Even his pet name for me made me feel small. Was that really so terrible? To be littler than him? For him to be able to manage me?
As he tossed me swiftly to the bed, I decided maybe it wasn’t terrible at all.
He crawled up over me, spreading his body along mine before taking my mouth in his. He tasted like me—his favorite flavor—and another wave of lust rushed between my thighs. Soon, he moved down to suck on a breast, tugging roughly at my nipple until it was a sharp peak.
“These are mine,” he said, lifting his head to hover over the neglected breast. “You know that, don’t you? These gorgeous tits only belong to me.”
“Yes, Edward.” He’d told me that specifically as he’d fucked me over his desk, months ago. He’d been in a rage then, but the words were the same. There was something strangely thrilling that his possessiveness remained at his core, no matter what mood he was in.
His fingers moved down to the space between my legs. “And this too. This cunt is mine.”
I cried out as he plunged two fingers inside me, demonstrating how much “mine” it was. The second orgasm followed soon after, brought on as much from his claiming words as from his ministrations on my body.
When I came down from that one, I came down impatient. I jerked at the zipper of his pants, wanting access to the big secret he was hiding inside.
“Three orgasms before my pants come down, Celia. I’m trying to do right by you, but you’re making it hard. Very hard.” He bucked against my hand, his hardness evident.
It took a minute to remember that I’d been the one who’d specified three orgasms when I’d told him my dream virginity-loss scenario.
“That was greedy on my part. Two is more than fine. I need you inside me.” The last words came out ragged, too true to be spoken without emotion.
“How about this—you make yourself come again while I’m undressing. Shall we see who can finish first?”
I was no more comfortable playing with myself in front of him than I’d been on our wedding night, but the prospect of seeing him naked was enough to let those inhibitions go. I’d never seen him completely naked. He’d never let me get that close to him before.
God, the thought, the relevance of this one thing, stripping in front of me—I’d come again before he was even halfway done.
“Fuck,” he growled when the orgasm ripped through me, my limbs quivering with the ferocity. “You better treat my cock as good as you treat your fingers.” There was a warning in his tone, as though he meant to punish me if I didn’t come as easily when he was inside me as I had when he was watching.
It was so Edward, so the man I was used to, and seeing him appear, even just the glimpse of him made me deliriously happy.
“I’ll treat you better,” I said, sitting up as he approached the bed wearing absolutely nothing, his cock jutting out in front of him with pride.
My pussy clenched at the sight of him. He was chiseled and lean, but not too lean. There was a bulk to him, too. His pecs were man pecs with dark hair scattered across them and down his stomach, which was flat, but not concave. His thighs were long and strong.
And his cock…
I hadn’t had much of a chance to admire it before. I’d known it was big from the shape of the bulge in his pants and the feel of it inside me. I hadn’t known it was also beautiful. Hadn’t known there was such a thing as a beautiful cock until there was his, long and fat with a gorgeous smooth head.
I was speechless.
“Do you want to touch me?” He was already touching me, stroking his knuckles along my jaw.
“Yes, Edward.” It was a moment of him handing over the reins. Letting me behind the wheel for even the briefest of minutes couldn’t be easy for him. I wanted to respect that, so I watched his face as I reached out to grip him, looking for any signs of misgiving.
But then he was in my hand, and I couldn’t think about his face because his cock!
“It’s so big,” I said, mostly to myself. “How the fuck does that fit?”
“You’re really good at the virgin routine,” he said, his words ending on a moan as I palmed his crown.
“Not a routine. This is honesty. Remember?”
He stared at me for half a beat before he was pushing me back down, kneeling on the bed between my thighs. He lined his head up to my entrance. “I wish I really had been the first person inside you.” It was said so low, I wasn’t sure I was supposed to hear it. I definitely wasn’t supposed to respond, because he thrust inside of me, all the way with one stroke, and I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, could only clutch onto his arms and trust I’d come out of this in one piece.
But if I could have spoken, if I’d been able to say the truth right then, I would have told him he was the first person inside me, truly inside me. In all the ways that mattered.
It was a good thing, then, that I’d been rendered speechless. Giving away that truth would have been a far more precious gift than my virginity had been.
He wasn’t as vicious with his fucking as he’d been in the past, each stroke didn’t tear me apart and blind me with sensation like the previous two times, and for that reason, I knew he was still holding back, that he was giving me what he believed was the ideal lover.
Even restrained, he was magic.
He propped my feet up on his shoulders and lifted my hips to meet him as he pumped into me with vigor. When he was sure I was balanced and wouldn’t drop my ass to the bed without his support, he stretched one hand up to plump my breast. His blue eyes were eclipsed by his large pupils, and they swept over me, studying every inch of my body, as though memorizing it. Revering it.
I’d never been looked at like that before. There had been plenty of men who’d seemed to worship me, but they’d only honored the idea of me, the brainless, beautiful woman who let them stick their dicks in her hole. When Edward looked at me, he saw everything that went with the pert breasts and flawless skin and narrow waist. He saw the things hidden underneath. And I knew he saw those things because he’d specifically gone looking, needling my secrets out of me in his “break-you-down” sessions.
How could he see me like that, all weak and impotent, and still look at me like I was something to be admired? Still fuck me like I was someone to be enjoyed? How could he ruin me so completely and also be the only person to make me fully whole?
My eyes smarted with tears, and I could feel another orgasm coming, but I wasn’t entirely sure that was the source of the weeping. A feeling of desperation gathered inside me like a cyclone as my pussy tightened around him.
“Is this real, Edward?” I needed to know. I needed to know what this was, if it was all an act, if it was everything it seemed to be. If he was everything he seemed to be.
His hands rushed back to my hips, holding them in place as he struggled against my impending climax. “Does it feel real, little bird?”
God, yes. For me, yes. It was the realest I’d felt in my entire life.
Stars shot across my vision, blinding me. My body strained and trembled, and then the devastating flood of euphoria spread through my limbs, leaving me slack and exhausted. My legs fell from his shoulders. Edward lowered me to the bed, never disconnecting from me. He stroked into me long and leisurely.
“What do you want, little bird?” he asked, his lips hovering inches above mine. I’d been thoroughly fucked, and he could do whatever he wanted with my limp body, and still he was seeing this fantasy through. Making sure it was everything I needed him to be.
I could easily curl up in a ball and go to sleep, I was so wasted on him. But I wanted to feel him come, and I wanted it to be real for him when he did. I wanted him to let down his walls the way he’d made me let down mine.
What did I want?
“You,” I said, not sure he’d understand but unable to articulate it any clearer. “Just you.”
He paused for only a moment before he swiftly gathered my wrists together above my head with one hand and pushed my knee up to my shoulder with his other
hand, pressing down on my bent leg with his body. In this position, he was so deep inside me, so deep I felt him at the end of me, and still there was the barrier of my leg between our torsos, that last little obstacle he wouldn’t allow to be removed.
Without warning, he smacked his hand across my breast, so hard I yelped. Then he began driving into me with brutal blows, pounding without mercy. It hurt and the hurt was wonderful. It was good pain. Pain that made me want to feel more and more. I knew this was him, the real him, fucking me with such cruelty it was hard to believe he was the same man who’d been so reverent only moments before.
But his eyes...his eyes still looked at me the same, and that’s what gave him away.
He came inside me, the first time that he ever had, grunting and rutting into me, milking every last drop of his cum before he pulled out and I collapsed in an almost fetal position on my side. He fell behind me, and I could hear his breaths, heavy and fast, evening out as the minutes passed.
I closed my eyes, afraid of what came next. Nothing good, I imagined, since the last two times we’d fucked the aftermath had been shaky at best.
Which was why I jerked when he curled up behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist.
“Were you not expecting cuddling?” The amusement was evident in his tone.
“I never know what to expect with you,” I said sincerely.
He nuzzled into my neck and sighed softly. “That’s fair,” he murmured. He fell quiet, and I wondered if he was going to sleep.
“I was thirteen,” he said, his voice startling in the silence.
I didn’t move, not sure where he was going with this beginning, but somehow sensing that it was meaningful.
“My parents were both dead, and I was angry and destructive, particularly to myself, but also to those around me. Pilar was my foster sister. She was not a virgin and was seventeen, and before you ask, yes, that’s illegal in the UK, but, honestly, she probably left the situation feeling more violated than I did. I’d bullied her into it, though technically it was consensual, and she was good about taking care of herself so she had more than one orgasm. But we went for a long time, and I hadn’t come. Couldn’t come. It felt good, certainly better than jerking into my own hand, but it wasn’t happening, and I really needed it to happen. Being with an actual person, I realized, wasn’t the same as doing it on my own. By myself, I’d imagine one of a thousand discomforting situations, and I’d release, no problem. Pilar underneath me, grinning with the delirium of her own orgasms, that wasn’t inspiring. It was too easy. I wanted her to be nervous like she had been when I’d come on to her. That’s what had been attractive. Her unease.
“So I bent down close to her and whispered in her ear, told her that I had a camera secretly filming us and when I showed it to our foster parents she’d be kicked out. She might even be arrested. None of it was true, but she became quite upset, squirming and struggling to get away. Panic was written all over her face.
“That did it. I came, and it was everything everyone said sex was—amazing and overwhelming and powerful. And from then on I knew who I was, who I am. What kind of a man I am.”
A devil. He didn’t need to say it for the meaning to be clear. There wasn’t any apology about it, no shame. It was just fact.
My stomach felt heavy. His story had been dreadful, but along with that heavy feeling there was something else, a warmth in my chest, growing and spreading through my torso. I was drawn to the devil in him. Edward Fasbender fascinated me and captivated me and it certainly wasn’t because he was an angel.
But more important than his confession itself, was that he’d confessed anything at all. He’d shared something with me, something I had a feeling he didn’t tell many people. He’d opened up. He’d let me in. After everything he’d done that night, this was the thing that held the most meaning.
I turned toward him, needing to see his face. “Why did you tell me that, Edward?”
He traced his finger along the line of my lip. “You told me something honest. I told you something honest in return.”
“Why do you care about my honesty? Why do you want to know all of my secrets? Why does it matter what I have locked up inside of me?” They were the questions that had troubled me for months. His motives. His reasons. It was killing me not knowing, and I doubted he’d tell me now, but if there was any chance at all, I had to ask.
His brows furrowed as though he was confused why I’d even have to ask. “It’s the only way to have you,” he said.
I held onto those words, let their meaning seep into me well after he’d blown out the candles, pulled the covers up over us, and fallen into the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. If my vulnerability was all he needed to own me then he owned me, full and clear.
But he’d shared too, he’d been vulnerable as well.
Did that mean he wanted me to have him too?
Seventeen
I woke up in the cabana, and before I even opened my eyes, I knew I was alone. I lay there for a long moment, letting the lingering memories of the night before to fully absorb before I officially woke up and let them go. I’d never had such an incredible sexual experience, one where I’d been pampered and adored, made love to. As it was happening, I’d known it wasn’t real. Edward had clearly said we were role-playing, and yet there’d been a sliver of myself that had believed it could be something more.
He was good with his games, that way. He had pried into my head and then twisted what he’d found, made it physical, planted his “replacement” deep in my body and my soul. There were pieces of me that belonged to him now, and the longer it continued, the more of me he’d own, just like he’d said.
The worst part was that I loved it as it occurred.
But after…
Today was after, and I was alone, naked and sore, in a room that smelled of sex and vanilla candles, and I couldn’t begin to fathom how I felt beyond confused.
And well-fucked. At least there’d been that.
I finally opened my eyes and stretched, squinting against the sun streaming in through the windows. I turned away to look at the empty bed behind me. The sheets were still tangled from where he must have thrown them off of him. Had he spent the night? I’d gone to sleep in his arms. Whenever he’d left, it had been after that.
I rolled over and buried my nose in his pillow, dawdling in his scent before throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I paused then, my eyes catching on the robe laid out on the armchair. My robe. A comfortable yet luxurious piece that Edward had sent earlier in the year. A scan around the room said my clothes and shoes from the previous evening were gone. He—or someone—had been to my closet and brought the robe and a pair of flip-flops to wear instead.
Still confusing, but the disappointment I’d felt at my husband’s absence lifted ever so slightly. Whatever he was thinking, wherever he was, he’d at least had a passing thought about me, even if it was just to tell Tom to bring the items for me.
God, I was hopeless. Clinging to the scraps given by a man who’d imprisoned me. Making me feel a sense of romance about him. Making me want more.
I’d said it before, I’d say it again—he was good.
The layout of the clothes, besides being a thoughtful and practical touch, also seemed to be an order of sorts. Put these on, come find me. The unspoken command was clear in the appearance of flip-flops instead of slippers. The shoes were meant for walking. For that matter, if he’d wanted me to stay put, he’d probably have taken everything and left me naked.
Or maybe I was reading too much into it.
But this was Edward—was there anything he did or said that wasn’t calculated and precise?
A stubborn bit of me wanted to rebel. Maybe walk to the main house naked, or not return at all until he came looking for me, but I forced myself to behave. I was adjusting to the man who kept me, learning to acquiesce to his demands. Bowing down to someone else’s authority, though, had always been tough for me, and the tendency to force against i
t came naturally. In some ways, that made the giving into it all the more freeing.
I let that feeling of unconstraint envelop me as I wrapped the robe around my body, momentarily letting go of my worries and fears. I was confused and didn’t know what today would bring, but I’d had a wonderful, memorable night, and Edward had thought of me, and wasn’t that worth holding onto for a little longer? As unreal as all of it had been to him, it sat real in me, and for now, that felt good. So fantastically good, that by the time I arrived at the main house, I had a smile and a hum on my lips.
“Someone had a good night’s sleep.”
I stopped, stunned out of my daze by Edward’s uncharacteristically charming timbre. My heart beat a little faster at the sight of him, fully dressed and sitting at the small dining area, two settings placed, as though he’d been waiting for me.
“I did, actually. Slept very well. And you?” I felt my breath still as I waited for his response. Whatever he said next would set the tone of whatever followed, and I was eager to know what that tone would be.
He considered quickly, his expression telling me his answer surprised him before his words did. “Despite being unused to sharing my bed space, yes, I did sleep quite well.”
So he had spent the night!
My smile grew as I pulled my robe tighter, suddenly bashful. “Good to hear, Edward.”
His eyes glinted at my use of his name, and when I started over to the chair opposite him, he shook his head. “Come here.” He scooted out from the table, making space for me to sit on his lap.
Years ago, there was a moment, when Hudson’s lips met mine, when it seemed like this man I’d been wanting and wishing for so long had finally opened the door for us to be more than what we were. That moment had felt like blossoming. Like being a flower left in the dark for so long that it had stopped believing in the sun, and then, when the rays fell from the sky and nature awoke, that flower opened up and became the beautiful thing it had always meant to be.
I’d felt like that, blissful and fervent and exuberant in my skin until Hudson revealed I’d just been his test subject, and I never let myself blossom like that for anyone again.