Scorch (Virtues & Lies Book 2)
Page 16
Sitting back on my thighs, she pulls my arm from around her until she can grasp my hand in hers. Gently she inspects the cuts on my knuckles, and when she turns it in her palm, she shudders. Puffy eyes closing with a wince, she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth.
“I never wanted to break you.”
I can’t help but watch the way her dark lashes fan above her cheekbones. The way her cheeks hollow as she sucks harder on her lip. And the traitor that he is, my dick hardens, pulsing in my underwear at the sound of the air pulling between her teeth.
Coming closer, she rises on her knees either side of me, her nose skimming mine as her hands cup my face. I could never forget what it feels like to be surrounded by her, but this feels so much better than I remember it.
“I never wanted to break you, cariño.” Her eyes flutter open on mine, and although they are dark, they shine. And my chest might actually burst any moment now from the way it feels to hold her. To have her this close. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But I—”
“I needed you.”
“I know.”
“I needed hope, and you left me.”
“There wasn’t any left in me, Christopher. It was all gone. All of it. I only wanted to hold her. Just once. For a little bit. Just one little bit. For a small second.”
She thinks so, but the thing about holding something so special is that you never forget what it feels like. Nothing else ever lives up to it. And our daughter…she was incredible.
Lowering herself onto my lap once more, her gaze finds mine as her hot flesh grazes mine.
“What was she like?” Pressing the side of her face to my chest, she twines the rope holding her rings around her finger.
All I can think of is the photo on my phone, and although I should show her, I can’t. She’s not ready. She might never be ready. And that photo does our girl no justice. It doesn’t show just how much fight she had. How fucking strong she was for something so small.
When she nuzzles into my chest, waiting for me to give her what she wants, I hold her tighter. All of a sudden my hands feel so empty and bare. I imagine that’s what a person with third-degree burns would feel. Too much pain for it to translate coherently, and so all you can feel is raw and exposed.
“Too much,” I manage before my eyes glass over. My chest tightens and cold, sharp pain splinters inside me. “She was just too much, Belles.”
I swallow, hoping that my tears shrink back into my ducts. They don’t and I can’t control them the more I think of how I can explain to my wife how amazing our baby was.
“Too beautiful. Too feisty. She was like you—too much fight.”
Shaking, she presses closer to me, her hands clawing into my flesh the longer we sit in silence. Her nails bite deeper with every second, and I wish that the pain inside was as easy as their pinch.
“She was too fucking perfect.” The painstaking gasp that fills the air is enough to ruin me for good. Shuffling up the bed, I take her with me until I can lie back with her on top of me, her trembling body wracking with chills.
Arabella says nothing. Her quietness at a time like this normally suggests that she’s taking the situation in, trying to grasp where to go from here, but something tells me that she’s trying to think of what she could’ve done to change things. How she could’ve saved our baby.
Sadly, I think fate has a way of hardening people. It tries to prepare you for what it’s going to throw at you down the road. I just don’t know if there is any tragedy on this earth that could outdo this. I can’t grasp the possibility of there being anything worse than watching your child take their last breath and hoping against all hope that it’s all make-believe. That they’ll take one gasp and open their eyes. That you’ll blink and it’ll all be a nightmare you wake up from.
Pulling the edges of the duvet around me, I cocoon us from the cold. As a man you think crying is as bad as it gets, but it’s worse when you physically run out of tears and you’re too hoarse to sob. You’re being consumed inside out, and there is no outlet. Your mind screams and your heart howls; every part of you roars, and not a grass blade moves.
The world is none the wiser and not in the least affected by the hurricane inside you. And that’s it. That’s the thought that settles it. Because if this world isn’t tender enough to feel her loss, then it isn’t worthy of her.
Our little girl deserved better.
“I don’t think this world could’ve handled her.”
“I wanted her so much.”
I imagine what her tears might feel like pooling on my chest, and how they might feel like acid corroding my skin.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to feel like this forever. I wish it had been me. If I could take her place…”
“Don’t say that.” My words come out rougher than I intend, but she’s talking about leaving me again, and I can’t fathom it. The thought makes me seethe.
“Why? Are you going to fix me, Christopher?” Bracing up on my chest with her forearms, she looks down at me. “Do you think you can…like…really fix me? Put all my pieces back together?” Her eyes close and with a subtle shake of her head, she murmurs, “I sure as hell can’t fix you.”
Her words crash through me, and before they have a chance to sit, I flip her onto her back. My hands holding me up over her, on either side of her head.
“I don’t want to be fixed.” I want to hold on every fucked-up piece of me, because it’ll be those pieces that carry me through every fucking hurdle I have to jump until I get every fucker who broke us. It’ll be those pieces that cut them up. “I don’t want that, but if you do, if that’s what you want…fuck, I don’t know… I have no idea where to start, but at least let me try. Give me a chance, Morena.”
Nodding softly, she pulls on the rope hanging between us, bringing me closer until I’m dead weight on top of her. Running my fingers through her hair, I expect it to fan out around her, but the short lengths sit wildly like a twisted crown atop her head.
Even torn to shreds she’s so fucking beautiful. More so now than ever before.
“Your eternity is mine. It has always been and always will belong to me.”
A deep sigh escapes her as I lick into her mouth. Her legs wrap around my thighs, feet crossing at my arse.
“You belong to me.”
Biting down on her lip as I brace myself back over her, I indulge her throaty moan as it scrapes between my teeth.
“And no one touches you but me.”
Unbuttoning a few buttons, I pull the collar of the shirt around her shoulders, yanking it down until it rests around her small waist, just below the swell of her breasts.
“I will destroy them like a common thief. Tear them apart piece by piece.”
When I start to unbutton the rest of the shirt, she stiffens, and before I can finish, her hand pulls mine away with a shake of her head. I want to push. I want to get my way. I want to see the damage, and I want to make sure she understands that it will change nothing. But I remember what Cassie told me. I can’t force my wants or needs on her.
Patience, Christopher.
For the first time in my life, I listen, and the feel of Arabella thawing beneath me feels as much of a victory as if she were to allow me to see every soft inch of her.
Kneeling up between her legs, I allow myself a moment to take her in. It feels like forever since I really looked at her. And I’m drinking her up, trying to see any of the ugly she thinks I’ll see. But there’s just her, my beautiful wife.
The woman who was willing to sacrifice herself for me. The woman who begged me to choose our daughter’s life over hers.
And if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Arabella’s made me the man I am. Someone better than a saint or a god. Because I am real, and I don’t need to use anyone else to execute my brand of justice or salvation. I can smite and save with my own hands.
Lifting her legs over my chest, I trail her smooth skin. The faint scars on her kn
ees from her childhood. The almost invisible stretch marks on the inside of her fleshy, toned thighs.
I don’t get it. I can’t wrap my head around the fact she feels any less perfect now than before all this.
All I see before me is history. Our history. It’s not easy or nice, but like her, in its totality, it’s non-regrettable. I look at her and I see two kids that have become strong people.
“There’s so much fucking power in being broken and damaged. Did you know that?”
Resting one of my hands over her covered belly, I press a kiss to her ankle, another to the top of her foot, rounding to the arch with soft bites that have her toes curling.
Every inch of her is mesmerising.
“There’s power in not having any fucks left to give.” Tracing my hands to her hips, I stroke the lace-trimmed satin of her underwear. “In a world of passive pricks, Arabella, we can be a storm. Don’t you want that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Christopher…” Shuffling down the bed, she presses her arse to my knees with a needy sigh.
“Yeah?”
Her response is a loud swallow with her quickening breaths. Hands finding mine, she moves them to the top of her knickers and curls them around the flimsy fabric.
“What do you want, Belles?”
Teeth dragging her plump lip into her mouth, her eyes rove down my body to my hardened length.
“You want me to fuck you?”
Nodding, she breathes, “Yes. Please. God, yes.”
Her hands push mine down, around her hips, dragging the underwear over her curves. And I catch just a glimpse of the pink line across the bottom of her belly before she pulls the shirt down over it. And fuck it if I don’t want to punish her for it. For denying me of her vulnerability.
“I’m not going to fuck you. Not tonight.” I pull her knickers off, throwing them to the floor. “I’m going to love you, the way I should’ve done all this time.”
Chapter 22
Arabella
Lowering himself between my thighs, Christopher kisses down my legs. A soft kiss to one, a harder one to the other. A nibble to one, a bite to the other. A suck and a kiss. A stroke and pinch. A lick and a breath.
He works his way down slowly with a devout care that is nothing short of intoxicating. I’m not sure if this is love or worship, but it is consuming me from every angle. Unbearable heat builds inside me even before he reaches my pussy.
Grasping the top of my thighs, he pulls me down the bed as he slips off the end. Holding the hem of the shirt taught over my stomach, I can barely breathe with the anticipation of what it will feel like when he touches me again. All I can feel are his hot breaths on my slick skin. The way they cool so rapidly has me shuddering. I can hear his shuffling, and then it’s just the sound of the friction of his fingertips trailing down my thighs as he opens them wide.
“Fuck, Belles…” His scorching breath is followed by a blistering swipe right down my middle.
Every part of me is in overload, as his finger strokes up and then back down before pushing inside me. It’s just one finger, but God, it feels so big inside me. So fucking thick that my toes curl right along with it.
My whimpering moan builds to a shaky groan as he pulls out and slowly inches back in. “Oh Christopher…God…”
I swear I can feel him smile as his lips press to my slit, above his finger, his tongue licking up to my clit as he pulls out again. My hands fist the shirt taught, trying to expel some of the overpowering tension and heat roiling inside me.
But it’s useless as he sucks my flesh into his mouth. His finger fills me again and again, deeper and harder until I’m writhing, and my breaths are more like a continuous hum than anything logical.
Every time I think I’m about to fall, he pauses, leaving me on the balance.
Stupidly, I’m unsure of what I want more…of what I need.
Do I want more of his torture, or do I want his pleasure?
I don’t know. I have no fucking clue, but as he fills me, stretching me wider with another finger…I want more.
I want to be so full that I ache. That my skin can’t contain it. My existence needs to stretch to hold itself together.
Hammering with every stroke of his tongue and press of his fingers, my heart works overtime to keep up with all the frissons of heat coursing through me. My blood pounds in my ears as he pulls away without warning and flips me onto my belly. Tucking my thighs beneath me, he nips at the sensitive flesh until his face is completely buried in my pussy, his fingers prying me open.
I’m clawing at myself, at the covers and the shirt. My body trembles as the world feels like it’s falling away from the rest of the universe and I don’t know if I’m in darkness or light. I have no fucking clue what I am right now.
Holy fuck! Holy, holy fuck! I keep chanting in my head as his tongue rounds my clit before it dips into my clenching cunt and holy fuck!
“Fuck, Belles, you’re gushing and I haven’t finished with you yet…”
“Just fuck me, please. Please, Christopher.” Begging as his thumb sinks into my pussy, I don’t know how much more of this stop and start…push and pull I can take.
“I don’t think so.” He blows over my sensitive skin, and I tremble as he pulls his thumb out of my pussy and drags it over my arsehole. Rounding my hole with a barely there touch that leaves me in anticipation of what he’s going to do to me, he sucks at my clit.
The width of his shoulders lodged between my ankles makes it impossible for me to close up.
“You taste so fucking good, baby. I could live off you alone. Your cunt is the best fucking thing I’ve ever had.”
“God, please, just let me come. I can’t…”
One of his hands pushes beneath me and fists my breast, trapping my nipple between his fingers as he works my tender flesh.
“Work for it.”
“What do you want?” It’s a garbled question, breathy with my rapid pants.
“I want you to coat my fucking face.”
Shit.
His hand tightens around my boob, and his tongue works my clit as his other hand kneads one of my arse cheeks. Every now and then the tips of his fingers skim my arsehole, and the air in my throat thickens to the point I might choke.
My limbs tighten to aching point, and the flames at my core blaze hotter, every muscle coiling tight as my cunt clenches, desperately begging to be filled.
Fuck.
Oh dear God.
Fingers thrust deep and without warning, my orgasm rips through me. As I fall flat on my chest and face, my arms reach above for something…anything, to anchor me. To ground me. But everything shatters and there’s nothing I can grasp to break my fall.
Christopher is relentless, sucking and licking and stroking and pressing until I’m a shaking, burning mess. And before I can gather myself, his tongue licks up to my pussy as his fingers pull out, running up to my arsehole, tongue following.
Oh sweet fucking Jesus.
A whimper pushes out of me as he licks over my puckered flesh. My cheeks heat with bated curiosity. And I don’t know why I’m flushing bashful—Christopher’s fucked me every which way. But this feels all kinds of forbidden and dirty, and the more he laves at my flesh, the better it feels.
My toes curl and my hands clutch at the bedding as I desperately try not to lose my fucking mind. It’s impossible though, and as my loud moans echo around us, he tongues through my spread crease as he lifts over me.
Trailing tongue and fingers over my back until his body pushes mine up the bed, Christopher’s front moulds to my back as he lies over me, all our dips and grooves perfectly aligning. Legs between mine, his cock presses to my cunt.
“Good girl,” he breathes above me, bracing himself as he slowly inches inside me.
The way he stretches me burns straight to my core. A sweet ache pulsing as he fills me so completely, I can’t bring myself to move or speak. I can only luxuriate in the feeling of
him buried so deep that I can feel him in my deepest recesses.
Lowering himself on me, his weight a welcome blanket to my needy body, his arms stretch above us. And finding my hands, his fingers twine with mine.
“Fuck, you feel so good…so tight. Fuck, Belles.” Lips to my ear, he thrusts gently into me, holding deep and still with a groan every time he bottoms out.
This torture is a completely different brand. It’s all love and devotion, a basic compulsion.
My fingers tighten around his as he picks up the pace with longer and harder thrusts, his hot breath soaking my skin and hair. His corded muscles harden over me with every stroke.
“Christopher…”
“Morena.”
Licking my lobe, he bites down softly and with his every grunt…his every breath, I can smell myself mixed with his warm scent and our sweat. And it’s like walking through the front door of your home when you’ve been away for too long.
It’s comfort and peace and joy. I can breathe without the world crushing me. I can just be. I’m safe.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The words echo inside me on repeat, and I can’t contain all of this within me. Not when I’ve been empty for so long…
“Hey, baby…don’t cry,” Christopher murmurs breathily as he licks and kisses the tears. “It’s going to be okay.”
For the first time since I opened my eyes after the attack, I believe that.
“I love you so much, Belles.” Letting go of one of my hands, he caresses up my arm.
He traces my profile with the tip of his finger before following down my side to my hip. His lips pucker on the side of my face, pressing hot kisses as his hand rounds my thigh and pushes it up, spreading me wider to his relentless thrusts.
Groans and grunts fill the air with the slapping of our flesh, and I’m trying so hard to hold myself together a little longer. I’m not ready for this to end. I want more. But the more I try to hold it off, the harder he fucks me. Deeper and faster, until our breaths are as loud as our flesh and our moans.
And I can’t hold on anymore as his hot cum coats my cunt, spurting with every clench and tremble of my body. Fire courses in my veins as my body pulses, my mind off balance, lights flashing in my clouded vision.