Page 34 of Irrevocably

“No,” I breathe, opening my eyes and looking up at him. “Don’t stop.”

He lifts his hand, my wetness glistening on his fingers, then he licks his fingers, watching me all the while. “You taste good,” he says, deep and rough. “And who said anything about stopping?”

Abruptly, he picks me up, carrying me over to my bed and dumping me down on the mattress. I try to sit up, but he pushes me onto my back, before grabbing the waistband of my pyjama bottoms and jerking them down and off. Then he leans over me, his big body stretching over mine, and looks down, his gaze scanning every inch of me. The lines of his face are taut and hungry, and another rush of power fills me.

He wants me. He wants me badly.

Slowly, I let my knees fall open, full of a courage I never knew I had. “So?” I ask. “You promised me both. Pain and a fuck.”

A muscle leaps in his jaw and his eyes glitter as he stares at my pussy. “I’ll fuck you when I’m good and ready, Tinkerbell.”

I tremble, then his gaze narrows as he stares at my thighs, and for one brief second, I wonder what’s so interesting about them, then I remember the cuts I put there earlier, after the study hall, and the lines of the other scars that are there as well.

I try to sit up again, putting my hands down over the cuts to hide them, even though he’s already seen them. Even though he already knows that I cut myself, and why. But still, a wave of shame washes through me and before I can cover myself, Lucien wraps his tattooed fingers around my wrists, stopping me. “I thought you said you hadn’t cut yourself tonight,” he says, his tone almost demanding.

“I didn’t,” I say. “That’s from this afternoon. Before I went to the parking lot.”

He looks down at the barely healed lines, then releases one of my wrists to trace one gently with a fingertip. I shiver helplessly as he touches me. Weirdly, it feels more intimate than when he had his fingers inside me.

Lucien stares at the cuts for a long time, then he glances up at me, his eyes burning. “Don’t ever cut yourself again.” His voice is hard and flat. It’s an order, a command.

I blink at him, not quite understanding. “What?”

“You want pain, you come to me,” he says. “I’ll give it to you.” He leans forward, prowling up my body like a panther until his hands rest on the pillows on either side of my head. “Say, ‘Yes, Lucien.’”

He’s so big, so hot, and there’s nothing in my vision except the blue of his eyes. I want him so badly so I open my mouth to give him what he wants, but before I can say the words, he shifts and he takes one of my nipples between his thumb and forefinger and pinches it hard.

A bright burst of pain streaks through me, along with a dark lick of pleasure, and I gasp aloud, the throb between my legs becoming acute.

“Say it,” he orders, gaze pinned to my face, and this time as he pinches my nipple, he pushes his hips between my thighs, the bulge of his cock flexing against my clit. The pleasure/pain is so fierce and bright. So good. I groan, arching against the mattress. “Yes, Lucien,” I manage. “Oh, God, yes…”

“Good girl.” His hips flex again, and he rolls my nipple between his strong fingers, and the pleasure/pain hits me again and I cry out.

It’s so good, I can hardly bear it. I lift my hands to grip his shoulders, but he pushes himself up again, kneeling between my thighs. He shrugs off his leather jacket, then gets rid of his hoodie. He’s wearing a black T-shirt underneath and he grips the hem before pulling it up and over his head in one smooth movement.

And all my remaining breath escapes.

He’s covered in tattoos, black lines tracing every hard, cut muscle of his chest and stomach. Flowers and skulls and mandalas, and panthers creeping through jungles, and dragons flying in the clouds. The tail of one dragon curls around his throat and up the side of his strong neck, even as the wings stretch across his wide, powerful shoulders.

He’s beautiful. I’ve never been into tattoos before, but they’re beautiful, too, and my fingers itch to touch them. To trace those lines down over his chest and the hard corrugations of his abdomen. Then to ask what each one means, if they mean anything at all.

His fingers drop to the buttons of his jeans, and he begins to undo them. The tattoos on his hands extend up both arms, full sleeves, and I’m hypnotised by the way he’s flicking open each button.

He’s so arrogant as he does so, watching me watching him. Reading my hunger for him. He likes that. He likes my hunger, my desperation.

He’s wearing black briefs underneath, the hard line of his cock pushing against the fabric. With an almost casual movement, he reaches into his back pocket, takes out a couple of silver packets and tosses them down on the sheets beside me. Then he shoves his jeans down, taking his briefs with them.

I can’t help the full-body shiver that washes over me as my gaze is drawn helplessly to his groin, where his cock curves up. Hard and long and thick, and my God… My breath catches audibly, which is embarrassing, but then full awareness of what’s happening suddenly crashes over me, the good girl in me, the girl I was before this man came into my life, screaming at me. What the hell are you doing? You’re about to give your virginity to a psychopath who killed a man.

But I don’t want to listen to that girl. That girl keeps trying to hold up that crumbling façade on a cracked foundation; and while this man might be a psychopath, he’s going to give me what I’m desperate for, and I’m not questioning or second-guessing myself, not this time. I don’t want to overthink, count all my anxieties like beads on a rosary. He can give me clean, bright pain along with the pleasure, and I know already that the release will be sweeter than any knife.

Lucien reaches for one of the silver packets and rips it open, going slowly as he takes the condom out before rolling the latex down. I can’t stop staring at his hands and the ink on them, at the long, thick length of his cock, and there’s something unbearably hot about the way he’s sheathing himself.

I swallow, my mouth dry. He’s the first man I’ve seen naked in the flesh, and he’s in my childhood bed. He’s going to take my virginity and I’m going to let him. I never got the “talk” from my parents. Dad handed me a book and told me gruffly that if I “had any questions” I was to come to him, and that was the extent of it. Of course, I didn’t have any questions.

In the book, you’re supposed to love the person you have sex with, or at least like them. But I don’t love Lucien, and I don’t even like him. He’s a stranger to me. I know literally nothing about him, except for his name…

And I don’t care. I just don’t.