Chapter 41

“Where. Is. My. Mark?” I ask her again.

Technically, I do know where it is—the makeup is evident this close.

What I don’t know is why the hell she covered it up. The whole point was for her to wear it loud and proud. So dumbasses like Ewing would get the fucking hint and back the fuck off.

He shouldn’t even be here. He shouldn’t be allowed to walk inside this building, let alone be here in Daphne’s office.

Daphne’s protesting, but I couldn’t hear her even if I wanted to—my blood is roaring through my ears and I’m doing everything possible to not just throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of the art gallery to the car.

As it is, I’m shoving her out her office door, my arm firmly wrapped around her.

One of her idiot bosses pokes his head out of his office, but I shoot him a glare that dares him to fuck with me. He ducks back inside and I can hear him lock the door.

“Pasha!” Daphne whips her head around. I don’t stop, and I don’t let her stop, either. “I haven’t checked with Todd⁠—”

“I’m sure he knows.” And if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay out of my way.

I’m still seething by the time we get to my car. It’s lucky I don’t rip the passenger door clean off the hinges; I’m in no mood to be gentle. I shove her in the car and go to buckle her in myself…

But then I halt.

I didn’t factor in her scent. It’s there, faint but undeniable. Teasing. Tempting.

I slowly turn my head to look at her. I could kiss her. I could devour her right here, right now. I should.

“Pasha…”

Fuck. The way she breathes my name has me harder than fucking steel. I hear her breath catch…

“Don’t move.”

The last thing either of us needs is a smashed finger in the door when I slam it shut. I take a few deep, steadying breaths before I stride over to the driver’s side and get in.

It’s damn near impossible to drive when I can smell her and sense her so goddamn close. I have one hand gripping her thigh like she’s about to fly off somewhere, and a brain that won’t stop thinking about Conrad fucking Ewing and those stupid fucking flowers.

And that mark. My mark. She covered it up, like it’s something to be ashamed of.

“Where are we going?” Daphne asks quietly.

I don’t know. I just had to get her out of there before I pounded both of us into a mutual screaming orgasm for all the world to hear.

My hand on her thigh is on the same page as my dick. I’m rubbing, stroking, easing up her dress. My erection wants Daphne’s pussy; my thoughts want Ewing’s blood.

He saw her in this dress. He probably thought about tugging the neckline low so he could latch on to her⁠—

Fuck this.

I whip a hard left out of nowhere. Daphne has to grab the oh-shit handle above her head as I turn us into a parking garage that I happen to own.

“Seriously, Pasha, where are we going?”

That last syllable hikes up a breathy octave when my fingers delve under her dress and slide over her mound. Through the soaked material of her panties, I start caressing her lips up and down… up and down…

By the time I park, Daphne is breathing hard and her bottom lip is trembling with need. She blinks at me, her lashes lowered; her hips writhe to get more of my fingers’ attention.

God, she is so fucking beautiful.

I tell myself we’re going to go inside. I’m going to take her into one of my auxiliary offices where there’s a futon and privacy.

But between pulling my fingers from her sweet slit, walking around the outside of the SUV with the scent of her desire teasing my senses, and the way she blinks up at me when I yank her door open…

Change of plans.

I’m done waiting.

I claim her mouth and fist my hands in her hair to hold her right where I need her. Daphne lets out a soft whimper that nearly buckles my knees.

Does she have any idea what she does to me?

I lift her just enough to slide into her seat and pull her onto my lap. With a flip of the side lever, the seat reclines all the way back. I slam the door shut again and hit the lock button.

“What if⁠—”

I shut her worries up with another searing kiss. Maybe, maybe making her scream on my cock will soothe the angry beast inside me demanding to mark every inch of her creamy skin.

Or maybe it will just make me want even more.

She tastes sweet and salty. As she wriggles on my lap, I get some more very bad ideas. Or hell, maybe they’re good ideas—who even knows anymore? None of this shit was scripted and I can’t think beyond the current second, and the next, and the next. I’m just absorbed in every inch of her.

If I don’t hear her moan rightfuckingnow, I think I’ll lose my goddamn mind.

This was supposed to be a fix, not ripping the lid off Pandora’s box. But now that I have her right here, straddling my lap and writhing on my dick while her breasts threaten to fall out of her dress, I’m feeling a different urge. A need to take my sweet time.

Torment doesn’t have to be violent. Definitely not with my woman. I’ll kill the motherfucker who lays a hand on her—but Daphne? She gets my personal brand of torture, long and slow and repeatedly.

“Two rules.” I palm her throat lightly. She’s going to look me in the eyes, and she is going to fucking obey me for once. “You will do exactly as I say, with a ‘yes, sir,’ every. Fucking. Time. Understood?”

Daphne nods. I growl and tighten my grip until she gets it. When she does, she sucks in a breath and whispers, “Yes, sir.”

“Rule Number Two: you will only come when I tell you to. Not even a millisecond before. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s a good girl, Daphne. That’s a very good girl.”

I pull her to me and kiss her again, taking time to nibble each one. Slowly, inch by inch, I hike her dress up her thighs and over her hips. Daphne seems to be perfectly okay with that—until I keep going up her waist and over her heavy breasts.

Then her eyes widen in panic. “What if someone sees?”

“I dare them to even try.”

Tearing her dress up over her head, I discard it in the back seat. The tiny black panties sit a bit lower on her hips thanks to her ever-growing womb, and that sight alone nearly makes me explode before I’m ready.

Goddamn.

To think I used to not want this.

To think I was avoiding having a woman like Daphne in my arms, moaning my name, lighting up my days, carrying my child.

The hell was I thinking?

She purrs to herself as I smooth my hands along her waist, lost in my thoughts as I drink her in. I almost forget why we’re here—and the fact that I’m supposed to be pissed—because every delicious curve of her body has me mesmerized.

I hook my thumbs in the waistband of her panties and slowly drag them down her hips. She lifts to help me get them off, but the way her thighs are spread around me make it impossible.

Oh, well. Time for Plan B.

Daphne stifles a scream at the sound of me ripping her panties apart. I raise the ragged scrap in my hands up to my face and inhale. They’re soaked, rippling with the scent of her.

I tuck the ruined panties into my pocket for safekeeping. Then I grab Daphne’s wrists and steer them up to the ceiling strap overhead.

“Hold that,” I order. “Don’t even think of letting go until I give you permission.”

She obeys with an audible gulp. Reaching up puts her breasts right in my face, which is conveniently exactly where I want them to be.

But she’s already breaking one of my rules. Tsk-tsk. I tweak her nipple and she cries out briefly. “What did I tell you?” I croon.

She nods frantically as she stammers, “Y-yes, sir! Yes, sir.”

“Good girl. Don’t forget it again, or I won’t be so forgiving.” Satisfied for now, I turn my attention back to her body. I pass a thumb across her swollen lips, down the curve of her throat, between the valley of her breasts. She wriggles and moans with every sweep of my barely-there fingertips, but she keeps hold of the ceiling strap.

I drop lower and lower until I’m cradling her womb against my palms. It’s incredible to me that she’s so full of life. Our life, that we created.

Something whispers in the back of my mind that we will need to do this a lot more in the future. That I need to fill her up like this again and again and again and again and again and a-fucking-gain. Keep her barefoot and pregnant and moaning and submissive.

Fucking hell, I might come already.

I dip a hand between her legs and bask in the sounds she makes when I stroke her wet lips with my fingers. She wants me to at least graze her clit; that much is blindingly obvious. Her body says it all.

But I don’t. I get close, skirting around it on every side… before moving past. Every time I do, she wails.

“Pasha,” Daphne whines. She’s literally dripping all over my fingers and starting to shake with need. “Please…”

I lift my fingers to her lips and she sucks them clean, not once looking away from me. Fuck. Daphne has a dirty side and I think I’m in love.

With the moment, I correct in my head. I’m in love with the moment.

This “punishment” was meant for her.

But I’m starting to wonder who the fuck I’m actually tormenting right about now.

Daphne cries out in a plaintive mewl when I latch onto a nipple. “Oh, God, Pasha… Please, it’s too much!”

My gaze meets hers. Can she see how fucking badly I want her? How I’m riding the edge just as much as she is? And I’m not even unzipped yet.

“I wonder if… No, you know what?” I muse. “I’m certain. I can make you come right now without putting even a finger inside you.”

“W-what?” Daphne says, eyes half-lidded with desire but flush with concern that I might leave her wanting. “But…but…”

“Don’t worry, my little flame.” I can’t help but smirk at her panic. “You’re not leaving this car until I’ve emptied myself into you.” I spread her cheeks apart, teasing her slit from behind with the tips of my fingers. She shivers, her breath catching. “But I want to see you fall apart just from my touch. My words. Maybe then you’ll understand just how completely you belong to me.”

“I do!” Daphne whines again. “I’m yours! I swear, I’m yours!”

“And yet you covered my mark.” The words come out a hell of a lot calmer than I feel them. “I’m not always going to be there to protect you. To save you from assholes like Conrad. Why the hell do you think I marked you to begin with?”

She furrows her brow and tries to grind herself to a greedy release, but I know her little game and I put a stop to it by pinning her hips in place.

“Tell me.” I tip her chin up when she tries to look down. “Look at me and tell me why I marked you. Why I want you to wear my mark for the whole world to see. Show me you understand.”

“To… to protect me.” Daphne chews on her bottom lip and tries to shift herself again, but I hold her in place with one hand while the other works my fly open. “So everyone sees who I belong to. That I’m yours. So they don’t… So no one tries to hurt me.”

I grin. She gets it. Finally, she’s starting to understand.

I don’t need to answer with words. Instead, I answer by giving her the one thing she wants above all else right now.

I finally, fucking finally, impale her on my cock and drag her all the way down.

I’m not gentle about it, either. My fingers dig into her hips, and her ass, so hard I’m pretty damn sure she’ll be wearing those bruises by tomorrow.

If so… good. I want her to see them in the mirror and remember the way I held her and made her forget her own name.

Every thrust is as hard and as deep as I can make it. I’m grunting, panting, growling as I bite and suck on her skin wherever my mouth can reach.

I can feel it in the way she tenses—she’s close, again. I am, too, but I’m not ready to end this lesson she’s learning. So I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her down onto me, grinding into her deep. Working my cock inside her, every single solid inch.

Daphne flies apart, more intense than before. She can’t move—she can only wriggle and writhe in my arms while her pussy spasms on my dick. She’s gushing, and screaming, and it’s like the best music to my ears.

“That’s it, baby. Let it out. Be my good girl and let it out. Let the whole city hear you scream for me.”

She’s fucking herself on my cock, but like a good girl, she stays clinging to the strap overhead.

“Who do you belong to?”

“You!” she sobs with pleasure.

“Who protects you?”

“You!”

I caress her body from head to toe, making sure she looks me in the eyes. “Who takes care of you?”

Daphne hesitates.

There it is—the telltale giveaway. The hidden scar, the festering wound on her heart.

No one has ever taken care of her before.

“I do,” I supply. I slide my hand up to caress her neck, cup her face in my hand, hold her. “I do, Daphne. And I am always going to take care of you.”

“But…” Her eyes search my face, confusion clouding the pleasure. “Why?”

It’s a great question. I don’t answer. I can’t.

Instead, I kiss her and drink down her screams as I push both of us closer and closer to that edge of sweet oblivion.

And when we both topple over it, our sounds fill the car. Her screams. My roar.

Together.