“I give more.” Breathing in her scent, he exhaled in a low groan of pure male satisfaction.
“Not enough.”
“She abandoned you. Betrayed you. I gave you what you needed, even if you don’t want it, little bird,” Tobias whispered as he made his way up her body. Feathering kisses over her skin until he covered her, shielding her from everything but his harsh words. “You are gentle and good, but I’m not. I’ll be evil for you whenever I need to be.”
“Shut up!” Quinn hissed as his mouth covered his claim on her shoulder, bucking when the flat of his tongue slid over the puckered flesh. Engulfed in lingering pleasure, she fought to make sense of what he was saying. Grinding through one thought to the next, she couldn’t concentrate through the blissful haze to argue.
“I see you. When you forget you hate me so much and give me your purrs and hums. Crying for my loss.” He paused to press bared teeth to her throat, grinding down into her. Rubbing his cock against her pussy to make her squirm. “I see the scared little girl who is just afraid of loving as being loved.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Quinn shrieked the words, louder with every syllable. Still her legs wrapped around him, ankles hooked to drive her heels into the small of his back. Pulling him closer as her hips began to rock. Hands at his shoulders no longer tried to push and shove, nails digging bright pink half moons into his skin.
“Most importantly, little bird, you ran from all of them.” His subterranean growl trailed off into a groan as he moved, sliding through her slick heat. “I’m the only one who brought you back. I’m never letting you go.”
The pressure of his thick length too perfect, too Gods damned right as he worked his hips, Quinn whimpered. Refusing to listen to another word while he kept her dazed, she grabbed his hair in her fists and wrenched him down into a kiss. Swallowed his shuddering moan as he lowered more of his weight to give her the delicious friction she needed.
It wasn’t enough.
Control slipping, the bond became a deafening roar. Feeling every nuance of sensation and thought as it rebounded between them was too much. Shivering as he slid against her, feeling it inside and out as he nudged her clit with each careful thrust. She needed more. A shift of her hips, the angle just right, he slid inside of her. Stretching her wide around his length as his cock drove in before he could stop it.
Snapping her teeth as he pulled back, she ignored his slow smile. Dug her nails deep into the long muscles of his back, pummeling her heels against him when he swayed to a stop.
“I can’t be gentle, sweetness,” Tobias said against her lips, giving her the edge of his teeth to prove his point. “I need to fuck you. I want to knot you so good you feel it for days and have my come dripping out of you for hours.”
Quinn tried to groan the curse that lingered on her tongue, but he trapped it with his sucking mouth. Teasing over her, drawing her between his lips where he could play and nip at the slick muscle.
“Too soon. Later,” he grunted over her shrill whine as he pulled out. Hand between them, he slapped the back of his fingers against her spread lips, mouth twitching at her squeal. “And too tempting.”
“Please,” Quinn stammered, but it was no use. No matter how she tugged and offered herself to him, Tobias wrangled her limbs back down, holding her there as he situated his shoulders between her spread thighs.
“Now be a good girl and come hard for me.”
Quinn followed that command with ease, too many times to count until even his calls and growling orders couldn’t make her respond beyond a twitching groan and pleas for mercy. Even then he knelt over her, guiding her hands to stroke him. Teasing her with the heady fluid streaming from his crown until he released in shuddering spasms over her body. Coating her in thick white strands that he rubbed into her skin while she hummed.
Only then did he sprawl out beside her, tucking her halfway under his body and crushing her as they both drifted off, exhausted.
She wouldn’t have it any other way just then.
Chapter Eleven
Waking to find the bed empty left Quinn far colder than the cool shadows of early morning stretching through the room allowed for.
He’d covered her at some point, tucking Quinn under a blanket and bunching a messy clump of fabric around the edges of the bed. Building a shoddy nest to hold her while she slept after he left. It disgusted her to even look at such a shamble, nothing pleasing to the eye about the hard twists and turns the sheets took on with his careless hands. It wrenched at something deep in the confines of her heart, too. Snarled its fingers within that writhing thing centered in her chest andpulleduntil Quinn pushed trembling fingers hard against the quiver of her lips.
Smothering that uncomfortable emotion under a veritable sea of resentment, Quinn wasted no more time before fleeing the bed and the ruined nest. She didn’t want to think about everything he said as he tormented her body through the long hours of the night. Refused to examine the way her body betrayed her each and every time. It wasn’t fair that he could do that to her. Even now the bond danced within her, jittery with anticipation as she felt his presence nearby. Realizing he hadn’t left the house shouldn’t fill her with giddy warmth.
Cranking the shower on, she didn’t wait for the water to heat. Too eager by half to get their mingling scents off of her body. Scrubbing at her skin until it was a rosy pink, she crashed to a halt.
How many times had she done this? How many more times would she clean away the evidence of her downfall?
Crumbling to the tiles, wedged into the back corner, Quinn brought her knees to her chest. Shoving her face into the shadowy recess it made, she tried to think past the prickling sensation of awareness. Attempting to strangle the bond was no use, whatever he’d done the night before too fresh in her dazed memories. She remembered crying out for him, answering his peculiar mix of curses and endearments with her own. Unable to believe half of the things she couldn’t quite remember if she’d said or only thought. One thing remained clear above all of it, free of the languid haze.
Tobias Kahler was the only man—the onlyperson—who ever came for her. He’d made sure that at least shone like a beacon among all the moans and sighs.
Somehow he forced her even now, deep within her own mind. Made her pick apart all these emotions, these thoughts that left her so tangled up in him she didn’t know what she was anymore. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it became not easier, but more desirable for her to accept it all.
Remaining there for too long even for her own tastes, she climbed to her feet to finish. Lobster red and aching, Quinn scoured her skin dry with the towel. Hating its plushness and warmth, she growled and threw it away. Uncomfortable in her own skin, she stormed out of the foggy heat.
Coming into the bedroom, she stopped again. Shivering in the cool shadows, she stared at the opulence as if seeing it for the first time. The snarl erupted from her lips long before she heard it, hands tearing at the bed. Flinging sheets and blankets wherever they would land, she destroyed any hints of the nest he’d built around her. Wanted nothing to do with any of it, hating that her scent was ingrained in the plush mattress. Everywhere she looked, there was some sign of her. The room that she had refused to acknowledge as anything but his held traces of her in every corner. From the fuzzy, soft blanket draped over the small couch by the windows to the array of glittering jewelry she’d never worn but secretly adored.
