“We can’t do this,” I say as his lips devour mine. I break away from him, pressing my hands against his hard chest and pushing back. He releases me immediately, his eyes filled with—shame? Regret? As soon as our eyes meet, I know that I’ve blown it between us.

“Wait,” I say, grabbing his arm. He pulls it away, his eyebrows pinched, his entire body coiled tight like a spring about to burst loose.

He wrenches his arm out of my grip and turns, stalking away into the night.

I don’t follow him. Instead, I stand there mutely, a growing sense of helplessness and alarm enveloping me.

Because next time he kisses me, I won’t be able to push him away.

Seven

The wake goes on for hours before Dornan finds me. He is drunk out of his mind, so I drive us back to the clubhouse in his wife’s car.


The place is deserted as I lead him to his room, the aura of death surrounding the place obviously too much for most. I drop the set of car keys onto the nightstand and watch as Dornan takes a seat on the black vinyl occasional chair in the corner of the room, the moonlight from the window creating long slashes of light across his face. Like scars, I think as I walk over to him.


“You can go,” he says, staring into space.

Part of me wants to go. To get back into the car, find Jase, and tell him everything. But the other part of me, the vengeful bitch—she wants to stay and soak up every last bit of pain and hurt coming from this grieving devil.

“Let me try and take your mind off things,” I whisper, putting my hands on his shoulders.

I swing my leg over the chair, straddling him. His eyes are glassy and threaten to spill over.

“Close your eyes,” I whisper, trailing hot, wet kisses down his neck. He is drunk, and obeys me, much to my disbelief.

I smirk as his action has the desired effect. By closing his eyes, two teardrops are squeezed from his eyes, falling onto his stubbled cheeks.

I lean down, touching my lips to his right cheek. My tastebuds spring to life, assuaged by the sudden taste of salt water.

The taste of victory.

He took my father, my life, and now I have taken his oldest son from him. The taste of his sorrow beckons me, and I repeat my actions on his left cheek, this time darting my tongue out to catch his despair and drink it up, every last drop.

I rock on his lap, his erection already growing just from me straddling him. With my black funeral dress hitched up around my thighs, there is only a thin scrap of black lace and Dornan’s black pants separating us. He opens his eyes, and I sense he is surprised at the tender way I am touching him. In a way, so am I. But his sorrow, his devastation…it’s better than if I had tied him up and made him bleed for me.

Bleeding tears instead of blood, but it is all the same in the end. I will take every tear he has, every son, and then I will start letting blood.

“Sammi…” he breathes, digging his fingers into the soft flesh at my hips. I break out in goose bumps, wary once more. He never calls me Sammi.

Only baby girl.

“So hard for you it fucking hurts,” he says, staring me down with blazing intensity.

I suppress a smile as I fumble with his zipper, the material stretched to breaking point. As I tug the zipper carefully, his erection springs forth, a bead of pre-cum glistening on the tip. I grip him firmly with one hand, swiping my finger over the tip of his cock with my free hand. I don’t break our gaze as I bring my finger to my mouth and suck the salty fluid from it.

Sorrow. Devastation. Loss.

He digs his fingers deeper, the pain intensifying but still pleasant. It’s as if he is holding onto me for dear life, and slipping away.

I smile, and his gaze snaps, just like that, from sorrow and submission, to hunger and domination.

“You’re teasing me,” he says, lifting my hips forcefully. He leaves one hand on my hip and used the other to wrench my panties aside and guide his cock to my entrance.

I’m so turned on. A sorrow fuck. Never is someone more vulnerable than when they’re underneath you, naked, exposed, and on the brink of coming.

I see it all. I see through his facade, his control, into the blackness of his very soul. I see the scars I have left on his cold, dead heart, on the tiny part that has the capacity to care for his own offspring. A primal, human instinct that lives inside him despite his hatred, despite his abject twistedness. He pulls me down over him, filling me completely and to the point of pain, and I can’t help but moan.

I cry out as he pumps harder, his fingernails threatening to draw blood, he’s holding onto my hips that hard. There is no longer any tenderness from either of us. We are like two animals in heat, bucking wildly, alive with our elation and despair. With every rough stroke he pulls out of me completely, then slams me down so hard I see stars. I ache inside, and it’s a good ache and a painful ache all at once. Every piece of exposed skin is alive with goose bumps, Dornan’s breath on my neck firing little nerve endings, his hungry lips on my mouth seeking comfort and release.

His expression becomes open, naked, and inside me he goes rock-hard. “Gonna…come,” he manages, his eyes growing heavy.

I grip his chin and bring it up so that our eyes are locked. “Look at me when you do it,” I breathe.

That’s enough to send him off the edge. He moans loudly, pistoning his hips up into me, releasing everything he has into me. It looks intense, this orgasm, and lasts several long thrusts.

“Give it all to me, baby,” I whisper into his mouth, my eyes never leaving his. As I bleed him dry. As I take everything from him, every last drop of sorrow.

Finally, when he is finished, he drops his head to my chest, panting, taking my nipple into his mouth.

When I try to sit back, he tightens his teeth around my nipple, making me jolt at the sudden pinch. I relax back onto him, not daring to move again, waiting for his lead. We sit like that for a long time, maybe fifteen minutes, his cock soft but still inside me.

Eventually, he releases my nipple and sits back in the chair, surveying me with tired, weary eyes.

Jase’s eyes. That thought is devastating, so I push it far, far down with all of my other black secrets.

He traces my eyebrows with his fingers, runs his hands through my loose hair, before settling his grip at my throat. It isn’t tight, but there’s no mistaking what it means—I might be on top, but he is in charge. I am surprised when his gruff voice breaks the silence.

“You look so much like her,” he says, his voice filled with wonder. “How?”

I know exactly who he is talking about, but I shouldn’t. Sammi shouldn’t.

“Who?” I ask innocently.

His grip around my throat tightens. “Mariana,” he says, and inside I smile. Five gold stars to Dr. Lee and his amazing surgical skills.

“Who’s Mariana?” I ask, struggling a little as his grip continues to tighten, his other hand now pulling hard on my hair. His mood has definitely changed, too. The mask is back on and he’s no longer showing any signs of vulnerability. He’s back to being the unpredictable snake, ready to strike at any moment.

I rock my hips slightly as I feel him begin to swell inside me once more. How is he hard again already? The man is a fucking machine, literally. He is clearly torn between wanting me to stop and wanting me to keep going. I rock faster, with more intention, and gasp as he throttles me, cutting off my air supply.

His face contorts into loathing and despair. “Mariana was my mistress. My lover. Ten years she was here with me, until I found out she was ratting me out to the cops.”

My eyes begin to water as he throttles me a little harder, shaking me for effect. I start to see white flecks and my ears hum with the lack of oxygen.

“You know what I did to her?” he asks me. I shake my head minutely, frozen in place, as he begins to lift his hips and thrust into me forcefully, all the while cutting off my windpipe.

“I cut her tongue out for telling tales about me,” he breathes, his thrusts becoming harder, faster.

“I cut her lips off for speaking about my club,” he says, sucking and biting on my hardened nipple.

“I cut her head off for betraying me and express-posted it to her mother,” he finishes, finally releasing his grip on my neck. I immediately begin to choke, my hands at my broken throat, wheezing lungfuls of musky air.

“Uh-uh,” he chides me, taking my wrists and pinning them at my sides as he continues to thrust into me. He smiles darkly, admiring my neck. “I want to see my hand prints on you.”

I continue to wheeze, struggling to take a full breath, still light-headed.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he commands, and I obey, gripping my legs around his waist as he stands. Still inside me, he takes three quick steps, slamming me into the wall, impaling me with his cock as my head connects with concrete and I see stars.

“Look,” he says, pushing my chin so that I am facing his mirror. I see myself, flushed, looking completely out of it, with two angry red handprints on my neck. He smiles, tracing the marks with his fingernail, sending involuntary shudders through me.

“You’d never betray me, would you, Sammi?” he says, planting himself deeper with each shattering stroke, his eyes alight with desire and remembered sins.

“Never,” I lie.

Eight