by Elodie Colt
“I’m not you, Ira, and I will never be,” I seethe, my voice surprisingly strong despite my pulse thrumming along my vocal cords. “I respect your work, and I’m proud to have a mother who’s making the world a better place. When will you start being proud of me, fending for myself all this time because you neglected me and put foreign children before your daughter?”
Matthew fixes an intense, unabashed stare at me, his eyes twinkling with pride and complacency, as if he’s been waiting for me to put her in her place.
As usual, Dad remains silent and leaves Mom to diffuse the situation.
“Samantha, dear God, of course, we’re proud of you.” Her voice is soft as she places a hand over her breastbone. “I just don’t want you to waste your talents on—”
“She doesn’t,” Matthew slices into her speech, taking my side once more.
I part my lips, ready to tell him to back off, but then he pulls something from the back pocket of his jeans and slaps it onto the table. My heart, from the feel of it. Nope, it’s still inside my rib cage, trying to smash out of my breast.
“This is her talent,” he says. “And if you hadn’t pushed her away all those years, she might have told you that she is, in fact, not just an editor.”
My fingers curl around the edge of the table, nails digging into the glass as I gape at the heavy, square thing. I squeeze my eyes into thin slashes, hoping to develop supernatural strength and engrave a different writing onto the cover.
That doesn’t happen, though, and the only thing I can do is stare at the book no one was ever supposed to find.
My book.
Eighteen
Samantha
Silence falls over the room like a thunderhead, loaded and sweltering and with the potential to discharge any second. We all stare at the book—Mom and Dad with narrowed eyes, while mine almost pop out of my sockets.
Again, I had it all wrong. Instead of having my back, Matthew stabbed me in the back. Stymied me for a good laugh. He stole the bomb I’ve tucked away for years, the one I’ve kept hidden from everyone close to me, only to drop it at my parents’ feet. Without my knowledge. Without forewarning. Without my fucking consent.
“This is your daughter’s work.” Matthew taps a knuckle onto the naked guy printed on the cover. “Check out the reviews on the online retailers and then tell me again that she’s wasting her talents.”
Mom gapes at him as if he just asked her to quit her job in exchange for launching a career at a Silicon Valley start-up, before she takes the book into her hands to have a closer look. Meanwhile, all the color has bled from my face to pool into a roiling pit of nausea in my stomach. A good thing I’m as stiff as the new wooden planks on my porch, my fingers still nailed into the edge of the table, or I would have lost my footing.
Eyebrows furrowed, Mom feathers through the four-hundred pages of my book before she gently lays it down again and brushes a hand over the cover. Slowly, she lifts her head to fix me with a gaze.
“You wrote this?” she asks. “All by yourself?”
The disbelief ringing in her voice detaches my gaze from the table, dragging it up to her. I can feel Matthew’s eyes on me, the heat coming from his body right next to mine, but he has the good sense to keep his hands far away from me. The fury and sheer humiliation rushing through my veins would have sent an electric shock into him, dropping him dead on the spot.
I have no clue how the fuck he unlocked my best-kept secret, but I know it’s no longer mine. He took it from me. Snatched it as soon as he saw his chance, crudely chopped off with his ax as if it were merely a branch standing in his way. Not long, and he will own every fucking, dissected piece of me.
“Samantha, are you alright? You look pale.” Dad’s voice jolts me out of my dark musings, and it’s all I can do to utter the next words, my ribs tightening around my diaphragm to the point it clogs up my throat.
“Just a little dizzy…”
A hand settles on the small of my back. I want to shake it off, to get rid of the touch that should be repulsive instead of consoling, but I can’t move.
“She’s been feeling queasy since she woke up this morning,” I hear Matthew say. “Probably the shrimps we had for dinner yesterday. I better get her into bed.”
Chairs scrape on the floor as my parents stand from their seats to thank Matthew for the hospitality and wish me a good night. I’m still lost in a whirlwind of battling emotions until Mom pulls me in for a hug and plants a kiss onto my cheek. The affection and tenderness swirling in her eyes are foreign to me, but before I can question the new look on her face, Matthew sees them both out.
The moment they leave the kitchen, I regain my basic body functions and jump into motion as if I’d just received a kick start. Heat tingles in my face as I rush to clear the table and find that the book is gone. Mom has probably slipped it into her bag. She’s going to read my Dark Erotic Romance—if not for entertainment, then to test Matthew’s claim about my ‘talents.’ She’s going to dive into the story of a fiercely independent girl who never felt good enough for anyone, not her parents, not the men in her life. A girl hopping from one shallow relationship to the next until she meets the one man who demolishes her protective walls. A man who made it his mission to strip off any layers shielding her vulnerability until he’s earned her trust and, ultimately, her unyielding love. She’s going to get a glimpse into my head, my heart, my desires.
She’s going to see the only part of me I desperately wanted to hide from her.
The broken part.
The sound of a door closing behind me makes me purse my lips as I fling two cleaned plates into the cupboard, slamming it shut with enough vigor to rattle the ceramics. The breaths wheezing from my flaring nostrils would put a hellhound to shame. In fact, I feel like an overheated nuclear reactor. The fury mixed with the red wine coursing through my system has left rosy streaks on my cleavage. Any second now, my core is about to melt Fukushima style.
A deep sigh comes from a few feet behind me. “Sam, talk to me.”
“I only have one word to say to you, honey… Leave.”
My voice sounds weird. Croakier than that one time back when I was twelve and had a severe case of angina. I fight the urge to clear my throat, adamant to maintain the deadly vibes of my demand.
The chafing of jeans edging closer tells me he’s heading in the wrong direction. The one leading away from the door and directly to me.
A vein in my neck twitches in sync with the sponge I’m scraping over an annoyingly persistent stain on the stove. “I swear if you touch me, I’ll scream bloody murder until—”
He touches me.
I scream.
At least, I try to, because the second I open my mouth, a hand shoots out from behind me to clamp over my lips.
“Oh, you will scream bloody murder. Very soon.”
He removes his hand only to spin me around and seal his mouth over mine. I drop my sponge, biting into his lower lip hard enough to make him rip his face away with a hiss. This gives me room to cock back my arm for a slap that will make the one I’ve already granted him look like a tender caress in comparison.
He’s faster, though, snatching my hand before it can deliver the blow and yanking it down. He does the same with my other hand, keeping me shackled as he presses me against the edge of the sink. I want to lash out at him, to rake my nails over the healing wound running down his ear, to see him bleeding, bruised, battered, but all I can do is squirm in his unrelenting hold, watching as he growls down at me before his mouth captures mine once more. While one hand shackles both my wrists at the base of my spine, the other hooks underneath my chin, keeping me locked in place.
The kiss is brutal. The violent kind that is meant to dominate me, crush my willpower, and annihilate any resistance. The way his tongue pushes in between my lips blazes a path straight through my defiance, igniting a different kind of heat that transforms my rage into white-hot passion.
And just like that, he’s sucking out
every ounce of strength I had left in me. My steel-hard resolve turns to dust under his attack, floating away with every one of my breaths he inhales.
A tortured whimper bounces over my lips—a clear sign of my surrender, and the reason why he figures it’s safe to release his iron hold on me. The moment he unshackles my wrists, my hands come out from behind me to bury in his hair.
A cocky chuckle rumbles over my cheek as I ruin his perfectly groomed hairstyle, raking my fingers through gel-stiff strands. Lips sealed over mine, he hoists me up with ease before he cuts through the room, gunning for the dining table.
I brace myself for a cold shock, but instead of placing me onto the glass and pinning me against the surface, he removes his hands from my legs and lets me slide down until my feet touch the floor.
“What are you doing?”
My question chimes with an undertone of protest as he resumes his seat on the chair, keeping me at arm’s length for whatever fucking reason. His sudden cool, laid-back attitude annoys the hell out of me as he pulls the chair closer to my body.
And when he lifts his head again, his eyes slicing into mine, my heart skips three beats in a row. He’s showing me the hint of a malicious, foreboding smirk. The kind of gloating grin that tells you he knows what you stuck up your ass the night before.
“Making your fantasies come true, sweetheart, so how about”—he places his hands on my hips and pushes until my butt pokes into the table—“you just relax and enjoy the ride.”
What started out as rough and hasty, now turns into gentle and calculating as he pops open the button of my shorts with excruciatingly precise movements. He peels them off, exposing a white, virtually transparent thong.
I’d like to say it was a coincidence that sexy piece became my choice of underwear for tonight but alas, that would be a big-ass lie. Despite my steadfast resolution to never cross that line I’d drawn again, the naughty, needy part in me had hoped we would shed some clothes tonight. Thank God, we’re getting there, starting with my shorts dropping to the floor with a soft thud.
“I can’t believe I’ve waited so long to touch you…”
His voice is barely a whisper, a murmured afterthought not meant for my ears as he drinks me in. Hooded eyes lock on mine before he leisurely trails a finger from my neck down the length of my body, until he reaches the barely-existing cloth covering my hot spot.
Finally, he hooks his fingers under the straps and tugs, getting me naked from the waist down. A slight yank later, and I’m straddling his hips, my feet resting on the floor. I shudder at the friction with the hard bulge in his jeans as he clutches my butt cheeks, rubbing me over his length.
“You bear the beauty of an angel, Sam,” he whispers over my lips, “and I will take you where you belong… to the Edge of Heaven.”
I forget to breathe when his words take center in my lust-filled brain. The ‘Edge of Heaven’ is a sex position I described in accurate detail in my book and the same we’re finding ourselves in now. I’ve basically painted a vivid picture for him to follow, and the thought is as stimulating as it is demeaning.
However, he drowns all my insecurities, absorbing them from my body with his lips on mine. The kiss is desperate and aggressive, fueled by days of restraint and pent-up need. One hand moves up to grip my nape before he sucks a trail down my throat. I cling at his shoulders, feeling the muscles flexing underneath.
Before I can lose myself in the overwhelming sensations, he eases our lips apart once more and adjusts his position so he can prop his feet onto the table behind me. The new angle almost makes me topple forward, but he plasters his palm onto my cleavage and pushes until my back rests on his thighs.
“What are you doing?” I gulp, feeling way too exposed like this.
“Relax,” he croons before he skates a finger down to my sex and pushes it inside.
Shamefully, I’m already wet enough to dampen his jeans, every drop glistening underneath the light beams. I close my eyes, shielding them from the brightness and his piercing stare while I roll my head back onto his knees. My hands hang loosely at my sides, unable to find hold anywhere, so I grip my breasts instead, just to have an ounce of support.
“A good thing I already know how you like it,” he purrs before he pushes in a second finger, doubling the sensations. He makes slow, deliberate movements, twirling and crooking and twisting his finger in a way that tenses every muscle in my body and turns my breaths into grunts.
By the time I manage to pry my eyes open, he’s already freed his stone-hard length towering up in a transparent condom. I clench my teeth, bracing myself for the impact, but instead, he sweeps me up into his arms, keeping me suspended the fracture of an inch above his tip. I almost cry out in protest, but his intense stare throws me off guard.
“Tell me you want this,” he grits out, eyes zig-zagging between mine.
My head bops in a frantic nod, but my reaction doesn’t please him.
“Say it.”
I grimace at the urgency in his tone but decide to play along. Anything to feel him inside me. “I want this. Now.”
Instead of acknowledging my response, he starts to litter my naked shoulder with wet kisses, swirling his tongue around my bra strap. Then he lifts me up and lowers me down, letting gravity do the rest. My toes tremble on the floor, my hips eager to gyrate against him, but he locks me in a firm hold, forcing me to relinquish control.
I know what he’s doing. Imitating the scene from my book and using it as a script on how to fuck me. He’s making my fantasies come true. God, help me.
I hiss. He sighs. We become one.
A dull, rhythmic beat seeps from the ceiling, and for once, I’m grateful that Kendra has turned up her stereo to shake the entire foundation. Her favorite song Hit Me Harder is pounding through the walls again. How fitting.
Meanwhile, Matthew guides me back again until my upper back lies on his thighs, curling one arm around my waist to bend me to his will. He doesn’t move, just rocks my hips back and forth, making him go in so fucking deep with the undulating motions, it feels as if he’s striking roots inside me to stay there forever.
“Do you like that?” His voice is as thick as the rod he’s pushing into me, dripping lust and lewd sensuality.
“God, yes.”
“Show me,” he demands before he tightens his hold and grinds me harder against him.
I curse, my hands clawing at my head and tugging at my hair as I burn out of control. My feet quiver, my toes protesting against the strain as I stretch them as far as they’ll go. I’m desperately trying to find support, something to grip, to rip apart and tear to shreds. Somewhere to hide or cover me up, but he’s left me unprotected and completely bare, suspended by nothing but his legs propped on the table and the pending sensation of falling into a bottomless abyss.
And fall I do.
Fast.
A strangled noise flutters over my lips. I want to muffle it with my hands, but they cramp in my hair, unable to move. Matthew comes to my aid and slams a hand over my mouth, pushing my erupting scream back into my throat before it can alert the entire East Coast despite the booming bass coming from Kendra’s room. I’m only half aware of the garbled grunt choking from him, but I’m very much aware of the hot liquid shooting into the tip of the condom as I take him to the skies with me.
A blissful moment follows as we try to catch our breaths. He seems to find his faster because I’m still panting like a pneumonia patient when he places me onto the glass table and bends me back. With a slap, my hands drop limply to the sides.
He looms over me, supporting his weight with one arm and replacing his cock with his finger to tease my entrance with soft, maddening circles.
“I forgot… What happens next in the book?”
The fake questioning glance he sends me signals he’s far from ending our game. He knows how the book continues but wants me to play along. So, I do, because damn, I want him to push me over the finishing line.
“He goes dow
n on her,” is my raspy reply, one that makes him smirk down at me with another dangerous glint in his eyes.
“Ah, yes, I remember.”
“But I don’t remember him wearing a shirt,” I add, nodding to his covered chest.
He makes a tsk-sound in his throat. “We can’t deviate from the script, now, can we?”
Leaving me lying on the table, he straightens to unbutton his shirt. His alluring grin grows bigger when the fabric is finally out of the way, and he receives my praise in the form of a not so ladylike curse. I swear the sight of his naked torso makes my pussy flap its wings and soar into the air.
My hand reaches out to touch him, but I only get to feel one hard ridge before he lowers his head, travels south, and sucks my clit into his mouth.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
No, it’s not supposed to be a prayer, but damn, it feels as if he’s taking my soul and sending it into heaven. My legs feel as if they’d detach from my hipbone any second, so I wind them around his neck and buckle my hips to get closer to him. He’s eager to destroy me, it seems, when he adds a finger to his nimble tongue and crooks it in a way that makes me want to bolt upright. Three strokes later, and I crack apart at the seams like an overloaded water pipe.
This time, there’s no need to muffle my scream. I can’t choke out a sound. My lungs have imploded, and my abs clench so hard, I fear I’m pulling a muscle.
When the tension subsides, Matthew plucks me up, and I sink lax into his lap. For a few minutes, we remain like that with my head buried in his neck and his hands stroking my back.
“Told you I’d find your G-spot in no time,” he whispers into my hair, and I chuckle.
Tonight, I’m bathing in a sea of bliss.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow, I’ll drown in an ocean of guilt.
Nineteen
Jillian
An odd, tingling feeling creeps into my stomach when I glide my Porsche up the driveway, skidding it to a halt next to Matthew’s scratched pick-up. Frowning, I kill the engine and fish my phone from my bag. No messages. No missed calls.