Deconstructing Delilah, page 15
“I think God knows I’m thankful without me having to say grace and I don’t pray for anything selfish or self-serving.”
“It’s that simple?”
“It wasn’t simple at all, Pope,” she says, looking up from her plate to meet my eyes. “It took me a long time to come to the conclusions I have.”
“But at least they are your conclusions,” I say, and she hums in agreement. “This is delicious, Delilah. You’ve got quite a talent.”
“Thank you.” Her cheeks turn rosy, and she sits up straighter.
“My mother used to make this.” I hold up a bite of the quiche.
“Did she?”
“It was one of the few things she made well, so she made it often. My father berated her if he didn’t find something appetizing. It limited our menu.”
“That’s an awful way to live.” Delilah blinks rapidly, her eyes shining with wetness.
“It is. You know something about that, of course. She left when I was in middle school. I guess she couldn’t take his temper any longer.”
“Pope,” Delilah says, saddened.
“Stop it. It’s not worse than what you went through.”
“It’s not a competition. I can be sad for both of our childhoods simultaneously.” I watch her take another bite. I could watch her always. Fuck, I do watch her nearly always. More than she knows, surely. “Do you think bad childhoods are the norm, not the exception?”
“It often feels that way. We both survived them, though.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, that had to be hard.”
“It focused my father’s abusive behavior on me. I never missed my mother. I never made a habit of craving to be around people who don’t want to be around me in return.” Sadness settles on her face, and she doesn’t initiate more conversation until we’re done eating.
After I’ve helped her clear the table and load the dishwasher, I pour myself another drink. She watches me from the other side of the room, not the same confident woman she was at the auction. Delilah is second-guessing whatever she had planned.
“Is there a comfortable spot here to talk?”
She gestures with her head for me to follow, her bare feet silently padding across the hardwood floors. We end up outside. The back patio is mostly a swimming pool, but a plush seating area is set up in the corner.
Delilah sits, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Vulnerable and small, it’s how I’ve always seen her. Except the childishness is gone now.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head and adjusts her dress to flow over her legs and cover her toes.
“Do not lie to me, Delilah.”
“How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Put so much force into your words that I immediately want to obey?”
“Practice. Don’t change the subject.” I lean forward, grasping her hands that she’s now wringing atop her knees.
“You said earlier that you don’t want to be with people that don’t want to be with you. Now I’m second-guessing all of this, because you didn’t want to be here. I forced it.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I’m tired, Pope,” she says, resting her temple on our tangled hands. “It’s exhausting to feel the things I feel and have you walk away from it night after night.”
“What is it you feel?”
“You. I feel you with me all the time. It’s a connection I can’t deny or shake away. Most of the time I think you feel it also but are too cowardly to act on it.”
Too cowardly.
She’ll pay for that.
“It’s not cowardice, Delilah. It takes great goddamned strength to let you live your life the way you do.”
“Then stop doing it,” she pleads. “I spoke with Noah. I know he told you to stay away from me. But that was then.”
“Yet nothing has changed, Delilah.” She sits up, pulls her warm hands away from mine. “My life isn’t suited for someone like you. I don’t want marriage or kids. I don’t even want monogamy.”
Now she stands, pacing the few steps to the pool’s edge where she stops and tips her head to the emerging stars. My eyes follow, wondering which she’s so focused on. When I bring my gaze back to her, she’s letting the dress fall off her pale body.
“I’m not asking for any of those things.”
“Delilah.” She’s the biggest temptress I’ve ever met and all by merely existing. Though the barely there panties she’s wearing help.
“Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me you don’t want me, Pope. Tell me that you don’t crave to be Damian or Fig every time I have one of their cocks in my mouth.”
I grab the straps crossed under her breasts and pull her to me. She stumbles at the force, but I don’t let her fall.
“Watch your mouth.”
“Shut me up.”
“You’ll only get hurt, Delilah.”
“Then I get hurt,” she says, holding her palms up. “I know the risks, Pope. Maybe I just think the rewards in the meantime are worth it.”
Delilah isn’t the first woman to throw herself at me. She is the first one to approach it with a thoughtful argument. She is the only one to ever make me feel like she wants me and not just my money or my dick.
I don’t trust everything she’s said. Delilah, like so many before her, will eventually want what I can’t give. But maybe she’s right. Maybe the in between, the space after we start and before we end, will be worth our eventual fallout.
As if she can see I’m about to give in, her small hands land on my shoulders and she crawls onto my lap.
“All I’m asking is that you give it a try.”
“There are so many rules,” I say, letting her drop her brow to mine.
“Teach me.” Her sweet words land on my mouth and I can do nothing else but take hers. I’ll teach her how I like it all, starting with this. I start the kiss easy; a lick of her lips is all. She gasps as a shiver wracks her spine.
So affected by something so simple.
I deepen it, pushing her back so she has to wrap her hands around my neck to hold on. When I finally push my tongue inside to meet hers, she moans, her body sagging as if the kiss is a relief she’s needed for a lifetime.
My hand finds her ass, middle finger following the crease under her. Another gasp leaves her, and I pull back just enough to speak.
“Show me the bedroom.”
Instead of climbing off me, she latches onto me tighter. Keeping my hand on her ass, I stand and adjust her in my arms.
“Inside, up the stairs,” she says almost dreamily. An innocence I want so desperately to corrupt. I take the stairs and easily find the main bedroom with its king-size bed. My plan was to talk to her first, but as soon as I set her feet on the carpet, Delilah turns to place her hands on the bed. Her ass high in the air.
She’s fucking perfect.
“What are you getting spankings for tonight, Delilah?”
“I bought you and I called you a coward.”
“Do you remember how this works?”
“Yes. I’m to say your name with every spank.” She looks over her shoulder at me.
“Do you know why?”
“So I know it’s you. So I know I am safe.”
I lean down to kiss her again; she pushes that round bottom into my crotch.
“You are safe, but it’s still going to hurt.”
Delilah takes the first handful of swats like a champ before she starts to falter. Her toes dig into the rug as she gets increasingly more uncomfortable, yet there aren’t many other signs. She still calls my name; she still rights her position after each flinch. After a dozen or so, I let her off the hook and pull her up to stand. I can’t take much more myself, I’ve been rock hard since I walked into this house. If I don’t sink my cock into her soon, I’ll lose my fucking mind.
Pulling off the bedding, I pile it in a corner of the room before I return to her. I don’t want anything in the way, nothing between her and I.
“Remove your underwear. The rest can stay.”
Wordlessly, she complies. She’s dressed just right in a black lace bra that barely contains her and straps that crisscross both over her shoulders and down around her abdomen. It makes it easier for me to position her however I please.
“Come here,” I call, sitting at the corner of the bed with my legs spread wide enough for her to get close. “We’ll be using condoms. Are you on birth control?”
“Yes.”
“Are there things you don’t want to do?”
“I’m not experienced enough to know.” Of course she’s not. She’s only been in one relationship, and I doubt that twerp of a man was at all creative. From what I’ve seen of her in the club, it’s been kept to oral. Still enough to make my eyes bleed, but we’ll get to that. “You’ll need to start me off on the bottom rungs.”
“I can do that,” I say, a little amused. “If we do this, if I claim you, there is no more Damian. No more Fig. No more anything that doesn’t involve me.”
“Okay.”
“Be certain, Delilah.” I lay my hands on her bare hips, unable to keep her out of my grip any longer.
“I am. They’re fun, I’ve learned a lot from them. But they were never my first choice.”
“Good,” I say, pulling the cup of her bra down so I can work at her nipple with my thumb. “I’m your teacher now and nobody touches this body without my fucking permission.”
“Yes, Mr. Blackwell,” she says in a teasing tone, making my dick twitch.
“Lie on the bed. On your back, knees up. Face right here at the very edge.” Like she’s done every time tonight, she follows instructions without question. As I strip my clothes off, she watches with rapt attention. Her eyes hooding, her chest flushing pink. “You like watching.”
“As much as you like watching me.”
She’s wrong. I hate watching her. I’m compelled to, but I hate it all the same. Delilah wasn’t wrong earlier when she said I wish it was me in her mouth.
“Open your mouth,” I tell her, one hand moving on my already fully erect cock. She turns her face toward the side of the bed and opens wide, sliding her tongue out without direction. “Eager?”
“Mmhmm.”
The bed is slightly too low for my height. Brushing her hair aside, I prop a knee up to gain a better position. Then I slide into one of the only places I’ve wanted to be for weeks. Years, even.
“Fucking hell.”
She hums again, and I feel it through my balls as they bounce off her cheek.
“Spread your knees,” I say, lightly smacking the one closest to the edge of the bed. It gives me a great view and access to her pink cunt. Walking my fingers down her sternum to her belly button, every muscle they touch twitches. When I slide my middle finger over her clit and through the slit of her pussy, her legs start to pull back together. “No.”
She whines but complies. Every sound she makes amps up my need for her, spurs my hips forward to plant my cock further down her mouth. In return, I slide my finger around and around, heightening her own need. Edging her closer and closer and closer. When she gets too close, I stop, slap her cunt and let her gag as she gasps at the unexpected attention.
This continues until there’s a stream of drool trailing down her cheek and she’s so wet my finger slides inside her with such ease I’d think she couldn’t feel it, but she’s tight as she clenches around it. I can’t wait to taste her, but I know once I do, I’ll be there for a while, and right now… I need to be inside Delilah.
“It’s time, Lamb.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He bends to take a condom out of his pants pocket and sheathes his veiny dick. How many times has he done this? The difference between us is a vast, vast sea. My nerves act up. Things I never planned to say settle on the tip of my tongue.
“Pope.”
With so much ease, he picks me up and repositions me. Still on my back, my butt just at the edge of the bed. He loops his arms under my knees and grabs hold of my wrists, lifting my lower half into the air. I’m so shocked by the quick change; I forget that I was trying to convey something. Information, importance, warning.
He doesn’t know.
It’s too late to tell him as he thrusts in, and I choke on a sob and scream inwardly. He instantly tries to pull away, and I struggle to lock my legs around him, wanting to keep him in place.
“No,” I say through the panic and searing agony that rips through me. “No, Pope.”
Tears well up, shocking me. I’m not much of a crier anymore. I haven’t cried since the day Jillian called me to tell me she was out. Before that, I don’t know how long it had been. Maybe it’s the pain, but I know I’d weep if Pope left me right now.
“What the fuck have you done?”
“I did what you said,” I plead. “I waited for someone I cared about and who I trust. That doesn’t come easy to me.”
Andrew didn’t believe in full-on sex before marriage. Which was fine because I never wanted to have sex with him. Fig and Damian have both offered, but that didn’t feel right. Even after all the things I’ve done with them, to them, taking this step didn’t feel right. I could never seem to want this with anyone but the one man who I offered it to and who repeatedly declined.
Pope’s fingers pull at the hair on either side of my head, his body falling atop mine. He doesn’t pull out of me though and I bare the pain like I’ve borne everything painful in my life. Silently and alone.
“I didn’t know,” he breathes heavily, staring at me with eyes so blank; I’m terrified. Not of him, but for him. “I thought you had with that Andrew.”
“It wasn’t his to have,” I whisper, wondering how he even knows about Andrew.
“Fig and Damian?”
“It wasn’t theirs either.” He blinks, and a little light comes back, but he’s not fully here with me. I bring my hands to his face, trying to make him see me. “Pope, it was always you. The only man I’ve ever instinctually trusted. Please, please accept it. Finish what we’ve started.”
“Delilah.” His fingers tighten and I’m grateful for the pressure there taking the bite of the sting elsewhere. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t,” he snarls. “I want to fucking throttle you by the throat, but at the same time, I want to be gentle too to ease your discomfort.”
“I was going to be in pain one way or another tonight. It’s just not the way you expected.”
“Stop taking it so lightly. This isn’t how it should have happened. You should have been prepared better,” he snaps. “Fuck! I need to move, Delilah. I can’t be in you and not move.”
“Then move, and I’ll move with you.” Before the words have a chance to fade, his mouth is on mine. A hand moves to my breast, gently massaging at the same tempo as his tongue. Mixing pleasure with pain, confusing my senses. He still hasn’t moved his hips or his cock.
Tentatively, I slide my leg against his, raising it, shifting to find a position that might feel better. Pope flinches, dragging some hard part of himself against my clit.
There it is.
I groan into his mouth, sucking his tongue further. My hands land on his sides, and I move them slowly to his ass so I can push him against that spot again. He catches on, taking the hand from my breast and moving it between us right where I need it. He’s still so tightly wound around me, he’s barely moving, and I can barely move.
“Pope, I’m okay. Move like I know you want to.”
At the same time, he thrusts two fingers in my mouth and pushes his hips forward hard enough to fully seat himself inside me. I gasp at the overload of sensations.
“Stop talking, you can’t possibly know what you want.”
If I could laugh with fingers shoved halfway down my throat, I would. There are so few things I’ve wanted in life; I know very well what they are. The amusement in my eyes grabs his attention and he glares in return. Ever my big grumpy brute. I suck my cheeks in, drawing his fingers in further; something we can focus on. Slowly, he begins to fuck my mouth with them, and as I make more and more pleasurable sounds, the more the tension in his jaw begins to relax.
But then he’s gone from both above and below.
“Pope,” I protest.
“Shh. Give me this, then I’ll give you what you want.” He props himself up on an elbow and inserts his fingers where his dick just was. My chest lifts with his gentle ministrations. He soothes as much as brings me closer to the brink I had been on before that small innocence was breached. “This is for me, Delilah. It’s mine, this orgasm you’re about to have. Not Damian’s, or Fig’s, or anyone else who watched you light up the room with your ecstasy. I wanted to murder them that first night. Fabienne had to talk me down. I’d never felt such rage.”
“I wished it was you, but you were with someone else,” I say with shortness of breath. I’m so close, nearly there.
“I was wishing she was you, too. Then you were there, watching, and I couldn’t do it.”
“What?” He pushes the pad of his palm against my clit and pushes me toward my dive.
“I thought I could pretend she was you. But I didn’t fuck her that night, because she couldn’t compare.”
My air hitches, then vanishes altogether. A billion tiny orbs of light reflect into Pope’s eyes as wave after wave hits me. He doesn’t stop working me until I’m nothing but a puddle lying under him. His attention moves away from my face. I don’t mind the chance to admire his profile. I push a lock of stray hair behind his ear. This is the most intimate I’ve ever felt with him. Everything about us has been so intense, so loud, I revel in this small, quiet moment.
When I look at what has him so somber and quiet, I see he’s rubbing his fingers together. My release, stained red.
“Oh,” I exclaim. I hadn’t considered I’d be bleeding. Pope looks back to me, bringing his finger to his chest, and then he draws a cross over his heart.
Then his fingers tangle with mine as he pulls my arms up over my head. He parts my knees, then… he’s back. The sting persists, but so dull in comparison to the feel of Pope as he moves with me while he stares into my eyes.
