He fucked me.

He took me.

He consumed me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“OPEN YOUR EYES, Elle.”

I couldn’t, not with the tears trickling down my cheeks. Tears I didn’t even understand. I wasn’t crying because it hurt—the pain had already faded a little. I wasn’t even crying because I’d given this man who I didn’t know the final piece of me that no one else had earned.

I cried because in his strange arms, with his delicious body inside mine, I found a smidgen of that freedom I’d tried so long to find.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered again, rocking into me.

I obeyed, drinking him in, noticing the small beads of sweat on his brow and the wildness on his face.

I shifted beneath him, my hips adjusting to fit his. My tears dried like salt tracks. “You’re huge.”

“You’re tight.”

“It feels...nice, though.”

“Nice?” He half-smiled, fighting back the quick flashes of darkness he kept hidden. “Just nice?” He pressed into me. “No other description? No better word for me fucking you?”

“Sore?”

He scowled. “I was thinking of another.”

“Hard? Full? Desperate?”

His face eclipsed with shadows. “Desperate?” His voice switched to ragged breath. “Desperate for what? This?” He arched into me, his back bowing, his hips driving into mine with power and precision.

My neck tensed, my skull digging into the bed as my shoulder blades came off the mattress. A wave of pain and a crash of pleasure. It seemed I couldn’t enjoy one without enduring the other.

But I’d never experienced anything like it.

I wanted more.

So much more.

But I’d have to wait because bliss like this meant he must’ve come, and I’d read men couldn’t have multiple orgasms like women.

You haven’t come yet.

It didn’t bother me. Tonight had been a simple task to lose my innocence. It rid me of that minor complication, and the next time (if there were a next time), there would be no pain, only pleasure.

My hips moved, kissing the top of my mound to his lower belly. A thank you. A request. A bit of both.

He licked his lips, self-control etching his face. “You want to continue?”

“There’s more?” My lips parted as eagerness washed through me. “You didn’t...finish?”

He chuckled; it shook his body inside mine. “I won’t take offense to that. But if you honestly think I’d just enter you and be satisfied, you need some serious lessons on how I fuck.”

He looked down at where we joined, encouraging me to watch, too. He pulled back a little before pushing forward. The pain morphed to pleasure, warming and melting with a fine veil of sharpness.

Embracing the fire feeding on the lust inside me, I placed my hands on the top of his ass where his back clenched beneath my fingers. “More.”

He planted his fists into the sheets by my head. “Fine.” He slipped from slow to serious, driving into me.

My core clenched around him. A twinge of discomfort tried to steal me away.

Screw the pain.

I wanted this.

All of it.

He groaned long and low, his hips thrust upward, hitting some part of me that shattered into stardust. His hips jack-knifed into mine, as deep and as close as he could go. He let go. He drove again.

Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

Whatever place orgasms lived suddenly swarmed alive like a hive with its ferocious queen. The buzzing flew from my toes to my knees to my spine, from my fingers to my arms to my tongue.

Everything ignited, and I jumped.

I jumped from the tower of Belle Elle. I forgot about my career, my rules, my boundaries.

I deleted myself.

I met Penn in the black debasement and spoke crude consonants and tasted dirty vowels. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to make me scream.” I dug my fingernails into his ass, jerking him to me. “Give me what I want.” I bowed off the bed, capturing his mouth with mine, taking control all while submitting the remaining power I had. “Fuck me...please.”

I should’ve prepared for the unleashing.

I should’ve expected what would happen with such an invitation.

But it still took me by surprise. Still thrilled and terrified and teased.

“You fucking asked for it.” His smile was pure criminal as his stomach tightened, and he drove into me so hard, so fast, his hips bruised my inner thighs. His mouth latched onto mine, our teeth clacking, our tongues knotting, every last masquerade at being civilized...gone.

He didn’t just take me up on my offer.

He doubled my stakes and went for everything he could claim.

He fucked me.

No, that was woefully unjust.

He broke me, fixed me, split me.

His body slammed again and again and again into me. His cock sliding in heat and wetness, dragging more from me. The orgasm buzz increased, consuming everything.

His stamina made my legs jelly. Every feminine atom burst with bliss. My hips tried to meet his, but his pace kept me pinned to the bed. With a ragged breath, he slapped a hand over my heart, pressing my lungs, preventing me from gasping, counting my charging heartbeats.

My skin burned with sweat, turning his grip slippery. His fingers slid off me, slamming into the mattress. His arm buckled, wedging his entire weight on me. His hips thrust as if he had no power over his body anymore. As if all he was, all he was meant to do, was possess me until I possessed him in some karmic twist of fate.