Feathers and Thorne Series Books 1 - 3: The Complete Collection

Chapter Thirty-Four

Isabella

It’s not one of the days I’m meant to stay at Carter’s penthouse, but Tristan drove me here after the terrible end to the news conference this morning. I sit as far away from Tristan Blackthorne as possible, the blood soaked all down his once nice, crisp shirt.

He rests his head on his hands, sitting on the couch in Carter’s living room, his body still shivering and trying to catch his breath. I can imagine his unease after today, but I am never that good at trying to console someone as untouchable as Carter or Tristan.

I make a cup of tea, seeing Carter do it before, and I set it down before Tristan. He glances up for a minute, his features sad and cold, his eyes so far away and darker than normal.

“Are you okay?” I breathe.

He only shrugs, taking the teacup and sipping it briefly. “Not really, Isabella.”

I sit on the couch nearby, finally peeling out of Carter’s jacket and laying it over the armrest. Tristan at least seems more communicative than Carter, although I doubt now is the best time for that to happen.

“I can make lunch. Do you want something?”

Tristan just shakes his head, staring at his teacup. “I don’t need to eat. I need to make things even. My uncle died on the mayor’s steps this morning. I have to fight back.”

“How will you do that?” I ponder. “You don’t even know the people who shot at Frances today.”

“I don’t need to,” he mumbles, pulling a bullet shell out of his pocket. He holds it up ever so slightly, turning it over in the sunlight that seeps through the windows. “I’ve got enough proof to know who did it.”

I lean forward, trying to see what Tristan sees, but all that I can make out is some kind of brassy-looking bullet shell. It’s long, simple, and pretty normal looking to me. What does he see that I don’t?

“Your old boss has it coming.”

Tristan stands abruptly, charging toward the door, but it flies open before he can fully sprint out of it. I cower at the sight of Carter covered in blood. He was clean after the bullets hit the mayor’s office, but he certainly is spotted with it now.

He looks through Tristan with slight irritation. “Where are you going?”

Tristan holds the shell up between them, and Carter takes it with ease. At that, Tristan finishes storming out of the penthouse. Carter flicks the shell casing aside, and I wince as the metal hits his polished tile floors.

My body rattles as he stomps right over to where I sit and latches his hands on my wrists. My breath hitches, and he pulls me to his chest, into a weak stand, and steals my breath next.

I kiss him back passionately like I can tell he needs it, but it’s obviously not enough. He wants more, but the putrid hint of blood that wafts through the air and now stains us both makes me sick. I drop my head at last, finally heaving for an inhale not sifted through his teeth first.

“Carter,” I pant. “The blood…”

“I know it, dove, but please let me hold you a minute longer,” he grumbles, his voice almost unrecognizable. He speaks so raw, so exhausted, that I have to double-check that it’s him. His eyes light up when they meet mine. “Come here, Bella.”

He pulls me from the living room and leads me right through his vast bedroom, secured behind a door that he unlocks with a little key in his pocket. I try to take in the beauty of his dark, organized room, but instead, I’m dragged all the way into his porcelain and marble bathroom.

His hand releases mine, and he flips on the shower, only coming back so he can work at undoing my blouse. I take the time to offer the same in return, working his shirt off button by button.

“Is this really the time to do this?” I mumble, treading lightly as I pluck his cufflinks off. “Your family, Carter. They’re hurt. Tristan is hurt.”

“You don’t work for my family. You work for me,” he reminds me, speaking through a modest smile.

“I know that.” I surrender, my eyes falling down his bare, muscular chest. “I just think after this morning and everything that happened…”

He brushes his knuckles under my chin, sensually bringing my focus back up to his eyes. “You thought I wouldn’t dole out my punishment as I claimed earlier?”

I swallow, but the knot in my neck prevents me from squeaking out anything sensical. Looking aside, Carter kisses my cheek just before my ear and takes my hands from his shirt buttons. He moves them to the hem of his pants, just over the buckle of his leather belt.

A fierce chill slithers down my spine.

“Go ahead, dove. Take it off. Punishment, remember?”

I really want to protest, but I think better of it. I flick his belt undone and slide it out of his belt loops. He steals it from my hands with a quick swipe and throws it into the bedroom, far away from his reach. I relax into his chest, and he shimmies the both of us out of our clothes.

“You look relieved,” he points out, snickering through his words. He tugs me into the shower with him, the warm water trickling over both of our heads like it’s raining from the ceiling. “You don’t like that belt, do you?”

I shake my head, the water falling slowly down my flushed, warm face. “I don’t like pain, Carter.”

“Why is that, dove?” he hums, leaning back against the shower wall, his eyes drifting down my naked and damp skin. “You know pain and pleasure are similar, right? Without one, you can’t have the other.”

I rest my cheek on his solid chest. “I don’t agree with that. In the store… you were gentle.”

He chuckles a laugh that drums throughout his chest. “You want me to be gentle from now on?”

I only shrug, wanting to stay like this, pressed lovingly against him in the shower forever. His arms rest leisurely on the back of my hips, and he locks his knuckles against the center of my ass. I relish in his warm, gentle embrace.

I could stay like this forever, but Carter has other plans.

He slides down the wall and brings me to the floor with him, the shower raining down on our heads and bodies in a soothing trickle. He pulls me to straddle his lap, and the feeling of his erection brushing vertically against my sex only sends my body into a nervous ache.

“Answer me, dove. Do you want me to be gentle?”

My eyes find his shirt on the floor just outside the glass shower doors. I have trouble seeking the words and only muster a slight shrug in response.

His hand slaps the lower helm of my ass, and I squeal, my warm center rubbing directly into his cock, ready to be slid into my folds. I collapse into his chest, the sting still running through my old bruises. I hate his belt and his angry streak during sex, but I can’t help coming back for more of it.

“I like words, Bella. Not just body movements.”

“I guess I would like gentle sex,” I breathe. “But I don’t want you to stop doing what you like, either.”

He chuckles lightly, pulling my hair from my back and forming a wet ponytail into his fist. At once, he yanks my head up, pulling my hair down my spine so that I’m forced to let the shower send artificial raindrops down my bare chest and my exposed throat.

I can only see the ceiling from this vantage point, but I can feel his eyes on my chest, on my exposed, sharp nipples, and eventually, his free hand pulls at them both religiously.

I pant a breath, swallowing the shower water and not caring, his rough approach proving—yet again—it feels so good to have my body manipulated for his leisure. He pulls his legs apart, forcing my knees to spread, and I fight to stay against his chest, but that only prompts him to pull my hair more.

“Carter,” I plead. “Please.”

“Easy, dove,” he hums, his lips somewhere near my breast. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll be gentle this time.”

Something—I’m not sure what exactly—aches in my chest when he says that. Carter Blackthorne is pushy, arrogant, confident, and frustrating by all measures, but one thing associated with him is his passionate, hard approach to sex.

Without it, Carter Blackthorne doesn’t seem like himself anymore.

He bites lightly on my nipple, and I writhe in his lap, wishing his hold on my hair would relax, but he needs a way to keep me where he wants me. This seems like as good of a way as any.

His thumb flicks my other nipple continuously before his fingertips drag down my wet skin. He jams a knuckle into my pussy, and I bark at the suddenness of it all. It fills me with delight at once. I try to maneuver my hips over his fingers at one point, begging for some kind of forced relief.

He speaks through a hard, stiff jaw. “You aren’t in control, dove. I am.”

He plucks his fingers out of me, and I shiver with need, with the edge of an orgasm ripped out of my grasp. It hurts and pleases me all at once. He finally lets go of my hair, too, both of his hands crawling to my back, where he pulls my ass up, my sex quivering right over his erection now.

I bite my lip so hard in anticipation that I fear it may bleed.

But that would be far too easy for Carter.

He edges me higher up against his chest and then pulls me down over his cock that is lined up perfectly with the entrance of my tight, unsuspecting ass!

I yelp and try to pull away, but his grip on my backside doesn’t dare move away. I claw at his shoulders, our foreheads meeting gently, and the little drops of water on his dark eyelashes almost seem impossible. He’s so beautiful and immortal.

He’s also trying to slide his lengthy, throbbing cock into my smallest hole.

I pant recklessly, begging and pleading and reasoning with a man that is hardly a man at all. He only chuckles, bringing me down inch by inch until my breath hitches, and I exhale hard into his shoulder.

He takes a moment to be still, to kiss my cheek, and I whimper. “That was gentle, right?”

I snicker at his attempt to be cute with his wordplay, and although he is correct in being gentle, I can’t say that I ever anticipated this. But it is Carter Blackthorne, after all. I suppose I can put up with it.

“Does it hurt, dove?”

I swallow, trying to steady my hitched breath. “I don’t think so.”

He smiles mischievously, so charming and reckless. “You think, or you know?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” I admit at last.

He kisses my lips lightly with that assurance, and with his hands parting my ass for him still, he maneuvers me up and down once, in quick and kind succession. My inhale is sharp and abrupt, but in all actuality, it doesn’t hurt too terribly.

If anything, it only makes my sex wetter and more jittery with enticement.

A moan escapes my lips, and Carter muffles it with his own mouth, kissing and mauling me deeply while he bounces me on his lap at a more steady, constant rate. One of his hands slides around my wet side, his fingertips finding my soggy folds.

I want to scream at the feeling of Carter in two of my holes, but he consumes my mouth at the same time.

I melt after a long moment, completely obliterated by his fingers and his large, selfish cock.

My teeth manage to grip his lower lip, and I bite down—hard.

He pulls away from our kiss with an excited smirk. “What happened to gentle?”