The Token 4 (New Adult Dark Romance) Read online

  I writhe beneath him, catching him deeper inside me. I feel more alive from the raw burning pleasure he gives me than I have in weeks.

  Mick stares into my eyes, swirling his hips and I gasp at the sensation. “I thought...”

  “Shh... stop talking,” I say.

  I push my hips against him. The searing pain begins to take a backseat to the exquisite feel of him inside of me.

  Mick sits up on his knees. One hand moves to my breast, the other to his mouth.

  He licks his thumb and places it on my clit. He moves it with a slow, expert swirl, and my breath catches. I throw my face to the side, sinking into the sensation.

  He thrusts into me and my sex meets his like a perfectly choreographed dance.

  I turn my head just enough to see Mick's eyes watching me. Something I thought I’d never see again creeps into his warm brown gaze.

  Tenderness.

  A token of his former tenderness that I’d thought was lost comes back as his body moves against me, deeply, thoroughly—savagely perfect.

  Mick mounds my breast, bending over me as he uses my body into a delicious friction of consumption. His mouth covers my breast and I slide against his body.

  He pulls out, and I feel empty. The pain is only a shadow to the release that was building between my legs.

  I must have it.

  Him.

  Mick flips me over, and I instinctively lift my ass. I feel him at my entrance, teasing my tight, slick heat, but he doesn't plunge in as I expected he would. His hand trails away from my face, pressed against the bed, up to the curve of my ass.

  I shiver against the burning trail his fingertips make.

  “Spread your legs, Faren.”

  I push my knees farther, completely vulnerable and open to him. I offer myself like a sacrifice.

  His thumb slips inside me, and I moan. “Mick... yes, please yes...” I pant, my chest tight.

  “Tell me you want this Faren.”

  His thumb slides in and out of me and I cry, tears of relief, agony and want.

  “Tell me you want me to fuck you, Faren.”

  My carnal response is instinctive and immediate. “Fuck me, fuck me. Please fuck me.” Need has roughened my voice into a harsh plea driven out of me.

  His former tenderness is replaced by a need to brand my body. He shoves himself inside, conquering every inch of my virginity, stripping away what I wanted him to take.

  I shove my hips backward as he drives into me.

  My pussy is so swollen and heavy with him inside of me. I can't help the tears of need or the greedy whimpers that slip from my lips as he pounds me from behind.

  His wet thumb rims the bud of my ass and I scream as his lubed digit enters me.

  His thumb and penis fill me in dual ecstasy, and I come. I drive back against him, and it pushes everything more deeply.

  I stop breathing, thinking... My internal circuitry blown.

  I howl as Mick thrusts both bits inside the center of my body.

  My soul.

  I feel him infinitesimally harden inside me.

  With a last deep thrust, his release fills me. Our bodies are locked together as I rise on my elbows. His hand moves to my hair, and he rides me like I've wanted since the minute his lips touched mine.

  I want his ownership.

  I am Mick's—body and soul.

  I always was.

  ~ 5 ~

  We lay together, and tears roll out of me in an unbidden river of tumultuous emotion.

  I did it—I reached the pinnacle.

  Then I realize there's nowhere to go but down.

  And I don't want to.

  I want to stay in this ecstatic pocket of my life. If this is the wonderful finale before it all ends, I never want it to.

  Mick spoons against me, his hand tracing my side. The tips of his fingers move down to the valley of my waist, back up to the curve of my shoulder, then around my neck.

  My pulse lifts his fingers.

  “You weren't acting.” He breathes against my neck, warm and alive.

  “No.”

  He wipes a tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb.

  “I hurt you.” His voice is full of so much emotion.

  I could mine for what's there, but I'm too full myself to dig.

  I laugh instead, turning my head to smile at him.

  “I think I hurt myself.”

  Mick grins, cups my chin, and kisses me so gently I smell his skin before he touches me. “You did... surprise me.”

  My brows lift. “I impaled you.”

  Mick nods, suppressing an evil smile. “All of you—on all of me. I couldn't ask for anything better.” Then his face darkens.

  “Had I known you were...” He rolls over onto his back and swipes my body on top of his as I squeal. “God… a virgin. I would have handled—hell, everything differently.”

  I shake my head. My hair falls forward, smothering him.

  “It's all me. I wanted to.”

  He puts a finger under my chin, lifting my eyes to his.

  “What?”

  “I wanted it to be you.”

  “Thank Christ,” he says with an abrupt laugh.

  He cradles my face, and his lips pull on mine, sucking them into his kiss.

  He grows hard underneath me and I want him again.

  His eyes sink into mine. “God, Faren... what are you doing to me?”

  “Making you hard,” I say against his mouth.

  He pulls away, and I love his easy smile.

  I put it there.

  “True,” he answers. “But... I think you might need a little break. It'll make you too sore.”

  Mick jumps up, and I fall back into the mussed covers. For the first time, I'm unashamed of my nudity. With Mick, I’m naked by choice.

  He stops in his tracks, his eyes roaming me. The brown of his irises warm like chocolate over heat.

  “You're so beautiful Faren.”

  I can't help but notice the proof, his arousal underscoring his words.

  What he says echoes in the chambers of my heart. I capture it, holding it tightly inside of me.

  The memory of the way he cherishes me is something I know I'll never forget.

  Mick steps up to the foot of the bed and wraps his hand around my ankle. “Stay right there. I'll take care of you.”

  I enjoy the naked view as he walks away.

  I hear him in the kitchen, glasses clinking, something pouring. My ears prick when footsteps signal his return.

  I sit up on my elbows, crossing my legs. I tingle and ache.

  It's all so good I can hardly stand myself.

  Mick enters the bedroom holding two glasses of red wine in one hand and a half-empty bottle.

  His eyes gleam, and my lips part. He notices. His gaze lands on the parts of my body he's touched.

  Which is everything.

  He owns me, and I uncross my legs. Mick's chest heaves with an explosive exhale, and he sets the stemmed crystal on top of his nightstand. He disappears into the bathroom.

  I frown when he walks away from the view of me I so proudly produced.

  He reappears with a pure white washcloth. It steams with hot water.

  “What-what are you doing?” I ask.

  “Spread your legs for me.” His voice is as soft as mine, but there's a demanding edge to it.

  I shiver from his tone, moving my legs apart.

  Pain edges into my euphoria and I wince a little.

  Mick smiles gently and moves between my legs with the bottle of wine and the hot washcloth. He pours wine on the washcloth and moves it to my sex.

  I catch his wrist and question him with my eyes.

  “I'm cleaning you.”

  I can feel my frown. “Why?” I can take a shower.

  “This is what a man does for a woman when she's given him what you gave me.”

  My hand slips from his wrist, and the tears come.

  He shakes his head. “Don't cry. This is
a good thing.”

  “What did I give you?”

  The answer is obvious but he surprises me with it anyway.

  “All of you, Faren.”

  Mick puts the warm cloth against me, and I sigh in relief. The wine and heat feels deliciously soothing. I close my eyes to enjoy the sensation of gentle, moist warmth.

  The first swipe of his tongue undoes me. I'm hot, wet, and utterly relaxed.

  “Mick?” My gaze moves to his mouth working on me, licking where he's just cleaned.

  His hands slip underneath my ass and jerks me tighter against the seal of his mouth. I cry out.

  He checks to make sure it's not a pain sound.

  It's not.

  Mick goes back to sucking me. My hips move against his mouth, and a flush covers my skin.

  “Let me... let me... finish you,” Mick says.

  I think I'm too sore, too spent... too everything to deny what he wants.

  With no fingers, just the heat of his lips and breath, he brings me.

  My hoarse cries fill the room and come back to surround our panting.

  Mick stands, using a sheet to wipe his mouth and falls on me, holding his body off me by inches.

  I laugh and wind my arms around his neck.

  He kisses me, and I taste myself on him. I groan, our tongues twining.

  “Thank you,” he says, and I laugh.

  Thank you.

  He looks at me for a moment longer, satisfied with what he sees on my face, and walks away. A minute later, I hear water filling the tub.

  It's hard not to cry as Mick takes care of me.

  For the first time, I hold back my tears.

  I want to feel the joy without the sadness.

  *

  He slides me into the hot water, and my toes curl. It hurts; it feels wonderful.

  Mick's only semi-hard. He catches me checking out his cock and grins, wagging a finger. “We will have plenty of each other. Right now, you rest. No arguments.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say and give him a look that takes him from half-cocked to all the way in seconds.

  “Look what you do to me.” He swings a palm at himself. “Nice.”

  “Very nice,” I reply with a wink.

  He steps into the heated water and swims to me. The tub is the size of my bedroom. Mick's arms tuck me in tight against his front.

  Lacing our fingers together, he nuzzles my neck, pushing my wet hair away.

  I feel his hardness against my ass. “I thought you told me to rest.”

  “Mhmm...” He dives and pecks until my head falls back against his shoulder in surrender.

  “I want to take you again and again. I don't want to hurt you.”

  I move my ass against his hard-on, and he groans, nipping my neck. A a small sound slips out of my mouth, and his arms tighten around me.

  “Behave,” he says.

  I laugh, and his dick falls between the cheeks of my ass.

  “Faren...” he warns in a growl.

  I relent. Truthfully, I'm sore.

  We're quiet for a minute. Mick lifts our hands and slides a finger over the scar in the middle of my palm.

  “We have to talk about what happened.”

  I tense, and his lips fall on my shoulder.

  “Why are you doing it?” he asks.

  I knew this moment would come, but I didn't want it to. No matter what happens in my life, the world keeps spinning.

  The world moves even when mine grinds to a halt.

  “It's my mom. If I don't pay off the debt at the place where they care for her, she'll be moved to a state home.” I tell the first truth. A whole piece of it. I thought it'd feel like surgery without anesthesia, but instead, it feels like closure.

  Mick says nothing.

  He hates me. He thinks I've set him up. Maybe this whole thing was a ploy to get something from him. But even if he tosses me out, I know I gave myself to him completely. I didn't hold back one part of me back—he got all of me.

  The horrible threads of those spoiled musings unravel through my mind in seconds.

  His voice rumbles against my wet back. “I said I would take care of you.”

  My breath hitches.

  “I didn't want you to feel obligated; I don't want to... ask.”

  My voice grows smaller.

  “Maybe I only want you to take care of parts of me.”

  “No,” Mick answers.

  “Oh.” My heart is crushed. He doesn't want to take me, not with my stupid baggage.

  He swivels me around to face him, and water slops over the rim of the tub.

  “You misunderstand me.”

  Then tell me so I can live another moment in your arms, my heart shrieks.

  His eyes nail me to the spot.

  “I want every part of you.”

  My eyes widen and neither of us catch the tears that fall.

  His lips show me how every part of him, wants to take care of every part of me.

  I believe.

  ~ 7 ~

  “I want to watch you,” Mick says.

  I stand, the cooling water running off me in rivulets that make small greedy noises as they fall into the tub.

  He holds out his hand, and I slip mine into it as I get out of the water. Mick steadies me for a moment then wraps me in a huge fuzzy towel that covers me from armpit to shin.

  People don't own towels like this, do they? It's like a blanket.

  He tips my head back and kisses me, slow and peaceful. As though my clock isn't ticking. As though we don't have a ton of messy shit to discuss that waits in the shadows of our happiness.

  His lips press and suck at my lower lip and finally come away.

  “Come on,” he says, leading me into the bedroom.

  He's been busy while my fingertips became pruned and the water cooled. The bed had been stripped, and new linen graces it. It's a rich cream with a hint of mocha, a gazillion thread count I'm sure.

  I drop the towel and swim into the sheets. The satiny material caresses me like a lover, and Mick climbs in after me.

  His strong arms wrap around me, and I straddle him, fitting against him perfectly. Every bit of what he just plunged into is spread against him again.

  “Faren,” he says, his hands cupping my breasts, “you make things so difficult.”

  “Or just hard,” I say. My sly smile makes him laugh.

  I fold against him, his erection between us.

  “I don't know what to do with Ty,” he admits softly.

  “I call him Thorn,” I say.

  He nods.

  “A thorn to protect the rose,” Mick recites as though by rote.

  I pull away to look down at him. He tucks a damp tendril of hair behind my ear.

  “He told me, Mick.”

  His eyes close.

  “She was young. Younger than you.”

  I don't interrupt.

  “Rose told my parents that she had a scholarship to the university. But she didn't, she was stripping to pay her way.”

  His eyes open, the normal soothing brown churning to black with his remembered rage.

  “Then one night, a client”—he spits the word out—“wanted more than a dance.”

  He covers his face with a forearm, hiding himself from me.

  Mick's silent for almost a minute.

  “I was supposed to pick her up. I had football practice and asked Thorn to do it.”

  He sighs and restlessly strokes my hair when I put my chin on his chest. “He was eighteen. My birthday was a couple of weeks later.”

  I wait. I know there's more.

  “The bastard used her like no woman should ever be used. I don't know every fucked up thing, but Thorn came on the tail end of it. There were two of them.”

  Thorn told me he murdered Rose's killer.

  He hugs me as if I'm the last solid thing in the world

  “Thorn didn't know any better. He hit one of the fucker's over the head with his hockey stick, but the other guy had a
knife...”

  “He stabbed Thorn?”

  Mick nodded. “Yes. Then he ran off. The cops came, and Thorn had Rose's blood all over him. His hockey stick was caked with blood and hair, and a dead guy had a bashed in head and leaking brains. They tossed Ty in prison.”

  Horrible image. “No… There were two?”

  He nodded, gently fisting my hair and releasing and fisting again. “Thorn had a juvie record a mile long.”

  Things came together like a horrible puzzle.

  “Tagger,” I guessed. “He was the responding cop?”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  “Oh god.” That's why he's such a prick.

  “I don't bother trying to reason with that dick anymore. He took one look at Thorn and there was no trial, just a ramrod with no lubricant.”

  I pause. “What about his folks?”

  “They were users. Well, his mom was. He didn't know who his dad was. He had it rough,” Mick says.

  “So Tagger just thought where there's smoke, there's fire?”

  “Yes, he was lead, and his word was golden. And here's the kicker. When I finally got the money from my invention and funded clearing Thorn’s name?”

  I nod.

  “He was made a hero for taking out one of the killers and trying to save the helpless stripper.” Mick gives a small shrug. “But by then, it was too late. Thorn had a record, and my sister's secret was inadvertently told through her murder. It wrecked my parents, wrecked Thorn...”

  “And wrecked you,” I expound, including him in the net of condemnation.

  My hands slip to his strong jaw, and I see the conviction in his eyes.

  “I've been broken, not beaten,” he says.

  “At least Thorn got a chunk out of the second bastard.”

  My brows lift.

  “Yeah, he got a swipe in with the asshole's own knife.”

  “Did Thorn see who he was?” I ask.

  Mick shakes his head, dislodging me gently as he lifts up on an elbow.

  “He just won't buy it. He's convinced Thorn’s guilty and I bought him out of jail. There's only Thorn's word there was another assailant; his DNA was at the scene, not some secondary attacker.”

  “Where's the knife?” I ask.

  “Good question.”

  Everything seems to point to evidence tampering from where I sit.

  Mick's eyes burn with his hatred. “Like I'd ever let anyone get away with hurting someone I love.”