Sin & Suffer by Pepper Winters
Pain shadowed. My faux pas tainted our fun.
It wasn’t the best joke. Should I apologize?
But then I burst out laughing. If we couldn’t laugh about the past, what could we do? “I suppose it is a little ironic for a recovered amnesiac to say she has a bad memory.”
Rolling his eyes, he muttered, “Only you could laugh about something so painful.” His smile returned. One eye was obscured by his inky hair, decorating his sexy features in a way that made me want to flip him onto his back and repeat what I did last night.
“Come here.” I held my breath as Arthur obediently propped himself up with a straining bicep and hovered over me.
Pulling him down, I tilted my head and trembled as his mouth met mine. Our tongues danced in unison, listening to the same silent tune.
It began with me kissing him.
But it didn’t end that way.
Arthur submitted, then dominated, switching the kiss into a soul-searing possession. His tongue dueled with mine with slow, deep sweeps—trading the sine wave of bliss for something filled with dark overtones. His hunger and need smeared my senses, until all I craved was sex.
Rough, dirty, delicious sex.
I whimpered as he sucked my bottom lip; my hands tangled deeper into his hair.
His answering groan quavered through me, tightening my nipples and sending sensitivity scattering over my skin. I melted into opulence.
“I’ll never forget you again,” I whispered as he pulled away and pressed butterfly kisses down my neck.
“I’ll make sure you never can.” Swirling his tongue around my nipple, he bunched the sheets toward the end of the bed. His fingers landed on my knee, pressing, teasing, moving in infinitesimal increments up my inner thigh.
“You’ll never forget how it feels when I touch you.” He pinched me, wrenching a breathy moan from my lips.
“Never.”
His teeth graced over my breast. “You’ll never forget how it feels when I taste you.”
I smashed my face into a pillow as he sucked greedily. “Never. I promise. I promise forever.”
His fingers crept higher up my thigh—they were the epicenter of the quake he’d conjured inside me. Aftershocks radiated upward to my core and downward to my toes. I shivered.
I froze.
I waited.
I wanted.
I need him so much.
When his finger finally found my folds, I bowed off the bed, only to be slammed down again by his lips on my chest.
My mouth parted as he pressed inside me, inserting two long fingers in an effortless slide. “You’ll never forget how it feels when I fill you.”
I ceased to make sense of the desire fogging my head. Every inch of need from last night rushed back, compounding lust upon lust.
I cried out as Arthur’s hot mouth landed on my throat, sucking and biting, driving me insane with sharp teeth. His fingers stroked my inner walls, twitching in the perfect way to draw slipperiness and sensation.
“Is this my payback?” I asked, squeezing my eyes against the new onslaught as he rubbed my clit.
Laughing quietly, he worked his way along my collarbone and dropped farther down my torso. Kissing each rib, he replied, “You controlled me last night. You took what you wanted from me and I didn’t complain.”
I snorted. “I took nothing. I did it for you—to give you pleasure.”
He shook his head, the dark strands tickling my belly as he scooted between my legs. “You did give me pleasure, but you also enjoyed dominating me.” Blowing a breath on my exposed pussy, he whispered, “It’s my turn.”
Pressing me back on the mattress, he shoved the sheets onto the floor and sat on his haunches.
My heart stopped.
His cock stood straight up from between his sculptured legs. The mermaid tattoo seemed to have an extra twinkle in her eye, just like Arthur.
“I’m going to show you how much last night meant to me, Buttercup.”
I shivered, raising my hands above my head on the pillow. Boldly, I spread my legs, displaying everything I was to this man. My breasts—one burned, one inked—my stomach with its color and scars. I let him drink me in. “I’m not going to argue.”
He smirked. “I’m glad about that; otherwise I’d have to get my tie.”
I clenched. “On second thought …”
Shaking his head, mirth suffusing his gaze, he imprisoned my hips. His fingertips bruised my skin, sending flares of heat through me.
Arthur Killian was polished ruthlessness and savage lawlessness. He camouflaged himself with an urban gloss that fooled no one; he was never fully able to hide the untamed animal inside his heart. But where an animal was vicious and controlled by instinct, he was also loyal, affectionate, and kind. An animal had no secrets—it bared its soul, loved unconditionally, and had no defenses when it came to its mate.
I’m his mate.
And I was helpless to resist him when he drugged me so completely.
His vivid green eyes gave me no room to hide as he inspected every fraction. His fingers toyed with the trimmed curls between my legs. His lips seduced me with a lazy smile speaking of carnality and destruction.
“You’re breathing very fast, Buttercup.”
“I can’t help it.”
His eyebrow rose, willing me to go on—to divulge secrets of my own. I had no more walls, no more black holes in which to fight for answers. I owed him every memory, every thought. “The way you’re watching me. The way you’re touching me. It’s driving me insane.”
He bit his lip, eyes darting between tattoos and scars. “Having you in my bed is more than just a miracle; it’s a goddamn phenomenon. Forgive me if I look at you as if you aren’t real.” His voice dropped, filling with awe. “It’s because I keep thinking none of this is real. That the headaches are a sign of my insanity. That I’ve left reality behind and found salvation in hallucinations.”
His fingers floated over my belly, through my folds, along my inner thighs. Everywhere he touched me, I erupted and smoldered.
His pain fisted my heart.
He was too much.
Too deep, too pure, too perfect.
“Could a hallucination give you what I did last night? Could a ghost lick you until you came?”
His smile was crooked and cheerless. “You don’t know how many nights I woke to a dream so similar to what you gave me. You don’t know how many times I woke cursing and raging because I didn’t want to leave a world where I had you only to lose you day after day.”
My chest splintered. My rib cage became firewood for the incinerating flames inside my heart. “Arthur …”
I loved him too much. The way he spoke terrified me that I wouldn’t be able to keep him now that I’d found him again. Would we always be shadowed by the past?
My shaky sigh webbed around us. “Let it go. You have to let it go.”
The pain.
The torture.
The driving need for revenge.
He needed a fresh start—away from here. He needed to let the future take us forward, rather than let the past drag us back.
Raising his hand, he squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I have no idea how this turned from pleasure to …”
Wedging myself upright on my elbows, I whispered, “I know why. It’s because you don’t believe in us.”
His eyes flashed open. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true. Until you accept that life has brought us back together and stop reliving the pain of being apart, you can’t believe in what we have.”
“I know what we have and I do believe in it.” His voice was a whip, slicing through the melancholy. “I’ll show you.”
Knocking away my elbows, he forced me to lie back down. In a swift move, he switched from haunches to stomach, positioning himself between my spread legs.
His hands clamped down on my thighs, gluing me to the mattress. “I’ll show you until you trust me.” His dark hair
“I know you are.” My heart skipped a beat at the determination on his face and the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
He was stunning. Masculine but caring. Possessive but loving. The complete perfect package.
I grabbed handfuls of linen as his head bent. His breath fanned hot and steamy on my pussy. His lips hovered, trapping me in the acute moment of anticipation.
My pulse turned into a geyser, wanting to burst. “Please …” I braced for the slippery incredibleness of his tongue.
Another breath, the billowing heat condensing on my skin.
Another.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Please!” I cried.
“Be my fucking pleasure.” He licked me.
I shot upright, hurling straight toward heaven. “Oh, God!”
His hands captured my thighs, holding them down and spread. His tongue dashed over my clit, lapping quick and sharp. Then he flattened the strong muscle and swept it from bud to entrance.
I spiraled.
The pleasure … it was too much.
My mind swam as he nibbled and speared inside me with no warning.
“Oh, hell. Arthur!”
He growled, thrusting his tongue again. “Goddammit. Believe me.”
“I believe you. I believe you!”
His five o’clock shadow rasped my sensitive inner thighs. “No, you don’t. Not yet.” He tasted me thoroughly, moving back to suck on my clit.
It was too good.
I’ll explode.
“I do. I do believe you!” My legs tightened until every muscle cramped. “Please … I can’t stand it. Stop.”
But he didn’t stop. Again and again he dipped inside me, dragging his tongue to lap and lathe.
I lost myself to him, bobbing away on the tide of bliss he created. He was Poseidon and I was an unlucky ship about to be wrecked on the shores of a detonating orgasm.
My pussy tightened, reaching for the promised shoreline, wanting nothing more than to decimate into tiny shards.
“Yes …”
“Not yet,” Arthur growled. “You’re not allowed until I say so.”
My eyes flashed open, half in rage, half in obedience. “I can’t stop it.”
“Yes, you can.” Letting me go, he crept up my body. His lips were swollen and damp, my wetness glistening on his chin. I waited for him to smother me with his body, but instead he urged me to roll onto my side. “You’re not to come until I’m inside you.”
Every inch of me was alive, crawling and begging for a release.
Lying down beside me, he lassoed a strong arm around my belly and yanked me into the hard muscles of his body. My back to his front. My softness against his hardness.
I flinched as he ground his throbbing erection against my lower back.
“I’m going to fuck you now, Buttercup. I’ll prove to you that I can love you while using you. That I can trust you while riding you. That I can believe in you.”
I moaned as his hand ran over my hip, grabbing my thigh and wrenching it back to entwine with his.
“Take me,” I mumbled. My body undulated, my core empty.
With my legs open, he maneuvered his hips and fisted his cock, guiding it to my entrance.
The moment the tip of him entered me, I gritted my teeth and fought off the relentless orgasm.
“Don’t come. Not yet,” he ordered, thrusting inside me with one slippery impale. “Do. Not. Come.”
I stopped cataloguing how my blood boiled, how my skin itched, and how my mind sang for freedom. I focused only on the thickness stretching me. The overwhelming delight of accepting my soul mate into my body.
He was what I craved. His tongue had been a perfect entrée, but this … this was the main course and dessert all in one.
Keeping me pinned against him, he rocked into me, rolling me from my side onto my stomach. My arms splayed out. I moaned, biting a pillow as he rode me. His thrusts were slow, then quick, gathering speed faster and faster.
“God, you feel amazing,” he grunted. One hand clamped on my hip, keeping me imprisoned beneath him, while the other wrapped around my nape.
The primitive way he held me undid the floodgates and I cried out louder and louder with every thrust. I couldn’t move. I could only take what he gave. Every stroke sent me higher into the spindling promise.
His teeth razored my ear. His breath scalded my skin. “Come. I need you to come.” He thrust hard. “Now, Cleo.” His voice was no longer controlled.
His divine rock gave me no room to argue. I was trapped. He was above me, around me, inside me. He was me. I was him.
My orgasm would be his. We would share our release in some cosmically charged way.
His hand drifted down my front and pinched my clit. “I said I need you to come.”
I moaned as his fingers rubbed in perfect circles, blending in empathy with his rapid pace.
“Oh, God. Yes, don’t stop.” My body gave up trying to make sense of where to rock or flow. I stopped trying to hold off and gave myself over to the inevitable combustion.
I screamed as an intense orgasm sliced through my body. My core clenched with devastating pressure. The ship I’d become destroyed itself over and over again, splintering against the battering of his storm.
It was staggering. It was paralyzing.
I turned into a puddle of delirium.
Arthur groaned, “Goddammit!” His rhythm lost its perfection and he slipped from making love to fucking me ruthlessly.
My orgasm only strengthened and continued. I crashed harder knowing that even as he used me, he worshipped me. His violence and craving blazed with truth.
“Fuck, yes.” His release erupted deep inside me. His pleasure resounding in my ears.
On and on, he spilled inside and I took every drop. I was no longer a ship floating on his tide, but drowned and consumed in his wake.
By the time we opened our eyes, we were both sticky with sweat and overheating in the patch of sunlight streaming through the window.
Slowly, we uncramped our toes and fell apart with a boneless sigh.
“I believe you,” I mumbled. “Ten thousand times, I believe you.”
He chuckled, tucking me into his side. His warmth spooned me and I’d never been so safe or contented. “Finally.” He nuzzled behind my ear. “Things are going to be wonderful. You’ll see. Once I’ve taken vengeance and things are dealt with, it will all be over.”
A shadow fell over my heart that no amount of sunshine or love could diminish. Would it, though? Would we find a happy balance? Would his headaches fade and leave him unharmed?
My eyes fell on the silver thread of PROPERTY OF KILL on my jacket tossed on the floor. It glittered in the sunlight. I stroked his forearm still wrapped around my chest. “I hope so, Art. I truly do.”
“This is our fresh start, Buttercup. You’ll see.”
My mind darted back to the night I’d arrived. The battle, the trafficking. Our reunion hadn’t been ideal but we’d made it work. We would make whatever the future delivered work, too.
“I’m so in love with you, Art.”
He sucked in a breath, pressing a kiss on my temple. “The same for me, Cleo. I’ve always loved you and I always will.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kill
What was I supposed to do?
I’d finally come of age to be inducted into the Club. I’d sworn my oath, wore my cut, and promised to obey Thorn Price as my president. A party had been thrown in my honor. Yet later, once the men had passed out from drunkenness, my father had reminded me of one important clause. The Club came first. The Club was my life. But I was the loophole because my father was blood and demanded ultimate fealty—even over my president. —Kill, age sixteen
“Are they here?”
Grasshopper looked up as I strode into the Clubhouse. I’d had a
I’d lied to keep her behind.
Having her in my life was personified ecstasy but I couldn’t have her knowing everything.
Even though you promised you would tell her.
Scowling, I shoved those thoughts away. She’d begged to come with me, but tough luck.
I knew she wanted to keep an eye on me with my headaches, but this was a part of my life where I didn’t want her.
Revenge.
It was a lonely obsession. And should remain a lonely obsession.
She didn’t understand, couldn’t contemplate the overwhelming drive to make my father pay. She seemed content to let fate or karma deal with him—even after everything he’d done.
She didn’t believe in retribution or taking payment for past sins.
But I do.
Wholeheartedly, and luckily, so did Wallstreet and Pure Corruption.
“Yep, all the men you requested. Ten in total.” Cocking his head toward the door leading to the meeting room, Grasshopper added, “We’ve got your back on this, Kill. Everything’s in place.”
Nodding, I ran a hand through my hair. It hadn’t been easy and we still had much to do, but it was almost over. Once my father was dealt with, all I had to focus on was becoming the poster boy for world revolution. My eyes shot to the blown-up magazine covers. For years, Wallstreet had built my “brand.” Through TV and newspaper interviews, he’d ensured people with money and influence knew my name. So when the time came to call on their network, our message would spread far and wide.
I’m one of them through careful scripts and fabrication.
I snorted. To some, waging war on another Club would seem more than enough to stay occupied. But to me—it was nothing compared to our main strategy.
Only once it was executed could I relax and focus on getting rid of this motherfucking headache.
“Good. Let’s go.”
With a smirk, Grasshopper saved an email on his phone and shoved it into his pocket. “You’re the boss.”
Together, we strode across the common room. Grasshopper reached the door before me, twisting the knob and ushering me into the meeting.