Page 9 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 3

I want her. But more than that, I don’t want anyone else to have her.

Yanking her legs over the edge, I grip her midsection and flip her over, so she’s flush with my body—so perfect and right, it’s wrong. Tugging the hem of her shirt, I pull it up over her head, toss it to the floor and, chest to her back, we fall forward, bent over the table. I slide back into her, eyeing a small scar at her shoulder, below the tattoo of a star-shaped flower beneath a moon. Pushing her hair to the side, I lick her skin and bite into her nape, inciting an outcry.

I go at her like a jackhammer, driven on by her cries of ecstasy.

Her hair turns damp, the sweet scent consuming my senses. “The … trajectory … your cock. So … perfectly aligned … with … Oh, oh … yes!” A random string of bullshit has me frowning down at her.

What?

“I have no idea what the fuck you just said, but I like the sound of you talking dirty.”

“Your dick …” Her words are broken by the pounding from behind. “So … perfect … the length … my … fuck me!”

Now that, I understand. I gather her hair into a loose ponytail, squeezing it in my fist, grunting as I up the pace.

“Don’t you come yet,” I warn.

The intensity builds, ready to snap, but I can’t pull the trigger. I bite into her shoulder again, her outcry like music, but not enough.

I push her head down and grip her nape, pinning her there, wishing I could wrap my fingers around her throat. Her screams dance on the cusp of pain, throaty and when she sighs, my stomach tightens and I grit my teeth. All around us, the floorboards the table, the goddamn chairs rattle with the force of my thrusts. In spite of her cries and curses bouncing off the walls, I continue to drive into her. Sweat drips off my skin onto her back.

“Whose pussy is this? Huh? The fuck’s my name, Dylan? Scream it.”

“Rip! My pussy’s yours, Rip!”

“That’s right. It’s mine. No one else fucks it, understand?”

“Yes! Yes!”

I rest my forehead against her back, our sweat-slick skin sliding against one another. The need to hurt something has me gripping her shoulders, and gnashing my teeth. I slam harder, hating myself when she cries out.

A tight grip of my balls sends me over the edge when her fingers dig into me, and I want to punish her for that but I’m done. She’s done.

Back arched, ass high, she lets out a long droning moan that ends on a string of yeahs.

I pull out of her in time to remove the condom, jacking myself off to warm spurts of cum jetting from my dick, and I tip my head back. “Fuck! Fucking hell!”

My little Bandit. My goddamn ruin.

Palms plastered to the table, she rests her head and breathes deeply, and it’s then my eyes scan down her back.

I remove my shirt and wipe away the cum pooling in the small of her spine and frown.

Across her skin are four small rounded scars like cigarette burns, up on her nape and across her back. Interspersed between them are a half dozen smaller white lines, in no particular pattern, like deep cuts, and initials carved with a blade, just above her ass—EB.

“Can I get up?” Her back rises and falls with her languid breaths and she seems unaware that I’m analyzing her skin.

I trail a finger over the markings, each ridge that crosses my skin a message, like braille, of pain and torment. Her pain. Her torture. Why it bothers me so much, I can’t fucking begin to imagine. I’ve lived a lifetime, unaffected by the wounds and scars of others. Hell, I had my own scars, knew all too well what pain and suffering felt like, so why should I be angry at the sight of hers?

I scratch the back of my neck as something dark and possessive rises inside of my gut.

I stare down at my mother, who lies motionless on the floor. Blood seeps from every wound on her back, into the cracks of the floor around her. I’ve counted eighteen stab wounds. Kill. Kill the man who did this. Eighteen wounds. Eighteen.

“How many, Gabriel?” My sister’s voice peels back the noise rattling my skull.

“Eighteen,” I mutter to myself, dragging a finger down her longest scar as the memory breaks. I need to look away but I can’t tear my stare from her ruined skin.

In my periphery, she looks over her shoulder and drops her gaze from mine. “For two days they cut me. Burned me.”