He undid his belt and lowered his zipper. Not slow, not fast, but with an execution that said more than words ever could.
A split second later, his hand was on my lower back and he was pushing. Bending me over the bed, he kicked my feet apart with his polished boot, and I had a wayward thought, wondering if I could see myself in the shine.
A shiver ran up my spine as my breasts landed on the downy-soft, white comforter. Before I could think what to do with my hands, he’d grabbed one wrist, then the other, and brought them to my back.
I wasn’t afraid of him, but I was terrified.
In all of my wildest dreams, this was never the position I ever would’ve dreamed of when I thought about how he would take me for the first time. My young heart had foolishly envisioned candles and kisses and gentle caresses.
As he pinned my hands behind me with my ass in the air, I realized my naivety had been laughable.
Holding my wrists in one hand, he dragged his other hand over my ass. “Tell me, Songbird.” He fingered the edge of my panties. Then in one swift yank, he pulled them halfway down my thighs and cupped my bare pussy. “Who’s touched this cunt?”
Sucking in a shocked breath, my entire body jerked. My heart in my throat, my voice trapped, I couldn’t verbally reply. Groaning as his finger stroked through my heat-slicked core, my unfaithful body betrayed my heart and exploded with desire.
Needy, I pushed into him.
It was so fast and sharp, the slap echoed through the bedroom before the impact hit my brain and traveled to my nerve endings.
“Did I tell you to move?” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand for submission.
My ass bloomed with stinging heat, and I panted. “No.” Oh God.
Stroking over his offending assault, he rubbed my cheek. “Answer my question, Songbird.” Grabbing my core, he pressed his thumb down through my slick folds.
Oh God.
I couldn’t stop it.
My hips swayed to a song they’d never heard, and tight pain clenched deep inside me. “Please.” I didn’t know what I was asking for. I’d never felt anything like this, but I needed more, and I needed it that second.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
I wanted to tell him no one. I wanted to tell him I belonged only to him. I wanted to tell him I’d waited. But I couldn’t. He stroked again, and my mind fractured. “More, please.”
The slap hit my ass fast and viciously hard.
Tears sprung and my body jumped, but a flood of wetness surged between my legs. “Oh God.” What was happening to me?
“Answer, Songbird.” The demand no sooner left his mouth and his fingers my sex, then brutal, rapid-fire slaps hit my empty, pulsing core and each cheek of my ass.
Crying out in pleasure-laced pain, I had no room for lies. “Only one person,” I admitted, praying for him not to hate me, but a twisted, sick part of me was desperate for him to punish me more.
“Who?” he barked, repeating his slaps.
Flinching at his assault, dripping with desire, breathless from his fierce demand, the name left my lips before my mind could censor it. “Leo.”
The cold metal of his necklace brushed against my shoulder blades a second before his chest covered my back. Trapping my hands between our bodies, letting go of my wrists to grasp my hair, he gripped a fistful and yanked it out of the way. My head tilted, and his mouth landed on my exposed nape.
Biting then lapping my heated skin, he mercifully stroked his rough fingers through my soaked sex as he lowered his voice. “Did you give permission to him, Songbird?”
Instant and uncontrollable, a vivid memory lashed my conscience. I didn’t realize I’d made a sound until his hand stilled against my weeping core.
The tight pressure of his grip on my hair loosened, and he gently but firmly cupped me. Then his voice dropped to an achingly tender whisper. “Did Amherst force himself on you, Sanaa?”
I burst into tears.
Horrific shame eclipsed every single point where his body touched mine, and I tried to push him off.
But he didn’t budge.
My Ronan, the man who’d promised to fuck me but not keep me, the boy who’d said he was going to marry me, the Marine who carried a gun to protect me—he didn’t let me go.