Capture Me Slowly (Shattered 3)

“I did,” I admitted. “I do need you.” I looked up at him. “I just didn’t know how to say it.”

“But you’re saying it now.”

I nodded.

“I tried staying away from you. Tried spending this last week keeping things on the surface. Because I can’t fail again.” He gripped my hips and I felt his erection prod me. The man was aching. I felt it as clearly as if his pain was my own. Caught somewhere between what to do and how to feel. It was the same battle I was having.

“Everything you do,” he whispered, “is like a goddamn call to me. I ran for hours, and I still heard you, felt you. The only time I feel like I can truly keep you is when I’m inside you.” His words made an entire army of hot shivers rake over my skin from my toes to my br**sts. “I can’t keep this professional.”

Professional? That was an odd way to put it, but he had mentioned before helping me that sex was no part of the deal. Despite our few relapses. It was the same way he referred to the woman in his wallet. He put it on himself to keep her safe.

“I don’t want you to save me, Rhys. I want to save myself.”

He grinned, but there was no humor behind his eyes. “And now you want to save me? Kind of hypocritical, don’t you think?” He bit my bottom lip quickly, then pulled away. It was long enough to leave a sting, but not for me to kiss, or bite, back.

“You confuse me, Rhys. All I know is what happened with your dad, with that woman, it’s not your fault. You have to stop carrying the weight of everything around you.”

“Mysha.”

“What?”

“Her name was Mysha , and it was my fault.”

“No.” I shook my head and reached out for him, but he got my wrists and brought them behind me. Wrapped in his strength, I couldn’t move.

“How are you going to get out of this, Emma?” He ground his hard c**k against me and I stifled a moan.

“I don’t want to get away.”

He looked at me for a long moment and I kissed the edge of his jaw. With one hand wrapped around my two wrists, he used his free hand to grip my chin.

“You drive me insane,” he said in a low growl. “You play games, toy with me, tell me exactly what I don’t mean to you, only to then tell me you want me.” He tugged a little harder and my gaze snapped to his. “You tell me now that you care? That you want to know? That you don’t need me to save you?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Emma Wade isn’t some delicate thing, huh?”

“No, I’m not.” Only with him was I considered delicate. But right now, I needed him to see me as his equal. See that I could take his baggage just like he had taken mine. That I could handle his past. Be there. A safe place for him to land.

“You’re tiny. A petite little thing that should be made love to in a bed, not f**ked right here on the counter,” he ground his hips again and I gasped because his c**k hit just where I needed it, sending a bolt of pleasure though my body. “Sweet and gentle, that’s the kind of woman you look like. But everything else about you,” he ground again, “your sexy moans, your pissy little glare you give when you’re mad . . . you’re begging for something else.”

“I’m begging for you,” I said sternly. Showing him, telling him, I was there, ready to take him, however he’d have me.

I shook my head, enough to move his grip from my chin and I bit down on his finger. He hissed and his eyes fired.

“I can handle you, Rhys. I’ve told you that from the beginning.” I sucked the same fingertip and his eyes went heavy. “Let me show you. Take me, f**k me, make love to me, whatever you want. But just know that I’m here. And I see you too. The real you.”

With that, he groaned, hoisted me up onto the counter and yanked my little shorts down my legs and off. He hit his knees and I tugged the neck of his shirt and he raised his arms so the cotton came clean off. I tossed it to the ground.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he said.

With his hands splayed on the outside of my thighs and his face settled between my legs, he delivered one hard lick to my clit and pulled me onto his tongue.

“Yes!” I threaded my fingers into his hair and met his seeking mouth. Plunging deep into my pu**y, he f**ked me hard with his tongue and I just held on the best I could.

“Need you . . . Missed you . . .” I mumbled incoherently. Because all I could think about was him. How he felt against me. How he worked my body over like he owned it. Knew it. How he moved, how he kissed, how he hurt, every thought was for him. Everything I was, for him. I just wanted this, us connected, understanding each other enough to realize the problems and acknowledge that neither of us had it one hundred percent together.

But we were getting there.

It felt like we were finally making way through this. Together.

“I could eat you for every meal, baby,” he breathed against my heated flesh, then dove back in. “You come off as so strong, tough, but I see something else.” He flicked my clit, and I almost bucked off the counter. “You’re sweet. Passionate.”

He licked every last nerve ending and that was all it took. My orgasm raced over me and drenched his tongue, but he continued his assault. Devouring me, like an animal with pent-up need dying to get out.

“And you’re all mine,” he said, dropping a few lingering kisses along my thighs, bringing me down from the brink. There was a moment when he pulled away completely. With my eyes squeezed shut, I didn’t know where he went. But by the time I got them working to open again, he was standing between my thighs, naked and rolling on a condom.

“Can you handle more, baby?”

I locked my legs around him and reached between our bodies to grip his c**k and place it at my opening.

“What have I said about you questioning my capability to handle you?”

He grinned slightly and wrapped one strong arm around my waist. “Yes, ma’am.”

He thrust inside of me and my breath caught, refusing to surge from my lungs.

“Fuck,” he said and placed his free hand on the cupboard behind me. He pulled almost all the way out, then surged back inside.

I gasped.

He groaned.

The counter shook.

“Why, Emma?” he muttered against my neck. I placed my forehead against his as he withdrew and returned with another deliciously punishing thrust. “Why do you feel so right?”

My lashes brushed the sensitive skin beneath my eyes because I was squeezing them so tight to keep the water back. With my elbows on his shoulders, I threaded the hair on the back of his head through my fingers and kissed the top of his head.