Chapter 56

56

Aubree

My body came alive again, like air being forced into a corpse that suddenly blossomed with life. I not only wanted him, I needed him.

Food, water, air and him.

My everything.

He pushed inside of me, all the way to the hilt, while I let out a pleasured cry.

“I’m the one who brought you back, Aubree. I jumped into that water and pulled your dead fucking body out of that vault. Not Alec. Me.”

The sobering thought twisted my stomach in knots of sadness, recalling the utterly shaken state I’d awakened to, with him hovering over me like some kind of dark angel, the first time I’d seen fear on his face.

“The sight of you messed with my head. I need to fuck you. In fact, it might take a few days of fucking you to get it out of my system, but right now, I need you to give me everything you’ve got.”

The soft feathering of his lips across my throat clenched my thighs, and a whimper escaped me when he slid his tongue up my neck. Teeth grazing my jawline, he curled his fingers around my nape, gripping me, as if I had any desire to get away from him.

“Aubree, I’ve been so strung out, thinking about you every night, for months,” he rasped. “Your taste. Your smell. Driving me insane. I want that little pistol inside of you, and as much as I fuck you, I want you to fuck me back, because you’ve fucked my mind.”

My head slammed back into the pillow, as he short stroked me, the sensation driving me mad with lust. “Please!” Tongue sweeping my lips, I slid my hand between my thighs, shamelessly massaging my clit.

Nabbing my wrist, he trapped my arm beneath his. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to fucking make love to me, Nick.” Lifting my head off the bed, I crushed my lips to his.

“No going back after this, Aubree. You belong to me. My head might be a jacked-up mess, but my body and heart know what they want.” He squeezed my wrist. “I want to strip you down, take you every night, and wake up to your beautiful face every morning, knowing you’re mine forever.”

“I want you, too. Both of you. All of you. As much as I’m yours, you’re mine, too, Alec, Nick, whoever you are, I don’t care.”

His cock slid inside, filling me.

I arched into him, needing to feel every inch of his skin against mine. With slow, taunting thrusts, he pumped in and out of me, and like always, he watched me. I watched him. We stared at each other, like two warriors about to dive into battle.

He pulled out, flipped me onto my stomach, tugged my hips in the air and drove into me from behind.

I cried out as his cock slipped against my walls, filling me in a way I’d craved for months. I angled my ass higher, rocking my hips, anxious to feel him move inside of me.

He remained still at first, breaths juddering, fingers bruising my hips. “Goddamn,” he growled.

Easy glides, in and out, had me closing my eyes, smiling at the relief, as his thick cock fed my starving libido. “Yes,” I breathed, reaching between my thighs to play with his balls. “Fuck me, Nick.”

“Your pussy missed me, didn’t it? Did you miss me fucking you?” He pushed deep, jerking me forward, and I gritted my teeth at the powerful blow from behind. “Answer me.”

“Every night. I fantasized about you every night!”

“I did, too. Lost my mind with dreams of burying myself inside you.” His pace quickened with his words. “I needed to touch you, to come alive after feeling dead for too goddamn long.” He licked up my spine, never breaking his momentum. “I’m going to fuck you all night, Aubree. Make you come over and over. And then I’m going to fuck you again.”

With his hips jackhammering into me, I clawed at the sheets, the dry cotton sapping my saliva as I bit down into the fabric. Violent, frantic, and desperate for that first buzz of orgasm, like an addict scoring a hit after months of sobriety. I needed the high. Yearned it for so long.

The growling and grunting sounds he made excited me, and I let go, crying out with each merciless slam into my body. Every pounding from behind told me how much he wished to punish me. A silent confession of how much I’d made him ache for me, turn mad with lust and need, in those months apart. I knew, because I’d felt it, too. I’d grown tired of touching myself, searching for the release only his body could give me.

He brought me to tears, not from my pain, but his. I felt it inside of me in the way he moved so frantically and then agonizingly slow. An unsettled sensation that everything could end right then and there, battling the knowledge that we had forever. Even after he’d carried out his vengeance and survived it, his pain still festered. I understood that kind of suffering, because I’d felt it myself. In spite of Michael’s death, in spite of the fact that I was finally free, a wistful longing still burned inside my heart. It was the kind of crushing pain that only love could soothe. I needed to soothe Nick’s heart, to heal him by handing over my very soul, my pain, the hours, minutes, seconds that I’d felt dead without him. I needed him to know the madness inside of me that’d bloomed from missing him.

“I need you. Give me more, Aubree. Everything you’ve got.”

The pressure tightened my stomach with each stroke of his cock that eased the ache inside of me.

He pulled out, twisting me onto my back again, and kissed me before sliding back inside.

I rolled on top of him, my nails digging into his chest, tearing at his flesh. Still fused at the mouth, I dragged his lip through my teeth and bit down. He returned the savagery, with a violent, possessive kiss, pulling my hair. We were a tangle of limbs, scratching, biting, smacking, clawing. Annihilating each other. I couldn’t get enough of him, and I prayed that I wouldn’t come any time soon because I never wanted it to end. I wanted to fuck him until I was weak, beaten, battered, and nothing but soft bones.

His fingers dug into my hips as I rode him. My breasts bounced with each hard slam along his cock, and lifting his head from the pillow, his mouth clamped onto my nipple.

My stomach clenched as pain pierced the sensitive flesh. The edge fringed, muscles burning. Higher. Higher.

He tugged me back into him, fingers curled around my shoulders, pressing into my bones as he guided me up and down, up and down. Pumping, pumping, pumping.

I screamed his name. A plea? It sounded as though I’d hit heaven, begging to come in for a while before I fell back down to earth.

Tingles raced through my blood, and his hot seed shot inside of me, while I called out his name, over and over and his curses bounced off the walls.

He cupped my cheeks, passion burning in his eyes, breaths shuddering with his release. “I love you, Aubree,” he said in a gravelly tone, before his lips slanted over mine. “My beautiful little pistol.”

I smiled at that. “I love you, too.”

A slick coating of sweat, blood and cum covered our bodies in the damp sheets where we’d destroyed each other. Happily annihilated the fuck out of one another in a matter of minutes.

“I should punish you for what you do to my body.” His husky voice tickled my ear, and he collapsed beside me on the bed, tugging me into him. “But I couldn’t hurt you if I tried.”

Our frantic breaths finally slowed, and he slid out of bed, reaching out a hand to me. He could’ve guided me straight over the edge of a cliff and I’d have followed him with a smile. I didn’t care—I needed to feel his body against mine again, so I took his hand.

Leading me toward the bathroom, he nabbed a loofa set in a white antique bowl atop a wooden pedestal just outside of the shower. Inside, he flipped the water on and pulled me into his body. Steam mingled with the warm scent of teak wood, and the water coupled with his hands put me into a trance, as he washed my body down. The glass of the stall, unlike inside of the house, was obscure, but had the feel of an exotic outdoor shower, with moon’s light streaming in and the fresh air fusing with the steam.

Alive. He’s fucking alive. I could scream the words that danced inside my head. No longer alone. For months, I’d agonized over the thought of raising his child by myself. And I would’ve. My world finally felt complete. Whole.

“Part of me still feels like I’m dreaming and you’re not really here.” I closed my eyes as he shampooed my hair.

“I’m really here.” A tweak of my nipple made me yelp, and I reached back to slap his thigh. With his arms wrapped around me, I felt small beside him. “I’m sorry I missed so many opportunities to watch you shower in here.”

“A party every night. All those dirty thoughts I kept to myself. Pretty sure Mateus has enjoyed the show.”

His arms stiffened around my body. “Who’s Mateus?”

“The seventy year old caretaker on the island.”

The tension eased. “I’ll kill him,” he said with a smile in his voice.

“Mister Ryder, are you jealous?”

“Only where you’re concerned.” His teeth nipped my ear, and he smoothed his hands over my body. “Tell me what you want, Aubree. Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you.”

“You. What else?”

“I’m yours.” His voice turned somber. “But sometimes I’m … complicated. It’s been a long time since I shared anything with a woman. I don’t want to fall into old habits, but you’ve become my addiction. And my addictions have been known to destroy me.”

I twisted in his arms to face him, my eyes at the level of his chest tattoo. “I don’t want easy and uncomplicated. I want love that makes me fucking insane and irrational. I want to drown in it and never come back up for air.”

I meant it. There was nothing normal or typical about our love. We should’ve been one hot mess of madness for all that we’d suffered, but just as a flower grows from the sky’s tears, our love grew from pain. It blossomed in darkness and thrived with time.

I kissed his arm, wrapped tightly around me as if claiming what belonged to him. Lowering my gaze, I traced the outline of his tattoo. “Losing you was like a bullet straight to my heart.”

“I promised I’d come back.” His finger hooked beneath my chin and our eyes locked. “I always keep my promises.”

“Then, promise me forever.”

With a grip of my hair, he tipped my head back, leaving a trail of kisses up my throat, until he reached my ear. “I promise,” he whispered.

“I love you.”

“I loved you first,” he battled.

“And I love you twice as much.”

“Touché.” A grin touched his eyes—those sparkling blue gems that I’d missed so much. “You were never meant to be mine, Aubree. But I’ll take you. All of you.” His hand caressed my stomach and he lowered to one knee, planting a kiss to my navel. “And any bastard tries to take either one of you from me will know insufferable pain.”

I threaded my fingers through his hair. “I’m keeping you. Whether you like it or not.”

He pushed to a stand, towering over me. As he bent forward and kissed me, his arms enfolded my body like a warm, protective blanket. “I like it,” he said, smiling against my mouth.

Perhaps hope wasn’t such a cruel bitch, after all.

Apart, we were nothing more than two broken halves, but together, our jagged edges fit perfectly, sealed into something whole again. In the end, he saved me, and in return, I saved him.

Eye for an eye, heart for a heart.

* * *

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