Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Her every touch and rock made me feel like a god, not a prisoner.
My head swam with lust.
My body ached with need.
I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t run my fingers through her hair or guide her hips to ride me.
I was at her mercy, and I surrendered every piece of myself.
Pieces I’d hidden from Victor. Pieces no one else would ever earn.
I gave every facet of my being to her, and she took it all as if she could hide them forever from this hellish place.
The sofa legs creaked against the stage as our pace increased.
Her thighs stuck to mine.
Sweat prickled beneath my bandages.
The numbing drugs Melanie Belford gave me shielded me from the constant needles in my back each time I thrust up.
No one stopped us.
No one wrenched us apart.
And I hated that I expected it.
Waited for it.
Feared that Victor would tear her away from me.
I kissed her harder than I should, all because terror made me harsh.
Our tongues tangled, and our hearts pounded. She ran her fingers along my imprisoned arms and held onto my cuffs. Her body stretched over me. Her breasts touched my bandaged chest, and I lost another element of myself.
My sanity slowly unravelled the longer she rode me.
I gasped and grunted as the fire between us gathered. We were nothing more than two mortal sticks, rubbing together, smoke kindling, heat warming, quicker and quicker toward combustion and that mind-melding flame.
Tingles and pressure gathered between my legs.
And for the first time since I’d stood over her in that godawful temple with a diamond-hilted dagger in my hand, I wanted to come.
I wanted to come so fucking badly.
“Ily…” I moaned into our kiss. “You’re going to make me—”
She kissed me harder, cutting me off. Rode me faster, pushing me higher.
“Come with me,” I begged around her tongue.
No reply.
Something drove her.
Her fear matched mine.
I tasted her panic as if time was running out.
Christmas…
I didn’t know who had followed our original plan or what detonations the jewels had in place, but…if we could hold on until tomorrow. If we survived just a few more hours—
“If you’re going to come, mon ami, I suggest you do it,” Victor drawled somewhere in the ballroom. “I’ve been patient, but your reward will expire in precisely sixty seconds.”
Ily caught my eyes.
Her skin flushed as I surged upward, using my foot on the floor to drive myself deep, deep inside her.
Falling over me, she pressed my lacerated back onto the cream couch, and my system drenched with pain and pleasure. The blend of bad and good sent me straight into a fresh kind of hell.
I waited for her to speak.
To whisper something into my ear.
To say a single word.
But she kissed me again.
Giving me her tongue in silence, she stole everything I wanted to say in return.
I needed to tell her what the guard told me. What Ben had uttered. That we still had friends in the shadows, trying…
But her kiss turned vicious, and I shuddered as she bit my bottom lip, threw herself backward, and planted her hands on my belly.
I didn’t stand a goddamn chance.
With rocking, rolling, gyrating hips, she took me.
She drove me up that final mountain.
She forced me onto that cliff.
My eyes flared as heat gathered and sparks ignited, and I fought against my binds.
I needed to hug her.
This felt wrong.
Incomplete.
“Ily…wait—”
I didn’t want to come without touching her.
I didn’t want to release without her falling with me.
But she didn’t give me a choice.
With a final thrust of her hips, she pushed me over the edge, and I fell.
“Ah, fuck.” My head tipped back, my eyes rolled, and I cried out as a swift, savage orgasm tore through me.
I couldn’t decide if it was pleasurable or agonising as I shuddered and jerked beneath her.
Filling her.
Loving her.
All while she didn’t say a word.
Chapter Thirteen
………………………….
Ily
I COULDN’T CATCH MY BREATH as I rocked gently over Henri, bringing him back from where I’d pushed him.
He shuddered beneath me as the final ripple of his climax faded.
My heart overflowed with love.
Never-ending, unconditional love.
It took everything not to say the words.
Not to whisper or moan.
But I couldn’t.
I had no doubt that if I’d uttered a single syllable, Peter’s tongue would’ve been tossed in my direction while I rode my twin flame.
I’d been naïvely brave in the six months I’d been trapped here.
I’d put my faith in a higher power and trusted in endless good.
But…hearing Peter being whipped for my outburst while I was given the gift of being with Henri had broken something inside me.
Guilt.
Shame.
Remorse.
I was the reason Peter suffered.
The reason Henri bled.
And I wouldn’t be the cause of any more pain.
I wouldn’t blindly believe that we could win when Victor had proven time and time again that we never could.
One more day…
Just one more day, and this might all be over.
Sucking in a deep breath, Henri relaxed beneath me.