Chapter 17: Empire of Desire: Chapter 16

Gravity seems to have left the building.

Or maybe it’s my sanity.

Maybe it’s both.

Because I don’t feel either of them—neither gravity nor my sanity. I’m floating on air and unable to land.

Or more accurately, I’m floating on Nate’s shoulder. His broad shoulder that I’ve always looked at and might have dreamt about touching it, but not with my stomach. I wasn’t that crazy.

Apparently, I am now, though, because that’s all I can think about—my stomach on his shoulder. Okay, that’s a lie. I’m thinking about a lot of things, like how his strong arm is looped around my calves and the way my head is hitting his powerful back with each step up the stairs.

He’s carrying me like I’m a weightless feather. The effortlessness of the act does things to me. His strength. His brutishness. His domination.

All of it.

And I soak it in, allow it to tear me open and seep inside me. Isn’t that what masochists do? Not only do we seek the pain, but we also wallow in it and allow it to grow roots so deep, it’s impossible to dissociate from it.

I don’t even stop to think about the blood that’s rushing to my head or how my eyes feel like they’ll pop out of my skull. I should probably close them, but if I do, I’ll miss what’s happening. No, thanks.

Before long, however, I’m forced out of the brief phase of hanging between the loss of gravity and sanity.

And he’s the one who yanks me out.

Just like he did earlier when he pulled the ground from beneath my feet.

He returns it now by throwing me on the bed not so gently, because he doesn’t do gentle. Actually, Nate is the furthest thing from gentle. He’s coarse and harsh and strict.

So damn strict that my thighs clench in remembrance of his authoritarian, lusty questions from when he trapped me against the wall.

He’s trapping me again now, but not with his body. It’s his eyes that do the job and they’re even more severe than earlier.

They’re dark now.

So dark that I think they’ll turn into a black hole and suck me in.

I should be scared at the thought of being stuck in a bottomless well, especially since my empty brain pulls that move on me sometimes. But I’m a bit crazy, just like Chris said, and all I can think about is how it’ll look in there. In Nate’s eyes that are as strict as he is. As authoritative as his voice without him having to use it.

I wonder how it would feel, too. Maybe it will be not-so-gentle, like when he threw me on the bed, or maybe it’ll be effortless and sudden, like when he carried me over his shoulder.

And I think he’ll do just that when he moves his hand. I think he’ll reach for me and suck me into his darkness. But he doesn’t. He just places a hand in his pocket and leans against the wall. My vanilla-orchid-and-roses wallpaper looks so girly when his broad shoulders rest against it.

My whole room with its fluffy bedsheets and endless pillows is suddenly so small and suffocating. It’s the first time he’s been in here and he’s managed to steal the entire atmosphere.

Just like he’s stolen everything else.

“Show me.”

“W-what?”

“What you mentioned earlier, Gwyneth. I want to see what it’s like when you have sexual urges.”

My cheeks must be flushed a deep shade of red, or maybe my entire body is. Talking about it is one thing, but action is something else completely.

Besides, this is Nate. I…I’ve never been remotely naked or in such a position around Nate.

I’m leaning back on my elbows with my legs outstretched in front of me—in his direct view—and it feels so different, new, and wrong.

Yet it’s right at the same time.

It’s the rightest thing I’ve felt in a while.

“Didn’t you say you have urges, plural, and that you need fingers inside you to feel full?”

I gulp. Shit.

I think hearing Nate’s dirty talk is going to cause me to have a heart attack and then they’ll write his name as the cause of death on my tombstone.

“Answer the question, Gwyneth. Didn’t you say that?”

“Yeah.”

“You also said it’s in the moment and you can’t describe it.”

“I did.”

“Then open your legs and show me.”

My elbows can barely hold me up anymore from how much they’re shaking, how much my pussy is tingling from his words and the command in them.

But I’m helpless in front of that dominance, so while I remain on one elbow, I reach the other hand to the zipper of my skirt and pull it down as I tremble uncontrollably. Then I fumble to kick it down my legs that are so hot and sensitive that I can feel the sheet scraping against them.

I let my thighs fall open, exposing my vanilla-colored panties. They’re lace and see-through and so soaked that another wave of heat covers my body when I realize he can see it.

He can see the arousal and the stickiness.

This is different from anything I’ve experienced before. Because he’s looking at me.

He’s looking at my wet panties and my shaking legs and my fingers that are sneaking beneath the lace. But he’s not only looking. His nostrils are flaring, too, and the veins in his hand that’s at his side appear to be more defined and masculine. The thought of that same hand on me, touching me, nearly drives me to the edge.

My nipples harden and push against my bra and shirt, making them ache, but not as much as where my fingers are heading. That’s where it hurts the most, because his eyes are there.

So I sink my fingers between my folds, using him as an anchor. And it feels different with him watching like I’m building up an explosion, not an orgasm.

But my hand is too soft and it’s not enough, even when I twist my clit and roll my hips.

I think it’s because he’s there and he’s watching with his jaw set in a line. Although I want him to watch me, to see me, so what’s wrong?

I can’t reach that peak, no matter how much I try, and it’s not due to my lack of arousal, because I’m so soaked that there are probably wet spots on the sheet.

“What’s wrong, baby girl? Having trouble?”

My fingers pause at that. Baby girl.

I think I became wetter, too, but that might be because he’s pushed off the wall and is stalking toward me. And it’s downright stalking, with his shoulders squared and his steps slow and measured.

And I can’t help feeling the sensation that I’m the prey who caught the attention of the big, bad wolf, but unlike in the fairy tale, I won’t be able to escape.

Damn how beautiful he is. And it’s not only about his face that seems to be cut from solid marble or his physique that could crush me as effortlessly as he carried me. It’s about everything else. It’s about the masculinity that oozes from each of his movements. It’s about that delicious authoritativeness that I can’t get enough of.

Before I can think of anything to say to make him call me “baby girl” again, he does something.

He gets on his knees. At the foot of the bed. In direct view of the apex of my thighs.

My hand freezes, and I don’t realize it until he motions at it. “You can’t get yourself off?”

“I…can.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I do…usually.”

“Not today, apparently.” He reaches a hand to where my panties meet my hip and I stop breathing when it makes contact. When his skin kisses mine and then drags them down my thighs.

They’re in his hands now, my lace panties that I’m thankful I chose this morning.

And then they’re in his pocket. Not on the floor, not somewhere no one would care about. They’re with him.

“Open your legs wide. Let me see.”

My fingers tremble on my folds and I do as he tells me, parting my thighs, letting him observe how drenched I am because he’s been watching me.

He grabs my ankle and pulls. My elbow gives out, and I squeal when my back hits the mattress as he drags me to the foot of the bed. But that’s not all.

My legs are on his shoulders. They’re hanging loosely on those broad, hard shoulders and he’s so close that I’m intoxicated with his scent. I feel like those spices from his scent now, hot and tingly and unable to cool down, even if there was water.

“Did I say you could remove your hand from your pussy, Gwyneth?”

It’s then I realize my hand has fallen to the side. “No.”

“No, I didn’t, and that means you put it back in and you don’t remove it until I say so.”

God. Why the hell does he sound so hot when he’s dishing out orders as if this were a war and I’m a soldier in his battalion?

Because there’s something else his orders do. They make me even hotter with a chance of melting right beneath his gaze.

When I take my time to comply with his order, he grabs my hand and places it back on my core. I’m burning now, blushing something furious beneath his touch. But it doesn’t end there, because he jams my middle finger inside me.

Just like that.

Like he’s had the right to do that for a long time. My back arches off the bed and I bite my lower lip to keep from moaning or screaming like a whore.

But maybe that’s what I am right now.

I’m a whore in his hands, and all I want is more.

“Is this how it felt inside? With his fingers filling you?”

“There needs to be another one for them to be fingers. Now it’s just one finger,” I breathe out, trying to be as coherent as possible to not make a fool out of myself.

“The fucking talking back.” He grabs my other finger and I’m ready for the intrusion. It’s the only way I’m able to get myself off. Two fingers and teasing my clit.”

I can’t help staring down at where his hooded eyes are focused on how he’s still holding my hand.

But it’s not my finger that enters me. This one is thicker, harder, and makes me gasp.

It’s inside me now, his middle finger, and it’s stroking mine that’s also in there. The friction is strange and unbearable and so damn new that I nearly black out.

“Oh, God…”

“Is this how full it felt, baby girl?”

Stroke.

Up.

Down.

Thrust.

“Or was it less satisfying because you couldn’t feel his limp fingers?”

He sounds angry, but I can’t focus on that, because there’s a fire consuming me from the inside and it is so wild and big that I can’t breathe.

Any attempts of sucking in oxygen vanish when he slips another finger—his, not mine—into my tight channel. Both of his fingers imprison mine and he moves the three of them in a maddening rhythm. The friction builds hard and fast and rough. I can feel it deep inside me and I want to throw up or maybe I want to come, because I think that’s what the shaking means.

“Or perhaps it’s full like this. So full that you want to burst.”

“Yes, oh, fuck…”

“Tsk. Language.”

“Oh, please. As if you don’t say it yourself.”

“Are you sure you want to talk back to me when I can leave you unsatisfied?”

“No, no…please…please…”

I’m almost there, I can feel it deep inside me. The more he strokes and curls his fingers, the more he spreads my inner juices over our fingers.

He pumps them in me and I’m clenching him—us—in a choke-like hold.

“Fuck. Do you feel how your tight pussy is strangling me?”

“Yeah…”

He groans deep in his throat and it does things to me, things like making me tighten around him harder, swallowing him deeper.

And I can’t help moaning. I don’t have the space of mind to control it or the rest of the sounds that come out of me.

I’m a mess of chaotic emotions and sensations, and there’s no way I can mute myself anymore.

“Is it because it feels full?”

“Yeah, full and good and…and…I’m…”

“And you’re what?” He pumps harder faster, pressing the heel of my palm against my clit.

The sureness in his movements, the pure dominance of it, drags me under in one swift movement.

“I’m coming!”

I clench around him the hardest yet as that wave crashes into me. The orgasm is neither gentle nor soft. It’s callous and demanding, just like him. My legs shake over his shoulders and my head is a fog of mixed emotions—emotions I can’t get hold of, so I let them swirl around me like a halo.

Or maybe I’m the one in the halo, floating in a dreamless land where everything feels so good.

After what seems like forever, I’m brought back to the present, suddenly and without warning, when he removes the fingers from inside me—his and mine. And I grab onto him, not wanting to let him or this feeling go.

What if this is a dream and I’ll never feel this way again? What if I’ll wake up and never find my way back?

But his next words erase any misconception I had about how real this is. “From now on, if you have any sexual urges, I’ll be the only one who satisfies them.”