however, it was different.

“Lamb, I swear to God,” I heaved, fighting the desperate need to shimmy my hips just that little bit lower, “if you do not put your dick in me right now, I will—”

Lamb surged forward, his tip pressing through my hole without hesitation. Heat and pain rushed over me like a tsunami. It was like I had been run through with a sword as my vagina fought to adjust around his uncomfortably large length.

“Fuck,” I hissed, my hands bracing against his chest, my hips wiggling this way and that as if I might find an escape from the discomfort. “Fuck, you are big,” I whimpered against him, my hips moving back and forth.

“ Stop ,” Lamb growled, the noise sharp and, for a moment, jarring me from my concerns.

“What?” I gasped, turning to look away from where our bodies met, where his dick had just pressed straight into me, skewering me like BBQ meat. “I—”

My word was cut short, Lamb’s hand tightening over my throat. I gasped, my oxygen fighting to get through the small gap Lamb allowed as his other hand caught my own and pressed them back down into the bed.

“Stay still,” Lamb demanded, the consideration and concern vanishing from his face in the bat of an eye. “Trust me.”

I searched his eyes, the dark abyss wanting to drag me in and swallow me whole. A frown was rooted into his face, lips tight and brows heavy as he stared straight down between us.

I wanted to argue, wanted to move, but Lamb had me pinned, both verbally and physically. I tried to ignore the urge to move and readjust, choosing to relax and calm my short and shallow breaths.

Lamb waited until I had stopped moving before he shifted his weight, a gasp jumping up through my lungs in tender protest. He adjusted himself, and I felt little difference, but when Lamb reached down between us to find that bundle of nerves, I wanted to melt against him. His fingers worked in magical ways as my stomach warmed and a burst of teasing, tantalising pleasure surged through the pain and discomfort. It felt good, and the faster he began to work, the faster the pain around him began to ease.

I thought it was impossible, but one second, I was in pain, and the next, something began to brew beneath me. It came so fast, out of nowhere, that I did not even know I was rising until Lamb’s fingers began to move faster and faster, and the muscles I fought so hard to relax began to tighten around Lamb’s length. The solid intrusion of him inside of me as my muscles wanted to clamp down only seemed to heighten my climb as my toes curled and my short breaths turned into bated moans. I fought for breath and oxygen, and I was denied, but it only served to bring me higher as the struggle pushed me up onto that edge.

And then Lamb moved.

I gasped as he suddenly backed up his hips, his dick sliding out. I opened my mouth to protest, the burn of him moving and to deny him leaving, but Lamb had other ideas.

He slid back in, his full length sliding straight up to the hilt until his balls pressed against my ass. My breath caught in my throat, and even a moan of pleasure struggled to make it out as the mix of pain and pleasure rushed through me like a train.

I had not tipped that edge, as the bite of pain grounded me.

Lamb continued to play with my clit, his hips rocking back and forth, in and out of me. I burned as his shaft slid out, my entrance clinging to his every ridge and edge. But as he slid back in, his long dick slamming up into my uterus, a deep, primal pleasure took hold, bringing me higher and higher.

“Lamb,” I huffed, his hand in perfect control over my throat, serving to keep me in place as he rocked his hips forward and backward.

Each time he surged back in, his hand would squeeze in tandem, tightening the control of my oxygen, my body and breath under his absolute dominion.

The gentle did not last long as Lamb began to move faster and faster, slamming into me so hard that even holding my throat did not keep us pinned in place. The bed shook, my hips joined to his, my throat held by his hands as it creaked and waned beneath us.

As I began to build, my desperate, begging moans stuck deeper in my chest, barely able to take a breath, nor release one as he filled me up with his cock. Somehow, it was like he was filling me more than I was capable, as if the pressure he was creating was growing more and more intense with every thrust.

“Tighter,” I gasped, my hands gripping back to his arms, fingers digging into his skin as I begged for it.

I could see the battle in his eyes. The desire to squeeze me tighter and the fight for control that told him he could not. I revelled in it.

Lamb dipped forward, his chest once again pressing into mine, our thrusts rubbing my nipples against his muscles. He pressed his mouth against my ear, his hot breath growling into the shell, “If you don’t want your life”—Lamb squeezed, bringing me closer to that dark edge than ever before—“then give it to me.”

Not a second of hesitation passed my lips as I stared into those dark, consuming eyes. It was enough. “It is all yours.”

Lamb’s grip tightened around me; my oxygen was completely trapped. I fought for air, but there was no hope as Lamb’s thrusts got faster and faster, and in a final sprint to the finish line, black spots danced around my vision, my orgasm rushing up and over me like a tidal wave, as Lamb slammed home into me.

My orgasm exploded like a firework, electric pleasure shooting off in every direction, overwhelming every cell and fibre as Lamb released his hand and oxygen rushed into my lungs. The return of air amplified the pleasure as it tore through my veins like hot, molten euphoria.

It was a unique high I had never experienced, and as Lamb pulled out, I had not even a single ounce of energy to move. I was ragged, exhausted, and elated all at once.

I stared up at the dark ceiling, riding through the waves of pleasure until Lamb’s voice pulled me down into reality.

“That was risky,” Lamb grumbled.

I glanced over, seeing his chest rapidly rising and falling as he struggled to catch his own breath.

“It does not matter,” I whispered, my voice rough and weak from his touch.

“I could’ve killed you.”

“You wanted my life,” I retorted, turning my head to look at him properly. I looked into those dark, honey-brown eyes, warm and melted as his own pleasure still flooded his body. “Have it. Do with it what you will.”

His eyes flickered over mine in that cute confused little gesture as he tried to pry something from my expression that would give him the answer he wanted. He would not find what he was looking for. There were no lies in my voice. The statement was as simple as it sounded.

“No takes backs,” I added, a weak smirk pulling on my lips.

Whatever was struggling beneath Lamb’s face seemed to fade, and instead, a small smile began to pull at the corner of his mouth. He reached over, his palm resting over my eyes, shutting me into the dark. “Sleep,” Lamb said. “You’ll need it.”

“I give you my life, and this is what you choose to do with it?” I murmured, his fingers relaxing against the contours of my face. “Interesting first choice.”

Soft lips brushed over mine, followed by a gravelly, insistent, “ Sleep .”

I sighed, my protest fading into the dark as our words mingled in my mind. It might have sounded like a joke, but I had been serious. Even if it had just been a verbal promise, the idea of handing my life over to Lamb felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders. It was nothing profound, but I still felt it shift, and I felt lighter than ever.

Even as my consciousness began to sink around me, I was not scared to sleep, even if nightmares awaited me. For the first time in a long while, I drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep, relaxed and content.