Monster(45)

Wetness instantly pooled between her thighs as his roving hand frantically moved down the length of her body, cupping her breast through the thin layer of cotton, tweaking a distended nipple until she cried out in pleasure and pain. Her body involuntarily arched towards him, wanting more. But that hand scrambled lower still, down her thighs until fingers found her hot slickness, running satisfyingly down the center. “So wet for me,” he growled, and she whimpered at his mercy. He manhandled her; his large hands firmly gripped her thighs and hoisted her up against the wall until she stared down into his rapacious green eyes, eyes that held hers as he lowered her onto his cock, sliding simultaneously in molten flesh that greedily engulfed him.

Powerful legs maintained her weight as he began to move, long, smooth drives that filled a void in her that she hadn’t known was empty until now.

“Eden…” Dominic rasped. He pinned her arms above her head and nuzzled into her neck, taking into his lungs the sandalwood and citrus that smelled so much better on her skin than it ever did on his. The insane need to feel her heart pushed him to drive deeper into her pliant body, a need he would never satisfy but never tired of trying. “This is Eden,” he murmured in silent wonder almost too quietly to himself, but she heard and her heart took it like oxygen. She dipped her head to steal a kiss that he instantly took charge of, and their tongues tangled. He caught her lower lip between his teeth and nibbled before plunging his tongue back into the sweetness of her mouth, depriving her of air, but it was breath Eden was all too willing to do without if it meant prolonging this euphoria. His hips drove in hard, slamming into her and she held on, squeezing her legs around his waist while she rode his every thrust, surrendering to the cavalcade of emotions he made her feel.

“Dom…Dom…” she panted, chanting his name like a pagan prayer, her beautiful sounds hailing him her deity as he felt her walls growing tight, her orgasm bearing down on him like a force of nature. “Come for me, Eden,” he demanded, his voice threaded with raw emotion. And her body, the all too willing supplicant, came undone at his command. The force of her orgasm consumed her, engulfed her in a blaze of white hot pleasure that blinded her to anything else. She felt him, heard an almost tortured groan choke him as he came deep inside her.

He took her two more times before dawn broke over the horizon, and Eden readily spread her legs for him, forgetting everything else that should’ve mattered for another dizzying ride on his roller coaster. When it was over and the world righted itself, she silently marveled how she’d gone nearly a year and a half without sex to having it a handful of times in the span of a few short days. But then that spoke more to Dominic’s potent sexual appeal than her lack of available partners. He had a sway over her that she could not shake, no matter how hard she tried. And she was trying. But as exhibited, her attempts at putting distance between them always led her exactly where she was not supposed to be—in his arms, in his bed—a cycle that was so hard to break.

She needed to leave. Find her robe and steal away before her hypocrisy made itself known. He wouldn’t know she was gone until much later, and by then, Eden would’ve had time to shower and process things before she had to face him again. At least then she would be better prepared to face the awkwardness she knew would come. A little dignity would do her well considering she’d exhibited very little of it so far. Easing out of his restrictive hold took some maneuvering, but once she sat up, a cursory glance in his direction gave her pause. His breathing was controlled, his chest rising and falling steadily in sleep. He looked exhausted, and Eden figured it had more to do with the jetlag than the explosive sex they’d had. It took far more to satiate Dominic’s unquenchable carnal hunger, Eden remembered all too clearly. She crawled off the bed. Her bathrobe lay strewn on the floor in the empty space between the bathroom and bed, stripped from her body, and tossed haphazardly in the heat of passion. She slid into it, wincing when her shoulder gave a protesting twinge. More painkillers, she thought silently, tying to sash before disappearing inside Liam’s nursery.



He watched her avidly. Transfixed like a man sentenced to a lifetime of blindness, and her brilliance, her breathtaking beauty, was the last thing he was permitted to see. She smiled so ravishingly that he envied his son for putting that smile on her face. She was dressed simply in dark rinsed jeans and a sleeveless chiffon blouse. Hair that he’d threaded his fingers through in the heat of passion, tumbled around her shoulders in loose waves. Her feet were bare as she toddled along in the green grass with Liam between her legs teaching him how to walk, her words of encouragement soothing the happy boy as his legs buckled and he stumbled. It was nothing at all like the childhood he’d had. He’d once believed in his undying cynicism that she would abandon Liam in the same way that Dominic himself had been abandoned. He’d set her up to fail long before giving her the chance to prove herself. But he’d seen in so many ways that she was nothing like his mother; there was no comparison between the two. The love and peace that he’d never received, she gave to their son in abundance, without reservation and Dominic treasured her for that alone.

There was so much that he could learn from her, so much that he wanted to learn, to know, but those wants were inconsequential, paling in light of the damage he’d caused her. It pained him to remember her anguished confession when she’d said that he had created her demons and Dominic had known. How could he not when he had been the architect of her torment? But to hear those words from that beautiful mouth, to know that he’d instilled fear in her heart gutted him. Somewhere in hell he knew his mother was cackling, knowing the cycle of her abuse was still very much alive in the son that she’d hated more than life itself. But it was a cycle Dominic was determined to break.

He understood a little more now the reason why he had never been able to cure himself of his obsession with her. Why he’d gone to such lengths to have her. That moment five years ago when he’d seen her on that stage, untouched by his sadism, ignorant to the predator that he’d been, there had been meaning in that moment. Meaning that he was only now beginning to understand. His darkness had been drawn to her light, enticed by that very thing he hadn’t known he’d been searching for until he found it in her. His Eden. In her, laid the garden of his peace. In her year long absence from his life, while she had thrived and lived to become this woman who challenged him in all things, Dominic had been aimless, prowling around restlessly like a beast without his trainer. And when she’d returned, he’d done the only thing he knew how to keep her at his side. His recent trip to Greece had been enlightening, his longing for her had been physically and mentally unbearable, so much so that he’d cut the two week long trip short; the private jet couldn’t have brought him back fast enough. Sliding back the French doors, he moved towards them. She had her dark head down, so absorbed in Liam’s antics, that she didn’t see him approaching until he stood only a few short feet away.

Eden’s skin prickled in that peculiar way it always did when he was near. She looked up and found him standing there clad in a pristine white shirt, sleeves appropriately rolled up, in a pair of tailored steel grey chinos and black loafers. Casual and sexy. His intrinsic magnetism instantly drawing her in. She focused her attention on Liam, scooping down to pick him up, she noticeably winced, her face crinkling in pain as her shoulder protested.

“What’s wrong?” He was there in an instant. Taking Liam in his arms, he trained his gaze back on her. “Are you hurt?” he urged impatiently, needing her to give him an immediate answer.

“It’s my shoulder,” she murmured, raising her hand to the site of her pain. “There was an incident at work last night.” Leveling him with stare, Eden asked, “Did you pay Jenna’s ex-boyfriend to do something for you?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“To find you,” he said concisely. “I was desperate enough to employ his help.”

She appreciated his honesty. “He came by my job last night, making threats and demanding more money from you. He caught me by surprise when I was leaving work, and I guess he sprained my shoulder when he had me against my car.”

A dark cloud of emotion shadowed his hard features for a moment, while his jaw clenched in an obvious bout to control whatever it was he was feeling. He managed the feat, but green eyes were unable to conceal the depth of his rage. A rage Eden was unsure was directed at her.

“Can I see?” The calm of his voice said otherwise.

So completely different than when Carver had asked, Eden silently remarked. For one thing, her heart hadn’t hammered this maddeningly in nervousness as she swept her hair to one side of her shoulder and allowed Dominic his perusal. She chewed anxiously on her lower lip as she quite literally felt the touch of his gaze on her skin. “I thought the pain would ease by now, but it hurts...a lot,” she admitted softly, “I think I need to go to the hospital. Jenna went out for a little while so I was going to wait until she came back so I could go. But if you could just watch Liam, I can go by myself and—”