Page 83 of Fierce Monarch

“I need something else too.”

Her voice was greedy and desperate, and every protest on my lips stopped. I’d do anything for Mari. No questions asked. If she needed me, I was there. Even if it was just for a quick fuck.

Stretching my thumb up, I played with her clit while we finger-fucked her pussy together. “Did they leave you wanting, baby?”

“No. I’m like this for you.”

Christ. “I love that about you.”

She stiffened a little at the comment but ground her hips into my hand anyway. “Keep going. I want to hear it all.”

“I was an enforcer for three years before an officer came to my school. Cash wanted me to drop out to work with him, but Mom and I convinced him that it would look too suspicious. The kid of a career criminal needed to keep his hands clean, especially when the cops were already sniffing around. If he wanted to keep the heat off us, I needed to graduate. He didn’t agree, but he didn’t push either because he was this close to a life sentence beside our father.

“The officer came by every week for months, and I slowly started to talk to him when I knew I wasn’t being watched.” I sighed. “Officer Tate was the first person to ever help me.”

“He got you out.” Mari’s voice was all breath, barely even audible, and I was as close as I could be. Her heart was pounding so hard I felt it through my chest, and her hips were restless as they chased release. She pulled her hand out, grasping my wrist with sticky fingers that I quickly replaced with my own, not wanting to lose our momentum. I was rock hard and grinding against her ass, and I didn’t even care. This moment felt like everything we’d never had and everything we needed.

It felt like possibility, and I wasn’t going to stop for anything.

“He did. I asked if they could keep my enlistment quiet somehow. I didn’t tell them about Cash, but Tate was a local and he’d heard the rumors. He personally drove me to the hotel the night before we left for basic and promised to keep my mom safe too.”

“How’d you get Cash to let you go?”

“I told him the truth. Officer Tate had his eye on me and was asking me about potential for special training, training I could use when I got back. If I agreed to come back to the city when I was done, Cash promised to leave my mom alone, especially when it became clear she needed a facility. It was a no-brainer.”

“More,” she sighed, and I couldn’t take it. My hand stilled and she whined softly, trying to move even as I kept her hips captive.

“You want me to fuck you, angel? Want me to slide my cock inside you while your boyfriends are in the other room?”

“Yes. Fuck yes.”

I shoved her shorts down around her thighs, unzipped my pants, and pulled myself out. The first squeeze was painfully good, and I just knew I was going to have to fight not to come early. Yanking her hips back, I rocked myself between her thighs, slicking myself up. She mewled quietly below me, and I bit her neck gently even though my jaw ached to mark her more. There was no way she’d be able to explain things to the others if I sent her back out with a huge bruise. “Beg me, Mari. Say you want me. Say yes.”

“I want you, Nate. Fuck, please.”

“Such a good girl for me. Now, stay quiet.” A shift of my hips and I was home, sinking inside Mari’s pussy like I didn’t ever want to leave.

I kept each thrust slow and deep, wanting to savor every second of contact even when it wasn’t a good idea. I shifted my hand around to circle her clit before dropping down to feel where our bodies met. The slickness of her moisture against my fingers and her pussy stretched to take me were almost too much.

“You feel so good,” she whispered. “Keep going.”

So I did, with everything. “When I got back from the Army, things were different. Cash had spent years setting the dominoes in place for the city and they were finally ready to fall, but you were a wild card. He needed a plan to neutralize you, so he sent me in.”

“The ambush at my car.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, dropping my head to her shoulder. Mari grabbed my hands again, pulling one up to wrap around her shoulders, pressing just barely into her neck. Our bodies meshed tighter together, and her little sigh of relief told me that’s what she wanted in the first place. To feel closer even as I explained my duplicity. “I was supposed to get close to you, find whatever information I could to get rid of you and get out. Assassination was also an option, if I could do it without leading your family back to Cash. Instead, I watched you.”

“Why?”

“He told me you two were the same. That he’d seen that same depravity in you that he had himself, and it made me wary. I didn’t want to do what Cash wanted, but if the city was better off without you, I had to do whatever it took to keep my mother safe. He was wrong, and so was I.

“You were so different. Strong and powerful but down-to-earth. Kind to your friends and family. You did what you had to do to keep your people safe, but you weren’t like Cash at all. You cared about who died because of you. You cared about the consequences of your actions. You cared about me, a total stranger.”

I picked up my thrusts, not wanting to drag this out anymore, and Mari’s nails dug into my skin. I didn’t care; she could scar me all she wanted. I wasn’t stopping. Not until we were both set free.

Needing to see her face, I wrapped a hand in her hair and pulled so her head dropped back to my shoulder, peppering kisses all over her skin while I fucked her harder. It was hell not being deeper, but I couldn’t risk alerting the others yet.

“You took me in when it wasn’t really safe because you felt honor bound to do it. You felt like you’d ruined my life, and you wanted to fix that for me. No one but Tate had ever done anything that nice for me. It fucked with my head. I wanted to pretend you were like him, to keep my distance, but I couldn’t. You called to me, and my brother noticed. Cash kept asking for intel, but I lied. Said your systems were too advanced or I was too closely guarded to help. He didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press either, and I thought I could get away with it. I could have you, get rid of him, and keep Mom safe at the same time. Then he took you.”

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