Chapter 140: Give Me Your Darkness
- RAYA -
Dex is so distant as we sit together on the bed, so consumed with his thoughts that after awhile it seems like he’s not even aware I’m here. Not until I draw his attention back, hoping he will talk to me, pairing my words with a gentle touch to help relax him as much as I can.
It’s catching Lawson the way he did that’s tormenting Dex at the moment. I wonder how badly he hurt his brother, because if those scratches and knuckles are any indication, it was bad. Really bad.
I would expect Dex to have maybe received some hits to the face in retaliation rather than scratches on his neck like that, but I’m not going to allow my thoughts to wander into the territory of what position that means Lawson was in. I don’t want to know. Whatever happened, Lawson deserved it. He’s so much scarier and more dangerous than I thought.
It’s eating away at Dex, though. I can see it.
"Talk to me," I say softly.
"I’m not sure I can," he says, shaking his head.
"Can I tell you something then?"
When I first met him, Dex told me that he loved his brother dearly even as he was trying to warn me away from him. Now whatever image he had of Lawson has been shattered and replaced with something far worse than he suspected. Something truly horrible. But that doesn’t mean the love disappears.
Instead, love makes everything more complicated. It’s not just hatred Dex feels but probably also disappointment, bitterness, anger, sorrow, betrayal. How do you grieve for a person you thought you knew but who turns out to be capable of such vile things? It’s like a death, too, isn’t it?
He only recently found out about Lawson’s non-disclosure agreements and the settlements Mobius Media had to make on his behalf. Now Dex has also seen the bald truth of what his brother is capable of—witnessed it with his own eyes.
When Dex’s gaze refocuses on me and he tells me that he hates his brother, I have to fight not to tear up at how riddled with pain those eyes of his are. His expression may remain stoic and impassive, but his eyes have always been open to me. They never lie. He lets me see it all—all those swirling, battling emotions.
Even if his brother is a monster through-and-through and there’s no shred of decency or humanity left in him, Dex isn’t that way. He is decent. He is empathetic. He is human. He can’t help but love, because that’s at the core of who he is. Everything he’s ever mentioned about his mother proves that. Everything he’s done for me proves it, too.
Dex’s biggest weakness and greatest strength is that capacity to love.
I can feel that part of him—almost touch it with my fingers. My hands search for it under his shirt—his heart, his soul, that soft, vulnerable part of him that has been bruised and injured.
Just when I’m thinking of teasing it to the surface, it unleashes on me like a raging storm—desperate and passionate in Dex’s kiss, in his hands, in his touch as he removes my blouse. His mouth closes over my breast, seeking to devour it through the lace, teasing with the sharpness of his teeth.
While his mouth is devouring, his hand sneaks under my skirt—teasing and caressing. The slow, deliberate movements make me whimper with the need he ignites so quickly like a fire flaming between my legs and climbing up my spine, making me arch back into his hand.
My breast pops out of his mouth, and he pants, hand sliding back up over my hip.
"I need you so fucking much, Raya," he rasps against my skin.
"Then take me," I whisper. "Take what you need."
He growls in reply, patience and control shattering with the sound. I’m tossed back on the bed with the beautiful muscular torso and dark, hungry eyes of my lover hovering. Pantyhose and underwear are ripped away unceremoniously and tossed to the side, and then Dex’s mouth is on me. A gasp leaves my lips when he begins devouring the source of that flame he’s created at the apex of my thighs, and I’m left only to writhe and whimper and claw the bedsheets as he feasts on me like I’m his last meal.
"Oh. My god," I pant, back arching off the bed and legs closing around his beautiful head of hair, trying to trap his mouth there so he never leaves.
When I go shooting right over the edge of the climax he was building, erupting into a screaming, trembling mess, he lifts his head and crawls up my body, leaving a trail of small, tantalizing bites as he goes.
Dex is stalking me, I realize when I meet his eyes. Stalking his prey. And in the next moment, he catches me again, taking my mouth and growling into it, making me taste myself on his tongue. His hands cup my face, angling me, demanding most of my breath as he feasts now on my mouth, and then when he slides into me he takes the breath that’s left.
It’s rough at the same time that it’s sweet.
Dex lifts just far enough away that he can stare into my eyes, watch my soul bloom so large and so beautiful for him—offering all of itself to the claim he is making with each thrust and each masculine grunt, each growl of possession that calls to the deep in me.
I’m his. He knows I’m his.
"I love you," I whisper against his lips, and when I do, something changes.
Dex’s rough movements slow and his brows pinch upward until he stills completely. His head drops to the pillow as he stays braced on his forearms, hovering just above.
"You shouldn’t, Raya. I don’t deserve it," he says against my neck. "There’s too much darkness in me."
"There’s no darkness in you," I chuckle, caressing his sides. "None."
"I tried to kill my brother, Raya." His voice breaks, rough with emotion. "I thought I did."
My fingers still as I squeeze my eyes shut and process this. This is the reason. This is the source of the torment he’s holding.
"That’s not darkness," I tell him. "Or if it is, we all have it. It’s not just you. I have it, too."
When he doesn’t answer, I start caressing him again, running my fingertips over the ridges of muscle along his sides and then his back. When that doesn’t get a reaction, I bite the thick muscle that curves his neck into his shoulder and lave my tongue over the skin.
"Give me your darkness, Dex," I whisper in the shell of his ear, arching my hips into him as my legs curl around his back. "Let me take it from you."
