Page 81 of Eden's Joker

He’s got me there. I have told him I’m making the best of a crappy situation while here. Repeatedly. But it’s gotten to be so much more than that.

He starts eating fast, as though he’s starving.

I sit back and cross my arms over my chest, mostly because I’m afraid my hands will start shaking. All my best laid plans of talking to him about this tonight, of making him understand are disappearing just like the soup off his plate.

“It’s best we don’t talk about it, Eden,” he says, breaking the silence totally unexpectedly.

“We have to talk about it,” I say. “It’s probably theonlything we have to talk about.”

“You want me to spare your father and his buddies, but I can only spare you,” he says. “What else is there to talk about?”

“I can’t watch my family die over a stupid revenge feud,” I say and stand up. “You can’t expect me to.”

He stands up too, towering over me.

“So what are you gonna do?” he asks. “Run away again?”

I look up at him, my hands shaking despite how tightly I’m squeezing them against my chest. “I’ll die with them.”

He gasps, the lighting in his eyes turning dark. I think we’re both equally surprised by my answer. But I find it’s the truth.

“I won’t let you do that,” he says.

“Not up to you,” I insist. “You’ll lose me either way if you go through with this.”

I look away as I say it, because it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever said. But I think it’s also the truth. It’ll be hard, but…

His hand shoots out and grabs a fistful of my hair, forcing me to look at him. “Are you threatening me?”

“Call it what you want,” I say, the sting of how hard he’s pulling my hair lending my voice the edge it needs to speak these words. “But you have to choose between me and your revenge. I know it’s a hell of a choice. But you have to make it.”

“I don’t have to do shit,” he mumbles and kneels down to kiss me, his hand still gripping my hair tight.

Even if he wasn’t holding me so tight, I’d still kiss him back. There’s no fighting this kiss. No backing away. It’s a kiss that hold years, decades, a lifetime of love. With all its passion and all its ups and downs. This is definitely a down.

Not what the kiss is saying. Not what his hands roaming all over my body, caressing my back and hugging me tight are saying.

He pulls me to my feet and unzips the back of my dress and I let it slide off my shoulders to the floor. That’s saying a lot too.

“I don’t want to have to ask for this,” I say as his lips travel down my neck.

“Then don’t,” he mutters then buries his face between my breasts.

“What else can I do?”

“Enough talking, Eden,” he says then makes it happen by kissing me deeply again.

By the time we come up for air, the conversation seems days old. The now is all there is. And right now, I need him, need his kisses, his caresses, his body pressed against mine, his cock inside me.

I help him remove his cut and his shirt without breaking the kiss, tug on his belt, to get his pants off too. I’m caught up in the urgency of now and I never want to be let go. Scary darkness lies beyond this fiery light we’re creating.

He lays me on my back on the table and I wrap my legs around his hips, bidding him closer. There’s not many places in this house where I haven’t given myself to him, and this table is one of them.

There’s no ice in his eyes as he enters me, only softness, only a world of sunshine that I desperately want to last, to be a part of. Forever.

Right now, I am the center of that world. And I love it.

His thrusts are wild, unbridled, exactly what I need. He’s gripping my waist and I arch my back to offer myself to him more fully. Truth is, this is all I need. This pleasure, this fiery bliss, burning away all the darkness, all the doubts, all the terrible things waiting for us beyond the locked doors of this house.

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