He stood staring out the window, as he had for the past ten minutes.

I’d almost think he’d forgotten I was there, but every couple of minutes, he’d glance over his shoulder at me, nod slowly to himself, then go back to staring out into the falling snow.

By the time he finally turned to look at me, my stomach was in knots.

“Are you angry with me?” I asked nervously.

“No.” He looked dazed, but to my surprise, some of the brackets that had seemed permanently stamped on his face looked…less. “I’m not. I can’t…hell, I always wanted to believe I was adopted or a foundling or something. I never actually thought there was any real chance that Gilbert would turn out to not be my father though. This is like an early Christmas present.”

He flashed a smile that looked surprisingly young, almost vulnerable.

My heart flipped over in my chest at the sight of it.

I wanted to go to him and hug him, but everything between us still felt too raw.

“You’ve got to figure out a better way to handle things when you’re on edge.” Deciding to test the waters, I moved closer to him and lifted a hand, lightly tracing the red edge of one of the marks just barely visible on the upper curve of his shoulder. “You tore yourself up today. You can’t keep doing this.”

“I had to do something,” he said gruffly. “There was too much…” His gaze slid away. “I’ve got ugly shit inside me. I’m angry with myself, Stella. I shouldn’t have treated you like I did.”

“No,” I said, agreeing with him. “You shouldn’t have. But you’ve got to find other ways to deal with it.”

At some point, I’d stopped touching the mark on his shoulder and just let my hand rest on his chest. Now I was exquisitely, almost painfully aware of his heart as it beat against my palm. Tension, like electricity, buzzed between us.

“What do you suggest?”

Licking my lips, I said, “Well, I’ve got one thing in mind…for now.”

He reached up, cupping my cheek. “That’s a bad idea with me in the frame of mind I’m in.”

“I’m not in the brightest frame of mind myself, Lukas.” I tipped my head back. “I’m not afraid of you. I can take it.”

His pupils flared. “Don’t tempt me, Stella. I’m weak right now. And when it comes to you, I’m not all that strong anyway.”

My nipples puckered and tightened. The heat of him seemed to reach out across the inches that separated us, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more. Stepping closer, I lifted my other hand and reached up, sliding my fingers along his skin until I could link them behind his neck. “Come on, Lukas. See if you can make me cry wolf.”

His mouth came crushing down on mine in the next moment.

I only briefly had time to wonder if maybe, just maybe I was asking for more than I could handle.

If so…well, I was going to enjoy every rough, wild minute of it.

* * *

He carried me to another bedroom.

“This one isn’t fit for what I want to do to you,” he told me.

He left me standing at the foot of the bed and said brusquely, “Be naked when I get back. Those clothes won’t be in one piece if you’re still wearing them when I walk through the door.”

I was naked when he came back. Although I was a little chilly, I didn’t climb into the bed.

The look in his eyes had warned me not to, and I was glad I’d listened to my instincts.

He was only gone a few minutes, and when he returned, I was standing where he’d left me, but my clothes were now folded neatly, waiting on the dresser.

It’s a vulnerable position to be in, standing naked in front of somebody while the other person is completely clothed. Lukas made no attempt to disguise his perusal of me, and I was painfully aware of the flaws, the curve of my belly, thighs that would never be model slim.

But whatever it was that he saw pleased him – it was obvious in the way his pupils spiked, the black swallowing up the blue of his eyes. He came closer and tossed something on the bed behind me. I didn’t turn to look. Yet another lesson he’d taught me. Whatever it was, I’d find out soon enough.

“Get on your knees. I want to fuck your mouth,” he said, voice raw.

I knelt in front of him and reached up, unbuttoning his trousers and dragging down the zipper. I went to free him, which he allowed, but when I started to wrap my hand around the base of his cock, he shook his head. “Hands off.” He shoved one hand into my hair and fisted the other around his cock, holding it steady as he pressed the tip to my lips. “Swallow me. Take me deep.”

He didn’t give me much choice either, thrusting in the moment I opened for him. He used his hand to mark my limit, then he did exactly as he’d said – he fucked my mouth. It was raw and primal, his need savage. I gripped his thighs to ground myself, feeling battered by the hunger I sensed inside him. My eyes teared up and a few drops broke free and rolled down my cheeks as he thrust past my lips, the head bumping against the back of my throat with each stroke.

Wet gathered between my thighs.

My nipples ached.

I wanted him to touch me.

I wanted to touch me.

But if I did it right now, without his okay, I knew he’d make me suffer for it.

He groaned and tore me off him. I whimpered and tried to follow, but he kept me in place with his hand tangled in my hair. “I’m going to come on you,” he said starkly. “There’s not going to be an inch of you that I don’t taste, mark or fuck by the time the night is over, Stella. You understand me?”

As he spoke, he fisted his cock, stroking himself roughly, up and down, his fist swallowing up the head of his dick in quick, rapid pumps.

I whimpered at the sight of it.

“Say you understand.”

“I understand,” I told him, eyes still on the magnificent cock in front of me. I licked my lips.

He came.

I gasped as his semen splashed across my breasts and belly, and still, he stroked. A drop of the white fluid slid down between my thighs, and I groaned. My skin seemed to have shrank down on me, becoming two sizes too small, just not big enough for all the sensation swimming inside me now.

“Get up.”

The second I stood, Lukas hauled me against him and slammed his mouth down on mine. He crowded me back up against the bed as he thrust his tongue in, then out, mimicking the motion his cock had used earlier. I bit down on him, then sucked, and he caught the cheek of my ass in his hand, squeezing tight.

I responded by arching against him and wiggling against his still-rigid penis.

He spanked me, then pulled back. His mouth was wet as he said, “Turn around.”

Obediently, I did so and when I did, my gaze fell on what he’d tossed on the bed.

It was a bag. Several things had fallen out of the small duffel, and I shivered at the sight of the velvet whip. He reached past me and pulled something out. Seconds later, I discovered what it was – a cord to secure one of my wrists to the bed post. A second cord was withdrawn to tie my other wrist. Then he pulled out the whip. “Spread your legs, Stella.”

I was almost afraid to do so, but, knees shaking, I did as he asked. He caught my hips and tugged me back a half-step. There was enough give in the wrist restraints to allow it, and I wondered at it – right up until he lashed me the first time.

The whip curled around my side, the very tip kissing the underside of my breast.

“Ahhhh…” I cried, curling in on myself as much as I could, uncertain as of yet whether it was ecstasy I felt or something else.

“Be still.” Lukas’s voice came out as cool, almost dispassionate.

I struggled to comply as he plied the whip again and again, up and down my back, my thighs. Then…I shrieked as I felt the kiss of it between my thighs, the tip of it flicking against my swollen, engorged clit.

Erupting, I jerked against the restraints and fell forward, shuddering in a climax.

A hard arm came around my waist, and he steadied me as the orgasm rocked me.

The tugs on my wrists gave way as he freed me and guided me facedown onto the mattress. Something soft and gentle brushed over my back, and I shivered, every part of me electrified, oversensitized.

I moaned, lifting my hips seekingly.

“Do you want to be fucked, Stella?” he asked.

“Yes…please…Lukas, please,” I moaned.

Something prodded my entrance. It was uneven in some places, smooth in others. I wiggled, but he put a hand at the base of my spine, holding me in place.

“I told you there wouldn’t be an inch of you that wasn’t touched, tasted, or fucked,” he said against my ear.

Then, whatever it was, he thrust it deep, deep, deep.

I wailed as it set off another mini-orgasm.

It was still shaking me when Lukas flipped me over onto my back and shoved my thighs wide, hooking them over his shoulders as he dove for my pussy. He thrust the object inside me in as he flicked my clit with his tongue. Withdrew. He blew a puff of air on me. Thrust. He bit me. Withdrew. He sucked on me. Thrust. Another slow suck.

I could feel myself climbing up, up, up again, and I gasped, not certain if I could take so much sensation at once.

But he stopped and rose up, staring down at me with his hands braced on either side of my hips. He licked his lips, shuddering a little before he looked up and met my eyes. “I love the taste of you,” he said. Then he lowered his head back down.

It was slower this time, as if he wanted to make sure he did as he’d promised, tasted, touched, fucked me so thoroughly, no part of me went undiscovered by him. One hand roamed down my left thigh, gripping my ankle, then cupping my foot and tracing a pattern over my instep. He twisted the heavy, hard object he’d thrust up inside me, and bit my clitoris, then shifted his hand to my right knee, trailing it down, down, down, so he could toy with my right ankle, then my foot.

I was all but vibrating by the time he was done playing with me, so desperate and ready to come and he knew it. Each time I got close, he backed off. Frustrated and ready for him, I shoved my hands into his hair and arched up against his face. “Please!” I begged.

He tensed for a moment, then he caught my ass in his hands and hauled me to the very edge of the bed until I was half-dangling off. He flipped me and shoved me up onto my knees. “Get rid of this,” he muttered, pulling the long, thick ridge from my cunt before pressing his face to me like he was just going to eat me up.

I cried out, my hands fisted in the covers.

He spanked me, and I came so hard, I felt the wetness as it flowed from me. He growled and licked at me like he was dying of thirst, and when finally, the tremors ended and I would have sagged onto the bed, he held me up. One steely hand gripped my hip. The other…

I gasped as he probed the entrance of my ass.

“I’m fucking this ass tonight,” he said. His voice wasn’t so calm and dispassionate now. It was low and raspy, full of possessiveness and need, and just the sound of it was enough to make me quake.

Still, wariness flooded me at his words.

At this point, I was no stranger to anal play, but it seemed the gloves were off now. There was a rawness to his hunger that he’d never let me see before. And he wanted to have anal sex for the first time?

I was about to voice my reservations when he pushed against me – his fingers, not his cock, slick and wet with lubricant.

I pushed down instinctively as he’d instructed me to do and he grunted in approval. “You’re going to grab my cock just like that, baby. I can’t wait. Here…take this now.”

I gasped as he pulled his fingers from me, whimpered when something else pressed to my entrance – I thought it might have been whatever he’d fucked me with a few minutes ago. Something brushed my thigh, and I realized abruptly what it was. The whip – the whip’s handle. The velvet lashes of it were rubbing against my calves as he rotated it.

“Ahhh….” I groaned, my spine arching as he slowly screwed the handle inside me, settling it deeper and more firmly in my ass than any of the toys he’d previously used.

He bent over me then, his lips almost touching my ear. “That’s the whip handle. I’ll have to buy a new one after this, but you needed to be fucked so badly. You got it soaking wet, Stella. You know that?”

He nudged it again as he spoke, sending a tremor of sensation through me.

“It’s almost as long as my cock and you took the whole damn thing.”

He straightened up, and I sensed him pulling away from the bed, circling around, and I looked up to see him standing at the side, staring down at me. The look in his eyes was molten.

He circled back, and I gasped when I felt the lashes of the whip flick against my clit, between the folds of my pussy. It was almost too much. He did it again and again, and I began to rock back, seeking the contact.

That was when he began to thrust the handle inside me, slowly at first, but then, harder, harder.

And he was no longer flicking my clit with the whip.

It was all about the thrust of the handle and me riding it.

“Stop,” he said, gripping my hip and bringing my movements to a halt. He withdrew the handle with almost surgical precision, leaving me aching and empty. “The first time you come like this, it’s going to be with you wrapped around my dick.”

I whimpered at his words, but went still. Fine tremors shook me, and they became more pronounced when he fit the head of his cock to my ass. He soothed me, stroking one hand along the curve of my butt. “You know how to make all of this stop.”

“I don’t want it to stop,” I rasped out.

And I didn’t. I was almost scared of what he was about to do, but I didn’t want it to stop.

“Good.”

With his hand now gripping my hip, he held me steady and began to slowly, slowly invade me. Pain threatened as I stretched to take him, but he didn’t relent. He did withdraw a bit, then began the process all over again. That was the way of it – he’d feed me more of his cock, then slowly withdraw just a little before rocking more of the way in. I barely had a chance to adjust to what I’d taken before he was giving me more, but before I realized it, I was rocking back to meet him, seeking more.

I groaned when I felt his hips press to my ass. “Good girl,” he said, rubbing my hip. “I knew you could take it all.”

He twisted his hips, pulling a whimper from me. He did it again, and I sagged, dropping my upper body flat to the mattress. He caught my wrists in one hand and secured them to the small of my back. Using that as his hold, he began to rock me back and forth on his cock. “I like watching you take me, Stella. You’re stretched so tight around me. Does it hurt?”

“Yes…no…I don’t know…” I moaned out my response, barely able to summon the breath to answer.

“Do I stop?”

“Please don’t!” I felt stuffed so full, so completely possessed and owned by him.

He laughed and slid one hand around and under me. He speared his fingers through my curls and they slid wetly across my slick folds as he sought out my clitoris.

Just that one light touch was like liquid lightning on my skin.

I tensed.

He flicked me.

I froze.

He did it again – and rolled his hips.

“Lukas…”

He did it again…and again…and again…

I lost it, tightening around him and coming so hard, black dots danced in front of my eyes.

He let go of my wrists and grabbed my hips, shoving me down to the mattress where he began to ride me with hard, fast, deep digs of his hips, his cock dragging over sensitive tissues and eliciting more cries from me as I rode my orgasm to the very end.

He ended up collapsing against me moments later, his arms shaking.

Crushed under his weight, I struggled to breathe, but it only lasted a moment before he rolled to his side and pulled me into the hard curve of his body.

We were a mess, a sticky, sweaty mess, and I never, ever wanted to move from this spot.

Lukas’s breath came out of him like a bellows, and I covered the hand resting on my belly with one of my own.

He surprised me by half turning his hand and twining our fingers.

“You can’t tell me this isn’t a better way to deal with all that…mess you carry inside you,” I said softly, unable to stay quiet.

He kissed my shoulder.

“This is a better way to deal with just about anything,” he agreed. Then he pulled me in even closer, a heavy sigh leaving him. “Stay with me?”

“Yes.”