The Finisher (Dark Verse Book 4)

Zephyr

FOR TWO DAYS, SHE’D been in a funk and avoided going to his office. But her stupid heart didn’t let her skip their dining ritual, knowing he’d started to enjoy their time eating together, especially when he’d never had a companion before. Eating alone sucked and she knew that, so even though she was grumpy, she didn’t bow out of their dinners. But she did stop dressing in lingerie for them. Instead, she’d begun wearing her usual pajamas, not intent on seducing him in her current mood. If he chalked her mood swing up to PMS or something else, she didn’t know, and he didn’t say.

But Amara had been right.

While her husband hadn’t outright done anything, he’d begin to watch her more. He called Victor more to check up on her. He sat at the table even after finishing his food if she was eating. He’d even left the adjoining door between their rooms slightly ajar last night. But none of it felt like a victory. Instead, she got the sense that he was testing her. She just needed to see where it led. Now that she wasn’t easing the tension with her humor and chatter, now that she stayed silent and forced him to face what thickened the air when they were in the same room, something was building, activating, like a volcano dormant from the outside bubbling with lava, waiting for the right moment to erupt and cause destruction. She stood at the mouth of the volcano, watching the lava come forth from the mantle of the earth, knowing it could wreck her but waiting for it. She wanted to be the rain that fell upon the magma and sizzled, drenched it until it became rich. She wanted to seep down to his dried roots, nourish the soil of his heart, and fill him with life again.

Standing in his office for the first time in two days, married but without much progress for over a month, Zephyr watched the sun setting over the forest in the distance, mulling over her thoughts, her shoulders slumped. She’d come into Trident because staying away from him wasn’t doing a thing except making her more miserable. While something had shifted, it still wasn’t enough.

The sound of the office door locking shut echoed in the space, breaking her thoughts.

A presence at her back made her aware of him, his heat warming her freezing heart. She’d always loved that about him, how he could dwarf her but make her feel safe, how he could ignite and warm her at the same time. Before she’d met him, the idea of him had fascinated the little girl, but after, the reality of him had paled the thought. Whatever had or hadn’t happened over the weeks, Zephyr had begun to fall deeper for the reality of him now. She loved the man he had become, the way he was with his staff, the way was with his dogs, the way he just was. She loved that he carried his scars without shame, that he had survived whatever he had and come through the other side stronger. The perseverance he wore on his skin, the respect he commanded from his people, the kindness he showed the vulnerable, he was a man worth falling down the hell for. And sometimes, when he let his guard down a bit and looked at her with softness, it kindled the hope in her heart.

She still loved him. And he didn’t.

And she was both okay with that, and agonized by that knowledge.

She walked away from the window to get her bag from the desk, and his hand on her arm stopped her again. He’d been doing that a lot, just stopping her in her tracks and staring at her, trying to figure her out.

“What game are you playing?” he finally asked, breaking the tension that had been building for the last few days, his eye narrowing on her.

Nice.

She tried to pull her arm out. He held her steady, firm but not tight.

She wished she could shout the game she had been playing, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to him, and now she was trapped in a situation of her own making with a husband she loved, one who didn’t remember her, love her, or even trust her. And it made her mad. Her dying hope made her livid.

Zephyr shoved at his chest, glaring up at him. “Let me go.”

‘Not until you tell me what your agenda has been, Zephyr.’

He’d not called her rainbow in a while, just like she’d not called him anything but Alpha.

‘My agenda,’ she hissed, ‘was to make you love me.’

His grip tightened on her arm. ‘It didn’t work, because I don’t believe you.’

Ouch. A little crack.

‘Tell me the truth,’ he demanded, cool and collected, completely unaffected, unlike her insides. ‘I’m losing my patience now.’

‘Your impatience isn’t my problem.’

‘But my anger is,’ he said dangerously. ‘You don’t want me angry, Zephyr.’

She looked at him, unable to understand what to do. Telling him anything meant risking his mental state, and he had healed enough to be okay. There was only one way to divert his attention. ‘What are you going to do, you beast?’ she deliberately goaded him, pulling her arm out of his grip.

Something flared in his eye. He looked at her, his nostrils flaring, tension building as they stayed locked.

Before she could take another breath, he had her up against the window, her front pressed to the glass, his large form behind her, startling her with the suddenness as his familiar scent drifted through her nose.

What game was he playing?

“I’m going to give you what you’ve been begging me for. Yes or no?” he growled against her ear, fisting her hair and tugging her head back with one hand, touching her after so long she drowned in the sensations.

There was something dark about it, the way he questioned her, the way he pulled her head, the way he pressed her into the glass. Zephyr didn’t know what had happened to trigger him suddenly, and even though she’d wanted nothing more than their bodies to connect, she tried to turn her head to look at him to understand what was going on.

His hand in her hair limited her movement.

“What—”

“Yes—”—he didn’t let her finish, pulling her neck back—“—or no?”

This was one of the things she’d discovered about the man he’d become—his obsession with her hair. He enjoyed pulling it, playing with the strands, for control or something else, she didn’t know. She enjoyed it too, the tug on her scalp, the way it made her submit to his will, the way it made her feel desired, like she’d pushed the boundaries of his control and he just couldn’t help himself anymore. His fist in her hair had become her anchor. And she didn’t know what was riding him, but whatever it was, he was there. That had to mean something, right?

“Yes,” she whispered.

The words weren’t out from her lips before she felt his large, rough hand going under her dress, lifting it. She felt him fist her panties on one side, pulling the silk sharply until it dug into her hip enough to bite, right before it snapped and ripped from the seam, the sound loud in the room.

Her breathing escalated, her immobility and his roughness making her hands press into the glass, the coldness against her palms and the heat behind her body making her flesh quiver in anticipation as her body readied itself for him.

Finally.

She’d wanted this, wanted him, for so long she didn’t remember a time before it. Their first kiss had been something like that too, her against a metal fence and him at her back, him kneeling behind her, spreading her before diving in. He had eaten her out, right where anyone could have walked, and then he had stood up, whirled her around, kissing her with her juices on his mouth, pushing her so hard against the fence she’d felt it on her back for days. As first kisses went, it had been dirty, but it had been them, and perfect, and something she remembered as he pushed her against the glass.

In some ways, he hadn’t changed at all.

She felt his fingers checking her wetness and widened her legs wider to give him access, enjoying the surety with which his digits prodded her nether lips, teasing her clit, dipping into her lightly before pulling out, enough to give her just the taste of what was to come.

“Fucking soaked,” he ground out against her neck, hooking his hand under her right knee and pulling her leg up over it, spreading her obscenely wide as she went on her toes on the other foot. ‘Does my anger turn you on?’

It did. She didn’t even have to answer him, he knew. The fact that she was pressed into the glass, that the lights were on behind her and anyone who looked up could see her, that she was rendered immobile in the position he had her in, it made her pulse pound.

She heard his zipper behind her, felt him take himself out, and felt the head of his cock against her weeping pussy. And god, she wanted it. She wanted him so bad, inside her, rutting her like the beast she’d called him, claiming her for the world to know she was just his, loving her good enough she’d remember it for the years to come.

She held her breath, her heart in her throat, the thrill, the finality, the inevitability of it making her fluid against him. He didn’t say another word, just tightened his grip on her hair and knee, and with one thrust, the thundercloud that had been hanging over her for weeks burst.

A loud yelp escaped her, her hands pushing on the glass for support as she breathed out harshly, adjusting to his size, her walls fluttering around him in keen pleasure that felt on the knife-end of pain. He slowly started to push in, sinking into her inch by inch, and dear lord, he was massive, his warm flesh inside her a weight making her feel so full her head tipped back, not knowing where he ended and she began. He felt huge, bigger than anyone she’d ever had, and she wasn’t surprised given his bulk that he was proportional, but she was surprised by how good the stretch felt as her walls grappled to welcome him, accommodate him, pleasure him.

Her breasts pressed against the cool glass, the contrast of his warm body behind her making her nipples tight. The tug on her scalp pushed her blood south, her hips gyrating against him to move restlessly, needing the friction, needing to coast that pain-pleasure line again.

He pulled out a few inches and rammed in again, the force of the thrust pushing her against the glass, her eyes looking down below and realizing how deep down she’d fall if the glass broke. That added layer of danger woke something dark inside her, something that responded to it by pushing her arousal higher, making her juices run between her thighs in ways she’d remember tomorrow and blush. Right then, she didn’t care. She felt consumed, in the best way possible, his desire something so tangible it pulsed inside her, matching her heartbeats. God, she was turned on, so turned on it didn’t even matter to her why he was giving in to temptation, just that he was.

“Harder,” she urged him, her voice a breathless demand as she held onto the glass, bracing herself, feeling his jeans against her ass. The fact that he’d hiked up her dress, ripped off her panties, and just unzipped to push inside her made her walls clench around him, his urgency catching on to her.

She caught their reflection in the glass, his dark, hulking form huge against her, his eye patch shadowed and his golden eye on her ass, his scar disappearing into his short beard. Zephyr put one hand on the side of his neck, touching his warm flesh, and watched his eye close at her touch.

Shit.

Weeks, months, years of longing bled into that moment, her heart clenching as her eyes burned. She let them, knowing he couldn’t see it, and focused on his hardness inside her, pressing up so deep it almost felt a bit uncomfortable.

He didn’t go harder as she asked, instead pulled out slowly, and pushed back in, so slow she felt the ridge, the veins, the heat, all of it entering her what felt like endlessly. A wrangled moan escaped her, her head falling back, her fingers digging into the side of his neck as he held her in place, completely at his mercy, impaling her at his pace.

No matter how much she moved her hips, how deeply she clenched him, he didn’t go any faster. But he went deep, so deep she felt uncomfortably full when he bottomed out, felt him press somewhere inside her at the angle that made her walls milk him faster, felt his breaths ragged against her ear.

“Harder, please,” she begged, needing more, needing the relentless friction that would push her over the edge instead of teasing her right on it, giving her a taste of ecstasy before taking it away, over and over. And with the way she was pressed, she couldn’t move her hand down to help herself.

He stayed in control against her plea, rotating his hips once in a deliberate move, and her eyes closed, stars bursting behind her lids as he hit that sweet, elusive spot inside her. He did it again, and again, and again, ram, pull, rotate, over and over, slow and controlled and deliberate, and her heartbeats quickened, pulsing in her throat, in her neck, in her pussy. Lust coiled in her belly like a serpent of sin, slithering through her veins, unfurling and biting until she felt the poisonous heat consuming every inch of her skin, making her feverish, fervent, fanatic in her desire.

He hammered into that spot, unceasingly, steadily, his other hand sneaking to her clit, rubbing her mercilessly until she felt her legs begin to shake, her knees jerking, her hard breaths turning into moans, everything focused on the place they were joined, from where the burn spread and spread and spread until she was quivering mess, her thighs jerking in his hold, her body falling but held up only by his cock in her pussy and his fist in her hair. She felt truly impaled by him, controlled by his body, and she came, so hard her nails dug into the side of his neck for purchase, making him bleed with the force of her orgasm, her eyes closed, her body on fire, her mouth open on a scream gone silent she still felt trembling in her throat as she gulped air.

He slipped out and she gushed, her jaw trembling, her body falling into the glass as his hands left her. Before she was finished, his hands went to his cock, and in a few seconds, she felt the warm spurts of his seed on her exposed ass, the filthiness of it turning her on even though she’d just come, making her want more.

It was over within minutes or hours, she didn’t know.

She stayed lax against the glass as he let her leg down, taking a step back.

She heard his zipper again and opened her eyes to see him in the reflection, straightening his clothes. She waited, for him to say something, give her a touch, a soft kiss, anything. His gaze stayed on her back for a few seconds, his fists clenching and unclenching, and she watched, her post-orgasmic bliss turning hollow as he turned and left the office, leaving her cold against the glass with his cum dripping down her ass and a tight weight in her stomach.