Why did I ever think I was?
“Fucking hell, angel, snap the fuck out of it.” Stratton shook my shoulders as he grasped the back of my neck in a demanding hold, so much so that I whimpered, my eyes flying open as I found him in my space and filling my vision. I wanted to cling to the reassuring strength he surrounded me with, but I couldn’t grasp onto it. I had a tentative hold on everything right now, including reality.
“Stratton,” I cried, letting every ounce of pain I was feeling radiate through my voice. His jaw clenched and he leaned down to sear our lips together, his pull on me nearly inhuman, feeling as though he was trying to pull my soul from my body with such a persuasive and deadly kiss.
I had never felt this side of Stratton. I had experienced the dominance underneath only in small quantities, but this was almost an out of body experience. There was a strength and tone to his entire demeanor that demanded ownership. The man wanted to own me, and I was about to let him.
“I am not letting you do this,” he whispered, pulling back slightly to run a hand up my thigh. My legs fell open more to welcome him closer. “I am not letting you go. You need to get through this. You fucking promised me that you would be here with me, Dahlia. You said you loved me at that fight. You don’t get to fucking disappear on me.”
Something that would have been all too easy.
When his fingers brushed my upper thigh, I let out a small whimper, the spark of desire surging over my desperate and drowning anxiety. His eyes sharpened as he slid his fingers further up, his grip on my jaw with his other hand possessive and demanding as he watched me with an unnerving focus.
“Tell me what you need.” His voice was rough. “Tell me how to bring you back from this.”
I wanted so badly to tell him what I needed, but I didn’t know myself.
But didn’t I?
“I need you,” I whimpered softly. “I need you, right now, Stratton.”
It wouldn’t fix the problem or the anxiety that was crushing my chest, but it would ground me. His steady intensity and strength would ground me to the land of the living. Remind me of something I could count on.
Stratton wasn’t going anywhere. He wanted me, I knew that.I knew that.I just had to keep reminding myself.
But what if he had meant what he’d said in the grocery store?
What if I was a burden to him?
“You will always have all of me,” he growled, his fingers easily pushing my skirt up all the way before he tugged off my panties, slipping them down my legs as I let my body relax into the bed, trusting him to take care of me.
Stratton knew how to fix me, I knew he did. Even if it was a temporary fix.
We had never been together, but I could feel it deep in my soul that he knew how to help me. How to calm me down. I hadn’t known exactly what our first time together would be like—or heck, if that would ever happen—but this was something else… This was already extraordinary, and I almost felt as though this wasn’t really us. Like there was no way a man like this could want me with this force or intensity.
His name came from my lips on a cry as he slid two fingers inside of me, causing me to seize up as my back arched and pleasure crashed around me, pulling me with a hard tug from the depths I was sinking into. Each pump of his fingers and the sound of him undoing his jeans with his other hand brought me closer and closer to the surface. The water in my lungs was heavy, though, and anguish was trying to drag me back down into the depths.
“Fuck, you are so wet,” he groaned, pressing his forehead to mine. I moaned at the loss of his fingers as his hard cock pressed right against my pussy, the feel of his length causing my body to tremble. I was also nearly positive that I could feel a cold, hard piercing on the tip of his length, making me nearly climax right there and then.
Before I could beg him to slide into me, he did so with reckless abandon. I screamed out his name as he groaned, his full length seated inside of me as my body exploded in pain and pleasure. I was sore as heck and he was big, like really big, stretching me out as I tried to not let the tears slip from my eyes. Mostly because they were from a mixture of relief and sadness, joy and anguish, a combination I didn’t know how to express. A combination I couldn’t explain to him even if I tried.
Clearly I was shit at hiding that though, because Stratton dragged my hands above my head as he began to pound in and out of me, my back arching as my chest pressed against his, his lips tracing the tears that streaked down my cheeks.
My legs were tight around him, and I kept trying to pull him closer and deeper. The low groan that left his throat let me know he could feel how much I wanted him. How much I truly needed him.
His words were soft and dangerous against my ears as something inside of him seemed to snap completely.
“I want all of it, every single ounce of your pain,” Stratton demanded as my gaze met his, those blue eyes nearly black and holding me captive. “I want all of you. I want to absolutely wreck you and piece you back together, Dahlia. You’re mine, my fucking angel, and you’re not allowed to go anywhere. You’re not allowed to give into this, do you understand me?”
The words were sharp and so unlike Stratton that they sent an exhilarating thrill through me. They should have been messed up, but instead I found them like a symphony, like everything I’d been wanting to hear, my hips rocking against his and meeting every thrust. This man, this version of Stratton, was demanding everything.
“Tell me you do, Dahlia.”
It was a freakin’ order if I’d ever heard one, and I wanted to follow it. He wasn’t allowing me to give into this darkness. This sickness. His order filled me with a sense of relief. I needed his demand. I needed him to tell me that I couldn’t give into it, that it wasn’t an option.
“I do!” I gasped as a climax slammed into me, my eyes rolling back as he let out a low moan and railed into me until I was just a puddle of lust and relief. I felt him hit his own release, triggering my own, as my entire body trembled, my thighs shaking and my entire body prickling with heat. When he finally stilled, buried inside of me, I clung to him, unable to survive in the moment without him. I was an absolute mess, and tears leaked down my face as he finally pulled back, his face filled with both concern and something that looked almost like awe.
“Angel,” he whispered, cupping my jaw, “tell me you’re okay.”