Page 20 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Not yet, Laurel.” I take my hand away, and she cries out in protest. “Don’t come yet. Hold it,” I command, undressing quickly, then taking her shirt and pants off too. Now she’s naked and spread, her thighs damp and, damn, if I could paint a picture of her like this I would.

I use my knees to widen her thighs so I can slip between them. I don’t enter her yet, though. Instead I bow my head to take her nipple into my mouth. It peaks as I suck it deeper, then bite lightly, not enough to hurt but enough to feel.

Laurel calls my name at the sensation. I graze my teeth over her, and she moans, my favorite sound in the world. She’s rocking against my cock, rubbing herself shamelessly on the shaft, coating me with her arousal. The sensation drives me wild. Unable to resist any longer, I push into her, taking my time so she can stretch around me. I’m big and she’s tight and the combination is absolute heaven. Once I’m fully inside, I fuck her slowly, building her back up to the point where she’s on the brink of coming. When I get her there, I go still and luxuriate in it, the feeling of her trembling beneath me like a leaf.

I force my eyes open and take in the way her chest has gone red and how her breasts bounce with each gasping breath she takes through parted lips. I’m close, and so is she.

“You know what I want, Tiger.” I allow myself to smirk. “Beg for it.”

Laurel’s eyes open and flare with that stubborn streak she has. I laugh, because I love to challenge her, but also because twenty-four hours ago I thought I’d never be here with her like this again and I’m happy. Maybe for the first time in my life, I’m truly happy. Not thinking about my duty, or The Order, or any other of the million problems I have. I’m just thinking about how glad I am that some idiot ordered pizza six months ago, with no idea that I was outside about to murder a drug dealer.

Laurel presses her lips together, but then I pump my hips and they fall back open. I lean down and kiss her, slipping my tongue into her mouth and syncing it to the sway of my hips.

I pull back a bit. “Come on,” I coax with my smile in place, but it’s softer now. “Tell me what you want.”

“I—I want you, Carrson. Please,” her hands are on my shoulders, grasping, “please fuck me harder.”

I lean forward and place my gentlest kiss to her forehead. “That’s my good girl.”

Then I do as she asks. I slam into her as hard and fast as I can, bracing my upper body on my hands until my wrists ache. Laurel meets me thrust for thrust, just as desperate for me as I am for her. Electricity shoots up my spine, and then we’re breaking, falling together, calling each other’s names as we come. I empty into her, all of me rushing out to merge with all of her, and it feels like coming home.

**

Laurel

Afterwards, we lie naked and tangled together, sweat cooling between us as our breathing evens out. Carrson strokes his hand down my arm in long, languid sweeps while I tell him everything that happened while I was gone. Unlike with his father, I don’t hold anything back. I go through it detail by detail, line by line, because I want him to know. I want to hear his thoughts.

I tell him everything…except that’s not totally true.

“Be careful, Laurel Turner,” Silas said. “When Carrson bonds you, The Order ain’t giving you to him. They’re taking from you.”

I don’t tell Carrson that part. Partly because our bonding seems inevitable now, after everything that happened downstairs. After the whipping. After Carr’s public declaration, but it’s more than that. The truth, when I force myself to look at it, is that I want to be bonded to Carrson.

I want him to be mine.

Permanently.

Silas thinks it’s dangerous, and he’s probably right. And yet, that doesn’t change how I feel.

I also don’t tell Carrson what Sealed by Sight means. Not yet.

He’s only just woken up after his father beat him bloody. He’s still touching me like he needs proof I’m here, like the space between us might open and take me away again. I know what will happen when I tell him. His anger will fill every part of this room. He’ll go after Jack. He’ll call the whole thing off before we have even had time to see what fighting it would cost us.

Probably that’s the right response.

But I can’t make myself hand The Order this moment too.

Not while Carrson’s hand is warm against my skin and his heartbeat is slowing beneath my cheek. For a few more minutes, I want what happened between us to belong only to us.

I will tell him. Before there’s any chance he hears it from someone else.

Just not yet.

Carrson’s silent once I finish telling him about the abduction, with his brows knit together. “Silas didn’t hurt you?” he asks, like he’s working through it. “He wants to work with you? To help?”

“Maybe he’d work with you too?” I suggest.

Carrson rears back at that. “Fuck no. I’ve spent the last four years battling that asshole over every block in this town. I find it hard to believe he’d ever help me, and I know for sure I’d never help him. He’s the devil.”