Chapter 15

DYLAN

She looksat me like she’s afraid.

Afraid.

Of me.

My dick has never shriveled so fast. What the fuck? Have we not been on the same page this whole time? Did I do something—?

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, getting up, wobbly on her skyscraper heels. “I’m sorry. I should never have come here like this.”

Then she moves like she’s going to try to get around me and leave.

“Miranda. Miranda!” I bark louder when she ignores me. I want to reach out and grab her but draw back at the last minute.

She had to use her safe word.

She had to use her motherfucking safe word with me.

I’m bent over before I know it and my lunch plus the shitty chips and soda I ate earlier while I was working all come back up as I vomit against the wall of the building.

“Dylan!”

Miranda’s small hand rubs my back and my eyes water as I shake and wipe at my mouth with my forearm.

I stand up and stumble away from the wall. Away from her.

“Did you not want—” I gesture back down at her fur cape several feet back by the recycling bin. “I thought it was another game. Jesus, Miranda, I’m so sorry, I thought—”

“It was,” she cries, sobbing even harder now. “I came here wanting—” She breaks off with a fresh round of sobs and it kills me, fucking kills me seeing her like this.

I reach a hand out but she just shakes her head and takes a step backwards. “I’m fucking toxic, can’t you see that? You need to stay the fuck away from me.”

“What are you talking about? Where is this all coming from?”

Then I look around. I am not having this discussion, whatever the fuck this is, in a cold alleyway behind my fucking building.

I walk toward Miranda and this time when she tries to step back, I don’t let her. I put an arm around her shoulder.

“We’re going to get in my car and drive home. And then you’re going to tell me exactly what the fuck is going on.”

She shakes her head and her whole body shudders with her sobs but I don’t let up. Something is seriously fucking wrong and I won’t rest until I’ve gotten to the bottom of it.

I only let go of her long enough to shrug out of my jacket and sling it over her shoulders, then I pull her close and walk her as quickly as I can back around the building to my car.

Being the boss, I have a parking spot right up front so we don’t have to go too far. I open the passenger side door and get her seated, tucking her legs carefully inside. She’s not crying as hard but she’s gone oddly listless. Frankly, she’s scaring the shit out of me. I tug her seatbelt across her and secure it in place.

I wish we were anywhere but out in public.

I run around the front of my Tesla and hop in the front seat. Then I drive as fast as I dare to my apartment, shooting quick glances over at her the entire way. She has her head turned away from me. I call her name several times but she doesn’t respond.

When we finally get to my building, I pull the car into valet and run around to her side. I tug her out of the car and then lift her into my arms. She doesn’t fight me, thank Christ. She just sinks against my chest as I hike her up in my arms, one arm under her back, the other under her knees.

I ignore the look that the doorman and a couple in the lobby give us and head straight to the elevator, dipping down with Miranda to hit the button for my floor.

Miranda just keeps her face burrowed into my chest.

Meanwhile I swear my heart is beating a thousand fucking beats per minute. She’s hurting and I don’t know why… except I do, don’t I?

I was the only other person in that alley way. I hurt her. But I swear to God I’ll make up for it. Somehow, I swear— Jesus, I swear I’ll spend my life making up for—

The elevator pings and as soon as the doors open, I sweep out of the elevator, unlock my door with my keycard, and take Miranda straight back to my bedroom where I lay her down on the bed.

She immediately curls onto her side, back to me, her knees up to her chest.

Just watching her sends a sword through my chest.

It’s the same position I found Chloe in that day.

For a second I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t fucking do anything.

Monster.

I take a stumbling step back from the bed.

Jesus, what was I thinking, bringing her back here? I hurt her, obviously she wouldn’t want to be alone with me.

I take another step back but then she lifts her head off the bed and looks over her shoulder at me.

“Hold me?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.

My chest clenches in gratitude and relief and lo—

I all but launch myself onto the bed and curl my body in a shell around hers. She starts to cry again and I wrap my arm around her waist. She clutches me, her nails digging into my forearm like she’s so terrified I’ll disappear, she has to hold on to me for dear life.

I want to ask her what’s wrong—no, I want to demand it. But I’ve never seen her so fragile. It’s a word I would usually never associate with Miranda Rose. She’s usually got that shield of armor that’s ten feet thick.

But not with me. Every time we’re together, I get to glimpse more and more of her.

And tonight, for one reason or another, her defenses have collapsed completely.

My cock stirs in my jeans but I move my pelvis back from her ass. I don’t want her feeling my need, or to know that even now when she’s so clearly distraught, I still want to fuck her.

It’s the vulnerability and the honest, beautiful core of her that’s attracted me from the start. I never needed her beautiful body or her perfect face—it was this, her willingness to crack open and let me connect to this intimate, vulnerable part of her that attracted me the most from the beginning.

I’m not sure she even realizes what a gift it is to a man like me, who kept himself set apart from human emotions for years.

“Do you know how rare and perfect you are?” I whisper.

She turns her head, her mouth dropped open and I can see by her look that she thinks I’m crazy. I can’t stop myself from dropping my mouth to hers.

I intend it to be a gentle, reassuring kiss.

But nothing’s ever simple when it comes to this woman, is it?

She flips in my arms and grabs my face, devouring my mouth and cementing the front of her body to the front of mine.

She groans into my mouth when she feels my hard-on, thrusting her hips up to grind against it.

I growl and with every ounce of discipline I have left, I pull back from her. “No, Miranda, we don’t have to. You were so upset earlier. We can just talk, or hold each oth—”

She cuts off my words with another hungry kiss. And then she reaches down between our bodies and grabs my cock through my jeans. She whispers, voice heavy with need. “Please, Dylan. I need you inside me. Don’t make me wait.”

Well fuck, if she puts it that way…

Still, the memory of her calling red and the look on her face. I breathe out hard and then roll us so that I’m on my back and she’s on top.

“Put me inside you if you want me.”

Her hands are frantic on my pants, unbuckling and then unbuttoning them. When her hand closes around my cock, I can’t help hissing and throwing my head back into the mattress.

I lift up my hips as she yanks my jeans down a little.

And then, fuck, yes, she’s on top of me, centering me on her hot cunt and lowering herself on my shaft. I can’t help grabbing her hips and thrusting up into her as I drag her down until I’m bottoming out inside her. Even with her on top, I still can’t give up control.

But she doesn’t seem to mind, letting out a mewling noise and thrusting her breasts out, the most magnificent fucking image as she rides me.

I don’t know how or why, but everything that seemed complicated or impossible moments ago all fades away the second I’m inside her.

Of course we’ll work through this, her body says as it receives mine so eagerly. You were made for me.

She lifts off and then rocks back down over me, her breasts jiggling as her body shudders.

My cock hardens and elongates inside her. It’s different from earlier in the alley. I’m not playing a part.

Do I still want to hurt her? I look up at the beautiful goddess above me and all I feel is the overwhelming and absolute need to… protect her.

All the breath expels from my chest at the realization.

“Lower,” I demand. “Get down here.”

She immediately lowers herself and I wrap my arms around her back, securing her to me because even though I’m inside her, it’s not close enough. Never close enough.

I slow my upstrokes and tangle my other hand in her hair, but only so I can urge her head just the slightest bit back so that her eyes are on mine.

And for the first time in my whole life, silently, I make love.

I never break contact with her eyes as I stroke in and out. She grinds down and rolls her hips in time with each of my thrusts until we’re so in sync, I can’t tell where I end and she begins.

When her eyes fall closed as her pleasure ramps higher, I shake my head and demand in a soft whisper, “eyes.”

Seconds later, tears film her eyes, but not because I’m hurting her. It’s because of this beautiful moment we’re creating together.

“That’s right. Give it to me,” I say. “Give it all over to me.”

And she does.

Her hands ball in the sheets beside my head and her breasts heave against my chest as her face scrunches in pleasure. But she looks at me the entire time, and the spasm that rocks through her body as her orgasm begins is the most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Her pussy squeezes around me and she looks lost. So fucking lost in her pleasure, lost in me, lost in her wanting finally being satisfied.

I thrust up deep and I cum too, so deep inside her, so deep.

And even though I’ve loved watching her cum and sharing it, I can’t stand another second without her mouth. I grab the back of her head and drag her mouth down to mine.

I kiss her hard, tasting her sweet mouth as I pull out and push in again, another groan tearing its way out of me as she squeezes the last of my cum from me. She’s still shuddering, still riding her high and I roll my groin against her just where she needs it.

I drink in her gasps and breathy whines of pleasure. Her arms fly around my back as she pulls me even closer to her.

“Dylan,” she cries as her body continues to shudder as she swivels and rolls her hips on my still hard rod. “Oh.”

Fuck. She has to be riding a second orgasm at this point and it’s so fucking hot.

“Ohhhhh,” she squeals, back arched, mouth open, holding the position for three seconds, five, shit, I keep grinding upwards, kissing her neck, wanting to give it to her, every ounce of pleasure, until finally she collapses on top of me, obviously spent.

Her forehead is dotted with perspiration and her cheeks are rosy and she’s the most glorious fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

I kiss her rose-red lips, swollen from my kisses.

And I whisper the only truth it feels like I’ve ever known: “I love you.”