Page 89 of Lured By Shadows

“So why did you burst into my house uninvited?” I asked, my voice shaking for entirely different reasons now. “Y’know, knocking exists.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. His hands trembled against my skin.

His chest rose and fell unevenly, and a low sound rumbled in his throat like he was holding himself together with barbed wire. “Who did you fuck?”

My pulse spiked so fast I felt it throbbing right between my legs, a hot rush flooding my stomach while my thoughts tripped over each other trying to catch up. I wondered if he somehow knew about the night with Carter, if word had gotten back to him through the grapevine, or if he’d been keeping tabs on me in ways I hadn’t even noticed.

Just imagining his eyes on me like that, full of the raw edge of possession, sent a tangled rush through me.

I opened my mouth to push back, to ask straight out how the hell he found out and what right he had digging into my business, but none of it came out.

The pull toward him drowned it all out, my whole body humming beneath his weight, wet and aching in a way that made his jealousy feel like the hottest thing I’d ever felt in my life.

“He was a nobody,” I said finally, my words defensive and pitched too high, tasting unfamiliar as they left my mouth. “I was just horny and needed some release, and he did the job.”

His entire body went still, as if time had paused mid-breath.

His cock pulsed against me, and I imagined his veined length, thick and insistent.

“Liar,” he hummed, his voice dropping lower, darker, his control shredding into something primal. “If he really satiated your hunger—”

His eyes stayed focused on me, but his hand slid down, wrapping around my waist as he thrust himself against my core. “—you would not be so wet against me.”

He murmured the words while his gaze drifted down to my lips.

I reached up slowly, dragging my hand along his chest, feeling each line of muscle beneath his shirt before tracing the edge of his lips with my thumb.

His pupils dilated like I’d touched a live wire. He didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

His breath caught as if waiting for whatever came next.

I leaned in until our mouths were almost touching, until I could taste his breath and feel his control fraying around the edges.

And then I whispered, “I would be wet for anyone, Culver. Not just you.”

His eyes widened, shock flashing across them before confusion, then something wounded.

He pushed his hips into me again, rougher this time, grinding against my drenched pussy with the rigid press of his cock as if trying to prove a point through contact alone. My clit throbbed at the friction, and my mouth fell open on a sharp inhale.

“You need only me,” he murmured, his voice lowered to a private growl. “Ira, please.”

My thumb pressed into his bottom lip, desperately wanting to close the distance and taste him. What would Culver Scarbrough taste like? I hoped it would be sin and danger.

My mind repeated his plea over and over again. It felt so good. Culver felt good.

But I needed to know what the hell was going on. Was I just the pitied daughter, or was I just the new girl? Was I a distraction or a plaything for him? Or, on the desperate side of me, was I actually something more than all of that?

I giggled softly, my fingertips scraping along his collar and up the side of his neck. “What happened to just wanting to be my friend?” I asked syrupy sweet, tilting my head as his jaw clenched. “Because this isn’t what friends do. Friends don’t have sex with each other,” I said lightly. “Real friends don’t…”

His eyes stoned over as he tried to hide his emotions, but his fingernails dug into my back when he leaned closer. It made my breath hitch in anticipation.

A part of me wanted to see him crack again, to watch him lose control and do what he pleased. I was sick and twisted with desire to have him fuck my brains out until I was a heaving mess underneath him.

I hated how much it bugged me not knowing what was going on inside his head. His face was locked into that too-calm mask except for the way his shoulders pulled tight, like he was holding everything in by force.

“So are we friends or—” I paused and leaned closer, our breaths mixing together as I tried to read him. “What do you want from me? Just sex?”

Culver’s pupils were too wide.