A Vow So Soulless, page 4
Knowing Elio, he might even like them better that way.
I hang up my towel on an empty hook in the closet, then turn and swiftly head past Elio. He doesn’t move aside for me, and he’s so broad that I’m forced to turn sideways in the doorway, facing him as I squeeze by. My breasts brush his arm, my nipples tightening instantly. It’s like that single brush against him exerts some sort of gravitational pull, because even though I’m more than capable of taking another sideways step out of here, it suddenly becomes a hell of a lot harder. Part of me wants to stay here, trapped between the wood at my back and the man at my front.
Part of me wants him to touch me.
He doesn’t, just keeps his arms crossed while gazing darkly down at me. Although, there is a slight tightening in his biceps beneath the black fabric of his shirt. As if he’s holding himself back from grabbing me.
“Bed,” he reminds me firmly, and I nod, because he’s right. I really need to get some sleep.
I finish sidling out of the closet, my breasts dragging along his arm as I free myself. He lets out a soft hiss of breath at the contact, the muscles in his arms flexing again.
Once out of the closet, I hustle over to my bed. I’m about to drop gratefully into it when Elio’s words freeze me.
“Not that one.”
My stomach does a strange swooping thing, and I can’t decide if it’s good or bad. I hide my confusion behind irritation. Anger is always easier.
“What do you mean, ‘not that one?’” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.
“I mean that you’re not sleeping in that bed tonight. Or any other night. You wanna take a nap or something when I’m not here? Fine, you can use that bed. But from now on you’re going to spend your nights in mine.”
My blood seems to run hot and cold at the same time.
“Like hell, I will,” I snap.
“You will,” he echoes. “And if I have to take a hammer to this bedframe the way I did the doors just to take away your other options then I’ll do it.”
“I’ll just sleep on the floor then.”
“Then I’ll sleep on the floor beside you.” There’s a smoky tinge of amusement in his voice, but it vanishes when he adds, “You’re not getting out of this, Deirdre. You’re not getting away from me. And all jokes aside, I’ll be fucking damned if I let my wife sleep on the floor.”
“I’m not your wife!”
“Not yet. But I wouldn’t let my fiancée sleep on the floor, either.”
Fuming, and apparently completely tongue-tied by his use of words like wife and fiancée, I plop down on my bed and cross my arms, glaring mutinously up at him.
He doesn’t say a single word. Doesn’t even hesitate. He just bends down, fastens his strong hands around my waist, then slings me up against his chest the way he did outside earlier. Before I can even try to wriggle out of his grasp, he’s crossed into his dark bedroom. He bends down and then drops me onto the mattress.
Instantly, I’m scrambling out of the bed. And just as instantly, he’s in front of me, blocking my way, one of his feet between mine on the floor. He bends his knee and shoves his shin against the bed, turning his leg into a bar that locks me in. I try to stand up anyway, but the press of his leg ruins my balance, and when I halfway straighten up, all it takes is the poke of a single leather finger against my forehead to send me sprawling backwards, arms akimbo.
“You’re sleeping here, Songbird. We’re not negotiating this.”
I lie on my back, breathing hard, watching as the velvet shadow of him starts undoing the buttons on his shirt before shrugging out of it. His hands go to his belt, and my heart leaps rebelliously into my throat when the clink of metal lets me know that he’s unfastened it. He lets his clothing fall to the floor and kicks it away. I know without being able to see him well enough in the darkness that he’s taken everything off.
Everything except the gloves, I suppose, because when he grabs my wrist beneath the silk sleeve of my pyjama top, it’s not his skin on mine.
He pulls my wrist so I’m forced to roll onto my side. Now that I’m out of the way, he pulls back the covers I was on top of with a firmly decisive yank. He forcefully rolls me back into the spot before dropping the covers on top of me.
Then he slides in beneath them on the other side.
I’m so tense beside him that my teeth begin to chatter all over again. I can’t help it. I’ve never shared a bed with him like this. Earlier tonight we were in the other bed together, sure, but we weren’t really in it. More like… on it. Somehow, having sex on top of the blankets feels way less vulnerable than sleeping with Elio in a literal sense this way.
Elio must feel my trembling, or hear the teeth chattering, because he draws me closer, one of his gloved hands sliding against my lower back.
“Shh,” he murmurs against my forehead, and the sound is so soft and gentle it’s entirely unnatural and frankly, kind of alarming. “Shh, Songbird. None of that now.”
“I can’t help it,” I stammer. “If you can’t sleep beside me then let me go back to the other bed.”
His lips skim across my forehead, and I can’t tell if it’s a feather-light kiss or just a coincidence of motion as he prepares to speak.
“I’d rather stay awake all night beside you,” he says, tracing an exquisitely tingly line up and down my spine with his fingertips, “than sleep like a baby in another room without you.”
“And what about what I want?” I whisper against his throat.
“I don’t think you actually know what that is.” He doesn’t give me a chance to argue back or get offended. “Think about it,” he says. “Think about it fucking properly. Do you really, truly want to go to another room alone tonight? After everything that’s happened? Because that wasn’t what you seemed to want earlier, and shit has only gotten more intense since then.”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer.
Because I’m afraid that he’s absolutely right.
In the silence, I try to slow my breathing. Elio’s lips press to my forehead once more, and this time I’m sure it’s an intentional kiss, sweet and oddly chaste for somebody like him. Maybe it’s some kind of peace offering. A way to tell me that this might actually be alright if I could only let it.
He’s so freaking warm. Like a furnace in the shape of a man, and without even meaning to I’m nudging closer to him. My hands are balled into fists against his chest, and I force them to relax. But then I don’t know what to do with them, so I clasp them tightly together beneath my chin, the gesture of someone in fervent prayer, or maybe someone begging.
I don’t like that either, and with something that feels like a wall inside me breaking, I release my hands from each other and slide them tentatively along his chest, feeling the dark heat of him, the hard muscle, the hair.
The beating of his heart.
It’s hammering almost as hard and fast as mine.
“Did you down a bunch of espresso when I was drinking tea or something?” I say, so surprised and confused that I press my hands harder against him, as if I’d somehow felt him wrong.
“Nope.”
“Adrenaline really is a hell of a drug,” I mutter.
He lets out a chuckle, and I feel the rumble of it under my hands.
“That’s not adrenaline,” he tells me, shifting slightly closer until I feel the unmistakable nudge of his hard cock against my hip. “That’s you, Songbird. You’ve worked your way in between my fucking ribs, and I can’t tell if you’re tearing shit apart in there or putting it all back together.” He rests his chin against the top of my head and murmurs, “Probably both.”
My heart is racing all the faster now, and it’s not because of what he’s saying but because of the unignorable, undeniable hardness at my hip. He’s not moving, not grinding it against me, not doing anything at all to draw attention to it, and yet I can’t think about anything else. His cock burns right through the silk of the pyjamas, like it’s somehow hotter than the rest of him. And maybe it is. Because I remember the bright sting of that heat inside me earlier. The effervescent stretch of his thick shaft invading my pussy. The way he stroked and stabbed, demanding and giving all at the same time. Jamming himself with hungry expertise against a deep place that made every cell in my body shudder and then explode.
He hasn’t cleaned himself off the way I have.
My blood is probably still on him. Dry now, but there all the same.
Why do I feel a sick throb of satisfaction at that thought? The thought that I’ve made my mark on him somehow. Or maybe it’s just because I know he likes it.
You’re claiming my cock with your blood the same way I’ve already stained you with mine. That first night, Songbird, do you remember? When I got shot and bled all over you.
That’s what he groaned, harsh and raw, when he broke me open. And then…
I would have fucking died for you that night.
My stomach drops, and my pussy squeezes so hard that it almost feels like a tiny orgasm. I hurt down there, and I can’t tell if it’s because of what happened tonight…
Or because I feel so strangely empty.
Elio adjusts his position slightly, forcing a thick thigh between mine, his cock jerking away from my hip until its underside is thrust flat against my belly, hooked beneath the pyjama top. Skin to skin.
It’s so quiet, barely a whisper, but in the dense stillness of the room there’s no mistaking Elio’s half-hissed inhale, “Merda.”
I’m not sure my heart is located in my chest any longer, because I feel my pulse strongest in my head and in my clit. Elio must be in the same boat. Because his cock keeps doing these tight little throbs against my belly.
But he still doesn’t do anything about it. Doesn’t grip his shaft to jerk himself or try to make me touch him. He just lies against me, chest heaving with slightly unsteady breaths, cock twitching.
I feel like the tension is going to crack my skull in half. Finally, I blurt out, “You can’t possibly mean to sleep like that!”
“Like what?” is his maddening reply.
This man. This fucking man.
“Like… Like this! Like… How you are!”
“You mean so hard I’m on the verge of trying to fuck your goddamn belly button?”
My cheeks flame.
“Well, for lack of a more elegant way to say it, yes!”
“You don’t need to worry about that, Deirdre. You need sleep and I plan to let you get it. My blue balls are none of your concern right now.”
There’s a certain slant to the word tonight that makes me think it is going to be my concern another time, and soon.
“Well, it’s not like I can sleep like this either,” I huff.
“No? Well, how about this?”
He grabs me and rolls me over so that my back is to him. He seals his molten chest to my spine, searing me through the silk.
Then he shoves his cock between my thighs.
I freeze, barely breathing, but he’s not inside me. My pyjama pants are still on, after all. No, he’s just thrust himself into the tight place at the apex of my thighs, the smooth tip of him jutting forward between my legs. The pressure against my pounding pussy is crazy, and an involuntary tremor goes through me, tightening the muscles in my legs.
“Oh, fuck,” Elio rasps. “Yeah, squeeze down on me like that.”
My muscles leap to obey him before my brain can catch up. I squeeze him, and he groans.
“Perfect,” he says, voice thick. He grips my hip possessively, buries his face in the crook of my neck, and then impossibly, insanely, he mutters, “Now go to sleep.”
Chapter 5
Elio
My Songbird is so damn cute when she tries to act tough. She’s all stiff and awkward, trying not to give into her body’s exhaustion with me behind her, my cock stuffed between her thighs. But I know she’s beyond tired, and slowly but oh so fucking surely, her muscles begin to unlock. Her thighs sag, becoming dead weight around my throbbing cock, creating even more pressure there than there was before. My balls feel all hot and tight, and I can tell I’m leaking precum onto her pretty sunshine-coloured PJs. If I want to get any sleep, I’m going to have to pull out and find another position.
But I don’t need to sleep quite yet.
For now, I’m just going to indulge in the mind-bending tension of having my cock this fucking hard, this primed to explode between her legs without actually thrusting against her. Or inside her.
I force my breathing into a deep, even rhythm.
I’ll stay still like this for as long as I fucking can.
Only, I start to wonder if I’m wrong, if I can’t actually stay still at all, because suddenly there’s movement down there. Subtle at first, teasing and tentative. But it’s there.
It’s Deirdre. She’s rubbing herself on me.
My blood turns to magma in my veins, and my chest seizes, but I force myself to stay completely still as if I’m actually asleep.
I honestly can’t tell if Deirdre is awake or not. She’s been quiet for a bit now and I would have guessed she was asleep. Her movements are sleepy, slow, and dreamlike, although getting just a little faster every second. Her breathing is shallow, but she’s not making any other noise. She’s not doing anything but rocking her sweet little pussy maddeningly against my pulsing length.
I wonder what she’s dreaming about. A thread of violence winds through me because if she’s dreaming about someone who makes her want to pump her little pussy then she fucking better be dreaming about me.
If she’s actually sleeping, I probably shouldn’t touch her. I should just stay like this, hard and throbbing and twitching against her while she does her thing. Let her come to dreamy climax while I fight back the feral urge to yank my glove off with my teeth and plunge my hand beneath the waistband of her pants until I find the swollen, needy clit nestled there.
Fuck me, I should never have let her wear PJs to bed tonight. I should have her naked pussy sliding on me now. Feel her fucking wetness.
I think I can, actually, at least a little bit. She’s soaking through the thin silk, damp against me as she hitches her hips back and forth in that tiny, gliding arch of motion.
I’m so fucking hard it’s like I never even came tonight.
How the hell does she do this to me? With nothing but a sleepy jiggle of her hips, fully dressed in her loose PJs, she’s got me on the verge of spewing my goddamn load. My throat goes dry with the need to rip down her pants and jam myself inside her. Make her bleed all over again.
Because she’s small and I’m big and I don’t think I could be gentle.
Deirdre’s movements change a little. She arches her back slightly, angling her hips differently against my pelvis so that she’s grinding her clit in a circular motion against my thickness instead of rocking back and forth. But everything she does is still kind of drowsily unintentional, almost innocent, her body moving in a hypnotic haze.
Fuck it. I’m going to touch her. She’s mine whether she’s awake or she’s asleep.
I lift my hand from her hip, ready to rip my glove off with my teeth after all, when she flinches then instantly goes still, like a rabbit under the gaze of the wolf.
I grin, arousal and triumph swirling together low in my belly, a toxic cocktail.
“Caught you, Songbird.”
“I didn’t know you were awake!” comes her reply, breathless with guilt. She tries to wriggle away from me, but my glove is off and my hand shoved down her pants before she has a chance to run or hide.
“And I didn’t know you were such a good actress,” I coo viciously against her ear as my fingertips find her clit. Holy Mother of God, is she ever slippery down there. Her clit is taut and swollen, rich with need under my touch. I stroke it and groan, thrusting my hips forward the way I’ve been holding myself back from doing until now.
I told myself I wouldn’t touch her. Told myself I wouldn’t fuck her again tonight.
Told myself that wasn’t what she needed.
But maybe I was wrong, seeing how my sweet little liar of a Songbird was wide fucking awake while riding my dick through her PJs just now.
She doesn’t just need sleep.
She needs release.
With one swift movement, I’ve tugged her loose pants off of her and flipped her onto her back. I’ve got my hands on her thighs and my face buried between her legs before she can even take a breath to try to tell me, “no.”
She’s gearing up to say it now, though, I can tell. Or something similarly argumentative and disobedient. But I cut her off, drive all words out of her head with a hard, greedy suck on her clit.
She bucks and cries out, her quads straining under my fingers as I suck and circle with my tongue. And then I go lower, deeper, tasting her soaked seam. The slight metal tang of blood beneath her sweetness makes my dick pump uselessly against the air. I dip my tongue all the way inside, needing more of everything. More of her wetness, her blood, more of the little moans tearing out of her throat as if against her own will. Her hands find their way to my head, her fingers burying themselves in my hair. But it’s like she can’t decide whether to push me away or pull me closer, and instead just digs her fingernails hard against my scalp. That zing of slight pain from her nails goes straight to my balls, and suddenly I can’t stand not being inside her. I can’t wait another minute. Not even another second.
I rise, leaving her on the trembling edge of orgasm, and drag her ankles up with me, keeping them pinned at my shoulders. At the last second, I lean to the side to flick on the bedside lamp. The first time I took her it was quick and hard, a crash of bodies in the darkness.
This time will probably also still be quick and hard.
But I’m going to watch her fall apart on me in the light this time.
Deirdre whimpers and throws her arms over her eyes, like she can’t bear to face the brightness, or me, or maybe her own treacherous desires.
She doesn’t have to watch if she doesn’t want to. I’ll watch enough for the both of us.
