Merciless Vows by Faith Summers

17

Aria

Apprehension gnaws away at my insides, and I don’t know which emotion I feel more as Lucca stares at my naked body.

The way he touched and tasted me last night never left me. The way I reacted both shocked me and threw me off-kilter.

The way the arousal that claimed me never left, and it’s coming back now, eager for more of him.

I’m scared. That much is evident from the panic sweeping through me and the slight tremble in my hands I know he can see.

I’m not fighting, though. Not because all the fight in me is gone. It’s not.

I’m not fighting because this is part and parcel of what I need to do to find my way out.

Fight back, and the path gets further away from me. I can’t allow that to happen, so I’ll do as I’m told, even if right now all I have is hope there’s a way out. There are no definites, nothing to be sure of. I don’t know what his plans are for me in the future. All I have are the next few months as a surety that I’ll be alive. For all I know, he could snap my neck or shoot me dead once the business belongs to him.

There’s nothing to stop him from doing so. I’m just hoping he won’t.

I’m praying that with me, he won’t be the killer I know him to be.

So even though I know tonight I’ll obey because I want a way out, I’m also doing what I’m told because I’m afraid of him.

Like a predator, he circles me, and I am his prey. His weak, defenseless, helpless little prey who’s waiting for him to strike.

Those eyes of his drink me in as they roam over my body from head to toe.

One thick finger graces over my stomach, and the warmth of his touch seeps through my skin.

As he glides over the flat plane of my stomach, the mind-numbing effect of his dominating touch pushes through my resilience, and the scary thought hits me that even if I wanted to fight, I don’t know if I could.

And it’s because of that part of me that’s holding on to the one thing I remember.

Him.

The part of my brain that’s allowing me to remember him and what I felt for him betrays me again. It wants me to savor his touch.

I betray myself when I do.

I betray everything I told myself and feel like a liar when I savor the way he runs his fingers up to the deep valley between my breasts and lingers there.

“Lie on the bed and spread your legs for me, Printsessa,” he commands.

At the sound of his husky words, desire stirs low in my belly and spirals down to my core.

I glance at the neatly made bed Marylin made earlier, even when I insisted on doing it.

This is it. Tonight will be it. He’ll take my body tonight, just like he promised, and I don’t know how I’ll feel after.

On shaky legs, I make my way over to the bed, feeling his eyes on my ass as I walk.

I crawl onto the bed first, then lie on my back against the stack of pillows.

When I spread my legs wide and look at him, a thin smile inches across his face, the look of pure male satisfaction stokes my inner desire. As he starts undoing the buttons on his shirt, curiosity gets the better of me, and I find I can’t look away.

He strips down to his boxers, revealing his masterpiece body again.

The black boxers hang low on his hips, and in spite of myself, my eyes take in the distinct bulge of his cock pressing against the fabric.

There’s something satisfying about seeing him aroused for me. Something I take as meaningful and… mine. I remember what Violet said to me, and I foolishly wish she could see how wrong she was. Clearly, I’m pleasing the man she obviously wants just from looking at me.

He comes closer, getting on the bed with me. His hair falls forward in a sexy mess when he leans in and plants a kiss on the edge of my neck. His lips on my skin feel like liquid fire.

Up he goes, giving me fiery kisses of delight along my skin until he reaches my ear.

“You’re just as beautiful as the last time I saw you naked,” he mutters, and my nerves spike. When is he talking about?

The other night when I foolishly fell asleep naked, and he saw me, or before?

From the tenor and taunting air of his deep baritone voice, I get the feeling I already have my answer. He only talks like that when he’s referring to the past.

I grit my teeth, biting back the fury at the memory only he is privy to.

“I got the impression we weren’t intimate,” I rasp out.

He asked me if I was a virgin the other day. All I remember is us kissing, nothing more. Why would I have been naked if we weren’t intimate?

“I never told you anything to make you assume such a thing.”

I turn my face and fall into his trap when our lips touch. He smiles against my lips and slips his hand behind my head to draw me closer so he can kiss me properly.

At first, I allow him to, and I don’t kiss him back. I still try to maintain some control, but when his tongue runs over my lip, pleasure forces its way into me once more, and I want to taste him too.

I open my mouth for him, and when his tongue tangles with mine, I melt into him the same way I did last night. The way I do in my memories.

We kiss hard, hungry, greedy, and I can’t fight the craving that fills me to allow him to do whatever he wants to me.

I’m not supposed to feel this way.

Not about him, this cruel, ruthless man who stormed into my life and turned everything every way except the right way.

Just when I start to lose my mind, he pulls back and glares down at me, his features becoming darker. It’s terrifying to watch because I can’t figure him out.

I gasp when he swoops down and takes my left nipple into his mouth. His large hand covers my right breast and squeezes, then kneads as he sucks hard on the left.

My nipples become harder, and I moan out loud when he begins lapping over the taut peak, working it to life.

I shudder under the weight of him, and when he starts alternating his suckle from one breast to the other, my body bows to him, bows to the wild sensation that ripples through me, and bows to the newness of the feeling that feels so damn good.

The sound of distinct pleasure heavy with sexual heat fills the room, and as a hum of satisfaction falls from my lips, I realize all those sounds are coming from me.

The cries of pleasure of the woman caught in the rapture is me. And the sounds that pour from me seem to feed his hunger. I can feel it in his touch as it becomes more possessive and greedy.

I arch into him as his rough hands squeeze my waist and trace the contours of my hips and down to my ass.

That’s when he pauses his suckle and buries his face between my legs.

His tongue pushed up into my pussy, and madness takes me all the way up to the precipice of insanity. He jolts my senses, sending thrills of pleasure in convulsing waves over my body.

I’m on the edge of coming. I’m there at the pressure point where everything is coming together for an explosive ending.

My teeth clench, and my toes curl. I grasp onto the sheet, trying to combat the powerful sensations, trying my best to hold on to what remains of my sanity.

But I can’t.

“Stop fighting me,” he mutters in low, commanding words.

I glance down at him, licking over my pussy, making sure I can see what he’s doing to me.

“Stop fighting me, Printsessa. I want you.”

One thrust of his finger inside me does the job.

I crumble, and I come so hard I scream and surprise myself further by reaching for him.

He holds me, too, as he drinks me and every inch of my body comes alive with ferocious energy. It’s cruel and punishing.

Wild and freeing of all the restrictions I place on myself.

It’s too much, too much for me to handle, just like him.

When he finishes, I fully expect him to fuck me. The anticipation is killing me and screwing with me at the same time.

He moves back, leaving me shuddering, and gives me a wicked smile.

The smile widens when he pulls down his boxers and his straining cock springs free and bounces.

His cock grows even thicker and longer when he slings his hand down to the base and strokes himself.

The sight of him doing so is so hot my mouth waters.

The devil has me right where he wants me, and I can’t do shit to save myself.

“You want this, don’t you? Me inside you.” He starts rubbing harder and harder.

My eyes widen at the sight, and I don’t answer, not to say no, or yes.

Conflict tears me apart. I’m supposed to say no. It should be easy, except I can’t.

His heated gaze is raw and unforgiving.

“Come here to me, and open your mouth.”

My breath hitches, and at first, I wonder if he’s being serious. The dangerous, dark glint in his silver eyes tells me he is, and I was foolish to think he could be anything other.

My God, this is already too intimate for my liking. It was already too much.

Now this, and that look tells me I’d better obey.

With my body still vibrating from the aftershock of the orgasm, I ease myself up onto my knees, and when I open my mouth, he fists his cock harder and harder. The pleasure on his face is glorious, and as I watch it, the appeal of seeing him so aroused and now touching himself comes back to me.

He groans and grunts with hooded eyes and the vein in his neck pulsing. Then he comes, and his salty cum sprays into my mouth. The blast hits the back of my throat and arouses me all over again when he growls.

The thickness in my throat from the arousal, shock, and confliction momentarily stuns me, and it’s not by choice when I swallow.

Having his cum coursing down my throat conjures something I can’t quite describe. The wild look of fascination on his face as he watches me swallow is another thing.

He catches my hair, lacing his fingers through the strands, and brings me closer to his cock. Closer to the remnants of his cum beading on the fat mushroom head.

“Lick it, lick the last drop, Printsessa. Take it all,” he commands, and I obey.

I lick the tip of his cock, taking the rest of his cum, cleaning him off.

It’s only when he’s satisfied that I’m done that he releases me.

When I move back, I wonder what we’ll do now. I’m still geared up for him to fuck me.

In that predatory manner, he inches closer, and that smile comes back to his face.

“Soon. It’s time to go to bed now,” he promises.

Soon? So not tonight.

He moves to lie next to me and switches off the light. Then he reaches for me and pulls me down to lie next to him.

My back is to his and his chest to my back. The skin-to-skin contact suddenly conjures another memory of when we slept together just like this.

The memory comes to me as powerfully as his kiss, and when he runs his finger over my stomach, it seals the memory to me.

My lips part at the image that comes to my mind of him holding me while we lay on a bed together, and the only difference between then and now was I was naked beneath a sheet. Now I’m on top of it.

I blink, and then I remember something else. I remember being on stage playing the violin. It was at a concert.

I looked in the crowd and saw him, and I remember the way he looked at me.

It was with admiration and fascination.

That’s all I see, then darkness. The same darkness that always engulfs me when I try to remember my life.

“Go to sleep, Printsessa. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Another promise and another echo of a memory with the same words.

This man is my enemy. But, the part of me that remembers fragments of him makes me want to remember more؅—more about him and how and why we met.

I want to remember why he made me feel this way – safe.

He’s the last person I should feel safe with. Except the whispers in my heart tell me I might need him. That perhaps trying to remember what happened between us might help me remember everything else.

I wonder if that could really be true.

Could it?

Dare I hope with him.