“Make me come.” That belt is still between my legs. If he just moves it a little faster, I’m there.
He kisses me again, keeping up the slow and torturous rubbing. “There’s only one way. Ask for it.”
Silence takes me. “You want to break me.” It’s almost a sob.
“I’ve already broken you.” His eyes are burning coals with flecks of silver on fire. “Now I’ll put you back together.”
He’s right. I can’t think of anything else. “Please spank me to orgasm.” It’s unhealthy to need this badly. I’m dying.
Partially rising, he lets loose with the belt, harder than before. The lashes come one after another, dead center, shooting spirals of sharp pain through me that slash right to a pleasure so dark it has to come directly from Thorn. I climb the jagged cliff and then fall over the edge of pain, climaxing with a shocking rawness that has my mouth widening in a silent scream.
The punishing waves crash through me, head to toe, shattering me into pieces that he can do with as he likes. He spanks me through the entire orgasm until I come down, mumbling.
He tosses the belt aside, reaches up and releases my arms, before roughly flipping me onto my belly. Hard hands yank me onto all fours, he releases his zipper, and then he’s inside me, driving hard and fast.
My head flips back as he holds my hips in a punishing grip and wildly pounds, hitting a spot inside me that has me crying out and pushing against him. This isn’t possible. My nails dig into the pillows and my body stiffens as he forces me up again, too high, my body not prepared for this much fire. I explode again with a sob, another orgasm taking me, as he shudders against me, filling me.
Then, silence.
I flop back down and he allows it. There’s the slight sensation of a warm washcloth between my legs, but I’m gone. I feel his hard body wrap around me and the softest of kisses pressed to my ear before I drop into a deep sleep.
TWENTY-NINE
Alana
I’m small again, rocking back and forth, the carpet soft against my knees. I can smell vanilla. Where am I? Mama said to be quiet, so I am, but I’m scared. I can hear her with a man. Their words are sharp. Scary. I can’t understand them but I hear them. I look up and see those windows. The long ones with the weird shape. It looks mean, but I don’t know why.
She falls on the carpet next to me, her eyes so green, and I reach out, but big hands pull her back up.
I cry and shut my eyes.
Then glass shatters loudly. Seconds later, I hear squealing brakes.
I jerk awake as thunder bellows across the sky.
“Easy.” Thorn rubs a hand down my arm, his body solid and strong behind me. His hand is chilled.
The room is warm. So I take his hand and pull it under the covers with us. Wait a minute. What’s wrong with me? The man spanked me to orgasm the night before. With a belt.
“Tell me.” It’s an order. Sleepy, but a command nonetheless.
So I do, submitting again, remembering more as I speak. I think they’re memories.
“How long did your mother live after this?” His breath stirs my hair, and even though my body is sore, part of me is glad he’s here. He has the most intriguing way of making me feel safe from everything and everyone . . . but him.
I think back. “I don’t remember. Not long. That whole time after my accident is a blur, and before, I don’t remember anything.” I stretch against him and note that his calves are cold as well. Perhaps he’s coming down with something. “I’m not even sure it’s a memory. Could just be a nightmare.”
“The windows you heard shatter. Can you see them?”
Bile rises from my stomach. “No.”
His arm tightens around my waist. “Nothing can hurt you. Tell that little girl in the dream that I’ll slay any monster that comes at her for the rest of her life. And have her look at those windows.”
I snuggle into him and close my eyes because he’s right. I try to take myself back to the room, but I already know what I’ll see. I huddle in the corner, my little arms around my legs, and look up to see the windows with the argyle crisscross pattern. My body shudders. “It’s the windows. First they’re put together with the pattern, and then they’re broken, pieces of the design hanging in the wind.”
Thorn rubs his whiskered chin on top of my head. “I’ll look into your past.”
“I can handle it.” First, I need to speak with my father and then have Ella do a deep dive if I’m not satisfied with his answers. “If somebody hurt my mother or me, and they didn’t pay, I’m going to kill them.” The terror of the dream still chills my blood.
“No, you’re not.” His hand flattens over my abdomen and caresses up across both breasts to stretch across my upper chest, over my heart.
I stiffen. “You can’t tell me you haven’t killed people.”
“I have and I do. You don’t.”
I stare into the darkened room, noting the brightening sky outside. “Why do you care about some killer?”
“I don’t. But if you kill, you’ll become somebody else—you’ll lose a part of yourself, which means we both lose that part. If you’re giving up pieces, it’s only to me.”
I think that’s sweet? Or psychotic. “I’m not promising forever, but—”
“You already have. You gave yourself to me. There’s no going back. Period.” His tone is still lazy but now has a hint of a possessive edge.
I’m too tired to yank his ass into the current century. “I’m going to age. My boobs will drop, my skin wrinkle, and I could gain a hundred pounds. What then?”
He snorts. “You’re still you, no matter what you look like. I’ll still play with your boobs, pinch your skin, and love more of you. It’s the essence of you, the very spirit, that I won’t allow you to change. The rest is up to you.” He stretches. “I’m tiring of waiting for you to come to your senses and return home.”
“You had a date with the Rendale sisters,” I burst out.
