Page 16 of Stealing Cinder

He rises. Crosses the room in three long strides. His hands grip my hips and he lifts me off the lounge like I weigh nothing, sliding into me in one smooth thrust. I hook my ankles around his back and dig my nails into his shoulders.

"Fuck me hard, daddy." My voice is raw, broken. "I need to feel you stretch me and fill me up. Pretend with me just one night that I belong to you and you belong to me."

He pulls out and drives back in. My head falls against his shoulder.

"You want to come for daddy?"

"I do."

He lays me flat on the lounge and drops between my thighs. His mouth closes over my pussy and his tongue drags a slow, devastating pass through my folds. I grip the armrest and cry out, my back bowing off the velvet. He licks me with a patience that borders on cruelty, circling my clit, sucking the swollen flesh between his lips until my thighs lock around his head and my orgasm rips through me so hard my vision whites out.

He rises to his knees. His beard is wet with my release, glistening in the warm light. The sight of him, mouth slick, dark eyes burning, has my pussy clenching around nothing.

He slides back into me, stretching me open again, and I moan from how full he makes me feel. His hand reaches for my phone, still propped against the cushion.

"Record us." His voice drops low enough to vibrate through my chest. "I want us to keep the moment I put my baby in you."

Sweet man. I'll delete the video while he sleeps.

I hold the phone steady, angling the screen to capture where our bodies join. He watches the display for a beat, then his eyes come back to mine as he drives forward. Hard. Deep. His hand grips my hip and he fucks me with a raw, grinding rhythm that has me struggling to keep the phone still through the tremors rolling through my body.

He comes with a groan that fills the suite, his cock throbbing inside me. His forehead drops against my collarbone and both breath in heavily. I rake my fingers through his loose hair, kissing the top of his head, trying hard to commit this moment to memory.

Samuel

She weighs next to nothing in my arms.

I carry her from the lounge to the glass-enclosed shower, her head resting against my chest, pale blonde hair streaming over my forearm. Her eyes are half-closed, lashes dark against flushed cheeks. She goes soft in my arms, quiet and still, her breath steady against my throat as she gives me her full weight. The trust in that silence settles into the marrow of my bones.

I set her feet on the warm tile and reach past her to turn the water on. Steam fills the enclosure fast, fogging the glass walls, blurring the suite beyond into soft shapes and firelight. I step in behind her and let the hot spray hit my shoulders while I gather her hair and twist it forward over her chest.

She tips her head back into the water and moans. A quiet sound, loose and unguarded. My cock already stirs despite having been inside her three times tonight.

What kind of trouble is this woman running from?

The question has been circling my head since the moment I peeled that waste of oxygen off her at the bar. I watched her before I intervened, longer than she realizes. The grief sitting behind those blue eyes isn't fresh, but tonight it cracked open and everything underneath came pouring out. Bad enough that she was ready to give herself to a man who didn’t know her name, let alone deserve to touch her.

Whatever drove her to the Gilded Key tonight, whatever she's running from or trying to bury, it's worse than she's told me.

Luckily I was walking through when I did. I wasn't supposed to be at the club tonight. My meeting at the bar downstairs wrapped early and I took the elevator to the wrong floor. Wrong floor. Right woman.

I work shampoo through her hair, my scarred fingers gentle against her scalp. She leans into my hands and her shoulders drop. The steam carries her scent up to me. Warm vanilla layered under a sweetness that is purely hers beneath the soap.

Tomorrow is the last day.

The thought barrels through my brain at full speed. The contract with my family gives me until midnight tomorrow to produce a bride and proof of an heir on the way. No bride, no heir, no seat at the head of the table. My father will do what he always promised. Hand the empire to my cousin, a man who couldn't run a food truck, let alone a kingdom.

I've spent the last month ignoring the deadline. Telling myself I didn't care. I have enough territory, enough power, enough money to live seven lifetimes and never repeat a meal.

But the woman standing in my shower, carrying every ounce of her pain without asking a single person for help, changes that math.

I rinse the shampoo from her hair and work conditioner through the ends. She pauses mid-breath, her lips parting on a quiet moan at the feel of my fingers working through the knots. My cock is fully hard now, pressing against the small of her back, and I let myself slide the length between her ass, slick with water.

Her breath hitches. But she doesn't pull away.

I press my lips to the curve of her neck. My fingers trace the ink on her left shoulder. The raven's wings spread wide across her skin, the falling feathers drifting down her ribs where I kissed each one just an hour ago. A dream is a wish from the heart. She told me the raven reminds her to be wise, to let intuition guide her.

Her intuition brought her to me tonight. That's good enough.