Page 27 of Forsaken Fate

Then Theo took his turn.

I thought my body was wrecked already. I thought I had given everything in me. I was wrong. When Theo started to thrust in me deeper still, he coaxed my body to respond to his again. As he set his own rhythm, the bed shook under us and I felt a new gush of wetness between my legs as my arousal started to crest again. Theo shifted and gripped my ankles in his hands. Carefully, he brought them up and around until he had them nearly up to my ears, spreading my legs impossibly wide for him. He drove himself even deeper and I grew wetter still. In that moment, he owned me, and I wanted it.

No. I wanted more. So much more. I saw myself. Imagined going to all fours in front of him. Arching my back. Exposing that most tender flesh at the base of my neck. Letting him mark me. Claim me. I would become his mate. I would feel the Rise. I would go into Heat for him. We would join. We were meant to.

Fate.

No. No. I couldn’t want it. I couldn’t let myself. I couldn’t stray from what I knew I had to do. But oh…the wanting.

Then, Theo started to come. His balls were heavy against my thigh as his thrusts slowed. I felt him seize up and I wrapped my hands around his shoulders so I could ride the wave with him. He kept my ankles firmly in his hands. He grunted something, maybe my name, as he finally gave in to his own release through clenched teeth and the punishing pace he set as he drilled into me.

I felt the first hot, sticky spurts as Theo came deep inside me and I took it. All of it. His grip loosened on my ankles and I found the strength to wrap my legs and arms around him, drawing him in as far as I could as he came. When he finally shuddered out the last drops, I felt his body go slack in my arms.

But I wasn’t done yet. My nerves still thrummed with arousal and I gripped his ass and squirmed beneath him. Theo raised his head. His brow went up and a slow smile crept into his face as he realized what I needed. He planted his feet into the mattress and drove himself up further into me. I twisted and thrust under him. My second orgasm came quickly then; I felt my lips quiver around him, milking his cock. With one final arch of my back, I found my release while Theo held me and whispered my name.

CHAPTER 12

Theo

Brynna Carrington snored like an asthmatic bulldog. She fell asleep in my arms after the second time we fucked and I held her like that for over an hour, just watching her. When she was awake, she was fire and fury with her flashing green eyes that seemed to penetrate me. When she slept, she had a different kind of beauty. Her black lashes were so long and thick they fell almost to her cheekbones. I wound silky strands of her hair between my fingers. It was that rare pure black, not dark brown as I thought.

She dreamt. A line of worry cut straight between her brows and then she twitched and smiled. I wanted to know what made her do it. What did she see?

“What are your secrets, Brynna Carrington?” I whispered against her forehead. I was careful at first, afraid to wake her and break the magic spell of watching her slumber. After a while, I learned that short of throwing an ice bucket over her, nothing stirred her. Brynna slept like the dead and I loved the slight weight of her in my arms. I pulled the sheet back a few inches so I could look at the rest of her.

She had small hands and small feet and I ran my fingers along the curve of her shoulder and touched the slope of her breast. She shuddered beneath me then settled back down. For as small as she was, her breasts were full and round. I traced the circle of her areola and watched one perfect pink nipple rise to my touch. I did the same to the other. I had wondered the other day about her freckles – the ones I saw below her clavicle. It turns out they were everywhere: a perfect light dusting that covered the top of her breasts like tiny grains of cinnamon. I wanted to taste her again. I shifted her in my arms and reached down to place one kiss on the top of each breast. Part of me wanted her to wake. I was getting hard again. But the steady rise and fall of her chest let me know she was still deeply under.

She’d fucked me with such wild abandon, and I wanted to make her do it again. I wasn’t her first, of course. But something happened to her tonight that I guessed was new for her. I saw a wicked, delicious spark come into her eyes when I took control of her body and made her obey me. She wanted me to. Rose to it. Burned for it. I could take her so much farther, I thought. I suspected that Brynna could be trained to play my kind of games. My cock stirred as my thoughts spun.

Mine!

God. I could try to deny it all I wanted. But this woman. She belonged to me. She was made for me. My Alpha’s mate. If I marked her, she would become part of me. I would link to her telepathically. I would bring her into Heat. My balls tightened at the thought of it. Brynna in Heat would be a powerful thing. Her need for me would consume her. Consume us both. If I fucked her twenty times a day, it might not even be enough. Her desire would only grow until finally, it would happen. I would bury myself into her, locking in place until a new life took root.

Except there was no way I could act on any of that. I could not risk being that vulnerable to someone else. I had no lands to bring her to. Nothing to give her. And I would not let myself become vulnerable to losing her like my father had with my mother. He went mad from it. No. If Brynna were mine, then others would use her as a weapon against me. And I needed to be at the top of my strength of I were going to win the fight to take back what belonged to me.

This was just for tonight. Let her think it was a revenge fuck for me and a wild night out for her. Tomorrow we would go back to our real lives. I looked out the window. Tomorrow was today. The rising sun made the sky pale pink and gray.

I should leave now. Wake her and tell her to leave now. We both had to get back. I had to go home and so did she.

To Grayson.

Carefully, I rose from the bed so I didn’t disturb her. She murmured something and shifted to her back. The sheet was tangled around her legs so she lay almost spread eagle and naked in the center of my bed with her hair fanned out, so it looked like wings. My dark angel.

Shit.

I couldn’t think like that. She couldn’t be my anything. Why couldn’t I just think of her as a means to an end? A momentary fix to a fucked-up situation. Except I didn’t want her to be Grayson’s either. The thought of him actually marking her instead of me filled me with rage. Could I let it happen if it’s truly what she wanted? God, this seemed like such a good idea at the time. But staring at her in my bed ... she was unguarded and beautiful and still smelled of sex.

I turned, grabbed a clean towel out of the closet and headed in to take a cold shower. It helped a little. When I came back out, Brynna was awake; there was a split second that I glimpsed her before she saw me. She sat hugging her knees and staring out the window; there was something so sad in her eyes and it cut through me.

“Good morning,” I said, my voice hoarse.

Brynna’s face changed. The chameleon was back. A blush colored her cheeks and she smiled, hugging her knees closer as a lock of hair fell over her eye. She was stunning like that, I wished I could photograph her.

“I didn’t mean to sleep so long,” she said, suddenly shy.

“It’s early,” I said. I went to the closet and pulled out a black suit, still wrapped on the hanger from the dry-cleaning service. I peeled back the plastic and started dressing.

“What’s on your plate for today?” Brynna asked through a yawn.

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