Forever Loved (Forever Lost Book 2) (10 page)

“Leo!” she screamed, and that was when his lips pressed against her shoulder tenderly. He kissed and nipped at her, having let go of her arms, but he kept his fingers entwined with hers at her sides. Leo was awake, Cassie could tell, but he didn’t seem interested in fighting this strange urge either. He pushed her thighs closed and continued thrusting inside of her, not needing to ask if she wanted more.

After Cassie came again, he pulled out and flipped her onto her back. He tore open her thighs and was back inside in an instant. Leo then he covered every inch of her body with his own. Their lips were fused, and their chests and stomachs felt glued together, while Cassie hooked her legs around his waist. Their lovemaking was frantic, chaotic, and hurried, but also bursting with passion and adoration.

When Leo finished claiming her, she peered up into his eyes, and enjoyed the surprised look in them.

“I’m sorry, I…” He stopped when she grinned up at him knowingly. “My dream, it felt so real, but totally fucked up.”

“I know what you were dreaming about, Leo,” she teased, grinding up against the still hard cock between her legs. “Did you enjoy watching Victor fuck me that night? You were sat so still, and at the time I believed you hated me for having left you. I thought you were there to watch out of some sick satisfaction. Like you wanted to see him own me.”

A low growl started from somewhere deep within Leo’s chest, and Cassie placed her hand over his heart. It was pounding hard. “But now I know it wasn’t that. You loved me even then, and you gave up everything to save me.”

Cassie began moving against him from below; gyrating to help push him in and out of her soaking cleft while Leo remained pressed against her, holding himself over Cassie using his powerful arms. He stayed silent, but she felt his eyes on her, watching her grind on him. She arched up even higher on the bed. Cassie rolled her hips, so fluid and sensuous against his hard muscles, building her climax while he did nothing but let her. “Does it make you hard thinking of me murdering him? Because it makes me wet, Leo. It makes me so desperate to be fucked hard…”

Her words were cut short when Leo silenced her with a forceful kiss. In a flash, her ankles were in his hands, being pressed up into the air by her head. With her body curled up and open to him, her voracious lover stopped her writhing by pounding her hard.

Leo took himself almost all the way out, before plummeting back inside and locking onto her g-spot with the head of his hard-on. She was utterly at his command, and didn’t fight the loud groans and cries her body emitted in response to his epic thrusts.

He was relentless. “Stop, baby. Stop,” she pleaded when her next explosive orgasm ripped through her, but Leo refused. He released her ankles and drew her legs back down to his hips, where he slowed his pursuit to a gentle stroke.

“You always told me not to stop, even when you asked me to.” His sultry voice filled her ears. “But I can’t ever stop, don’t you understand, Cassie? I’ll never stop loving you.” Leo showed her by making love to her. Slow and deep, he commanded each of her senses before he eventually stilled and groaned as he came. He then wrapped her in his arms and continued to hold on tight for as long as she let him.

They dozed together for a while, but Cassie’s hangover came back with a vengeance and she had to give into the hunger growling in her belly. She climbed up and pulled on a shirt, and could feel herself bouncing on the balls of her feet as she headed through the apartment. Finally, they were getting somewhere. Yes, they might both be messed up victims that were potential ticking time bombs of explosive and destructive behavior, but Cassie also felt like they were healing each other with every day that passed. Bit by bit they were recovering, and that was good enough for her.

She was making crumpets and coffee when she felt him behind her. Leo had sneaked in so silently that she nearly jumped, but her body still yearned for his touch, and instead Cassie trembled in sweet remembrance of their day spent in bed. He planted gentle kisses on her shoulders and brought his hands down her arms before he settled them around her slim waist.

“If anyone knew the fucked up things we said and did earlier, I doubt they’d speak to us again,” he teased, and she had to laugh. Leo continued kissing her neck and back, but she wasn’t hungry for him again, not yet. Cassie still needed answers.

“It’s a good thing we can be fucked up together in private then, isn’t it?” she replied, turning to face him, a large bite of buttered crumpet still in her mouth. “Tell me about your nightmares, Leo. I need you to be honest with me about what haunts you, not bottle it up.”

He closed the gap and pulled her to him. “It wasn’t a nightmare this time, love. Usually it’s memories replaying in my mind, mostly the bad, but this time it was a good one.”

“Hmm, I remember you like to watch.” Her eyebrow shot up, and Cassie let him see she was grinning. “Even that night?”

“Yep.” Leo took a bite out of her makeshift meal. “It took everything I had to ignore you at my party, and when you guys disappeared I was worried you’d left. I needed Victor to stick around long enough for the Feds to get what they needed, so I went in search of you both.”

“And you found us in the bedroom,” Cassie murmured, finishing his sentence, and Leo nodded.

“I had to play it cool, when all I wanted to do was kill him. But then, you were such a treat to watch. Seeing him fuck you turned me inside out, but I had to make him believe I didn’t care. You helped keep my cover without even realizing it.”

“I believed it,” she murmured, remembering how miserable she’d been made to feel after Leo had pointedly ignored her presence at his party after everything that’d happened.

“Exactly, and you made him believe. He was unarmed and so arrogant, totally convinced that he’d won.” Leo ground his renewed hard-on into her thigh. “Until you took that knife of his and killed him, of course.” He was driving her crazy, and she knew if they weren’t careful they’d end up back in bed before she could finish her food, let alone her questioning.

Cassie stepped away, shaking her head. “You aren’t gonna distract me that easily, Solomon,” she informed him with a smile. “I want more, tell me about your dream the other night. I need to know more about that whore.” She wasn’t going to back down this time, and Leo seemed to sense it. He took a deep breath and made himself a cup of coffee while staring out the window, seemingly gathering his thoughts.

“She was just a means for release at first. I used her only when absolutely necessary, and I am truly sorry for it, Cassie.” She believed him, and stepped close behind her man. Cassie slid a supportive hand up his back and rubbed between his shoulders, needing Leo to know she was still there for him, and was strong enough to hear his story. “When I’d healed up and was trying to convince myself I was over you, I started using drugs—you know that.” Cassie hummed in affirmation, although she hated the thought of him self-medicating. “Our exploits were anywhere from gentle to harsh, and then we progressed to downright dangerous.”

“Like how?” she asked, not taking her hand from his shoulder.

“I never cared what she wanted, I just told her where and when. The fact that she kept coming back when I called was enough to convince me she was enjoying herself with me, but we never talked other than for me to issue my orders. Sometimes I’d gag and whip her, other times I’d beat her.” Leo turned to face Cassie, and she could see the regret in his stare. “I’d gone back to the old me, and then some. I paid her well, and I guess she must’ve been a masochist, ’cause she came back day after day. Always wanting more of the monster, the legend that was Leonardo Solomon.”

“Many a woman, both weak and strong, has bowed before you, Leo. Even I wanted a piece of that monster I knew was lurking beneath your gentlemanly façade,” she told him. It was the truth, and dangerous or not, she could see the attraction. “Did you enjoy beating her while thinking of me?” Cassie couldn’t help asking the question, and she bit the inside of her lip in anticipation of his answer.

“No, love. By that point I think I’d stopped associating her with you at all. I’d tried to force you away as much as possible, to mask my feelings, and the cocaine was helping with that.” Cassie nodded in understanding. Although it killed her to think of him fucking that whore, she was relieved to hear that she hadn’t been on his mind while he was beating her, and felt herself relax again. “We started dabbling in more BDSM, and I liked it, but then one day I discovered something else.”

“Please tell me it’s nothing to do with golden showers or ball gags?” she teased, and Leo let out a gruff laugh as he turned to face her.

“Well…” He pulled her close and laughed again, and Cassie was glad to hear that he was staying calm and on top of his emotions. “No, it’s something often referred to as ‘ravishment fantasy.’ You’d given me a taste of it the morning we’d woken up at my place. Do you remember?” She sure did. Cassie thought back to that first night together with a smile, and remembered how she’d asked him to force her after her intense dream the following morning. They’d been refused any other chances to be together after that, as just hours after they’d cemented their relationship at last, she’d caught the attention of the monster who made it his mission to tear her away.

“Rape?” Cassie asked wide-eyed.

“Kinda, but consensual of course. We started out small, and I enjoyed forcing her. Having her completely at my mercy was a thrill. I ended up texting her to meet me behind one of my clubs one night, where I jumped her. She knew it was me, and went along with it. I liked having her at my command, but I liked it too much. One night I beat her badly in the throes of the roleplay. After that, she was never safe, and I even put her in the hospital.”

“Jeez.” Cassie peered up at him. “I was getting all hot and bothered until you said that.” She meant it. Although she hated that he’d been indulging in those darker fantasies without her, especially with “whore Cassie,” the sheer thought of him ravishing her that way had her body aching for him to show her exactly what he meant.

“I was a mess back then, but now I can control it—control myself. I’d love nothing more than to show you,” Leo replied, kissing her deeply. “But we need to take it slowly, love. Explore your limits.”

“I’d like that,” she replied, snuggling into his hold. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but Victor showed me some of the things I hadn’t thought I’d like too.” Leo tensed.

“I saw for myself.” His tone was bitter and full of venom. “When I came to visit after you’d just gotten married, he linked the camera feed from your room into mine. I was forced to see and hear the two of you going at it.”

Cassie gasped in shock. “Leo, I had no idea about that,” she told him honestly, and stepped away with a shudder. “You know I only did what I had to so he’d believe I loved him? I had to be the wife he wanted me to be, or else I’d end up another whore to be used and abused by his men and their clients.”

“I know, love. I know.” His tone was soothing now, and he recaptured her in his embrace. “At the time I believed it. I’d been bested. I don’t normally admit defeat, but in that moment, I was done with you. When I got back to New York, I buried myself in work and pussy. The last time I was with
her
I wrapped my hands around her neck and screamed at her until she passed out. I saw your face again, and felt my anger at you come pouring out of me.” He winced, and Cassie knew it was a hard memory for him to relive, either awake or asleep. “That’s what I was dreaming about the other day. I almost killed her that night, and after that I never saw her again.”

“How did you get from there to deciding to save me?” Cassie absolutely had to know, otherwise she suspected she’d grow scared of him. Leo had shocked her with his explanation of how dark things had gotten for him, and she needed to find out how he’d gotten from there to now.

“I became so terrified of what I’d become that I had no choice but to sort my life out at last. It was only when I was clean and sober that I could see the truth. You were just surviving, of course you were. Anyone would do the same in your position. I did in prison.” He stopped short, and Cassie detected a hint of deeper agony there that she knew was a conversation for another time. No matter his nonchalance before, prison was a trigger for him, and she could see it.

Leo had done well opening up as much as he already had, so she wasn’t about to push for more. This was a vast improvement on the stubborn silence she’d had from him so far, and Cassie appreciated that he was trying so hard. She wrapped her arms around his waist again and squeezed, offering support and love wordlessly, and she felt him relax around her. Leo kissed the top of her head and leaned into her, and she just continued to hold on to him.

After the longest time, they finally broke apart. Cassie peered up at her man, wanting nothing more than for him to claim her again. “So, tell me more about this ravishment thing,” she said, and her request made him grin from ear to ear.

“Sure, but only if you agree to tell me what other things you’ve discovered you like. I promise not to get jealous.” Leo took a step back and reached out his hand for her to shake.

“Deal,” she agreed as she shook it. He then grabbed her again and pulled Cassie up into his arms. She shrieked loudly but didn’t stop him, planting kisses all over his face and neck as he carried her back to the bedroom.

He laid her down on the soft duvet and peered into her face adoringly, and Cassie stared right back at him. Leo’s arched eyebrow told her he was waiting for her to deliver on her part of the bargain, and she cringed. She felt her cheeks burn as she turned sheepish under his intense gaze, but he didn’t budge. Leo continued to stare down into her eyes expectantly, and she found him intimidating, but in a sexy way instead of scary. Wanting everything he had to give, Cassie opened her mouth at last. “I liked it when…” She took a deep breath and held it. “When he spanked me.” Cassie screwed her eyes shut in anticipation of his response.