All He’ll Ever Be (Merciless World Series Book 1)

She’s so lost, my Aria. I can’t take my eyes from her as she stares at the comforter, her fingertips barely grazing it before she pulls the sheets back. Her expression is a mix of emotions. Sadness, confusion, the barest hint of anger. As the seconds pass, her chest flushes, and the lust of knowing what’s to come takes over. But her brow stays furrowed as the bed groans with her small weight and the sheets rustle.

I don’t think for a second that she’s gotten over her anger, but it’s not as raw as it was hours ago, let alone where she was yesterday. I still don’t know what set her off at the front door, but I’m going to find out. She can’t hide from me forever and I don’t buy that bullshit that there was nothing in particular. I watched the surveillance cameras over and over again. Something happened. I just don’t know what.

I loosen my watchband, feeling the slick metal brush against my wrist before placing it back in its spot in the drawer. My gaze is still pinned on Aria, who’s looking anywhere but back at me, her fingers fiddling with her necklace. Another second, another heavy breath.

The internal war is waning, but war leaves casualties, and I know she’s taking record of everything she’s lost and what’s left of the woman she once was. I watch as she swallows, her chest rising higher and her breathing quickening.

She’s so close to submitting everything to me. So, fucking close.

She doesn’t even see it.

“You can’t stay mad at me forever,” I tell her as I pull my shirt over my head, grabbing it by the back of the collar.

I kick off my pants and ready myself to join her in bed, wondering if she’ll tense when I wrap my arms around her. It’s only fair that it guts me every night when she does it. I’m more than certain I deserve a harsher punishment.

“Do you know Addison spoke to me today?” she asks me with an edge of anxiousness rather than acknowledging what I’ve said. She doesn’t seem to have taken my confession in the den earlier to heart, but she’s more guarded now than she was before. Maybe she doesn’t remember, but I thought it would change something between us. For the better.

My lips twitch with the hint of a feigned smile. “I do,” I tell her, and she finally looks at me with a pleading expression.

“And?” she asks with clear curiosity but the desperation weighing heavier.

“And what?” I ask her as if I can’t comprehend her line of questioning. Addison knows who I am, and I agree this situation is less than moral, but if she were to learn the truth, she would still love my brother. She’d still be family. She’ll forgive me. Daniel’s sins have been substantial, and she’s forgiven him, mostly.

“Are you going to let me go?”

Her bottom lip wavers, but she waits patiently as I drop my hand to hers, thinking carefully about my next words.

“You’ll like Addison,” I tell her genuinely. “I won’t stop you, and I won’t be there to control you; I don’t have any interest in it either.”

“So, you don’t care?” she questions.

“I care, but not in the way you think. Why would I want to stop you two from getting to know one another?” I ask her and then add, “My brother won’t either. You two should get to know each other.” I don’t let on how anxious I am to hear what she tells Addison and whether or not she confides in her.

“I could tell her you’re holding me hostage, that you trapped me in a cell for weeks…” she answers me with a cocked brow although she can’t hide the sadness that still lingers in her expression. I can see so clearly that the very idea of how we became what we are now, tortures her.

“Would you really want to bring her into this?” I ask her pointedly. “She’s having a hard time, and you and I both know she wouldn’t react well to that.”

“What if I say something I shouldn’t?” she whispers quietly with genuine concern. I watch as she picks at the blanket, clearly on edge with the prospect of saying something that would cause more problems for our already delicate situation.

“Don’t,” is the only answer I have for her. “Be careful with what you say.”

The silence stretches for a moment and I consider her.

“Maybe it’s best you forget all this for a moment, and just talk to her as you would have anyone else a month ago.”

I have to be so delicate with her. Ever so delicate. She doesn’t answer, although the careful tiptoeing around her words slips away as she adjusts under the covers.

“We have other matters to discuss,” I tell her as my thumb runs along the stubble of my jaw.

Although she nods, a heavy sigh leaves her in a staggering way, the sleep showing in her expression. She’s overwhelmed and exhausted. Neither of us slept last night. Even after crying half the night, she woke every hour.

“What happened yesterday can’t happen again. You have a choice. You can take your punishment now, or you can have it after your date with Addison.”

Her body tenses and she struggles to form words, her lips parting and strangled breaths taking the place of whatever her question is.

“You won’t be sending me back to the cell then?” she finally asks, her voice as strained as her body is stiff.

“That wouldn’t do you any good.” I wrap my arm around her, comforting her and leave a small kiss on the crown of her head. I whisper, “I told you, you shouldn’t be left alone. This punishment is to benefit us. I promise you that,” I tell her and feel the weight of everything looming in my thoughts.

I can see her swallowing her words. Practically reading her mind, I can see how she wants to tell me that we would be better if I would let this war go or let her go, but she doesn’t dare speak it.

“What is it?” she asks me.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I tell her honestly.

“Tomorrow then,” she tells me softly with defeat in her expression and it shreds me, but tomorrow she’ll see.

“Is this what it will always be like?” she asks. “I do something you don’t like, and I’m punished for it and then fucked until I forget I hate you?”

I don’t think she meant her question to be humorous, but a short chuckle makes my chest shake. Running my fingers down her arm, I decide to tell her more, to set boundaries. But with them comes new rules.

“In the bedroom, I want you to obey. Anywhere else,” my blood pumps harder and hotter as I finish, “I want you as mine.”

“There’s a difference?” she asks with feigned sarcasm. That mouth of hers is going to get her in trouble. Her disobedience shouldn’t make me as hard as it does. As much as I love it, tomorrow night she’ll be punished. There’s no mistaking that.

“You already know there is,” I say and although my voice comes out deep and foreboding, I try to lighten it. “It’s time for a new game, Aria.”

“No games.” Her voice rises, and she has to lower it before adding, “I’m done playing games with you, Carter.”

“You’ll never be done with me.” My words whisper against her skin. “You already know that.”

Her fingernails dig into the sheets, pulling them tighter as she continues to avoid looking at me. I know why she doesn’t want to meet my heated gaze. It will make hers fill with desire, too. She can’t deny what she feels for me and how much power is in the tension between us. The push and pull that drives me wild does the same for her. The difference is that I can admit it; even if it will destroy me, I can fucking admit what she does to me.

“What do you want?” she asks me although she stares straight ahead, her expression flat and indifferent. “Tell me what you want from me,” she says, and a spike of anger plays in her tone. “Tell me what it means to be yours,” she asks through clenched teeth and I merely stare back at her. She already knows. We both know that she knows exactly what it means.

“Here you fuck me… you punish me like you did before.” I don’t miss how her eyes darken as she gazes around the room, looking to where I’ve spanked her, throat fucked her, made her cum harder than she ever had before.

“Yes,” I tell her and watch as her pupils dilate and her legs scissor to ease some of the heat growing between her legs.

“And what do you expect outside of this room?” she asks and when she does, her voice wavers. She knows how much is at stake.

“For them to fear you.” Her eyes flash to mine and suddenly my songbird is very much interested. I continue, “The way they fear me.”

She laughs a sad and pathetic sound, ripping her gaze from me as she shakes her head. Her soft lips part, but no words come out and instead, she continues to shake her head and stares at the knob of the bathroom door across the room. Looking anywhere but at me.

“Fear is easy to attain,” I tell her the simple fact. And it truly is. Keeping it is the curse that never fades. But I can bear the weight of that burden. She only needs to play the part. They have to believe it.

She shakes her head gently as if I don’t understand. She tells me, “I want to draw. Maybe own a studio one day. That’s my ambition. Or sell some of my pieces to people who would love them the way I do. I want them to feel what I feel when they look at them.” I can see the light of hope in her eyes as she tells me a dream of hers I would never have known otherwise. I can give her that, so easily. All she had to do was tell me. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted beyond being happy. Having a family and making them happy.”

A family.

I can give her that too, and the thought of her swollen with my child makes me force back a groan of want in my throat. Closing my eyes, I remind myself she needs time. All in good time. Once the war is over, everything will change.

Opening my eyes, I ask her, “And what does any of that have to do with what I’ve asked of you?” My question catches her off guard. “You forget the world you live in.” A family, a gallery. It’s all so easily attainable. But only when we have control. And that requires fear. They must fear her.

I ask her, “You want that studio? A gallery? Children, Aria? Do you think your name alone is one that wouldn’t put a target on your back?” She flinches at the question and I can see the doubt and worry play across her face. Her lips turn down as her breathing picks up. It doesn’t matter if Aria stands beside me or not; the minute she was given the name Talvery, her entire life was at risk.

“Anything that gives you pride or happiness is a weakness waiting to be exploited. But only if anyone would dare to cross you. And Aria, if you haven’t noticed, the stunt I pulled the other night will lead to whispers of what you mean to me. And that makes you a far greater weakness to exploit than you ever were to your father.”

“So, that’s what I am? A weakness?”

The tension grows between us as her expression softens but stays riddled with curiosity. She whispers a question I know has been torturing her. I watch her soft lips as she asks, “What do I mean to you? Me. Not the girl you thought I was.”

I replay her words that one of her greatest ambitions was to make her family happy, feeling my heartbeat slow as if time is forced to pause for me to consider how to answer her.

The mere idea of ensuring her happiness is becoming a greater ambition to me than anything else has ever been. If I spoke those words to her now, she’d laugh in my face. She doesn’t see what I see. She doesn’t know what I know. I could never tell her. I don’t have the words even if she was ready for them.

She doesn’t have the forgiveness to offer me for what I’ve put her through and what I’m going to put her through.

She wouldn’t believe me if I told her this is for her. That it’s all for her. And if she did, she’d still use it against me. She doesn’t even realize the woman she can be. The defiance and stubbornness that makes her perfection in my eyes.

“I’ll show you what you mean to me, Aria.” My voice is rough and deep but holds nothing but sincerity. “Until then, the new game has started. This room is for fucking you, punishing you and giving you pleasure beyond imagine. And outside of this room, you will be mine, and you will demand respect and earn the fear that’s owed to you.”

Her hazel-green eyes brim with something I’ve yet to see.

“Carter Cross,” she whispers my name. “I don’t know that I’m the woman you think I am.” Her words are etched with sorrow as if she really believes what she says.

I lean in closer to her, resting my lips against her shoulder and running the tip of my nose along her skin. My lips caress her jaw where I kiss her gently and then nip the lobe of her ear.

I whisper along the shell of her ear, watching goosebumps form down her shoulder and across her chest, pebbling her nipples. “You have so much to learn and so much to accept, but Aria,” I open my eyes to stare into hers before I continue, “I know you won’t disappoint me.”

My gaze focused on her lips, I speak more to myself than to her, “It’s all been leading to this.”