Demand (23 page)

“E
verything, Ella,” Kayden repeats, his fingers splaying wider on my belly, while his other hand moves to my bra, unhooking the front clasp and then flattening between my breasts. “And
everything
includes your fear, Ella. And the shame I know he made you feel. I'm going to take those from you tonight. I'm going to hold them so you don't have to. And I'm going to give you permission not to remember, since you won't.”

Shame.
That word radiates through me with cutting accuracy, and I know then that I've not even touched where that comes from, or what that man did to me. I squeeze my eyes shut, and for a moment, I'm back in
his
bedroom, holding that gun, wanting to kill him, and battling a war inside me of right and wrong, and a desire to punish
him
for punishing me. Emotions well inside me, so many emotions I cannot contain or name, and the stupid music I wish I'd never turned on lifts in the air.
Take me to church. I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies.

“Whatever this song means to you,” Kayden declares, his cheek pressing to mine, “it won't be the same the next time you hear it.” He cups my breasts, his lips dragging down my cheek, to my ear. “And that means I'm going to take you places you don't know you want to go.”

“Yes,” I say, not because I refuse to remember, but because I hate what it makes me feel. “Take me there.”

He nips my shoulder, a sharp erotic bite that he follows with the pinch of my nipples. “What are you thinking of?” he demands.

“That I want more.”

He runs his tongue over the wounded skin. “And now?”

“That I want your tongue other places.”

He drags my bra off of my shoulders and turns me to face him, reaching down to grip my panties and yank them off, one hand cupping my backside while his fingers slide into my sex. “Now what are you thinking?”

Sensations rip through me and my hand flattens on the hard wall of his chest, my head tilting forward. “I
can't
think.”

His thumb twirls against my clit, while the fingers of his other hand tangle into my hair, giving it an erotic tug that lifts my gaze to his. “That's the idea,” he says. “Don't think unless it's about me or us. Just fuck. And fuck some more.” His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue licking against mine, stroking it, taking me deeper into the haze of lust and desire.

I lose time, blocking out the song and clinging to him, filling my senses with the taste of him, the masculine scent of him. Then we are on our knees, and he has pressed my hands behind me and onto the carpet in that way he likes to anchor me and take my control. He leans over me, the delicious heavy weight of him pressed to me. He lingers there, the promise of things unsaid and undone between us, and the chorus of the song lifts in the air again.

“Time to go to church, sweetheart,” Kayden declares, his voice gravelly, affected, his hands on my body now, caressing up and down my sides, over my breasts.

With a moan I arch into his touch, panting as he leans down and licks and sucks my nipples, teasing, driving me crazy before he sits up, his hands bracketing my hips, his smoldering stare raking over my body. “Any man who had you naked and kept his clothes on is a fool—and I'm no fool, sweetheart. Don't move. Wait for me.”

He releases me, leaving me naked, aroused, and willingly exposed with my breasts thrust in the air. And what I feel in this moment, in every moment with this man, is so many things beyond the word
love
that I don't even try to understand right now. But some part of me worries that by taking the escape he offers me, I am hiding, and I don't want to hide. He stops at the bed, his back to me, and in the next moment, his shirt is off, that ring of skull tattoos on his back reminding me of all he has lost before me. We could lose each other so easily, and I'm not denying myself every moment I can have with him.

He faces me again, and my phone is in his hand, and suddenly the song is playing louder, blasting through the air, and I am reminded that this isn't an escape. This is him planning to mute the pieces of the past that incited me to dread. When he steps away the music is in my mind, stirring dark emotions, and I shiver, sitting up straight and hugging myself against the ice sliding down my spine. Suddenly I'm on my knees in another place and time, again.
He
is standing over me.
He
is planning what he will do to me next. He grabs my hair. He drops his pants. He makes me—

“Ella.”

Kayden's voice once again brings me back to the present, and he's squatting in front of me again, beautifully naked, his cock thick at my hip, his hands on my shoulders. And damn it, I've missed him undressing, because the past has controlled the present again.

“Please turn off the song,” I say, grabbing his wrists. “I need to cope with the past, but the night we went public should not be about that part of my life, no matter what pushed us to do it.”

“We are not turning it off,” he says firmly, his hand closing around mine. “We're turning
him
off. Understand?”

“Clearly it's not that easy.”

“I never said it was easy.” His arm wraps my waist, his palm on my lower back. “I haven't even begun to show you how to make sex that dirty, dark escape I promised once before. But now is when you learn how to create a rush of adrenaline that wipes out everything, yet somehow forces you to deal with it at the same time.” He cups my backside. “I'm going to spank you, Ella.”

“What?” I gasp, and my hand flattens on his chest, panic rising inside me. “Kayden, I—”

“This isn't the first time I've brought this up.”

“I know, but—”

“I would never do anything to lose you or hurt you, Ella.” He cups my face. “Trust me, and then let's tear down every wall we can between us, and put one up in front of him.”

My fingers curl on his chest, and I wait for rejection of his idea to come to me—but it doesn't. “I'm scared,” I admit freely, and I know it means something that I can voice this to him, and know that he will listen.

“Because it's new, and because of what he did to you. But I am not him, and we are not controlled by him.”

He's right. “What if I don't like it?”

“Then we won't do it again.” He lowers us to the carpeted floor, facing each other on our sides, his thick erection pressed in the V of my body, his leg tangling with mine. His hand possessively splays on my backside. “
You
are what I want and need. Pleasing you. Experience what we are together, Ella— and that's better than apart.”

It is then that I step outside the circle of my demons and into his, realizing that this isn't just about me. It's about him. About those dark and dirty parts of him. “This means you have to have faith in me, when you're the one coming unglued. I hate that you dressed somewhere else tonight.”

“I'll face my demons with you, like you are with me now, and we'll figure out what that means then.”

Considering the torment I'd seen in him earlier tonight, I know what this promise means. My fingers curl on his jaw, my decision made. It being my choice, rather than something forced on me, changes everything. It's sexy and intimate and still scary as hell. “What happens next?”

“We let it happen,” he says, his mouth closing over mine, and in the depths of that kiss is trust, and I don't need my memory to know that it is something I have never felt, any more than I've felt the kind of bond I have with this man. And this isn't about the spanking. It's not here, between us, but so much more is. He takes his time getting us there, touching me, letting me touch him, and I can feel his need growing, expanding, and with it, my own. We become feverish, our touches, our kisses, and he turns me, placing my back to his front. Adrenaline spikes through me with the certainty that he will roll me to my hands and knees, but he keeps touching me, stroking my breasts, between my legs, and my backside. And then he curls my legs in front of me, keeping me on my side, stroking my bottom, back and forth, up and down, until I'm going crazy, wanting his hand between my legs. Wanting
him
between my legs. “Kayden,” I plead.

He stills his hand, flattening on my cheeks. “I'm going to spank right here, just above your sex, so that you feel it everywhere. Five times, Ella. I'll do more another time, but for now, just five times. And then I'm going to fuck you hard and fast and ride that adrenaline with you. Are you ready?”

“Oh God. Now?”

“Now.” He starts caressing my backside again, back and forth. “Are you ready?”

“Kayden—”

“Ella, say it. Are you—”

“Yes,” I pant out. “I'm ready.”

And then he does it.

One.
Oh God.
It stings, and sends spikes of pleasure through my sex and up my spine.

Two.
Blood rushes in my ears.

Three. Four. Five.

It's done and he presses inside me, his thick cock stretching me, entering me. His hand flattens on my belly, and he thrusts hard, burying himself in the deepest part of me, an explosion of sensations erupting in my body, consuming me.
He
is consuming me. I arch into him and his fingers slide to my clit, his cock pumping and pumping, and every nerve ending in my body is on fire. And the world fades, leaving only him inside me, his cock stroking me, his hand stroking me, the sensations . . . so many sensations, that sweet spot building and building until it's
just
there. I stiffen and suck in air, my sex clenching around Kayden, spasms erupting so fiercely that they make my body quake.

One of Kayden's hands closes around my breast while the other anchors my hip. He pulls me into a deep, pulsing thrust, the wet, warm heat of his release filling me in so many ways. Seconds tick by or minutes, I do not know, and slowly we both sink into the rug and each other. Kayden envelops me with his body, his cheek finding mine. “How are you?” he asks.

“I'm good.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes. Positive.”

“I'm going to get you a towel.”

“Thank you.”

He kisses my temple, the way he did at the party. Tender. Loving. Then he pulls out of me and stands. I breathe in on the tight ball forming in my chest. The song is still playing, but I don't think of the other man when I hear it. I think of Kayden holding me, spanking me, fucking me, and I know the gift he has given me is freedom. I will never hear this song again and think of anything else.

Kayden returns, sliding a towel between my legs, and then something cold rests on my hip. I look down and find my bracelet lying against my naked skin. My hand closes around it, and I face Kayden, finding him in sweatpants and holding a black silk robe.

“I hated taking this off.” Tears prickle my eyes and I turn away. “I'm going to cry, and I don't know why. But it's not about what we did, or you.”

He moves in front of me, wrapping my robe around me. “It's the adrenaline from the spanking. You're trembling. Put your arms in.” I do as he says, and he reaches down and ties it for me before repeating what he said earlier. “Adrenaline seems to wipe out everything, yet it somehow forces you to deal with it at the same time.”

“How is crying ‘dealing with it'?” I swipe at a tear that escapes. “I still don't know who he is.”

“This wasn't about you remembering him. It was about not giving him the control.” His lips curve. “And giving me an excuse to spank you when I want to.”

“That's not going to happen.” I laugh.

“Never?” he asks, turning somber. “Did you not like it?”

“It was . . . I . . .” Blood rushes to my cheeks.

“You can say anything to me, Ella.”

“That's the point. I believe I can, and it seems I can
do
anything with you, and it's good. And it was kind of sexy.”

“Trust is what's sexy.” He takes the bracelet from me and wraps it around my wrist. “I want that in every way for us.” He closes his hand around the bracelet. “This was my mother's.”

I look up at him. I'm stunned and honored.

“I didn't give it to Elizabeth, Ella. Kevin left it in my inheritance with a note. But he didn't give it to me, even when he knew I was going to marry her.”

“He was The Hawk. You weren't.”

“But I was the successor and she was supposed to be my wife.”

“What are you saying?”

“He called her a delicate flower and said delicate flowers don't survive. She didn't survive.”

“That wasn't your fault.”

“You didn't cry from the adrenaline rush,” he says, giving me whiplash with the apparent change of topic. “Most people would have, especially with the baggage you're carrying.”

“Most people didn't have a father who made a habit of screaming in their faces to shoot straighter, run harder, and suck it up.”

“I don't want you to have to shoot straighter, run harder, or suck it up—but the truth is, I need you to do those things.”

“I
am
those things. Kayden.”

“I know you are.” He holds out his right arm, displaying the tattoo of a box with the king's chess piece inside, reading the script tracking a line up his powerful forearm. “ ‘Once the game is over,' ” he says, “ ‘the king and the pawn go back in the same box.' ”

“In life and death we are equal,” I say, and realize I said once before.

He catches my arm at the elbow, resting my bare skin on top of the saying on his arm. “How did you know that?”

“My father,” I say, once again knowing something for no definable reason.

“How?”

“I don't know.” My brows furrow. “Wait. Do you think he had a connection to The Underground?”