Married (32 page)

Tulah’s mother grew bold. Between his insults, she hurled angry explanations—their powerlessness, their hopelessness, their treatment and their desperation. Adam already understood why they’d charted their course, but he could have helped without Tulah climbing into his bed. Without the pain of her dishonesty.

He grabbed Tulah, hauled her naked back against his chest. He taunted her mother, glaring at her, appalled with himself but letting his anger force his hand around Tulah’s throat. His stomach gave a kick of protest, but he brutally killed his reservations.

He slid his palm down Tulah’s chest, much like Graves had done so often. “You’ll make her
my
pet, will you?”

Her mother exploded. Hate burned in her eyes as she crossed the room in a blur. Her nails raked his forearm, he tightened his hold on Tulah, instinctively jerking her back from the attack. The other woman screeched and slapped, trying to angle around her daughter to reach him.

“Stop, Mama!” Tulah’s voice was filled with pain, but emerged strong enough for the command to do its job. “Get out.”

“Tulah!”

“
Go
, Mama!”

Adam pasted a devilish smirk on his face just to taunt the woman further. She didn’t take the bait, but if looks could kill he would have combusted on the spot. She backed toward the door, opening it even as her form dissolved into a smaller shape. A cat jumped from the tangle of her dress and disappeared into the hall.

Adam waved a hand, his magic slammed the door closed. He spun away from Tulah as a fresh wave of fury ate his insides. Guilt was thrown into the volatile mix, but the pain drowned it all.

“Want to sell me a new sob story, then?”

Tulah swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to for any of this, Adam. Please believe me. I only wanted help, and you weren’t real to me when my mother suggested—”

“
Real
. And after you met me, after you
fucked
me? I was still a cardboard cutout?”

“No.” She shook her head, stepped toward him. “Please, tell me how to fix this. This isn’t what I wanted.”

“Fix it?” Rage snarled in his skull and took control of his tongue. “Get on your fucking knees and do your job, pet. Maybe sucking my dick can fix it.”

Tulah dropped to her knees.

The cold anger streaking through Adam grew icicles and stabbed him in the heart. The crimson haze impairing his vision flickered out, bringing the world a clarity that hurt to witness even as lust erupted in his cock and poured shame over his burning wounds. His throat closed with the strain of the anger he fought to contain.

Adam spun on his heel and walked away.

“No!”

Her scream shot past him, echoing off the door as he reached for the knob. Her weight catapulted into his back, sending him crashing into the barrier. He turned in surprise and the ice inside him melted under a blaze of heat.

“You won’t go like this,” Tulah raged into his face. “You won’t leave me until you understand how much I want you.
You
! I don’t give a fuck about your Family, I don’t give a damn if Graves kills me. I… I…”

She clutched at his shirt, hauled herself to her toes and smashed her lips to his. She pressed until the edge of her teeth caught his lip, grinding their mouths together. Small, painful fissures snaked across Adam’s heart and threatened his control.

He jerked back. “I can’t afford your price.”

“I don’t want anything,” she sobbed. “Nothing. I’m sorry,
please
. You don’t even have to help me. Just—”

Her mouth attacked his, fighting him for entry. Her tongue surged past his lips in a hard thrust that demolished his senses and shattered his control completely. Her taste mingled with the leftover fury filling his throat. She kissed him roughly, hard and fast, a caress that demanded raw sex
now
.

He elected to give it to her.

Adam wrested control of the kiss and dominated, trying to force her submission with his lips. Tulah refused. Her mouth consumed his, teeth scraping, tongue flicking and licking and reaching farther. She was melded to his chest, twisting against him, the hard points of her naked, berry-dark nipples stabbing through his shirt. Her fingernails buried themselves in his nape.

He was battered by the force of too many emotions to count. They all collided, roiled together, seeking wide-scale destruction, lashing, whipping and provoking Adam past his ability to slow or stop. His hands were hard as they ironed down Tulah’s body, depressing skin and muscle, clutching her close.

He pulled her nipples, rolled them between his fingers until a ragged sound ripped from her throat. His fingers locked around the mounds, kneading for his pleasure more than hers. He drove his hands lower, blatantly proclaiming his possession of her body, boldly taunting her with what he could do to her.

Adam touched Tulah as if she
were
his pet, his to do with what he pleased. His fingers pressed between her folds with violent intent, pinching her clit, driving toward her pussy. She went to her toes, he took his hand away with a suddenness that had her growling and sent his other hand skimming between the globes of her ass, spreading her cheeks and stretching the delicate flesh they hid.

There was no gentleness. Adam didn’t have it in him. He pulled her closer, until the pressure of her body against his brought a pain that matched the one in his heart. Her bones dug into him but he dragged her closer still, grabbing handfuls of her plump ass to lift her higher. She arched against him, driving his fabric-covered cock between her legs.

Lust snarled and grew teeth, then attacked Adam’s gut and murdered his chivalry.

Blood flooded his dick and set it on fire. His groin throbbed, his balls pulsed. Agony rolled over him and pumped him like a fist, seizing and squeezing his cock until it was more than rigid. An iron baton that
needed
to punish with pleasure.

Adam ripped away from Tulah, grabbed her arm and tossed her toward the bed. He was on her in a flash, before she even reached the mattress, his vision narrowing until the only thing he saw was her smooth back as he bent her over and pushed her down. He laid his full weight against her, his palm sliding up her spine with uncontrolled force.

He grabbed Tulah’s hair and turned her head until her cheek lay against the mattress. Adam leaned over her shoulder and conquered her mouth again, diving deep with no finesse. He bit her, sucked her lip unmercifully She had the audacity to meet him rather than surrender.

He tore at his waistband, snarling as the rigid length of him leaped toward freedom. He was so hard he had to pull his dick from his abdomen, his fist around the base, forcing it down to find Tulah’s heat. He didn’t bother pushing his trousers down.

Adam thrust into her with one quick motion. Driving and driven, he didn’t stop until he hit the end of her, until he was buried deep enough to lose his fabric-covered balls between her ass cheeks. Her pussy enfolded him in scalding softness but the soul-scraping friction of his entry chomped on his sanity.

Her body hadn’t been ready for him.

Pressure and heat squeezed up his spine and shot into his skull, robbing him of thought and breath. Sheer pleasure mangled both his principles and his honor. He’d never felt anything like it—to feel it again became imperative, necessary to function, to live. To forgive. But his anger had sat back just enough to let a cool stream of rationality worm its way past the betrayal.

Just a little, nowhere near enough.

Adam managed to push his hand between Tulah’s body and the mattress before he pulled out. She whimpered and groaned, her mouth growing passive under his. She flinched as he withdrew and so did he, her tight channel clamping down on him, holding him prisoner as he forced his own freedom. The drag of her tissues over him, the compression of her muscles, was too much, yet not enough.

Just right.

He pinched her clit and drove back in. Tulah moaned. He didn’t know if he’d hurt her, and wasn’t about to ask, but her body gave way to his with a surrender that had his cock pulsing. He couldn’t even breathe, let alone form words to ask how she was—not with her pussy sucking him back in, tucking close and flexing around his width. Not while his pain still subjugated his ability to care.

He reached her limits and pushed harder. Her ass cheeks molded to his groin and thighs, cushioning him, enfolding him, squeezing his balls. Adam closed his eyes, pulled his mouth from hers and breathed. Pushed harder. Rocking, rocking—forcing an undeniable pressure in the deepest part of him, the head of his cock sliding against the smoothest surface man could know. Satin and silk and pure fucking fire.

Adam had the extreme pleasure of feeling Tulah liquefy around him and flood with slick honey. He felt it well up from within her, slide against his cock and heat the hard length of him to impossible degrees. Her inner walls melted around him even as they began to spasm. The back of his neck contracted brutally, the base of his spine threatened to shatter.

The world dissolved. There was nothing but Tulah, her heat, her pussy. There was nothing but her satin skin, her hot mouth and her plump ass arching back to slam into his thighs. Adam rode her hard, she struggled to ride him back. He plunged into her, pulling the cream from her depths until his dick gleamed and her ass was slippery against his skin. She shifted her legs, rose onto her toes and cocked her hips, pushing back to take him when he returned.

Adam’s spine unhinged. His hips rocketed forward, his cock shuttled deep. His fingers rubbed her clit, harder and harder, as she lifted for him and sank back down to grind against his hand. Plunging and ramming, he drove them both on as sweat plastered his shirt to his spine, exorcising the pain and the anger, pouring them into her and forcing her to change them into pleasure.

Hot and hard and fast. She cried and screamed, her breath panting over his lips, her head pulling against the hold he maintained on her hair. Her pupils consumed the caramel in her eyes until Adam was lost in their darkness. Tulah’s body twisted, her legs tensed and her ass bounced. She grew hotter, wetter, tighter.

Then she exploded, every contraction of her pussy wringing pleasure from Adam’s cock. He felt her ripple up his entire length as he slammed back in and pushed against her gripping walls. He couldn’t get deep enough, he couldn’t get close enough. His balls detonated and heat ripped through his groin, tearing at his dick until the aching head erupted.

He lost his mind, his reason, his resolve. He existed in a void for an endless moment, nothing but his pleasure and Tulah’s heat surviving the darkness that stole his sight. Emotions snarled and shifted shape as rationality and concern for her charged in and battled them all back.

Tulah went limp beneath him. Adam’s heart hammered against his ribs and his lungs folded inside out. Cold terror dripped down his spine, illness clutched at his diaphragm. He wrenched from Tulah’s body and threw himself on his back at her side.

He didn’t touch her. He tried to close his eyes and escape that way, until his legs stopped being limp noodles and he could force them to carry his weight from the room, but nightmarish scenes were etched on the interior of his eyelids. The knowledge of his actions was a sour spill in his skull, a dark creature taunting him with vicious accusations. He stared at the ceiling in stony silence and forced oxygen into his body.

Tulah was facing him, still on her belly, her lips soft as air rushed between them, her eyes glowing as the caramel returned from the edges of her irises. Adam gritted his teeth. She reached for him, sliding her hand over his shirt, petting him.

He tensed, but didn’t respond. How could he? What was there to say?

Tulah shifted, finding strength a lot faster than him. Slowly, she crawled over, slid over his body until she straddled his waist, dangerously close to his half-hard cock, framed by the open folds of his pants. His eyes darted down without his permission to see her intimate flesh spread before him, glistening with the remnants of his lust.

“Adam?”

“I’m sorry.” It hurt to speak, to think.

“No,” she shook her head, “
I
am. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to trap you. I wanted help, but I never wanted—”

His stomach twisted. “I had no right to take you like that.”

Tulah molded her body to his chest until her lips could smooth over his. “You have been nothing but kind to me. The kindest man I’ve ever met and—”

“Stop!” He couldn’t take it. Fire ants were eating his brain, his muscles were locked down so tight on his bones he didn’t know if they’d ever unclamp. He was afraid to touch her, to push her off his chest. With his pain still lingering under the surface of his shock, Adam didn’t know what he would do next, or how else he might punish her. “You weren’t fucking ready for me and I took you anyway. Then I pulled out and fucking did it again!”

Adam closed his hands around Tulah’s hips to move her off him. He had to get out, he had to get out from under her. She refused to budge. She dug her knees into the mattress, tightened her thighs around his and clutched his shirt. She shifted sinuously, holding on to him, unwittingly sliding his cock between her wet folds.

Or not unwittingly. She shifted again, painting heat over his length.

Adam gasped, lust stretching with new life. His gripped her hips and held her still, tensing further. Her eyes darkened before gleaming with an age-old feminine knowledge. She rolled her hips, wickedly tempting.

Adam almost cried.

“Stop, Tulah.”

She shook her head. “No, you didn’t hurt me. You’ve never physically hurt me, and I understand where the words that did were coming from. I know what women want from you, I heard Constance and her mother talking. That’s where my mother got this stupid idea, but I couldn’t keep doing it. You were so nice to me—”

“Stop moving, Tulah. Just…let me up. I need to go.”

Her fingernails dug into his chest, desperation moving through her eyes. “I started to, Adam. I still tried to use you, even after we had sex, but, after our morning together, it felt too much like something Graves would do. That’s why I never asked for your help. I couldn’t… After… And you being so kind—”