A Vow So Soulless, page 26
“Open.”
She finally does so, parting her lips slightly until I can see the blunt, shiny edges of her teeth.
“Wider, Songbird,” I groan. My hips roll without me meaning for them to, the tip of my cock colliding with her lips and smearing precum there. I press my thumb harder at the place above her chin, pushing downwards against the lower half of her jaw until her mouth is forced into a pretty pink O shape. My slick head is right fucking there, and it only takes a miniscule nudge to send it past her lips and teeth and into the wet cavern of her mouth.
“Now suck.”
She does so, an experimental tug of tension against the tip of my cock that has me straining in the chair. Her tongue prods delicately at my leaking tip, then lower, stroking its silken surface across my glans. I can tell she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing. She’s treating the tip of my dick like a lollipop instead of sucking me down deeper, but for the moment I don’t give a flying fuck. My balls get hot and tight, my shaft practically vibrating, needing more and needing her not to stop even for a second all at the same damn time.
I bury my hand in her hair, gripping the back of her head and mussing up her braid, guiding her down at the same time that I thrust up. She gives a muffles squeak of surprise that I feel all the way down to my balls.
But she doesn’t let up. Sloppily trying to time herself to my new gyrating rhythm, she bobs her head. Instinctively, she slides a hand further up my thigh until she’s got her fist sliding up and down the throbbing length of me.
“You’re doing so fucking well,” I groan, bucking up into her mouth a little harder than I mean to, making her choke a bit. I slide my fingers out of her hair to the soft place beneath her jaw, then lower, to the front of her throat. Massaging there, I coax her, “Take me deeper.”
Her eyes meet mine. Searing, endless, heart-stopping fucking blue. Her face is flushed, her hair a mess, her mouth filled with my cock and she couldn’t look any fucking better.
She used to fight me. She used to fight me so fucking hard. But now I’ve got her on her knees with my dick in her mouth and she isn’t even trying to bite it off. And when I nudge myself further inside, she relaxes and she fucking takes me deeper.
“Fuck. Stay like that,” I breathe, returning my hand to the back of her head as I fuck her mouth. She’s not trying to move on her own or suck now, I’m going too hard for that. All she can do is kneel there and fucking take it, holding her mouth open for me as her eyes slide shut.
I cannot fucking wait to marry this girl.
Maybe I’ll have her suck me off right before the wedding, when she looks all pristine with her hair and makeup done, her white dress pooling around her body as she kneels.
A heady moan fills my lungs at that image, and my dick spasms hard in the silken wet of my fiancée’s mouth. A jet of come shoots forward, filling her and probably surprising her, because she makes a garbled sound and tries to pull away. My hand turns hard as stone on the back of her head, holding her there, trapping her.
“I said,” I grit out between waves of mind-bending pleasure, “that I was going to come inside you. Do not fucking move.”
I can’t believe she obeys, but she actually does. She stops fighting my hold as I spurt once more into her mouth. Forced to either swallow or choke, she chooses the former. Her throat contracts, and the suction in her mouth increases, making me bite back a gruff moan as my dick grows exquisitely sensitive.
There’s a temptation to let my eyes roll back in my head and just enjoy the physical sensations. But I don’t. I keep them wide fucking open, fastened on Deirdre’s blushing face as she struggles so prettily to swallow everything I’ve given her.
Eventually, the pressure of her mouth on me turns into a breathless sort of torture. I ease my grip and let her wrench herself off of my cock with a wet-sounding gasp. Her mouth hangs slightly open as she pants, her lips swollen and smeared with saliva and the remnants of me.
It makes me feel like I’m going to get hard again already.
It makes me want to get back inside her pussy.
“Morelli will get you the pill,” I grunt, yanking my clothes from the floor and hitching them up over my hips. I tuck my dick back inside and fasten everything into place without standing. I’m not entirely convinced my legs are going to hold me yet.
Deirdre’s glazed look morphs into a glare, as if she’s suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be pissed at me.
“I shouldn’t have to ask your permission for something like that,” she says, getting shakily to her feet so that she’s looking down at me instead of up. Her face gets even redder when my gaze goes to her bare legs and pussy and she snatches at her clothes, pulling them up violently like she’s even more mad at them than at me.
“Don’t worry, Songbird. I don’t plan on making you into a mamma just yet,” I reply. “Want to enjoy you as my wife first. Keep you just for me a little while longer.”
“Alright, well… That doesn’t cover everything, though. The pill, I mean.” She hesitates, and I stare at her unblinking, waiting for her to spit out whatever the fuck it is she’s trying to say. She takes a steeling breath then says in a rush, “Have you been tested recently?”
“Tested? Like, tested tested?”
She nods.
“I need to know,” she says defensively, even though I’m not offended in the slightest. “Since you don’t use…”
“Condoms?” I say with a sardonic smirk. “Actually, Songbird, I pretty much always use condoms. Have for more than a decade. And I have been tested recently. Results are all clear on everything. Morelli’s a demanding son of a bitch, and I don’t always ignore his recommendations.”
“You…” Her eyebrows do that cute frowny thing that creates the wrinkle between them that I always want to poke.
Or lick.
“You always use protection? But… with me…”
“Not with you.” I rise from the chair, towering over her, forcing her to crane her neck and stare up at me. “Never with you. I told you that we are fucking bound. No barriers.”
I palm her neck, then lower my mouth, sucking gently at her ear until she shivers and gasps. Releasing that slip of skin from between my teeth, I murmur hotly, “You have no fucking idea what it feels like to be inside you with nothing between us. To feel how fucking wet you are, gripping me the way you do. Like your pussy can’t get enough of me even if that stubborn little mouth won’t admit it.”
She looks pissed, and almost a little guilty, no doubt because she knows I’m right.
I can’t stop myself from sucking her ear into my mouth again, then nipping down along her throat. She shudders, then plants two ineffectual hands against my chest.
“I have homework,” she objects. “I need to… to…”
She’s losing her train of thought as I lick the sensitive places her heart beats.
But her homework is important, especially since I know that she skipped some of her classes while I was indisposed.
“Go,” I say, taking one last, obsessive inhale against her skin, my cock twitching, before I straighten up. “Now. Or else I’ll be coming inside you again and this time it won’t be your mouth.”
She turns and runs like prey.
Chapter 31
Deirdre
I don’t see Elio again that night. Apparently he has a business meeting with Valentina’s fiancé, Dario Fabbri, as well as Dario’s father. Something to do with a financing deal the Titones are offering in relation to a real estate development in Northern Ontario. Other than a quick meeting with Doctor Morelli, when he gives me my first pack of birth control pills to start taking tonight, I don’t interact much with anyone.
Alone, I think about sleeping in the other bed, the one I haven’t touched in weeks. But I can only imagine what would happen if he came home late at night and found me there. Either he’d slide right in beside me so that I didn’t have any distance from him at all.
Or he’d drag me out by the hair and take me back to his bed to punish me. So far, he’s been willing not to come inside me. I figure it’s better not to push him now.
Besides, I’ve gotten used to his bed, as crazy as that is. Even though Rosa changes the sheets every day, the bed still smells like him. I curl amongst the pillows and I fall asleep alone.
I’m alone when I wake up in the morning, too.
But clearly, Elio has been here at some point in the night. Because the first thing I see when I open my eyes is a small box on the bedside table that I know for a fact wasn’t there last night. Behind the box is a vase exploding with roses, each one of them with petals as rich and uniformly black as Elio’s leather gloves.
I sit up in bed, stroking along the edge of one of the black petals. It’s so luscious, almost like it would melt at the heat of my touch, like frosting.
“He had to go with black,” I say with a slight chuckle, brushing some of my hair out of my face. It’s dark and dramatic and so positively Elio. I let my eyes fall from the flowers to the box. I don’t move to touch it for a long time, staring at the envelope on top of the perfectly-wrapped shiny silver box.
But ultimately, my curiosity overpowers any reluctance. I take the envelope from the top of the box and open it, pulling out a plain, thick white card.
Songbird,
I hope you enjoy the flowers and the gift. Wear something nice later because I’m taking you out.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Eternally yours,
Your future husband
I stare at the card so long the words all blur together. This cannot be fucking real. Elio Titone wrote me a Valentine’s Day card?!
I completely forgot today even was Valentine’s Day. With being so worried about him, the days have been slipping by almost completely unnoticed. But even so, even knowing what day it is now, this completely confounds me. Elio does not seem like a Valentine sort of guy. He’s the kind of guy who’d send somebody a severed hand before he sent them a card.
Was I supposed to get him something? What the hell do you get the horrifically rich man who kidnapped you, used your debt against you, and manipulated you into agreeing to marry him?
The man who’s somehow worming his way into your heart no matter what you do to try to stop him?
“No,” I say aloud, “I refuse to feel guilty.” But even so, I’m already frantically trying to think of last-minute things I could do for the big, murderous idiot as I tear the glossy paper off of the small box.
Inside the box is a large, shiny metal rectangle. I pull it out, peering closely at it, trying to figure out just what it is. It has hinges on the side, like it’s meant to open. It’s not too large and fits easily into the palm of my hand. It almost reminds me of a case for cigarettes, but I obviously don’t need one of those, and with all of Elio’s aversions to things fire and smoke-related that doesn’t seem likely. I trace my finger along the seam of the rectangle, then over the gorgeous engraving of a violin and bow on the front. It’s the exact same colour as my ring, I realize. I guess it must be platinum.
Pondering the mystery of what exactly this gift is supposed to be, I shrug, find a small latch along the side, then open it.
And for a second, I actually think I must be dreaming.
Because inside, the way a tiny photo would be nestled into the heart of a locket, is my favourite photo of my mom and me. I stare at our wide grins and feel oddly off-balance, like I’m staring down a long tunnel and into my own past.
It’s not the photo itself that’s throwing me off that much. This picture had a prime place on my desk in my old room. I looked at it every fucking day.
It’s seeing the photo here. It’s having it again, seeing her smile again, when I wasn’t sure I ever would. Elio told me the house was probably looted by enemies of my father.
But somehow, someway, he must have saved this little piece of my heart. I wonder how long he’s had it. The platinum case fits the photo perfectly, and between that and the engraving I have no doubt it’s been custom made. But Elio has so much money and power he could probably pay somebody to do a project like that in less than twenty-four hours.
He was gone a long time yesterday…
I never found out where he went.
I fumble for my phone, sniffing hard against tears I didn’t even know were there until now. With shaking fingers I call him.
He answers immediately.
“Good morning, Songbird,” he purrs into the phone, his voice like smoke and chocolate. “Did you get my gift?”
“Yes,” I croak. I clear my throat. “When did you… How…”
He chuckles, and I swear I feel the sound of it between my legs. I press my thighs together.
“Can’t a man have any secrets?”
“Not from your wife,” I say, rather smartly, I think, considering how my mind is reeling.
He laughs again, softly, the sound pouring into my ear and making my nipples harden.
“I was there yesterday. Stopped by after taking care of a little legal matter.”
“How…” I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. “How was it?”
“Trashed,” he replies, “just like I thought it would be. Anything of any value was taken and everything else was basically destroyed.”
“But this… You found this. And you brought it back for me,” I whisper, my eyes filling as I stroke the side of the photograph. I still remember that day so vividly. It was the last birthday I shared with my mom. It was her birthday, but she wanted to go to the amusement park because it would be more fun for me.
“Of course,” he says nonchalantly, “I wasn’t going to leave your mamma there in that fucking mess.”
“Thank you,” I say, but it comes out more like a sob.
Elio is quiet on the other end while I take a moment to collect myself.
“God,” I say, swiping at my wet cheeks, “I used to look at this picture every day. But now it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time. She was so, so beautiful.”
“Like mamma, like daughter,” Elio says, and it’s gentle, maybe more gentle than I’ve ever heard him.
I laugh tearily.
“I don’t know. I never thought I looked much like her.”
“Really?” Elio says, sounding genuinely surprised. “There’s different colouring, sure. But when I saw that photo, I thought you both had the exact same smile.”
My breath catches. No one has ever told me that before. Anytime anyone ever commented on my appearance growing up, it was always to remark upon the red hair I inherited from my father. But as I stare down at the photograph, I suddenly see that Elio is right. How did he notice that when nobody else did? Not even me?
I wipe at my eyes again, then hug the photo, platinum case and all, to my chest. Now that I know what’s inside, the violin and bow engraved on the front are even more meaningful. Because that’s something that I shared with her.
“Was there anything else at the house of note?” I ask, trying to move my mind onto more practical questions because otherwise I think my heart might crack right open. “Anything to do with my father?”
I’m curious if there were any signs that he’s been back to the house, though I doubt he has been. And after everything that’s happened, after it’s become crystal clear that he never planned to come back for me after selling me out in the first fucking place, I have no interest in seeing him even if he does come back.
“There was…” Elio pauses for so long I think something’s gone wrong with the call.
“Elio?”
“There was nothing else.” His voice is suddenly clipped, like he’s pissed about something. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about my dad.
Which is fair enough. Because neither do I.
“Alright, well… I guess I’ll let you go,” I say, but the words are halting, like I don’t want to end the call at all. The bed suddenly feels so empty, and before I can reign it in, there’s a stab of desire. The desire to have Elio here with me.
“Did you sleep in the bed last night?” I ask abruptly.
“Sure did,” he says, and he doesn’t sound annoyed anymore. He sounds like a very smug cartoon cat with a bird’s wing caught beneath its paw. “You didn’t even stir when I got home. Guess I tired you out too much in my office yesterday.”
“Where are you now?” I ask, ignoring the lurid implication of his last words.
“Why? Miss me?”
The thing is, I actually do. And that’s kind of terrifying.
“Can’t a woman have any secrets?” I huff, copying his earlier question and feeling my cheeks warm.
“Not from her husband.”
“You’re not my husband yet,” I counter, trying to control the slightly giddy feeling rising in my chest. I think it’s very fucking likely that I am flirting with my fiancé and I really don’t want to acknowledge that possibility.
“Not long now,” he muses, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Two weeks and a day.”
My stomach flips. That’s really, really soon.
And for the first time, I’m not filled with utter dread at the prospect.
What is happening to me?
“Valentina’s coming over later,” Elio says. “She’s going to bring you some dresses. Get you all dolled up.”
“Where are we going?”
“Out for dinner.”
“You realize we’re doing this in the complete wrong order, right?” I say, letting out a breathy laugh. “Usually going out for dinner for the first time is something you do before you get engaged.”
“Yeah, well, most guys don’t get shot the first time they meet their fiancée, either. What can I say? We’re unconventional.”
I snort loudly. I’m not crying anymore. It actually feels good to talk with him like this. Despite what he just said, it feels oddly normal.
I hear a man’s voice in the background.
“You still haven’t told me where you are,” I remind him.
“Downtown,” he replies. “We’re providing the concrete for a construction project. I’m checking on things.”
I have trouble picturing him somewhere as mundane as a construction site.
