Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

My ankles and wrists were freed, my waist restraint undone, then I was released into Arran’s arms. His angry curse came with his draping my ruined dress over me as best he could. Then he picked me up bride-style, and I curled in on myself, leaving the mask on and trusting him to manage me, like the night he’d claimed me and had taken me from this place.

All I wanted was to get out of there.

Arran carried me away, and I had no idea where we’d end up. Only caring that he had me. Cooler air danced over my limbs, the sounds changing to tell me we were in the corridor, then something dinged and a lift moved us.

“Want to keep the mask on?” Arran adjusted his grip on me. His tone was surprisingly tender.

“For now.” My voice came out thick, though I’d got the tears under control.

“The room was cleared. No one was watching at the end,” he said.

I made no reply, though thank God for that small mercy. Arran walked me out of the lift. We were further up in the warehouse, probably at the top. I’d counted eight floors when I’d scoped the place, nine including the basement.

Another pause, a door opened, a click which told me Arran had turned on lights, then he was setting me down.

He lifted the mask, drawing it up over my hair. His gaze roamed my face. “You were crying.”

I claimed the mask to wipe down my cheeks. “I’m not now.”

He held my gaze for a moment then nodded, handing me something from the end of the sofa. A blanket? No, a hoodie. I dragged it on, not caring if it got messed up from the sticky cum on my body. It would be all over Arran’s clothes, too, and not just his arousal but mine as well.

When I’d wrangled it over my head, discarding the torn dress, I gazed around me. He’d brought me to an apartment, an open-plan space with red-brick walls and a grey stone kitchen with shiny appliances. A lamp by the side of my sofa plus three glass pendant lights over the kitchen counter provided a warm glow, shadows holding the corners. Twisting around, I took in a darkened hall behind me, all the rooms off it unlit. Bedrooms, I presumed.

Arran flicked on a machine. “Coffee?”

“Thank you.” I brought my attention to the other side of the room where a floor-to-ceiling arched window looked out on the city. My breath caught. “Is this your home?”

“It is. Half the penthouse floor. Shade has the other half. No one knows we live up here, so if that’s suddenly discovered…”

He left the rest unsaid—that he’d know it was me who’d spilled. I rubbed my arms, suddenly cold despite the clothing he’d offered. Screw him for not trusting me still.

Climbing up, I stalked to the uncovered window. Below, people came and went from the club entrances, taxis and bikes zipping about. The river flowed in a steady, black stream to the right, and the bridges across it sparkled with reflected light. TVs flickered in apartment block windows, and against the dark river came the flare of someone smoking on the dockside. Beyond, the taller city buildings had minimal lights on, most of their windows shaded.

My pulse quickened.

The very best part of Dad’s apartment, maybe the only good part, was the view it had down the hill. Maybe I could even see the Crescent from here, if I cared to look. But it couldn’t beat Arran’s view. Instantly, I was hooked on the vision of the city in the evening.

I’d always been a night owl, and this made one hell of a roost.

The coffee machine clanked, then seconds later, Arran walked up behind me. “What made you come?”

I parted my lips, confused.

“Was it having more than just me touch you?” He held my hips in his big hands.

“I blocked everyone else out,” I whispered.

He made a gruff sound of approval then nudged my hair aside to kiss the back of my neck. Damn him for that sweet touch. I tilted my head to give him better access, something inside me going molten.

“Give me free use again.” Another kiss.

“No.”

Arran pushed me against the glass, his knee spreading my legs. “Why not?”

“I don’t have to give you a reason.”

He rumbled, drawing another kiss higher. His fingers hitched up my hem. “It would be different.”

“How?”

“I wouldn’t deny you. I liked feeling you pulse around my dick. I need it again.”

“For your sake then, not mine.”

“Christ, woman. I liked feeling you come because it gave you pleasure. That did something to my brain.”

I considered that, my focus skipping from car headlights on the nearest bridge then to a group of men fighting near the water’s edge. I tried to stay in control of myself, not on how I rode his thigh.

What he offered was all I’d wanted. What my body craved. Except there was one huge missing element in that he didn’t trust me still. Not in the way I deserved. I’d been honest from the moment of claiming, but equally, I’d lied to him, too. I didn’t know if we could come back from that.

Wait, why did I want to? My heart throbbed, my odd tears making sense. I cared. For some strange and very wrong reason, I needed there to be a version of this where he and I came to understand each other.

I pushed off the glass and moved away from him, stumbling. Dizzy, I held my gaze on him for a moment then wheeled around and sought out the coffee he’d promised. A cup waited on the tray of the shiny machine, steam rising. An espresso. Perfect.

I knocked it back then wiped my mouth with my hand. “I have a different proposal.”

Arran stalked me, rounding the kitchen counter, but he held back from pouncing. Under the kitchen’s lanterns, I posed, his hoodie long on me but giving me the cover I needed to put forward my thoughts.

“Free use for me.”

“That’s what I want.”

“No,” I corrected. “For me. I’m the one taking.”

His eyes darkened. “Don’t torment me. I want you in all fucking ways, but there is no chance I’m letting you tie me up or blindfold me.”

“Because you don’t trust me, and that sucks,” I snapped back, suddenly shrill. “I don’t know anything about you that isn’t available through gossip or public record. Every time I try to get closer, you slap me back. I hate it.”

“Why do you want to get closer? Why do you want to know more about me?”

I swallowed, emotions too close to the surface again. “It isn’t to sell you out, but because when you touch me, something happens.”

That serious gaze claimed mine, nothing in his features giving up his thoughts. Then some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “Same, little maniac.”

I could’ve laughed at the nickname. He’d used it in my flat when he’d come to visit, and that felt like a million years ago now. But my humour was buried under other feelings I didn’t understand.

“Tell me how it is for you,” I asked.

Slowly, Arran shook his head, not giving me what I’d asked for. Then he changed direction again. “The grave I took you to in the woods was my mother’s.”

“I know that⁠—”

“She was killed in front of me.”

My mouth opened and closed. He watched me as if for confirmation that I already knew this. All I felt was shock. Horror on his behalf.

Then his words from the car came back to me, and I exhaled dismay.

“Your dad did that.”

He inclined his head again. “You wanted to know more about me, what’s your list of questions?”

I gave a huff of breath. “Everything. Who are you? What do you like and dislike? How did you get this place? Where did the money come from if you’re not taking it from the women? Your friends in Scotland, how are they connected? Those are the kinds of things that got stuck in my head, but none of it seems important now. God, Arran.”

He held up a hand, stopping me. “I don’t want this. I never wanted you. At the same point, I want you with every beat of my heart, and the thought of letting you go is a stab wound into my chest.”

A thrill struck my heart just as swiftly as pain followed.

“Give me free use in exchange for answers. Or anything you want. I’ll sell myself out just to have your body. Just to have you.” He advanced on me. Touched his forehead to mine.

Fresh desperation flooded me.

I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. Taking up his offer meant forcing him to compromise himself. It didn’t feel right. As badly as I wanted him, my desperation was to be closer, not to extract information like I was pulling teeth.

I backed away from his touch. Took another step, ignoring the insistent tug to stay with him.

“I need a shower,” I mumbled.

A muscle ticked at Arran’s jaw. “Bathroom’s down the hall.”

On my bare feet, my heels left beside the sex frame downstairs, I walked away. The first turning off the hall was a bedroom, so I kept going. The next contained a spacious, all-white bathroom. Switching on the light, I went through the motions to get the shower running and sourcing towels.

My movements were autopilot, so I followed them, shedding the hoodie to a laundry basket and my ruined underwear to the bin, then stepping under the hot water. It sluiced over my skin, and I took a minute to scrub off my makeup, washing away the traces of the night. The track marks from my strange crying session.

Then I curled my arms around myself, upset crinkling my lips. What was wrong with me? Arran was offering anything I wanted in exchange for sex. Sex which would be good for both of us. I should accept, lie back, then leave him.

I didn’t want any of that now.

My unfortunate heart ached for him. I wanted to uncover the story of his mother. I wanted to hug him and tell him I was sorry he’d lost her. I wanted unity and shared conversations. Not the push and pull of anger and hatred barely masked by lust.

The shower door opened, and I sprang my eyes wide. Arran entered, shutting us in then taking me in his arms. Naked, he tipped my head back to receive his kiss, his dick hard and between us. I met his lips, expecting a rough claiming, but instead, he commenced a slow exploration, his lips taking mine as if mapping them.

As he did, he took up the bottle of shower gel, the snap of the lid opening cluing me in to his actions. Then his hands were on my flesh, gliding up to my breasts. He rubbed the lather into my skin, focusing on my nipples.

He broke the kiss to speak. “I need every trace of every other person removed from your body. Lift your hands.”

I obeyed, and he cleaned me then sank to his knees in front of me. “Where else?”

I gazed down at him, how the shower darkened his hair. We were both completely naked probably for the first time. There was something intensely vulnerable about it. All of our antagonism suspended. It gave me a chance to look more closely at that which I’d only glimpsed previously. One of his tattoos was the logo of the club—a skull with a bandanna around its lower face. Another was a surfer on a wave with mountains behind.

He had scars on his skin, round marks like cigarette burns, lines and welts from unknown sources. I’d seen them in my flat but hadn’t wanted to stare.

Now, I did. He watched me, his jaw tightening.

“Answer me, Genevieve.”

“Two people sucked my nipples. Your man held my waist then my breasts, and the last person pushed his way between my legs, fucked me, then came over my belly.”

Arran poured more shower gel onto his palms, and I lowered my fingers to his hair, stroking over the strands while he cleaned my breasts again, my arms, my torso, and then my thighs.

Raising his gaze, he touched me between the legs. I breathed out, desire so close to the surface. He rubbed the suds over me, sliding back between my buttocks and taking his time. Another squirt of the gel landed on my clit. It was cooler than the shower’s heat, and Arran rubbed it in. This time I let the pleasure play out.

We were in some kind of no-man’s land. An amnesty.

My single orgasm from earlier felt like a gateway drug. An appetiser before a feast. At the time, it had been everything I needed, but now I knew it was nowhere near enough. With his light but thorough handling of me, Arran was only priming me up more, my body responding in insistent pulses of need.

I’d never get enough of him.

The realisation was swift and harsh. Even when he was done with me, I could never get over this.

His fingers entered me, and I gasped. My inner walls fluttered around his digits.

Arran dropped his forehead to my body. “I need to feel that around my dick. Please, baby.”

The endearment took me under. My reply came out breathy. “Okay.”

In a flash, he was on his feet and the shower was off, a towel around his waist and one bundling me up. Then I was in his arms with his mouth on mine. Still kissing me, Arran carried me from the bathroom to his bedroom, a bed with dark-blue sheets and a huge wooden headboard against a red-brick wall, another arched window uncovered and giving a wide view of the city lights.

They cast enough of a glow that the fact there was no lamp lit bothered me less.

Besides, my attention was all on Arran. He placed me down at the end of the bed then knelt between my spread knees, wasting no time in taking his mouth to my pussy. I arched my back, my sound of pleasure loud in the quiet room. Arran sucked my clit then speared his tongue into me. The warmth and the simple fact he was touching me there had me driving my heels into the mattress, trying to get closer still.

He lifted my ass to thrust his tongue in deep, the sensation incredible.

“Can’t get enough of the taste of you,” he growled into my flesh. “But I need to feel you more. I want you to come on my dick so I feel every single pulse.”

Lifting, he boosted me to the top of the bed; our towels dropped, nothing between us but the warm evening’s air.

Arran stroked his dick once then drove it inside me. He groaned, and it broke something in my brain.

“I need you to make that sound more,” I managed to utter.

He cupped my face and kissed me, then drew back, staring down at where my body was taking him, cursing with his lust.

“I need you to come,” he said.

I writhed, already closer than I wanted to admit. “Then make me.”

Again and again, he thrust in and out, each time taking me higher and nearer to bliss. One big hand splayed across my chest then drew down to my belly, lingering to feel my soft skin. Then he cupped my mound, still pistoning away. The heel of his hand ground a circle into my clit. I reached for him.

He batted me away. “Hands to yourself. I want this one to be all me.”

Fine. I closed my eyes and just felt. The pressure of his hand on my sensitive bundle of nerves. The stretch of his dick. That rhythmic pounding against my G-spot. It built and built, the sensation so perfect I could live in that moment. Swim in the joy of how well we fitted.

My inner walls pulsed with the beginnings of my climax. I moaned and flexed, seeking it out. Wanting it all. Dying to reach the finish line at last without fear of never getting there. Arran uttered a masculine sound of deep need but kept delivering that exacting action on my body.

I was so close. So urgently almost there.

“Kiss me,” I begged.

“No.”

I could’ve cried in frustration, but then my desire crested and I was soaring. I sighed in happiness, dizzy with good feeling as my orgasm smacked me down. Around Arran’s dick, I throbbed.

He went motionless, only his hand moving until I stopped it with mine.

“Holy shit,” he said, once my hearing had returned.

I hid my smile, bubbling over with happiness for what we’d done. He was still so hard, lodged inside me, our sex session nowhere near complete. But like this? I could see us having so much fun together.

In a rush, I had to make him come inside me. We hadn’t done that yet, and I needed it more than I needed air. Or to keep playing. God. All of it.

I slid my wet channel up and down his rigid length, gripping him tight.

Arran gave a dark laugh. “Turn over.”

Lazily, I flipped so I was on my front. “You an ass man?”

“I’m an everything man when it comes to your body.” He grazed his fingertips down my spine, keeping on going past my backside to plunge his fingers into me from behind. Then he grabbed my hips and lifted me, his tongue sliding in with his fingers. He licked me clean.

“I did this when you were asleep.”

“Went down on me?”

“Told you your taste drives me insane. Now I know how you taste when you’ve come.”

I remembered something else he’d told me about that night, too. I shivered at the memory. “You fucked me with your knife handle, too.”

Arran stilled. “Did that scare you?”

“It should’ve, but no.” All sense left me when it came to this man.

He pulled away, padding from the room without a word. I sat up and watched the door, but he returned, his holster in his hand.

Thick leather. The black handle of the weapon ridged.

My breath caught. Arran had sat over me and used that knife. Cut my clothes off then pushed it inside me, all while I slept. What if I’d twitched or jerked in my sleep?

Slashed him by accident with my pussy?

I slapped a hand to my mouth, hiding my strange hit of dark humour.

“Something funny?”

No way was I admitting that thought. “I’m just nervous.”

“You should be. Lie back on the pillows.” Arran grabbed my ankle and tugged it, repeating the action with the other side to widen my legs, then knelt in the gap.

With the holster still in place, he ran the tool between my breasts and down my body. The city lights from the arched window reflected on a tiny slice of the blade beneath the hilt.

My breathing hitched. “Have you ever killed anyone with that?”

He didn’t stop, drawing a leisurely trail over my belly. “What do you want to hear from me?”

“The truth.”

“Yes, baby, I’ve killed men with this knife. Also with my bare hands.” He reached the entrance to my pussy and eased the holster tip into me, the sharp, murderous blade contained within the leather.

My chest rose and fell, and a spike of alarm woke every nerve ending. “How many?”

“Not nearly enough.”

Another push and the leather stretched me, getting stuck. Arran drove it around in a circle then yanked it free and flipped it, easing the handle into me instead. My body gave around it, accepting the intrusion.

On my elbows, I watched, unnerved but irrationally turned on, too.

With a flick of his thumb, he unclipped the button and removed the holster, revealing the cruel, evil-edged knife.

“Fuck,” he drawled.

I shuddered, the sight of it between my thighs alarmingly hot. He pushed the hilt until it was flush with my body. I held still, the cutting edge starting millimetres from my skin.

“When I next stab this into someone’s throat or heart, ending their life, I’ll have this image in my head. Your cunt powering it up to deliver the killer blow.”

He loomed over me. Kissed me. Kept the knife in place with his hand.

I pulsed around it unexpectedly and whimpered into the kiss.

Arran settled back on the bed and stared at the place his weapon speared me. “I want to do this with everything I own. If it’s dick-shaped, I want to fuck you with it.”

I threw my arm over my eyes, trying to control my racing heart and perverted brain. “Don’t you own any regular sex toys?”

“I own a fucking brothel, Genevieve.”

My lips curved. “Got any here?”

“No. I told you I didn’t use women before you.”

There was so much to unpack in that sentence, but not now. “Then what else do you have to try out besides the knife?”

He watched me for a moment then pulled the knife from me, dropping it to the mattress. Then he pressed a kiss to my belly and left the room. A short while later, after a search and the sound of running water, Arran came back with an armful of items, though it was too dark for me to see what. Most, he set on the bed behind him and out of my sight, but one he handed over.

A skeleton mask.

“Put it on.”

So he could do this without me seeing? God. “Show me what you’ve got first.”

“No. I won’t hurt you. Purposefully.”

It was a trust exercise, then. Or a challenge. Damn him.

“From now on, I want to have items around me that have all been in your cunt. I want to pick up each and remember. I want other people to use them and not know.”

“You’re perverted.”

But so was I. I slid the mask on and stretched my arms back, settling them behind my head, wriggling my ass to get comfortable for what he wanted to do. It was oddly safer with darkness surrounding me. In this room, with the city lights.

“You can guess each, or I’ll tell you.”

Something cold touched me between the legs, and I jumped. It was thin and narrow and slid into me without much resistance.

“A candle,” he said.

“Unlit, I hope,” I joked.

A pause followed, then the bed dipped. Moments later, a click sounded.

My mouth dropped open. “Did you light it?”

“Your pussy is on fire for me.”

I yanked up the bandanna, but Arran grabbed my hand, forcing me to lie back. He removed the candle. Hot wax dripped on my thighs, and I jerked, but he held me flat.

“It’s only candlewax. A safe version bought for use in the club. It won’t scar.”

More fell on my belly then my chest, hot but not burning. In my darkness, I accepted the little kisses of pain.

“Going to drip it on your nipples.”

My breathing stuttered, but I held still and waited. The liquid splashed me, solidifying fast, my nipples hardening with the interesting sensation.

He drew his thumb over both, rubbing the solidified candlewax away. “Now your clit.”

“Arran,” I warned.

He didn’t wait, the wax falling in hot speckles directly onto my clit. I groaned, confused but aroused by the heat. The fleeting pain.

He peeled away the wax again then climbed off the bed. A couple more clicks sounded, but nothing touched me. Still, I was alert for every sensation. Every wisp of air moving past.

Something brushed my inner thigh.

It was metal, the cold piercing my entrance and pushing inside. No thicker than the candle but harder.

“A round-handled spatula,” Arran said. “I don’t cook, but it’s going to be there in my kitchen.”

“Unhygienic,” I grouched.

He fucked me with it, then the item was removed and another slotted in place. Small and cylindrical, barely any feeling at all.

“A pen?” I asked.

“Exactly. Your pussy is good at guessing games.”

He whipped it away, something thicker immediately replacing it.

“We started off easy, but you’re going to be a good girl and take everything I’ve got.”

I focused on the new object, trying to relax. For no good reason, I wanted to impress him with what I could do. Behave for him and get his praise.

Arran parted my flesh around the square-edged possession. It stretched me wider, but I took it, trying to guess from the small rubber edges that dragged.

Unlike the others, he kept going, not stopping at a couple of inches.

“My remote control. Only used by me and rarely. You should know how hot you look.”

He kept going, driving it up into me until his fingertips were at the end.

“Swallowed it whole,” he commented, awe in his tone.

My throat bobbed, and sweat broke out on my brow. My strange sense of pride was growing along with an increasing need for more. Whatever he wanted to give me.

Arran teased out the remote, no doubt coated in my juices, and I exhaled hard.

“The next is big. I need you wetter.”

Something flat and completely smooth landed on my mound. I squinted into my mask, trying to guess what it was. He tapped it, then it vibrated. Damn. His phone? My heart raced.

He drove it over my clit in several passes back and forth. I squirmed, unable to stop the rush of need from growing. Then he eased the wide edges down towards my opening.

I started. “You can’t put your phone inside me.”

“Don’t ever tell me what to do. From the moment you walked in here, you belonged to me. Don’t forget that.”

Arousal seeped down my thighs. My body responding to his possessive words. Damn him.

With the vibrations steadily pulsing into me, Arran angled the phone back and forth until he got the corners of it in. I breathed, pinned down by his actions. Scared and excited.

There was no way it could go deeper. It was too wide, too rigid.

Too fucking electrical to be safe, though hopefully waterproof.

But those vibrations had me rocking my hips subtly, chasing the good feeling they were generating. And I’d taken his knife. God, I was messed up.

Arran rumbled a sound of approval. “If you’re going to come, I need to feel it. Every time needs to be around my dick.”

I gave a tiny nod, and the phone left my core and moved back to my clit, the delicious thickness of Arran’s dick replacing it and plunging into me. I moaned, not hiding how wound up I was, how ready for him. Yet he didn’t budge, just holding still while the vibrations did their work with his phone flat to my clit. I focused on that and the stretch of him. I loved it so much.

A fast climax neared. I sucked in air.

“Fuck me, please,” I begged.

Nothing, then a slow thrust in and out that nearly broke my brain.

I needed more. I reached for him, but he stopped.

“Hands to yourself.”

“I want you to come as well,” I said in a rush. “You wanted me wet. Use both of us to do it.”

He didn’t answer, just holding the phone hard to my body, the effect delivered right into me. I squirmed. It was relentless, unstopping.

The orgasm hit, and I bucked up then dropped down on his soft sheets, the strength of it just as hard as the last and so good. Yet I wasn’t satisfied. It still felt like part of a buildup to something much bigger.

Without coming, Arran withdrew, uttering a growl.

I hadn’t even finished throbbing when a new item was thrust into me. So thick. Icy cold. Almost too big for me to take, yet I did, loosened by the aftershocks of my climax.

“What the fuck?” I moaned.

“Cucumber from the fridge. You’re so wet you could take anything now.”

I wanted to joke about how you can’t eat in everyone’s house, but my amusement had gone. Need had replaced it completely. I drove my heels into the bed, the iciness a strange sensation as it pulled in and out of me. Then Arran’s tongue landed on my clit. The heat of his mouth battled the cold inside, and a wave of emotion drowned me.

“Enough. I just want you,” I cried.

“One more.”

The vegetable went away, and my poor pussy throbbed, empty, and chilled, but not for long. A round, blunt-ended item ground into my core. Far too broad. Bigger than the cucumber. I blinked my eyes open under the mask.

“Whatever that is, it won’t fit.”

“It’s a cylindrical sample of iron I kept from the renovations of the warehouse. A reminder of all I achieved that lives in my living room and is engraved with the completion date. Smooth, otherwise. You’ll take it. Your cunt will accept everything I give it.”

I moaned, dark desire eking into my blood. “It won’t. That’s impossible.”

He twisted it, winding the base against me. “You can and you will.”

There was no way. From the feel, it wasn’t quite as wide as his square-edged phone, but there was no give. Just a solid metal cylinder.

Arran pushed it then retreated, teasing my flesh, not going so hard as to hurt me, but not giving up either. Suddenly, I got the image of him using all the things we’d played with. Catching sight of the cylinder. Answering the phone. Pressing buttons on his remote control.

Stabbing someone with the blade that started it all.

In a rush, I got it. Why he wanted it. I’d be everywhere. Part of his everyday actions, whether I was in his life or not. Our unconventional relationship had an expiry date, but I was marking my territory in ways no one else would guess. More—he was taking that from me. It gave me a strange and powerful surge of lust, so much that I wanted this final test to happen.

“You need to be wetter still,” he commented, low, need heavy in his tone.

“Come in me. I’ll be soaked.”

A pause. The cold metal left me. His warm dick replaced it. Then Arran reached to snatch off my mask.

His expression nearly broke me, the awe and lust on his features, but the room danced at the edge of my vision. The candle he’d lit had been placed in a holder on his chest of drawers, two others beside it, the flames dancing.

Somehow, his bedroom had taken on a romantic aesthetic. All without me seeing.

“We’ve never had this conversation, but tell me you’re on birth control.”

“Of course I am.”

Arran hauled me up. “Good. If I’m going to come in your cunt, I want to see your face as I do it.”

“Kiss me,” I begged.

His mouth met mine in hunger. His arms ran around me. Suddenly furious, Arran lifted me to his lap, fucking into me hard. I gripped him, holding him to me as close as I could. In and out, he thrust, his hips working overtime.

Sex with him had undertones. His first time had been public and forced. Every time since had been strained in some way, me unconscious, him letting me think it could be his friend between my thighs. This was just us. On his bed. Surrounded by candlelight and a strange selection of impromptu sex toys, an added purpose only he knew the extent of but that I deeply needed.

Our mouths fused. His skin met mine in repeated hits. Then Arran slowed. Pulling back, he jerked into me, holding my gaze.

My vision was hazy, but I held the eye contact, thrilled at the sensation it gave me, my lips parted and my body so, so his.

He kept up the action, his expression darkness, need, and with a flash of something intensely vulnerable.

“Betray me and you’ll destroy me.” His words were thick. Laced with meaning.

Then his lips took mine again, and he thrust once more and held still. Inside me, his dick pulsed.

My pussy throbbed, and I cried out a moan, clutching him so tight that I could hardly breathe. Nothing had ever felt like this. I’d never done it but had wanted it so much.

It felt like trust, even if that could never be.

He pulsed again, his face buried in my neck, then Arran rolled us down to the sheets, his hot body wrapped around mine.

Moments passed. I remembered how to breathe.

Then I pushed him off me. Arran released me, blinking his eyes open, his forehead furrowed. Reaching out, I collected his cylinder and fitted it between my thighs. With effort, I pushed it in where he’d just left, the path easier now, made of deep relaxation and the slick combination of us.

No more panic. No fear. Just showing him I could.

Arran watched, his jaw slack and his gaze glued to the apex of my thighs.

When I’d managed a couple of inches, he took over and slid it out of me, throwing it to the floor. Then he slid his half-hard dick back inside, settling down to hold me close.

“I want to fucking live inside you.”

I wanted to agree, talk, work out all the things that needed to be fixed. My missing father, Cherry’s death, the fact I knew the child Arran sought.

With the flickering candlelight and intense exhaustion, I passed out.