“Go to sleep, Blackbird,” he’d said, then placed a kiss on my neck before laying his head down on the pillow. “Or don’t, up to you. But I’m going to sleep like a fucking rock with my cock buried deep in your perfect pussy.”

How the fuck was I supposed to sleep after he said that? 

And now here I am, desperate for movement, for friction, and not wanting to wake the man whose cock is balls-deep in my cunt.

“Jesus,” I whisper.

I thought at first that he would soften and slip free, but that has not happened. I’m not sure how long it’s been, maybe twenty minutes, but it feels like a fucking eternity. If I could just move, get some relief from this aching need between my thighs…

I’m going to be awake all night at this rate.

Nope. That will be torture. Which he’d probably love.

A thin, determined breath of air threads past my lips.

I shimmy my left arm through the nest of pillows until I’m able to press my fingers to my clit with a sigh of relief. My shoulder is too sore to move easily, but it doesn’t need to be perfect, not with Rowan’s cock filling my pussy. I’m halfway there already, I just need a little pressure.

I start swirling my fingers over the sensitive bundle of nerves, rolling my touch over my piercing as I bite down on my bottom lip. A moan begs to slip free. Moisture slicks my fingers. As I touch myself, I think about all Rowan’s fantasies he whispered while he fucked me—about taking me in a public place, about spreading me wide on a table at the restaurant and devouring me, about using my toy in my pussy as he fills my ass with cum.

A little whimper escapes my lips.

I go still. Hold my breath. Nothing changes in Rowan’s hold or the cadence of his exhalations. No indication that I’ve disturbed him.

When I’m sure nothing has changed, I resume the slow circles.

“Sloane.”

I go completely still, a breath caught in my lungs, my fingers still pressed against my clit and piercing.

“You seem to be up to something. Want to tell me about it?”

“Umm…”

Rowan props himself up on an elbow so he can gaze down at the side of my face. “I thought we talked about hiding.” He shifts his other arm from where it’s draped across my waist and lays his palm on my elbow. I shiver as his lips graze the shell of my ear. I don’t need to see him to know his face is lit with that teasing grin of his, the one he wears so often when we’re together. He’s always trying to get under my skin. Just like now. This was probably his plan all along.

I huff, disgruntled.

He laughs. “I have some ideas. Let me give you my theories.”

His palm slides down my forearm, over my wrist, engulfing my hand. He presses my fingers harder against my clit and I squeeze my eyes closed as a burst of sensation overtakes me.

“I think you couldn’t fall asleep. You were thinking about how good it felt to be fucked the way you deserved. Admittedly, it was probably a little hard to fall asleep with my cock lodged deep in your greedy cunt, wasn’t it?”

Rowan pulls out slowly and slides back in until his hips are flush with my ass. I’m already trembling. He does it again and then bites my earlobe, not hard enough to hurt but with enough force to make me gasp.

“I just asked you a question, love.”

“Y-yes,” I say, and I’m rewarded with a kiss and a harder press of his fingers against my throbbing clit. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Was that so hard?”

I shake my head, even though it might be a lie. If he knows, he doesn’t call me on it.

“I think you couldn’t get out of your head all the things I told you I was going to do to you. You’ve been wondering if they were just fantasies, or promises. And when you couldn’t stop, all those ideas running through your head became need. You need to be fucked, even though you’re so goddamn tired. And you need to know what’s real.”

He’s in my head. It’s terrifying and exhilarating. I’ve been on my own for so long. And now he’s in every thought like he’s always been here.

He was right when he said there’s no way to hide from him anymore. He didn’t just open my cage, he shattered it, and the first breaths of freedom burn in my lungs.

“Yes,” I admit, with more confidence this time. “It’s all true.”

Rowan’s long exhalation drifts across my shoulder, raising goosebumps in my skin. I know without asking that he’s relieved he doesn’t have to pull an answer from me, that as much as I trust him with my body, I trust him with my thoughts and hopes and fears, too.

“Stay right here,” he demands with a press of his hand to mine in a request to keep going.

He slides out of me and the mattress dips as he shifts away. I twist enough that I can watch what he’s doing as he heads toward our luggage. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen his back, and even in the dim light from the ensuite I can see that his skin is marred with several wide, long, scars, but something else spread across his shoulders.

My heart climbs into my throat and threatens to dump itself on the bed.

“Rowan…”

He stops, turning his head to watch over his shoulder as I sit up and look more closely at the black ink that flows over the thick muscles lining his spine. He twists as far as his neck allows to follow my line of sight, but can only see the tip of one wing.

“Is that…? Did you…?”

“Did I get the raven you left on the table tattooed on my back?” His smile is teasing, but there’s a hint of shyness in it as he finishes my thought. “Yeah. Appears to be the case.”

I swallow the vise that threatens to choke me. “Why?”

His grin widens and he shrugs before turning away to rifle through one of the bags. My bag.

“For one thing, I couldn’t really take the original with me. Might get damaged.” He lets out a little sound of triumph and faces me. My mouth is still hanging open with this revelation when I take in what he’s holding—my dildo in one hand, my bottle of lube in the other. “Seems like I still need to clear up a few things for you.”

Rowan prowls toward the bed. My heart ricochets against my ribs like a pinball.

“Turn around. On your knees.”

I swallow. “You’re very demanding.”

Rowan smirks. I give him one final, heated glance before I do as he says and turn my back to him. “Don’t even pretend you don’t enjoy it,” he says as he comes up behind me on the bed. He takes my good hand and folds it around one of the crossbars of the headboard, then positions my hips where he wants them, nudging my knees wider with one of his muscular legs. “Your pussy gives you away. It’s dripping for me, Sloane.”

“You were right. You’re no fucking angel.”

He slides the toy through my lips and presses it to my entrance. “Damn straight. And neither are you.” He guides it into my pussy and back out again in several shallow strokes before turning the vibration on. “I told you I was going to fuck your mouth and I did. I told you I was going to eat your pussy at the restaurant like it’s the best goddamn meal I’ve ever had, and I will. And I told you I was going to fill your ass with cum as I fucked you with a toy. And you know what happened when I said that?”

“No,” I say on the heels of a gasp as he works the toy in deeper thrusts.

“Your cunt gripped so tight around my cock that I thought I’d fucking explode. You were soaked. Dripping down your thighs.” The cap snaps open on the bottle. Lube drizzles down my ass and over the pleated hole. “Have you done this before?”

“Kind of—it was the other way around.” He presses his thumb to my hole, massaging the rim as he continues the rhythm of the toy.

“And you loved it.”

I nod again. “Yes.”

“Good,” is all he says, his tone definitive as he pushes his thumb into my ass to the sound of my gasp.

He loosens my tight ring of muscle, relaxes me into the sensation until I’m pushing back on him in a silent request for more. And then his thumb is gone, replaced with the lubed head of his cock as he glides it over the tight hole, pressing it against me until it slips past the resistance. He pauses as I breathe through the foreign sensation of fullness and then picks up slow and shallow thrusts, each one delving a little deeper against the vibration of the toy.