Darken (Siege #1) (16 page)

Reaching from behind, his hands massaged her breasts and he plucked at her nipples. His teeth lightly scraped her shoulder, and grasping his forearm, she arched her back.

Pushing away from his hold, she climbed on the bed. Before she could turn over, he was behind her on his knees, his hands gripping her hips and pulling her back.

He gathered the back of her skirt and tossed it up across her back, leaving her ass bare and on display for him.

“God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he said, fingers trailing over her skin, between her cheeks, down along her wet pussy to her clit. He tapped at the rigid bud he found, and she jerked in response.

“I want you inside me. Now,” she panted.

He released her and she heard the sound of his zipper going down and then the ripping of a condom packet. Moments later, his hard cock slid between her swollen folds, the head of his penis catching at her opening. She reached between her legs and grasped his penis, guiding him into her entrance.

His hips thrust forward, and only the hold he had on her hips kept her from moving forward as well. She went down to her elbows, angling her body to deepen his driving thrusts.

“Widen your legs,” he said, and as she did, his thumbs pulled apart the lower region of her folds. The stretching left her pussy aching, desperately trying to clench around his cock.

His balls tapped against her clit with each powerful thrust. Cora reached one hand down between her legs, finding her aching bud and rolling it beneath her fingers. Her heated flesh responded with a spasm.

“That’s it. Come for me, baby,” he groaned. He palmed the lush flesh of her ass, and then gave it a gentle tap. The contact sent a sharp tingle through her, though it lacked enough force to even sting.

“Again,” she said.

He answered with another tap. She arched, straining to reach the precipice of pleasure and rocked back, driving him deeper.

“Let go, baby. Just let go.”

Her fingers clutched the comforter, and her toes curled in. A loud cry broke free as she convulsed around him, squeezing his cock as she gave into the shattering orgasm. Utterly spent, she sagged forward, the side of her face pressed to the bed.

Gavin gripped her hips, holding her in place as he kept moving, sliding through her slick passageway. Then he wedged himself completely within her and held still as he gave a throaty groan. His fingers tightened briefly, releasing her to prop himself above her.

Their gasping breaths filled the room with the sounds of their sated pleasure. Inside her, she felt the slight pulse of his flesh and she clenched her muscles around him. At the soft grip, his hips jerked, and her lips curved in satisfaction.

When their breathing slowed and the last vestiges of their trembles faded, Gavin withdrew from her and fell onto the bed beside her. He took of the condom and tossed it in the bin next to the bed.

Cora rolled to the side and gazed at him, taking in the strong profile of his face. His closed eyes and the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest had her wondering if he’d fallen asleep.

She lifted a hand and brushed at a strand of damp hair from his forehead. His lashes fluttered open, and she stared into his warm, dark-brown eyes. In their depths, she found such confusion her heart ached for him.

“V
ocê não é nada para mim
,” he whispered.

A wave of emptiness consumed the lingering sensations that only moments before warmed her with euphoria.

She had expected it. Gavin wasn’t going to simply snap out of his grieving because she was a good lay, or even because he might actually feel something for her. So, it all cycled back to her and whether she was willing to accept the role of nothing in his life.

It was humbling to admit her answer to that was yes. Right then, at that moment, she would take anything she could get and to hell with the devastation she’d face when she’d finally had enough.

Chapter Sixteen

CORA BLINKED RAPIDLY UNTIL her eyes adjusted and she was able to make out shapes in the darkness surrounding her. Beside her, Gavin twisted restlessly, tangling himself in the comforter. That explained what woke her.

She rolled onto her side to gaze at him. She could see the whites of his eyes as he stared up at the ceiling, but there was something about it that seemed off.

“Gavin? Are you all right?” she asked.

His head whipped around to look at her but he didn’t answer. He wasn’t so much staring
at
her as he was staring
through
her, and she realized he wasn’t really awake.

“Gavin, wake up.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch seemed to propel him deeper into his dream, and his arm lashed out, smacking his hand into her pillow, missing her by less than an inch.

Cora scrambled back and scooted off the bed. She flicked on the bedside lamp, and in the soft light, she was able to see him clearly. His face was contorted in a mix of fury and agony.

“Gavin,” she called, but he didn’t react so she reached over and grasped his bicep, giving it a firm shake. “
Gavin.
”

An agonized bellow exploded from him as he shot upright, his arms flailing around. Cora pulled away, giving him space to get his bearings. He continued to thrash around for a minute, seemingly unaware of her presence or even where he was.

His shoulders heaved with each gasping breath he drew in until they gradually slowed. He scanned the room until his eyes settled on her and he ran a hand through his damp hair.

“You okay?” Cora hesitantly climbed back into the bed.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. She grabbed the half-empty water bottle from the nightstand and passed it to him. He tipped his head back and drained the water, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each gulp. He handed the empty bottle back to her then flopped back on the bed.

“That must have been a pretty intense nightmare.”

She placed the bottle on the nightstand and settled back next to him. He tugged her close, pulling her back against his chest to spoon her.

“Not a nightmare. It was a night terror.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A nightmare is basically a bad dream that happens during the REM phase of sleep,” he explained. “With a night terror, it happens between sleep phases when a sudden fear interrupts the cycle, so essentially, I’m partly awake. Most people who have night terrors don’t even remember having them.”

“Most people, but not you?”

“No, I remember. Maybe because mine aren’t random or natural. These are a result of Sinclair and the genetic modifications he made to me.”

She was tempted to ask him what he saw, but it seemed like such an intimate question. A strange thought, perhaps, after what they had shared, but she suspected the answer would expose a part of him to her that no one else had ever seen before.

His fingers traced a swirling path down her arm before entwining with hers atop the comforter.

“Sinclair is always there,” he said after a long pause.

“That’s understandable. The things he did … It can’t be easy to simply put it in the past.”

“I was Three.”

“When you went into the lab?”

“Not when, who. I was Subject Three. I suppose I could have just as easily been Four, except they took me out a minute before Caleb. Three was the only name I had until Mark took over the job as the teacher at the lab and gave each of us names.”

“Your dad worked there?” She was shocked that Mark Walker had been involved with anything that hadn’t to those boys.

“Only for a few months. He took the job without any idea what was going on. He figured it out pretty fast and worked with the feds to get us out. Without him, we’d all probably be dead, or so fucked up we’d wish we were.”

Cora stayed quiet, not wanting to interrupt him and risk him stop talking. She lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to the back of his hand.

“That last day in the labs, when the feds raided the place, they found me strapped to an exam table. My heart had stopped and Sinclair had already written me off.”

Her chest tightened at the thought of how close he’d come to dying.

“Every time I have one of these night terrors, I relive another day in the lab,” he said. “The needles, the cuts, those were nothing compared to what my body went through when his serums caused mutations.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, tears blurring her vision. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”

She felt his head nod against her shoulder. Nothing she said would erase the horrors he lived through. Behind her, the thumping of Gavin’s heart calmed, and the rise and fall of his chest slowed. She thought he’d fallen asleep but then he moved their hands to rest on her hip.

“What are we doing, Cora?” he asked as he slipped his fingers from between hers. They skimmed up along her ribs, stopping when they brushed the underside of her breast.

Cora thought of what Hailey had said to her about being willing to take what she could get. There’d been a part of her that had scorned Hailey for doing that. Yet, there she was, doing the exact same thing.

“I love you. That’s all I can do,” she answered.

Her words seemed to take him back. His fingers stilled, and there was a catch in his breath before he let out a deep sigh.

“Would you like to go to dinner?”

Cora twisted her head around to look at him. “You’re serious? Right now?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. Not now, maybe later this week.”

She turned back around, trying to hide the smile that curled her lips up. He sounded so nervous and hesitant—so unlike Gavin.

“Like a date?” she clarified. She tried to tell herself that wasn’t what she wanted, because to him a date meant something entirely different than her aching heart hoped.

His chest shook with a deep chuckle.

“Yeah, as a date.”

Asking Cora out had not been in Gavin’s plans. In fact, it was the opposite of what he’d intended to say. Yet, as her proclamation of love hung in the stillness of the silent room, all he could think of was that he wanted more than just sex from her.

She took her time answering and he wondered if he’d managed to fuck it up. Hell, he’d only ever asked out Lela and that was when he was sixteen. In the time since Lela’s death, he’d hooked up with Hailey and a few other chicks, but dating never entered into it.

“I’d like that,” she finally said.

Gavin hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until her answer triggered a rush of relief. His nose buried in her hair, he inhaled the sweet vanilla sense of her shampoo.

He reached down and lifted her leg, angling it to rest on top of his, leaving her open to his touch. He pressed his pelvis forward, and his hardening cock twitched in response to the feel of her moist desire gathering along the lips of her pussy.

“I wish I could love you. I don’t know what I’ll want from you in the future,” he admitted. “For now, this is all I can offer you.”

As much as he wanted to deny there were emotions involved, he couldn’t. In her quiet little way, Cora had managed to wiggle her way under his skin. The thought of not being able to touch her, to taste her lips, or to hear her soft laugh left him feeling empty.

“I can accept that,” she said. “For now.”

He slid two fingers inside her then pulled them back out to circle her clit. Her body trembled, and he increased the pressure on her sensitive bud as she rocked her hips back and forth.

The sweet scent of her arousal surrounded him, and the urge to possess her took over him. He growled and ground his penis along the crease of her ass.

Watching as she reached up to play with her nipples, he learned that she loved to gently roll them and then give a firm tug. She tossed her head back and he kissed his way up along the side of her neck. She gave a shuddering sigh as he lapped at her skin then gently blew on it.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Coraline?” he said as he flicked a finger over her clit. “Do you want my cock sliding in your pussy?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Oh, God. Fuck me.”

He angled them so she lay partially back on him. Between her legs, he guided his penis to her entrance and sank in until he was completely enveloped in her warm pussy. She gripped him like a velvet fist milking his cock as he pulled almost all the way out. Gavin struggled to keep moving slowly, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of her thigh, but instinct took over and his hips surged thrusting, driving into Cora’s depths.

Tingles crept along the base of his spine, and his rhythm grew wild as he lost all sense of control. Tension seized him and he slammed his cock into her one more time. His eyes squeezed shut and he groaned as his climax tore through him and his seed spurted forth.

Around him, Cora’s pussy milked his cock and he pumped his hips. Letting go of her leg, he returned to her sensitive nub, rolling and tugging it in the same pattern she used on her nipples. Her hips ground back into him and her back arched as she strained toward her climax. He rubbed in quick, hard circles until she gasped and spasmed around him.

He slowed his movements, dragging out their pleasure until he slipped free of her moist grasp, their combined juices coating his flesh.

“Shit,” he said and she tensed against him. “Please tell me you’re on the pill.”

She relaxed and gave him a slight smile over her shoulder. “I am.”

A puff of air rushed out and he swept a strand of her hair behind her neck. He’d never really considered whether he wanted kids. With Lela, they’d been too young to even start talking about it, though he knew she’d wanted children one day.

“That’s good,” he said. “I’m clean. I got tested a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been with anyone else since.”

“I haven’t been with anyone since my last test, either.”

He shifted uncomfortably at the thought of her with another guy. He refused to call it jealousy. No, it was more like …
Fuck
. His arms tightened around her as he pulled in a deep breath.

Cora pulled out of his hold and turned around. She cupped his face in her small hands, rubbing her soft palms along his stubbled jaw, and gazed into his eyes.

The words were on the tip of his tongue.
Você não é nada para mim
. His entire body reverberated with the need to say them, to put her in her place, to remind him that no matter how mind-blowing sex with her was she was nothing to him. Nothing more than a body.

But as he stared into her beautiful blue eyes, he didn’t want to say them. He didn’t want to make her just another body. He might not have loved Cora, but the idea of her being nothing to him twisted his insides.

Her lips brushed along his with a fleeting touch then she whispered, “Sleep.”

That one simple word was all he needed to keep the words unspoken.