Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I arch my back to take him, my breath quivering when I feel him at my entrance. He isn’t rough when he enters me, but he isn’t exactly gentle either, and he’s big. I let out a whimper, claw at the bed, but he keeps my hips in place. Sweat drips down my forehead as he pushes in, all the way in, a low, guttural moan coming from deep inside his chest.
He sucks in a ragged breath. I look back to watch him and I can’t look away. He’s beautiful and powerful and my submission in this moment, this offering of myself, it’s like a sacrifice at an altar. The feeling of giving myself over to him, it’s indescribable and somehow freeing and more. So much more.
Because whatever this is between us, I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to lose him. In spite of everything.
His eyes are black as he shifts his gaze to watch himself. He grinds my ass against himself, pushing impossibly deeper before he begins to draw out, biting his lip and taking his time, before pushing in with another moan.
“You don’t come.” He reminds me, pushing my legs wide, lifting my hips just enough so my clit is no longer in contact with the bed before he begins to fuck me and when I try to slide my hands between my legs, he takes my wrists and pins them to my sides, keeping hold of my hips as he does.
I understand the torture of his punishment. I understand that fine line between pleasure and pain and feel the coiling of tension so tight I’m desperate for release. Desperate for it as he takes his pleasure from me, using me, denying me.
“Please!” I cry out, needing release as his thrusts come harder, deeper, sensations like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Sweat drops from his forehead onto my back and when he releases one hand to slap my ass, I slide my fingers between my legs. The instant they come in contact with my clit, I moan out my release, not caring that it may earn me another punishment. Not caring about anything at all but this orgasm.
Santos groans, spanking my ass again before closing his fingers over mine, orgasm intensifying as he thickens, laying his body over mine and thrusting once more until I feel the throbbing of his cock, feel his release inside me, his full weight on me, all while my own body is pure sensation, pure pleasure, my vision blurred with it.
When it’s over and we’re both panting, I draw in a shivering breath. He lifts off me and I miss his weight, his heat. He draws out of me, lifting me. My body is limp, my eyelids too heavy.
“I told you not to come,” he says as he lays me down under the blanket and settles close behind me, his arm across my belly.
I nod, sleepy. “Next time.”
He chuckles, draws the blanket over us and holds me tight.
I drift off, feeling drunk. It’s like the orgasm, the intensity of it, has me floating between worlds. “I love you.” I hear the words slip off my tongue, recognize my voice. They’re a whisper in a dream as I let myself melt into the warm embrace of Santos Augustine’s arms feeling protected. Feeling safe.
11
SANTOS
I love you.
I hold her, her body surrendered to me in sleep, her breathing quiet, skin warm and soft.
Did she mean to say those words? How can she feel that way? How can she love me? The thought of it, the idea of it, is so foreign and strange that I can’t quite process it. I care about her. I meant what I said about protecting her. But love?
A half-sleep steals me away, but I’m restless. The day has been long, and my brain won’t switch off. It keeps going over everything that’s happened, giving me flashes of images—some of which I’ve seen, while some it’s making up along the way.
Camilla with the two-pronged tongue of a snake as she sows seeds of doubt about my brother.
Thiago sitting across from me at the strip club, his head smashed in, his face a partial skull. The whiskey he’s drinking is pouring out of the open gash in his neck where the rope has sliced through to bone.
Thiago telling me I can trust no one.
Caius’s face swims before my eyes. He smiles, dimples making him look five years younger than he is. He pats my back and ruffles my hair and all the while, he has a hand in his pocket and his head is cocked to the side. His tell when he lies.
“You know what you did. This is your punishment,” my father says as if a voice over commercial.
The Commander the way he was at the end. On the last night of his life. Laughing at us. Stance casual and relaxed. Until Thiago strikes. Until I do. A life lived in violence ended in violence. We each reap what we sow.