And something dawned on me like a light bulb illuminating over my head.
This wasn’t about sex.
I was in love with her. Of that I had no doubt. But even loving her as I did, I still wanted to fuck her. I was still so sexually aroused by her.
But right now? Yes, I wanted to fuck her and fuck her good, but more than that, I just wanted to be a part of her, joined with her. I didn’t want to know where she ended and I began. I wanted us to be complete in each other. One being. One body.
I kissed the top of her head and inhaled the coconut fragrance of her hair.
Maybe, just maybe, things would be all right.
“Stay?” she said into the comforter.
I chuckled against her hair. “I told you I wasn’t leaving your side until after court on Monday, remember?”
She laughed. “Yes, you did say that.”
“Well, since I’m a man of my word, I’ll stay.” I nudged into her a little more deeply, ignoring the urge to plunge, and kissed the top of her sweet-smelling head again.
When she pushed backward, I couldn’t take it any longer. I began thrusting slowly, ever so slowly, making sweet, quiet love to her. To Jade. To the woman I loved.
“Touch yourself, baby,” I said against her hair.
I felt movement as she shifted her fingers between her legs. I closed my eyes and saw her, in my mind’s eye, softly stroking her beautiful pussy…as I slid in and slid out, methodically, gently bringing myself to the edge.
I kept my hand on her breast but did not tease her nipple. No, this was just about the sweetness of a man loving his woman and a woman letting a man love her.
“How are you feeling, blue eyes? Ready to come?”
“Mmm,” she said, her hips gently moving in circles against me. “Whenever you’re ready, baby.”
My skin tightened around me, and my balls inched up toward my cock. “Oh, yeah, I’m ready.” I ground into her, holding my breath for a moment, squeezing my eyes shut, reveling in the tiny convulsions starting in my balls and pulsing outward.
“Now, baby,” I said. “Come now.”
And her pussy clamped around me, milking me, as I shot my seed into the woman I loved.
When the spasms started to slow and my cock lost a bit of its hardness, it slid out of her. She sighed against me, snuggling into me backward. In a few minutes, a soft snore escaped her throat.
I sniffed her hair once more, the coconuty goodness making me smile. Though I knew she couldn’t hear me, I spoke anyway.
“Jade, I love you.”
“I like it.”
The boy’s voice cracked as he said the hateful words. Again he said them to save his own life. To keep the cool knife that one of the masked men held on his throat from plunging through the layers of skin. As he was pounded into from behind, he said it again and then again.
“I like it.”
Even as he said the words, the boy detached himself from what was happening. He had to—to survive. Why? He would die here. He knew that. He’d accepted that. Why did he say those horrid words to ensure his survival for one more second in this hellish nightmare? As if their torture and abuse wasn’t enough, he had to humiliate himself by telling them that he liked it.
Because…
He wanted to survive.
So he would survive. No matter what. One day, he would find a way out of this prison.
When they were done with him, they threw him back on the blanket that had become his bed. It was tattered and gray, covered in his own filth now. How long had he been here? The boy didn’t know. He had stopped counting the days long before.
Sometimes the boy dreamed while he was asleep. The dreams were always the same. He had grown big and tall, as big as his father, over six feet with broad shoulders and a muscular build. When the masked demons came for him, he overpowered them, beat each one of them. Executing martial arts moves, snap kicks, roundhouse kicks, axe kicks, knife hand punches and regular punches to their faces, their noses, their throats.
And when they were all on the ground, lying on their backs, choking on their own blood, the boy took the one with the tattoo, straddled him, and clasped his hands around the demon’s throat.
“How do you like that, boy? Do you like it when I choke the air out of your lungs? Tell me that you like it. Tell me that you like it.
Tattoo gasped, struggling.
“I said tell me you like it, you fucking bastard.”
“I like it,” croaked Tattoo.
And the boy crushed the masked man’s throat, squashing the life out of him.
He liked it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jade
Talon was kissing me. His lips softly grazed my cheeks, my neck, my throat.
The kiss became harder, little bites, harsh suction around my throat, around my larynx.