Page 198 of Seizing Control: Part One

He slaps my clit harder than before. “Wrong name.”

“I... can’t... I... won’t...”

“Say it, baby.”

Like I’m a puzzle that only he can solve, my husband places all the pieces in place. He angles his cock, so it hits the secret spot inside me. His fingers are magic, working me into a frenzy. His hand collars my throat, tightening until black spots burst in my eyes, then he offers me a quick reprieve with a flex of his fingers.

His voice taunts me with the impossible. “Say it baby.”

I jerk and moan as my orgasm becomes unavoidable.

Heat washes through my lower belly.

Ecstasy floods my veins.

My eyes roll back in my head.

The air is stripped form my lungs when I cry out, “Z—Zeke. God. Yes. Zeke.”

“That’s it,” he croons. His cock fills me to the hilt, the pain a perfect accompaniment to the pleasuring coursing through me. “You’re fuckin’ perfect, wife... such a good girl.”

“Carter.”

The big man allows me one final word, then his fingertips bite into the sides of my windpipe and he makes me see stars while he pumps me full of cum. I black out for a heartbeat, the world returning in Technicolor a moment later, and I pant through the aftershocks the explode through me. The spasmodic thrusts. His unhinged groan. A melody of love and hatred as my husband reaches his climax.

“Fuckin’ love you,” Slash murmurs once he’s finished. He links our fingers, his hand moving mine so we can cup the lower swell of my belly together. “Wish you’d trust me with your heart, but.”

“I love you.” My concession is not enough, yet it’s all I can give him. “So, so, very much.”

The big man nuzzles my hair with his nose, his still-hard cock kicking inside me as he slides his ankle between mine, hooking my leg while he tightens his embrace. “For now, duchess, that will have to be enough.”

39

LAZARUS

Ican smell Lily all over Slash when he appears at our designated meeting spot thirty-five minutes later than agreed. The way she whimpered my name while he verbally led her on echoes around my head. My impatience led me to listen in as he tortured her. Slash used my sweet thing’s grief against her as part of some sick game he’s playing. Making her cry out for me while she’s coming is a bizarre way to test her love for him, but my best friend has always had a strange relationship with his emotions, so it’s par for the course with him.

Even knowing this, it takes every ounce of my training to stop myself from bashing his head in. Somehow, I manage to resist the urge and grasp onto the stabilising force of my new understanding. The time I’ve spent thinking about them, as a couple, as a family-to-be, has been aggravating, but it’s forced me into a painful reckoning.

I still care about Slash in the same way I still love Lily.

My best friend and my woman.

The reality is that Carter Hudson is Lily’s husband.

The father of her unborn baby.

As much as I believe that my claim on her is strong as ever, Slash’s might eventually eclipse mine, and it’ll be my fault if it does. I caused this situation—with my schemes, and my plots, and my failures. The overactive ego that’s driven my choices for my entire life is responsible for so much of the hardship surrounding my sweet thing.

My death solved some of these problems.

It also created an even bigger issue.

“Nice of you to show up,” I remark once he’s slammed the door behind himself. Dust motes swirl in the air of the abandoned warehouse when he stomps toward me. “Very presidential of you.”

Rather than respond to my snide comment, the man-bunned irritant tries to punch me. “Stay the fuck away from Hunter.”

In a flash, I catch his arm mid-swing, spin him around, then bend it upright. Despite having his shoulder hyper-flexed and no way to escape my grip, Slash huffs and flails. The tension in his body is amusing, especially when it increases the more obvious it becomes that he won’t be able to break free.

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