5. Madelyn

He fills me with every thrust. Each motion is forceful and brutal, yet it all brings nothing but pleasure. With a pillow under my hips, he fucks me deep and rough. A cold sweat breaks out along my skin. I’m sore, deliciously used and my entire being is exhausted and sated.

As he buries himself fully inside of me, his hand roughly plucks my nipples and his pubic hair grinds against my clit. He’s an expert at playing me, at depriving me of pleasure until he’s ready.

It’s been that way for years now, and the memory of our first time against the brick wall of an alley flashes before my eyes as he tells me to come like the good little whore I am.

Just like he did then.

And I obey, dutifully coming undone for a man I’ve loved in secret for years.

As he loses himself to pleasure, the rhythmic pulses of his cock press against my walls and I swear I could come again just from the sensation.

He holds me, kisses me for a moment and then climbs off, leaving me waiting for a damp cloth to clean up. He’s gentle as he does it. I’ve always been in awe of how this man can be so cruel and so hell-bent on murder and vengeance, yet in the dark of night, alone with me, he has a side to him no one else sees.

Although I suppose it’s the same for me. I’m a duplicitous woman who married a man only to get back at him for my brother’s murder.

The bed groans as he wipes between my thighs and the cuffs attached to the bedpost clink.

“Do you want to use these?” I ask, only because they’ve been there since I arrived and he hasn’t once mentioned them.

“No, it’s for if they come in,” he states simply, even though dread consumes me.

No one can know I was a rat. No one can know we planned this for years. So much is in the hands of deceit. “You’ll say I put them on you at night,” he tells me, tossing the cloth into the laundry bin and then climbing back into bed, pulling the sheets and comforter over us.

I can only nod as words evade me. I don’t know what all his men think or what they’re telling one another. I don’t know if I’m playing the part well enough.

My whispered words are laced with fear when I ask, “Do you think they’ll find out?”

“My brother knows and no one else. No one can ever suspect you were a rat, even if I told you exactly what to do. They would never trust you.”

“I know, but have they said anything?” I ask him as I turn onto my side, staring into the eyes of a man I fell in love with before I was even on his radar. Years ago, before my brother died and I vanished. Before he met a woman who gave him his first son.

Before tragedy. Before this life requested we pay our dues.

Back when all I wanted was him and I thought that would be easy.

“You’re giving me that look again.” Connor breaks up my thoughts with a gentle murmur, his fingers tipping my chin up and forcing me to look at him.

My handsome brutal protector peers down at me.

“I know I used you. I know you fell for me before I fell for you.”

“I loved you so much, I was willing to marry the enemy.” My heart aches knowing what I’ve done.

“You wanted vengeance too,” he reminds me and I nod in agreement. I wanted to kill him, but Connor convinced me to destroy them all. Every last one of them from the inside out.

“When did you want me?”

“Always.” His answer is easy and confident, without hesitation. “When did I fall in love with you, though? When did I … feel this possessiveness over you?”

“Was it when I got pregnant?” I ask him the question I’ve wondered for the last nearly year. Everything changed when I told Connor I was pregnant.

“Before that.” He admits, “I couldn’t stand the idea of him touching you.” I remember the argument we had. Connor didn’t want me to go back. But we were so close to having our plans realized, and I wanted vengeance more than I cared to protect myself.

“He could have found out the baby wasn’t his.”

“We were careful …” I start and all the thoughts and worries race through my mind. “If Nolan wasn’t yours?—”

“He’s mine.” His answer is final. “That is all that matters. No one will ever hurt him.”

My throat closes, wanting nothing else than for my son to be safe. With the feud between families ended by bloodshed, he should be safe.

“I will do anything to keep him safe.”

“What if they find out?” It is my only worry. The only thing that keeps me from sleeping peacefully now.

“Fletcher and I would kill them all before we let anything happen to you or our son.”

The anxiousness doesn’t leave me. “I just want it all to be over,” I whisper, my gaze falling to his chest.

His hand wraps around mine and he brings my knuckles to his lips, planting a kiss there before telling me, “I asked too much of you.” The remorse and regret are evident in his tone.

“What’s done is done.”

That’s what we’ve said for years as we fell deeper into each other’s arms and more and more consumed with plotting an execution to right the sins of the past.

I’m only grateful I’ll no longer be sleeping with the enemy.

“You did everything I told you to. You are my good girl.” He kisses my forehead and the pride and comfort that come with his praise nearly lull me to sleep.

“I love you. Not only for what you do for me, but because I know you. I know all of you.”

His hand slips down my curves when he tells me he loves me too.

“You didn’t answer my question, though … When did you fall for me?” I don’t know why I need to know so badly. But I do.

“Around the time I told you we were pregnant?” I guess.

“I loved you before that … you know that.”

“I know,I just—” I have to steady my breathing before I can get out this pain that radiates inside of me. “But when you … when you wanted to stop it all … when you wanted me to run away from him and be with you because I was pregnant … I was afraid to tell you because I knew you didn’t feel for me what I felt for you but something seemed different that day.”

He smiles weakly and stares at the spinning fan as he says, “I’ll never forget that day.”

Before I can press him again, wanting to know when, he tells me, “I fell for you when you came to me with a proposition. It was slow, not all at once. When you told me you knew how I felt.” His words are choked and I remember that moment. When I met him at his wife and child’s gravestones. My dead husband took from us a love that will always be missed. But Connor and I found each other and he won’t take that away now.

He pulls me in close. “I fell in love with you when my soul realized I needed you to exist. I don’t know how else to describe it. Without you, I didn’t want to live.”

Silence surrounds us as I realize the depth of our connection.

“It’s our secret, though,” he reminds me.

“I know.”

His voice is reassuring when he tells me, “You’ll do well playing the part, you have before.”

“I’ll pretend as long as you want, whatever you want. So long as you love me.”

His grip on me tightens and he pulls me in as close as I could possibly be. He’s my savior, though everyone else thinks he’s my enemy. I can only hope I’m the same to him.

“Tell me you love me again,” I whisper against his lips.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

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