fucking sore between her legs every step was making her excruciatingly aware of how deep, how thick he had been inside her. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had injuries to her vagina before; she had. But this soreness, though it hurt, sent warmth coursing through her veins.
She turned the coffee machine on for him, knowing he liked black coffee in the morning, and made tea for herself, wincing as she walked over the counter to get the mugs, her eyes going to see him working out in the garden, his torso gleaming with a thin sheet of sweat, his muscles bunching and releasing as he moved through some kind of martial art routine.
She ogled him as she did in the mornings while the beverages got ready, watching as he finished up and came inside, the force-field of his presence making her nerve-endings stand on attention. It wasn’t like the other mornings. She had felt him now, let him in now, and there was an intimacy between them. Usually, he greeted her and went for shower.
This morning, he rounded the counter without stopping, gripped her jaw, and gave her a hard, thorough kiss that left her clutching his arms.
He pulled back, raking a dark, possessive look over her clad in his t-shirt, before coming to a stop on her lips again. His thumb moved over it, igniting little sparks under his touch. With another kiss, he stepped back and went to his coffee.
‘We didn’t use any protection.’ He pointed out as he poured in his mug.
Lyla steadied herself against the counter, watching him operate the coffee machine, and felt some of the cheer leave her. ‘I can’t get pregnant,’ she told him. ‘After I ran away… there was too much bleeding. They had to operate on me.’
He studied her quietly. ‘And how do you feel about that?’
His favorite question to ask her—how she felt about anything. She shrugged. ‘I was kind of grateful I wouldn’t bring another child into that hell.’
He didn’t say anything for a long minute. ‘You know, it was your determination to save him that night that fascinated me. The way you trusted me to take him even though I could see it was killing you. It intrigued me.’
Her heart thud with the memory. ‘How is he?’
‘Good,’ he told her, finally giving her some answers. ‘He’s with… a couple that loves him.’
Heart full, she swallowed. ‘That’s good. Thank you.’
He didn’t say anything to that, and shaking the subject off, she asked the one question that had pestered her for a while. “How did you get so much money?”
He turned to give her a look, before picking up his mug. “It’s a long story.’
She turned off her tea. ‘I have time.’
His lips twitched. ‘When I was fifteen, I burned down the orphanage I’d been at, killing about eight adults inside. The fire was a big deal back then. Three of the adults had been members of The Syndicate.”
She drew in a sharp breath, in the middle of pouring. “What did they do?”
A dark smile slashed his lips. “Made me an assassin. I had nothing against them at the time, and they knew I had no problem killing. So they sent me to hunt their targets. That made me a lot of money, which I later invested in different businesses, made even more money.”
He took a sip of his drink, leaning against the counter, head titled to one side as he watched her process the information.
“Are you involved in the… sex slaves?” she asked, hesitating, hoping he wasn’t, but not understanding how she’d feel if he was.
To her great relief, he shook his head. “It’s too messy and too much teamwork. I’m more of a lone hunter.”
She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t comment about the morality of it. His sense of morality was skewed, and she knew it.
“So, when did you leave them?” she wondered, curious about how a fifteen-year-old had become such an assassin.
“Once I had access to their little secrets. About four years after I started working for them.”
“Why?”
“I decided to take them down.”
He stated it so casually, so simply, Lyla shook her head in disbelief that a nineteen-year-old boy could have even thought it. “You decided to take them down?”
“Yes, but they’re a very old, very powerful, and very well-spread organization. It takes time to get all the pieces in place.”
She marveled at that. “Wait, wouldn’t they already know your name and keep an eye on you? How would you pull that off?”
He chuckled darkly. “They never had my name. I worked for them as a number, and once I was done, I disappeared for a while. All the money went into Blackthorne Group. That’s not my name either, but one I took for myself.”
“And Dainn?” she questioned.
“Only you know that, flamma,” he told her softly, and she took the moment, cherishing another little gift he’d given her. Taking a sip of her tea, she looked up at him from under her lashes, seeing the sunlight playing in his gold-green eye and glinting off his black one. Both eyes representing both men—Blackthorne and Shadow Man within him.
Which reminded her… “Why Shadow Man? And when did you… become him?”
He pushed one of his hands into his workout pant pockets, keeping the mug in the other, and damn he looked good. A belated tendril of heat curled in her, and she squashed it down.
“I am Shadow Man,” he stated. “He had to come out to deal with The Syndicate. He could go, get information, do things that others couldn’t. It was simple to have him. Blackthorn Group has access to current data, and I have access to the past. Between all the information I have, it’s made it easier.”
“And why do you want to take The Syndicate down?”
The first sign of stiffness tensed his body. His jaw worked slightly as he stared at her, and she waited, not knowing if she’d touched a nerve or if he was simply thinking. After a long minute, he put his mug down, heading toward the fridge.
“Are you sore?”
Blinking at the sudden change of topic, realizing that he wasn’t going to answer her, she sighed. Small steps, she reminded herself. They’d made enough progress that she could let it go for now.
“I am,” she answered him. “You wrecked me good last night.”
His back muscles came into focus and relaxed as he rummaged in the freezer. “You should put some ice on it.”
“No, it’s—” The sentence died on her lips as he turned and she saw what he held in his hand.
A dildo.
An ice dildo.
A dildo made of ice, a little smaller than he was.
What in the everloving fuck?
Horrified yet intrigued, her eyes flew to him as he went to the sink and ran it under water, the crystal clear ice shining in the sunlit kitchen. Turning the tap off, he moved toward her and she scrambled back.
“Oh, no. No. That isn’t going inside me,” she stated firmly, looking at the dripping ice appendage in his hand. She had never had good experience with foreign objects and she had told him that. He knew she didn’t like the idea of toys at all.
Unheeding, lips twitching, he put it on the counter before calmly picking her up and planting her ass on it.
“Put your feet on the slab,” he instructed, pushing her knees open. “Take the t-shirt off.”
Hesitating, not on-board with it, she stripped, resting her weight on her hands behind her on the counter, waiting to see what he would do.
He looked at her intently between her legs, seeing her swollen, abraded, nether lips. She’d always marked easily, and her pussy looked like it had been a battlefield.
“You had this in the freezer even though I said I didn’t like foreign objects inside me?” she intuited. It wouldn’t surprise her if he didn’t have a regard for her boundaries. He never had, and he probably never would.
“You already know the answer to that.”
Well, if he was going to push her boundaries, she was going to return the favor.
“Why are you after The Syndicate?” she pressed on, knowing that was the moment he had clocked out of the conversation and began to distract her.
Cold, chilled ice circled around her heavy breasts in a large, infinite loop, leaving her gasping. Her gasp turned into a moan when his warm tongue followed, licking up the same path, her breasts heaving under the sudden onslaught of sensation.
He made the icy cold loop again, this one tighter, closer to her aching nipples and yet so far, then followed the trail with his hot tongue, lapping the water. She lay back on the counter, her hands getting weaker, unable to support her body as she went flat on her back.
“Why are you after—?” The sentence got cut off on a strangled cry as he slapped her clit with the ice, the cold and the sensation making the little nub throb.
“Eyes.”
The single command had her eyes flying open, making her realize she’d closed them at the touch. She watched with half-lidded gaze as his hand—his large, burned, hand that had killed so many people in her name she probably should’ve felt remorseful about it—moved the ice back to her breasts, this time straight to her nipple, circling it over and over again. Leaning over her, between her legs so she could feel his hardness nudging against her over the fabric of his pants, his warm mouth closed around the nipple while the ice went to the other one. The immediate sensation of cold and warm had a shot of fire arrow right between her thighs, making her moan as she bit her lip, her hands spearing into his dark hair. His thumb went to her lips, tracing them like he always did.
“Say my name.”
With the way she knew her voice affected him, she knew he was trying to feel the sound right at the source.
“Dainn.”
His eyes flared, the dark gleaming as the light one darkened.
He leaned down until his face was inches from hers, the vulnerability in her body and the heat in his gaze making her blood simmer.
“You’re the only one who knows my name, flamma,” he spoke, his words brushing her lips. “The only one who knows me as the devil I truly am. And seeing you here, willing and trusting, is the only time I come close to feeling something.”
Lyla breathed through her nose as his words both settled and saddened her. “Will you ever love me?” she gave voice to the deepest, rawest desire of her heart.
He simply looked at her, curious from what she could sense. “What is love to you?”
The question gave Lyla pause. What was love to her? What did she actually want when she wanted to be loved? She didn’t know love, had never felt it, experienced it except for the son she’d sacrificed, and that love was different. Or was it? Was all love not the same, sprouting from the same source?
“I think it’s feeling safe,” she told him after a long moment of thinking, a moment where he patiently waited for the answer. “Emotionally, sexually, physically, safe in every way. It’s knowing you can be yourself with someone and they won’t judge you. It’s feeling like equals when need be and being able to give up control if need be. It’s… feeling like you can trust someone with the darkest secrets and knowing they’ll keep them safe. It’s the ability to trust without thought. It’s—” her voice shook as his gaze intensified “—being able to give up something important to yourself if it will help the one you love. It’s putting their needs above your own. It’s unconditional. That’s… that’s love for me.”
He stayed still, processing everything she’d said, as though filing it is some corner of his mind to evaluate later. Her words seemed to have given him food for thought.
He suddenly pulled away and pulled back, and Lyla watched as he moved around the counter to stand at her head. He looked even larger from her upside down vantage, his shoulders broader, blocking down the light coming from the windows behind him. His shadow fell over her entire naked body and she reveled in it, waiting to see what he was going to do next. The man constantly surprised her in so many ways.
“What does love mean for you?” she asked, curious and cautious.
His head dipped down, pressing a soft, almost gentle kiss to her lips, the upside down position of their mouths making it an experience she’d not experienced before. An inch away after kissing her, he spoke against her mouth. “If there was any love in this world of mine, Lyla, it would be you.”
Her heart stopped.
“Dainn,” she whispered, knowing this wasn’t something he would just say casually, knowing it meant something.
“I am darkness.” He kissed her softly. “I live it, I breathe it, I am it. There is no redemption, no emotion, nothing for me. Nothing but you. You’re the moon to my dark night, flamma. You’re the only thing in this black sky that can thrive when I swallow everything else whole. The stars don’t exist in this space. Just you and I. You need me to glow and I need you to exist. It’s simple as that.”
Tears were pooling in her eyes. For being an emotionless bastard sometimes, this man said the most beautiful things.
“That was beautiful,” she told him so, a warm glow filling her. The way he saw her was beautiful, the way he was with her was beautiful.
He dipped his mouth to her ear, placing the ice toy she’d forgotten about at her thigh. “Now let me ice that sore pussy.”
Before she could even blink at the sudden switch in conversation, the ice dildo was on her pussy.
“Fuck, that’s cold!” she exclaimed, trying to move up and away from it when something hard hit her head. She tilted her neck and saw his hard, veiny, pierced cock level with her mouth, the angle making it appear even more massive.
Even sore and exhausted, her walls clenched. The ice rubbed her gently, from her lips to her clit, up and down, melting from the heat of her skin and lubricating her with more than her juices. She wondered how his hand wasn’t burning from holding it like that for so long, and realized given his proclivities for fire maybe he didn’t entirely mind the sensation.
“Careful,” she warned him, not sure if it was for his hand or her pussy or her mouth, but saw him gave her a small twitch of his lips.
“Relax for me,” he cajoled, and she relaxed, both her jaw and her muscles.
And then, from both ends, he entered her.
Slowly.
The cold, ice dildo penetrated her from one end, the chill making her want to freeze but the sensation unlike any she’d ever experienced in her entire sexual life. The hot, heavy cock penetrated her from the other end, slowly taking her mouth so as not to injure her with his size or the metal. The cold and the hot, both burning her from both ends, was such an intense, otherworldly experience she couldn’t even process what was happening within her body. Her nipples were stiff and aching, her breasts heavy and needing attention, her skin breaking out in goosebumps and spine arching to keep up with all the mixed signals her brain was sending to her flesh.
He pulled out both himself and the ice at the same time, making her draw a huge breath before she was impaled again, same time, both sides. The groan in her throat got trapped, muffled around his cock, his ladder piercings rubbing the roof of her mouth in a way that made saliva pool in her mouth. The ice on the other hand kept moving in and out of her rapidly, the heat of her walls both melting it and molding around it.
The motion from both ends kept her in place, and she grabbed his hips to anchor herself, right as he leaned over the counter and her. His mouth, his hot, wet mouth, fell upon her cold clit, and Lyla froze, on the brink of an orgasm she could almost touch within her reach, an orgasm that would felt so massive she knew it would end her. Her breathing became harsher, the burn from both cocks inside her spreading under her skin, her toes curling, her legs moving restlessly to find some kind of purchase, her nails digging into his ass as he alternated between flicking and sucking her clit, the ice dildo melting rapidly but still penetrating her as she sucked on him, determined to make him cum with her.
It built and built and built until she reached the crescendo, a scream building in her chest as stars burst behind her eyelids, his mouth and the dildo leaving her, and she came.
She came.
All over the counter.
The biggest, most sensational orgasm of her life.
Her body shook, her legs jerking as the pleasure mounting her exploded for minutes and hours and she honestly didn’t know how long.
Fuck.
It subsided slowly, making her open her eyes and realize her mouth was empty and he was back around the counter, just watching her as she gradually came down.
Reborn. She felt reborn.
Her belief system broken and assimilated again.
The two things she’d hated the most—oral and toys—had given her the most exquisite orgasm of her life. It had been dirty, vulgar and so messy, it should’ve made her feel used. She felt used but she felt cherished, safe, and pleasured—used in a way that left her feeling sappy instead of shameful.
She sat up on the counter, her heart feeling tender, overflowing with an unnamed emotion for this man who was building her back up, one broken piece at a time.
“Come here.” She let her jittery legs dangle down, opening her arms up to him.
He shook his head. “That wasn’t for me.”
It was for her. After being taken and taken and taken from, she was being given.
Fuck, he was undoing her.
“Come here,” she invited him again, and this time he did, walking to her with the lithe grace of a wild panther. As soon as he was within reach, she wrapped her arms around him, nuzzling his chest, pressing her ear to his chest to remind herself that his heart did beat too.
She didn’t take him in, and he didn’t enter her, but he did hold her tightly and let her take whatever she needed from him.
His chest rumbled as he spoke to her head. “Still hate toys?”
“Not with you.” She rubbed her nose over his heart.
His hand came to her hair, pulling her head back, as he looked down at her intently. “There will never be anyone else.”
“Even if I choose another?” she asked, just to provoke him.
His hand on her head flexed, the possession in his eyes so intense it sent her heart fluttering.
“If you ever choose another, make sure you kill me first. Because I—” he bent to whisper against her lips “—will annihilate the fucking world before I let you go.”
There was something truly messed up with her because instead of scaring her, it just made her feel more cherished. She loved that. She loved that she meant enough to him.
Feeling claimed, feeling chosen, Lyla held the man she realized ticked almost every box of love for her.
