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

Chapter Thirty-Five

Isabella

Carter haphazardly throws me into his bed, our bodies still damp with the shower water, and the cold air of his penthouse doesn’t help my nerves. I’m still hot with need, with sexual desire, and when Carter pulls away, I find comfort in bringing my fingertips to my sensitive clit.

I moan ever so gently, the noise like a beacon to Carter.

He stalks back into the room, holding an unusual-looking sex toy. I can only identify it as a sex toy because of its shape, mimicking Carter’s erection perfectly, but in pink.

His brows knit when he stands over the foot of his bed, holding the toy and pressing some kind of button on the base that makes the vibration audible from here. I pull my hands away, knowing he isn’t going to let me continue on without punishment.

His favorite part of sex.

He lays over me, the vibration finding my core and going so far deep inside of me that I hiss and moan to fight back an all-out scream. He watches me writhe underneath him, snickering as I struggle to combat an orgasm so soon, but it’s almost impossible.

The vibration can be felt in my sharp, enticed nipples.

Carter hikes my legs up, pinning my knees to my shoulders, and I gasp heavily in response.

“You are so flexible,” he purrs, kneeling on his bed with a striking, strong erection still.

The shower lasted so long that I hoped it was the end of him pushing through my most virgin hole, but he doesn’t seem to be keen on ending things on an easy note. He finds my ass once more, putting just the tip inside of me and watching me carefully for a reaction.

The vibration is so intense that I hardly do anything but allow another orgasm to ripple throughout me.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he growls, bringing his entire, daunting length inside of me.

I hiss and sputter and unravel again. He only drinks the sight up, thrusting more and more recklessly into his old pace. The vibrations in my pussy, his length in my ass, and the pretzel pose I’ve been put into—it all sends me too far off the edge to stop.

Not that I would ever want Carter to stop fucking me.

After the night prior, the wining, the dining, and the introduction to his past endeavors, I couldn’t do anything but reject the idea of wanting to be under him again. But we both have pasts.

As long as the future involves him and me, and only him and me, then I can overlook his history.

He releases a strangled moan, his fingers digging into my thighs, and I hiccup at the feeling of him coming deep inside of me. The shock wears off quickly, another exhausting orgasm ripping through my sex as the device only knocks pleasuring wave after pleasuring wave through my body.

When the smoke clears and the dizzy state of my eyes vanish, I see Carter standing over me, his hand pushing the toy as deep as it will go into my pussy.

I pant for release, for mercy, and somehow, he understands my request.

He yanks the toy out of me and vanishes, my pulsing, exhausted eyes looking for the lasting sight of Carter Blackthorne, but I’m so worn that I may pass out. I try to catch my breath, missing it as well.

For the first time in a while, I get to relax, falling limp onto Carter’s bed and enjoying the utter softness of it. It’s like a cloud, a heavenly surface that catches me and carries me through the skies of Manhattan.

I glance at his nightstand, finding a beautifully framed portrait of a pretty young woman inside the cracked glass. She smiles wide with pride, with confidence, and her beauty certainly backs it up.

She has amber eyes, chocolate hair, and a pale button nose.

I reach for the photo, my palm catching a sharp edge of the glass, and I hiss, bringing my hand to my chest while the little dribble of blood rolls down my wrist.

Carter is in his doorway in a moment, his eyes holding something unfamiliar but angry.

“What did you do?” he asks, his voice knocking me on my side like he’s slapped me. “What’s wrong with your hand? You’re bleeding, Bella.”

I glance sideways at the portrait of the woman. “Your picture—the glass is broken on it.”

He stomps through the room at once, and at first, I think he might be charging toward me for some reason. I inch back in deep fear, his movements so ridged and hostile. I grit my teeth and expect punishment.

Instead, he only opens his nightstand drawer a little rougher than necessary and throws the picture and its frame inside of it. He slams the drawer shut at once, his breathing labored now.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, obviously sensing that whatever I did, or whoever she is, he doesn’t like me looking at that photo. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t apologize,” he snaps. “Go clean up that cut. There are bandages in the bathroom across the hall, the bathroom connected to your bedroom.”

I scurry out of bed and almost dare to stop, to ask him why he went from so passionate and easygoing to someone that looks like he can’t stand to have me in his bed. Maybe that explains why I’ve been shipped off into a spare bedroom.

When I turn to confront him, he slams his bedroom door abruptly, keeping it between us.

The door locks at once, and any sight of Carter vanishes in a brutal instant.

I retreat to my bedroom for now, my mouth still partly agape and begging to ask Carter for an explanation, but history tells me there is none. He will share as much, or as little, as he pleases.

There’s no controlling him or his reckless mood shifts.

I wrap my palm and get dressed, putting on some comfortable shoes so I can walk a few blocks to the hospital. The nurses haven’t been telling me all that much about my father’s care, and I fear the next round of medication will be stalled if I don’t find a way to put down some money for his last round of treatment.

Plus, the walk will do me well. Carter obviously needs space after what happened this morning.

I hurry out of my room and head for the door, Carter flying out of his bedroom on perfect cue. Despite my confidence moments ago, I cower with my hand on the doorknob that leads out of his penthouse.

His eyes are bloodshot and a little puffy.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume he’s ill, but for some weird reason, I can just see he is upset.

“Where are you going, dove?” he asks in a gentle whisper. “You shouldn’t be leaving here without supervision. Not after this morning at the mayor’s office.”

“I don’t think they were aiming for me, Carter. I’m going to visit my father.” I think back to the schedule he told me I’m on, and despite my intent minutes ago, I can’t deny that I’m technically on the clock, so that means I’m at his disposal today. “Unless, of course, there is work for me to do.”

He hesitates, adjusting the cuffs of his fresh, lilac-colored shirt. He is back to being the well-dressed devil this city knows him as. He’s dapper and handsome—and so utterly broken…

But why? He has everything, and what he doesn’t have, he could achieve so easily.

So why does a man as powerful and perfect as Carter Blackthorne weep in the seclusion of his room?

“I can’t get ahold of Tristan, and for all I know, he’s waging a war on the entire Lacey family. But my Uncle Luis is in the hospital after this morning. Maybe they will let me drop by for a talk with the coroner, so it works out well for us both.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a flashy set of keys, tossing them over to me from across the living room. I hold them to the light, knowing these don’t belong to the car I’ve driven for him in the past.

“Let’s go to the parking garage,” he hums.

I seal my lips and follow him forward, our trip down to the parking garage underground the most uncomfortable time I’ve ever spent with Carter—and we’ve even had sex on the floor of a clothing boutique. But this is just different, and not in a good way.

He finds my hand when the elevator opens up, his thumb running a light track over the gauze tape I poorly wrapped my hand in. The blood has already soaked into the white fabric of it, and he shakes his head in disapproval. At least that notion is normal for him.

“You might need stitches, dove.”

I pull my hand back and wave off his concern. “It’s fine. It doesn’t even hurt.”

I move to leave, but he grabs my elbow hard in his hand, bringing my back to the wall of the elevator. The entire carriage shakes with his sudden movement, and I whimper slightly, unsure where this new ferocity has come from, but I decipher it instantly in his wild eyes.

“You will not ignore this,” he snaps, taking my hand back in his possession. “You’ll see a doctor while we’re there, Bella. I mean it.”

My brow furrows at his sudden concern about a scratch that I consider rather minor. His emotions are starting to give me fucking whiplash in how frantically he moves from one to another.

I concede with a nod, and it satisfies him enough for now. We stalk out of the elevator in a thicker silence than when we had gotten inside of it.

I click the keys, and a cherry red sports car beacons in response. My nerves are set ablaze at the sleek and expensive sight of the car. It looks like it came right off a stage somewhere, and now it’s parked in the far corner of the garage, coming alive with the buttons on the remote in my hands.

“I can’t drive that,” I breathe, stopping mid-stride in the garage. “I don’t want to ruin your car, Carter.”

“You won’t,” he mumbles, linking his arm against my back and shoving me forward. “It’s yours now, anyway.”

I immediately try to hand him the keys in a flurry of concern. “No, no, no. I’m serious. I can’t drive this. It’s a classic, and it’s beautiful, and I… I don’t deserve this.”

His aggressive streak doesn’t seem to be over because as soon as the words leave my mouth, I’m spun around and hooked into his arms, his hand holding the back of my head while his lips dive straight into mine. His kiss isn’t even coordinated; it’s just pushy and messy and desperate.

I finally have enough of this tantrum of his and pull away, heaving an inhale that he stole from me with his mauling mouth.

Looking through him now, I don’t recognize the powerful, sexy man who is always composed and in control. I see a man at the top edge of a spiral, almost ready to descend into a wormhole of complicated, unforeseen, troubling emotions.

I speak before I fully consider my words.

“What is going on with you, Carter?”

He straightens his posture, adjusts his coat, and pantomimes a look of poise.

It’s all bullshit. All of it.

“Nothing is wrong,” he replies, stone solid in exterior, but he’s a terrible actor. “It’s been a stressful morning.”

He watched his uncle die and then sat back as Tristan declared war on the tiny bit of evidence he found at the crime scene—and the cold, unemotional look in his eye as I examined the picture by his bedside has led to a pushy, aggravated entity that looks a lot like Carter, but doesn’t possess his eloquence at all.

He simply sums it up as stressful.

He’s a damned liar.