I look at him then. Really look. And I see everything. The agonized set of his shoulders. The way he stands up so tall as a way to keep himself in check. His hands shoved into his pockets to keep them off me.
The need in his eyes. A deep, animal need. He’s practically vibrating with it. Leo’s jaw works. “I promise, darling. I won’t be gentle.”
Leo’s voice swears off softness. It’s as clear a warning as I’ve ever heard. This is my only chance to back out of this. To run to the guest room and lock the door. He’ll let me do it.
I lift one hand and pull down the neck of my nightgown to bare my throat to him.
I show him the marks he’s already made.
“All of you,” I tell him. “Please.”
One second he’s standing there, and the next he’s all furious motion. It’s like the night he came after me. Watching him run into that alley was the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. He is equally stunning now. A graceful violence. His hands are all over me. Squeezing. Pinching. Bruising. He bites me again, layering more marks on top of the fresh one, and I cry out at how sharp the pain is. How little he’s holding back.
Leo tears my nightgown off. Shreds the fabric. Splits it down the middle.
He tears through the panties I’m wearing underneath.
When I’m naked, when there’s nothing left between us, he takes my face in his hands and kisses me in the ruins of my clothes. He kisses me so hard I taste blood. There is nothing gentle in his tongue, or his teeth, and I owe him everything, he is everything, because if he was soft with me now, I would be sick.
It’s not cruelty, the way he hurts me now. We are beyond things like cruelty and kindness. This is claiming.
He takes his mouth off mine, fists his fingers in my hair, and drags me to the fireplace. Leo sweeps up the remains of my clothes as he goes. The fire springs to life when he hits a switch and he throws the clothes into it. The white turns to black curls in the flame as he forces me to my knees in front of the heat. One pull of his zipper and his cock is freed, thick and hard, and Leo doesn’t hesitate. Not at all. He pushes the crown past my lips and I can’t do anything but take it.
“Get it wet,” he says. “You have ten seconds, darling.”
What Leo means is that I have to survive the next ten seconds. I can’t lick him, can’t swirl my tongue around him, because he’s shoving all the way to the back of my throat and down. Tears roll down my cheeks. It feels good to have them drawn out of me. It feels good to lose myself to this moment. My body tries to resist him but I don’t want to resist, I want to take him, I want to. I need to. I’m hot between my legs. Wet for him already. I try to tell him but he’s filled my throat so completely that all that comes out is a needy hum.
“Fuck,” Leo says. He pulls out and strips off his clothes.
His hand goes to the back of my neck. Leo doesn’t guide my head to the carpet. He shoves it there and pins me in place, one big hand in my hair. The other snaps my thighs apart and three fingers impale the soft part of me. Testing. He’s testing me to see if I’m wet enough, and that’s all, that’s all. He fucks his fingers in and out, in and out, and then he pulls them away and wipes them on the small of my back.
Leo lines himself up and thrusts in so hard my face scrapes against the carpet. A vicious push. I’m not used to him, but he doesn’t give me time to adjust. I scream at the stretch, at the pain, but he ignores me. Another thrust interrupts my breathing. Makes my heart skip a beat. My pussy clenches around him and I want him to stay, stay, stay, but he pulls out again so he can fuck me harder.
He’s so strong above me. So unforgiving. His hand in my hair hurts, it hurts so badly, and it’s a homecoming. He hurts me because I like it. Because I can take it. Tears slip down my cheeks. He takes his hand from my hair to swipe some of my tears from my skin. There’s a pop as he sucks them off his fingertips, and then he laughs.
It’s a dark, evil laugh, brimming with all the fury and violence he’s been holding in, and it makes me tighten around him again. He groans. “I fucking love it when you cry, darling. I love it. I love it. I love you.”
Leo finds his rhythm now. Harsh. Unrelenting. He fucks me like he can bind us together through this act alone. Like he’s trying to mate with me for life. Like a wolf. Like a beast.
“You’re wet.” Even his voice is rough. “That’s the sound of your cunt getting wetter for me while I fuck you to tears. So fucking loud. You love being fucked like this. Tell me how much you love it, darling.”
I can barely move, he has me pinned so tight to the carpet. “I need it,” I pant, and then I’m sobbing for real. “I need it.” Terror washes over me. I’m not afraid of Leo. I’m afraid that this won’t erase what happened. That the way Rick touched me won’t ever go away. “Please,” I beg, and I don’t have the words to explain what I need.
Except.
Leo doesn’t need an explanation. Five more strokes and then he turns me over, onto my back, and forces my thighs apart again. He fills me with another cruel thrust as his hand comes up around my neck. He angles my head up so my neck is exposed and pins my wrists to the carpet with his forearm. He kisses me brutally anywhere he can reach, his arm a steel cage across my wrists, and I sob and sob.
“It’s over,” he says into my ear, and his voice is half Leo, half beast, and it makes me cry harder. “I’m the only one who’s ever touched you. I’m the only one who will ever fuck this pussy. It belongs to me. You belong to me, darling. Every last inch.”
He punctuates every last inch with three thrusts that stretch me beyond what I thought I could take.
“Now come on my cock.”
My orgasm tumbles free at the words. I’m spread wide, too wide, my thighs aching with staying apart for him. Trembling. It shakes me from head to toe, shakes me into the carpet. Shakes me into the center of the earth. Rips apart like an atom bomb. Washes everything clean. Leo pushes in deep deep deep and somehow, somehow, he gets bigger. I have a flash of fear—he won’t be able to get back out, he’s too big, he’ll stay inside me forever—and then he makes a sound deep in his throat and shudders.
Leo squeezes harder as he spills himself into me. The world narrows to his hand around my neck and the hot rush of him inside me. Painting with cum. Deeper than he’s ever gone before. He has absolute control over my breath, over my body, and he uses it while he comes. My vision dims. “Mine,” I think he says. “Mine. Fuck.”
Both of us are slick with sweat.
When he’s finished, I come back to the sounds in the room. The crackle of the fire. Someone is crying. It’s me.
Leo kisses my temple. Kisses the bruise. Kisses the bite marks he made.
“Are you—” I want to ask if he’s himself, but that wouldn’t be a fair question. He’s himself when he’s angry and hurting, too. When he’s the beast.
“No,” he answers, and the honesty in his voice hurts. “I’m not. But I will be.”
Leo eases out of me and takes me in his arms. Takes me to his bed. He lies on his side and pulls me close. I put a hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat. He’s not out of breath, but it’s pounding. He strokes my hair, putting it back into place, for a long time. Then he moves his hand to my arm. Back and forth. Back and forth. Down to my forearm. He repeats this process on my fingers, and it’s only then that I feel how tense I am. How ready to fight.