The Isle Of Sin And Shadows - Keri Lake Page 0,137

life, in which anything I desire, or want, becomes a fissure in the glass, a weak hand when the stakes become too high to bet. And what would I be willing to wager to call her mine? My life? Hers?

This feels too fucking good to walk away, though. With a fist full of her soft, dark curls, I take in the tilt of her head, the delicate curve of her neck, as I drive to the hilt. The flutter of eyelashes over her cheeks and the sweet look of ecstasy coloring her expression. I want to frame it for the times when she’s gone, far away from here, and I’m hard just thinking about her. “Why did you ask me to look at you?”

Still staring away, she curls her small hands over my biceps at either side of her, while I continue to pump in and out of her body, ignoring the need to come so badly, my balls feel like kettlebells. “Because I thought … I thought that …”

“You thought I’d see you differently this way.”

“You look at me like I’m some stupid little girl, but I’m not. I know men like you, Thierry. I know you don’t change for a woman. This is where I’m smarter than you, though. Where I win, in spite of you. Because even if you turn me over to those bad men? I still don’t regret this.”

She is smarter, because not even I could’ve anticipated the need building inside of me after one time with her. The ravenous craving to know what an angel looks like when she touches heaven.

What makes her so different that I’d sell my fucking soul for her right now, if she asked?

She’s crazy, that’s what. My personal shot of chaos. A drug I want to inject whenever the fuck I’m feeling too calm and settled and my blood needs a spike of absolute bedlam and turmoil. A rush of adrenaline and lust that has my heart pumping overtime, just to keep up with a sudden urge to jump off a cliff while holding hands with her.

There isn’t enough sobriety and order in the world that can tamp this woman’s effect on me.

“You’re right. You can’t change who I am. But you’ve already changed what I want.”

“What is it that you want?”

“To hear you scream my name.”

At that, I grab the headboard with one hand and root myself so deep inside of her, she arches off the bed. I drive harder. Faster. Every muscle in my body is ready to snap. The bed shakes and jostles with my assault. Headboard smacking against the wall as if the damn thing might break.

Every glide feels as if another piece of my control is flitting away like a string. Fingernails score my back, as she moans in my ear and angles her hips just enough that I slip my palm over her ass. Breasts pressed into my chest, she writhes beneath me, her body trembling, and I lift away just enough to watch the orgasm wash over her like a fucking rainbow. The divine glow of pleasure adding a warm blush to her cheeks.

The whole goddamn world seems to shake around me, shifting off balance, and the sound of my name on her lips is all I can stand. The last shred of my resistance snaps away and I pull out of her, strip the condom off and let the hot jets of cum mark what I know is true from this point on: The girl is mine.

34

Céleste

Feeling weightless in his arms, I rest my cheek against Thierry’s warm chest, as he carries me to the bathroom. A steady heartbeat pounds against my ear in a mocking cadence that reminds me it’s nothing but a hollow muscle beating for itself, and I blink away the oncoming tears that belie this hardened facade I’ve had to wear in the last hour. I’ve fucked two men in my life. Kissed them. Gotten them off more times than I can count. Every encounter met with a cold and shallow predictability that I not only understood, but accepted.

This? This hurts. Like a hot blade in my chest. Not because I regret giving myself to him, but because I regret the now. The awkward silence between us, as he sets me down alongside the shower stall. Here, I thought he’d steal the opportunity to be cruel and violent during sex, because that would be appropriate for a man as cold and indifferent as Thierry. That he could