Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Thirty-Eight

Kali

I was prepared for his rage. For him to lose it at me, or worse, retreat inwards.

But when I entered the room, the lights were off, and I couldn’t find him.

“Locke—”

A hand balled into my hair, and before I could scream, a hand covered my mouth, silencing me. His body pressed against mine, familiar and warm. He dropped his mouth to my ear, growling, “I never want to see you like that again. Got it?”

I tried to nod, but I could hardly do that.

“Seeing that undid me, Kali,” he gritted out. “I can’t be the fucking gentleman. I want you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded again, though my heart ran wild in my chest.

“When this is over, I’m taking you for myself. And if you want to fucking run, so be it. I’ll chase you so long as I’m breathing. I’ll find you, too.”

He dropped his hand from my mouth, allowing me to spin around to look up at him. My hands immediately wrapped around his face. “Max, calm down.”

He tensed at the use of his name.

“Max,” I said again. “You can take me, alright? I’m not fighting. I want you.”

I hated seeing him this way.

This possessive, lethal man was completely at my mercy simply using his fucking name. That made my eyes water. “Steal me, I don’t care. You can steal me—”

His mouth crashed into mine, silencing me. His hands were everywhere. Needy, possessive, full of desperate desire. He was rough, and I let him be. I didn’t need him gentle. I wanted to be ruined.

He stripped me of my dress. He discarded everything from my body and then he did the same thing. He tore the clothes off himself, his nostrils flaring with anger. He hated the clothes. He didn’t want them. He threw them down, stripping completely until he was naked, that large raven tattoo on his chest giving him a more sombre look.

He picked me up as though I weighed nothing and threw me down on the bed. Then he climbed over me, pressing my chest flat against the bed. I couldn’t move. I could hardly breathe. I felt his cock brush along my ass, hard and ready.

“There will be no mercy,” he warned.

“I don’t want it,” I returned with a smile.

He turned my head to the side and kissed me harshly as he plunged his length deep inside me. I was wet and ready for him, moaning into his mouth, unable to stop the pleas from escaping my lips. He filled me up and fucked me so brutally, the bed shook violently beneath me.

“Fuck, Max.”

“Never again,” he growled, his hand wrapped around my throat as he fucked me mercilessly. “Tell me that, Kali. Never again will another fucking man touch you.”

“Never.”

“Fuck!” he roared.

I’d never seen this man so enraged.

I closed my eyes, enjoying every thrust. Was it wrong I liked him this angry? That I loved he was taking it out on my little body? He could hurt me more than he was. He could really unleash himself, and while he was, I felt his restraint. He didn’t want me truly ruined. He just wanted me marked in his release. He needed to know I belonged to him, and I did.

I fucking belonged to Max Locke.

Let him have me.

Let him destroy me.

If he ever left me, I wouldn’t recover, but at least I’d know what it was like to have this lethal yet passionate man for myself.

Our soul was supposed to be fragile. They were meant to crack into a million little pieces. We had to be vulnerable so we could appreciate the sweet agony of being cherished.

So, while he may have ruined me on that bed, fucking me like the savage man he was, he still held together that cherished part of me, and I sensed he had no desire to ever let it go.

“Fill me up,” I demanded. “Like you wanted…fill me up, Max…I want it all…”

Now his thrusts were violent, his grunts loud in my ears as he fucked me, punishing me, warning me never to do what I did to another man again.

I smiled into the sheets as he came growling my name.

◆◆◆

“I’m sorry,” I said later, as I lay sprawled over his naked body, tracing the raven on his chest. “I don’t want to see you like that.”

“I think you liked it,” he returned, though his voice was full of amusement.

“I liked what we did,” I grinned, but then it fell just as quickly. “I don’t like the ugly emotions it made you feel, though.”

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “It worked out in the end. I’m pounding on Ambrose’s door.”

I paused. “Are you sure about that?”

“Kali…”

“I know.” I went quiet. Then, “When are you going to do it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I want to be there.”

He didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, “If Ambrose is pulling the strings, he’s more dangerous than you think.”

I thought of that jolly old man again, but I didn’t argue. I just sighed and slung my leg over his hip. He gripped my thigh, running his thumb along my skin in lazy circles.

“Kali,” he said, quietly.

And that was all he said.

Kali.

The familiar worship in the dark. I said it back. “Max.”

His grip tightened around me. We lay in silence for a while. And then he rolled me back over until I was on my back, and he was over me in that perfect position that did things to me. He stared down at me, studying every feature.

“If I knew someone like you was coming into my life, I don’t think I’d have been so bent on revenge,” he whispered. “Because being here, with you, none of it seems to matter anymore.”

I raised my finger over his lips, tracing them. “I think it matters that you find peace.”

“The same goes for you, Kali.” He frowned. “I don’t regret wanting you, but I regret the cruel way I went about it. I stripped you bare, and that wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have had you running. It caused us both pain.”

“You said we can’t go back.” I brushed my lips against his. “You said we have to accept what happened in order to let go. When you sent me running, you made me confront parts of myself I hid.” I swallowed thickly, my eyes aching. “It’s why I see Aurora.”

“I’m sorry—”

I covered his mouth now. “No, it wasn’t a bad thing, Locke. Because running sent me here, in this town, and to Lenny, and it brought you back to me.”

He kissed my hand, and I dropped it. He whispered, “What would you truly happy, Kali?”

“You make me happy,” I said. “You’re intense, and you’re scary, but you bring out parts of me I didn’t think I could feel.”

“And this town?”

I rolled my eyes. He noticed and chuckled. “Isn’t it the most prissy town in the world?”

“I’m glad you won’t be kicking and screaming when I take you away.”

I laughed and then groaned as his weight settled between my legs. My core pulsed. My eyes fluttered shut. “I don’t care if I’m on Mars, as long as your cock finds its home inside me every night, I’ll be happy.”

He kissed me, and it was a lazy and full of tongue. He prodded his cock into me, rocking into me slowly, the way you would expect lovers to come together for the first time. He let out a light groan. “I could do that, if it makes you happy. I can give you everything. I can try and be normal, Kali—”

“No,” I cut in, biting down on my lip as a wave of pleasure rocked through me. “I don’t want normal, Locke. I never did.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A little place to call ours.”

“Done.”

He moved a little faster inside me, filling me whole and stopping to rub against my clit. I moaned. “A school I can work in that doesn’t have a dick like Patsy in the classroom.”

“Done,” he grunted.

“And you.”

He stilled and looked at me. “The part of me you see now?”

I grinned. “All the parts of you. The cruel man, the possessive man, the passionate man—”

He cut me off with a heavy kiss, swallowing my words with urgency and yearning. He released himself as I pressed a hand against his chest, where that bird was. I felt him handing that part of himself to me. The most fragile part of him he would have buried deep so no one could hurt him.

I felt a tear slip from my eyes as I gave him mine in return.

And when all was said and done, we lay in each other’s arms once more, and he spoke. About nothing. About everything. He talked to me about the little boy he used to be, about the mother he used to love, about the friends he loved like brothers.

But he paused on Dom…

Something flashed in his gaze, and he glanced at his watch, at the broken face, and said, “Dom needs to be saved next.”

Then he told me why.

And I cried while running my hand over the watch face, understanding the cracks and why it mattered that he wore it always.

Dom was more central to him after he escaped the Hole, but Dom held more scars than Locke did.

“I’m going back for him,” Locke vowed. “When we’re done here, Dom needs us. He doesn’t think so, but I’ll prove him wrong.”