“I’m going to fill you up so good, you’ll have no room for anything but me,” I tell her when she tilts her face up to me. Her eyes widen with every drive. “I’ll be your only secret. Your only truth. Your only lie, want, wish, demand, and sin…”
Taking her lips, I swallow down her moan, drinking every murmur before they are lost to the world.
“I am your life.”
She nods, touching her forehead to my jaw. “Yes.”
“I own every inch of you. Every cell in your body. Every depth and shallow of your mind…and every echo of your soul.”
“Fuck…” she cries out as our bodies move faster, slick with our sweat and pleasure.
“There is no you or me or us. We are one.”
“Christopher…” she whines.
My cock hardens, and my balls pull tight.
“Do you understand that, wife?”
“Yes!” Her cry is followed by the wracking of her body as another orgasm rips through her.
“Good.” I can barely get the unintelligible grunt out as my release shoots into her, filling her up so full that it pours from her with every jerk of my cock.
Sagging into me, she moans with the slowing spurts of orgasm.
Holy fuck.
I’m sure if I move, my body will give in to the sated exhaustion. So I give us both some time to gather our wits before I lift her off me and take her into the bathroom.
Sitting her in the bath, I can sense her trepidation as she looks around, her arms curling around her belly.
Turning on the overhead shower, I temper the water as quickly as the old pipes will allow. When it’s warm, I press a kiss to Arabella’s head.
I want to stay with her, but at the same time…I don’t want to be the dickhead that keeps pressing her to do what I want. I want her to give me what I want just as I’ve given her what she needs.
As I’m about to leave, she grabs my hand, wide eyes meeting mine.
“Don’t go.”
Neither of us says anything for a beat, and as I’m starting think that I’ve imagined her words, she pats the empty space between her legs.
“You need to get cleaned up too.”
Stepping into the bath, I stand beneath the shower. It’s a miracle that I even fit under it. The fixtures in this house seem to be made for diddy people.
I wash quickly, allowing her time to get adjusted to being fully naked in the light with me. I feel her gaze rove up and down my body with my hands.
Standing, she comes closer, stepping under the shower with me.
“You okay?” I ask her as I brush her wet hair from her face.
Nodding, she says, “Your shoulder is bleeding.”
“It’s fine.”
“You keep straining it.” Arabella peels off the sticky gauze, throwing it on the floor outside the bath before she goes about soaping her hands. “Look at you, Christopher.”
Taking my hands in hers, she lifts them to her mouth, pressing chaste kisses on my busted knuckles.
“Your hands…your shoulder…” Holding both of my hands in one hand, she reaches for the wound on my shoulder, gently cleaning the dried blood from the stitches.
It’s a closeness I’ve yearned for in so long. Her head rests on my chest under the hum of the water.
“Would you really leave me forever?”
Her question throws me completely.
“What are you on about?”
Letting go of my hands, she wraps her arm around my waist, holding me flush to her.
“The other night…at the hotel…” She looks at me with her heart broken in her eyes.
I don’t want to talk about it.
It was a stupid moment.
“I know you’re hurting. I feel your pain just as surely as I feel my own.”
“I told you, Belles, we’re one.”
“Then how could you fathom hurting yourself? Leaving me alone?”
I don’t know what to tell her. How to explain that I don’t know how to survive this without doing something other than waiting and plotting. There’s no clear answer on how to live past this…this pain…the guilt…all the hate and the need to hurt and kill.
“You’re the only person that understands.”
“Arabel—”
“No!” Shaking her head, she cups my jaw with the hand that cleaned my wound. “I would have no one. Nothing. Then what? Am I meant to survive losing our baby and you?”
“Arabella…”
“Am I meant to survive losing everything?”
“Belles…”
“How could you? How could you do that to me?”
Her hands squeeze me hard, the look in her eyes stony and hurt.
Fuck.
The truth is I just wanted a reprieve. And she had left me alone.
“You left me in the dark with no light and no hope. I was alone!”
She doesn’t shrink back. My words don’t push her away. Instead she presses herself closer to me.
“I won’t apologise for doing the best I can to protect you. I’m not sorry.”
“You should be.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed you.” My pride tells me to push her off and walk away from this conversation, but all I can do is hold her closer.
“I’m not sorry for doing the best thing by you. Had you gone after Kinsley or any one for that matter, you would most likely be dead. Charles made it very clear that you weren’t above the law. That if you stepped out of line, he wouldn’t clean your mess.”
“He is insignificant.” I hold her at arm’s length, trying to gauge what she’s saying. “Why would you let him come between us?”
Quiet.
Arabella adjusts herself, standing straighter. For a moment I’m instantly drawn to her scars. It’s the first time I’ve really seen them properly. The neat one across the bottom of her belly is the one that guts me the most.
That’s the one I broke my promise with.
Always choose her.
I couldn’t. They asked me to save my wife or risk losing them both.
I had to pick Arabella. She was salvageable.
The other scar isn’t much different. A vertical line, fading pink on her light golden skin.
I’ve seen worse. I’ve sat in front of incarcerated men with half of their faces slashed to pieces. I’ve sat with women bruised to their bones.
Yet, two neat lines, they manage to choke me up and threaten to undo me completely.
That’s what brings me back. Because if I can hold it together for strangers, I can certainly hold it together for Arabella.
If I can fight for people that aren’t by any means intrinsic to me…I can rain hell for her.
I meet her gaze dead on, locking our stubborn wills with a glare.
“Can’t we just have one night where it’s just us?” She’s backtracking. Floundering for something to detract from my question.
“I’ll give you every motherfucking night after all this is done. But I need to end this. If I don’t end this, then I can’t look in the mirror without hating myself for not protecting you or Carina. I can’t live with myself knowing that I didn’t make the guilty fuckers pay for your blood and her life with theirs. Eventually you will wish I had followed through with every thought that crossed my mind in that bathroom. Do you und—”
The sting of her palm across my cheek leaves a throbbing pulse on my skin.
She stands there with ragged breaths and clenched fists, staring at me with fury blazing in her eyes.
“Your life is mine. That’s what you said in there. Well, your life is mine too.” Venom coats her pretty words. “And if you take what is mine, you are no better than the men who killed our daughter…and I will damn you so far into the depths of hell you’ll live eternity in more pain than you could ever imagine. What you feel now will be nothing.”
Grabbing the shower gel from the side, she squirts some onto her hand and goes about washing herself. When she reaches for the sham
poo, I take it from her and lather her hair.
It’s so thick and strong. Every part of her has so much strength, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve let her down.
We’re both hurting, and yet, she’s the one that’s never faltered in her strength.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes meet mine, tear-rimmed and sad. She stands looking at me with more affection and love than I deserve.
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” she murmurs, coming closer. “I want you to stick to your promise. I can’t do light years alone. I can’t do any of this without you.”
Nodding, I drag her under the cooling spray to rinse the suds from her hair.
Fucking old houses.
Once the shampoo is out, I quickly let her finish her hair as I get out and fetch towels from the radiator by the window.
Wrapping one around me, I take the other, and once she’s done, I wrap her in it, ushering her back to the bedroom. We both dry off and get into bed.
Pulling her flush to me, I press a kiss to her lips. It doesn’t take much for it to deepen. Our tongues search each other out, and once we taste…fuck…it’s almost impossible not to devour. Even with our limbs too heavy to move, our muscles too weary to do their job.
“If I wasn’t so tired, I would fuck you to the edge and leave you hanging.”
“Is that so?” Laughing, I reach behind her to lamp and before I turn it off, I take a good look at her.
“Sometimes you make me so angry I don’t know what to do with it or you.”
“It’s a good thing you love me.”
“I do, cariño. My love for you is a sickness…insanity.” Her hand tightens around my nape. The hysteria shining bright in her eyes is a soothing balm to the pain in my soul.
“I love you more.”
“Always more,” she whispers into the crook of my neck as her leg hitches over my hip.
Turning off the light, I roll onto my back, taking her with me. Kissing the top of her head, I squeeze her in my arms.
“Always. Always. More, morena.”
Chapter 36
Arabella
Morning comes too quickly. The bed is too warm, and the air has that debauched smell to it along with sugar and cinnamon and…
Oh, that smells so good.
I swallow down the water pooling in my mouth because I can’t move a single limb without feeling the repercussions of last night. My pussy is sore, my arse feels…used, and the rest of me is deliciously stretched.
I’m achy, but it’s the best I’ve felt in so long.
Except when the bed jostles with Christopher’s weight, my body hates us both in equal measure.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he sings, pressing his semi-clothed and fresh-smelling body to mine. “I have food and coffee.”
My tummy decides to betray my need for sleep with a loud rumble.
“Food?”
“Yep.” Wrapping his arm around me, he rolls me to face him. “I figured you might not be able to walk after last night, so I brought you breakfast.”
The light filters through my blinking eyes. Once adjusted, I scowl up at him. “Your cock isn’t that debilitating.”
“Yeah? ’Cause that’s not what you were saying when my cum-rod was getting all up in your shitbox.” Christopher pulls that wide-eyed what? face.
God, why do his eyes have to be the colour of every sin I’ve ever committed?
Dark, deep, unapologetically seeking. They pluck at every one of my thoughts, scrambling them even with the cringe from his quip.
“Jesus, stop!”
“What? You asked, I followed through.” Shrugging, he smooths my hair back. “Don’t get bashful about it now. You always do that. Get all bossy boots and then act like you’re wrong to ask for what you need. There’s no shame in it, you know…”
“I know.” But at the same time, it’s something so…I don’t know. Hedonic? Carnal? There’s something so debasing about it, and yet, the effort and care…the attention and time. It’s intoxicating and so intimate.
“Then why do you get so flustered by it? It’s between you and me. No one else will ever know what we do.”
“It’s intimidating.” Focusing on the light smattering of hair on his chest, I murmur, running my fingertips over his skin.
When he doesn’t say anything, I take a deep breath and carry on. “I’ve never needed anyone like I need you, and sometimes it’s so much that I-I can’t get enough. I want more. I want to feel you everywhere. It’s like my being needs to encapsulate or be encapsulated by yours.”
His heart thrums into my palm as I smooth my hand over his chest. His body is so hard and cut that all the details feel printed onto my flesh.
“I know it sounds silly. But I can’t help it.”
“It’s not silly at all,” he breathes into my knotted hair. “How do you think I feel all the time? When I say I own you, I mean I own you. Like you own me. In every way.”
“I know.”
Wriggling closer, I hitch my leg over his hip so that we’re flush to one another. My body groans at the movement, but the ache only serves to make the heat and shelter of his strong body sweeter.
He holds me for a long moment, kissing my hair and caressing his hands up and down my back. And as perfect as this moment is, my heart is still being tightly fisted by the situation we’re in.
We’re in the middle of a war we could lose at any moment. We’ve gone into the battlefield blind. Our artillery is slowly being depleted, and we keep losing people along the way.
Dread is a constant pounding ache inside me. I try to ignore it, to eradicate it from my mind, but although it’s out of sight…it’s still very much in my mind. And when I try to force it out, it pangs, materialising itself into physical discomfort.
“How are we going to end this?”
“With blood. It’s the only way.”
Nodding into his chest, I curl the arm not sandwiched between us around his back and over his shoulder. My fingers skim his bullet wound.
The only way to win is by risking it all.
It’s all a gamble, and just as it might pay off, it might not.
“We need to get Georgina out of this. If anything happens to her…”
“I know.” Silencing me with a soothing hush, Christopher goes back to brushing my hair. “Why did you cut it?”
“I thought it would make it easier to look at myself. I thought it would make it easier to be someone else. It doesn’t. I’m still me.”
“I love still you.” The smile is apparent in his softened voice. “I wish I hadn’t dragged you into this.”
“I followed you willingly, even when I falsely protested. Besides, I would’ve stalked Casper into it. And anyway, who would you marry? Your options were limited.”
“You weren’t exactly on the to-marry list.”
“Arsehole!” I slap his shoulder blades. “The correct answer would be that I was the to-marry list.”
“I ripped it, so what does it matter?” He shrugs and I pull back.
“Wait. There was an actual list?”
“Not physically, but my grandmother had all her friends’ granddaughters lined up and ready. Are you surprised?”
No. Not really. But still… “Why wasn’t I on her list?”
“She can sense trouble. And you are trouble with a capital T for all intents and purposes.”
“Just because I don’t pander to her, doesn’t make me trouble.”
“It’s more me than it is you. And you’re a Mudblood.” His chuckle makes it impossible to hold my laugh in.
“I’m not!”
“Fine. Half-Blood, then.” Tickling my side, he sticks his tongue out at me. It’s funny how it’s all these little things that make him my Christopher. These little moments and glimpses that no one else gets. The sides of him that make him so much more than a cog in wheel that never stops turning.
And if I don’t have anything else to be thankful for in this life, I’ll alw
ays be grateful for him and his tenaciously kind soul. The softness and care he guards so vehemently.
“You’re giving me those eyes, morena, and I know you’re sore. So…”
“I know we’re different people now, but there are still parts of us left. You haven’t lost all your light, and you are still warm and caring. And I love you so much more. So so much more that actually it’s not a sickness or an insanity…it’s just all of me loving all of you limitlessly.”
Golden eyes soften to liquid honey. Pouty lips press tightly together with the most imperceptible wobble. It takes me all the way back to when we were just two people silly enough to fall in love with one another.
“You know, Cassie and I had this conversation a while back. I told her that the roughest time with the right person could be more than a peaceful lifetime with anyone else. I don’t think I actually understood the meaning of those words. Not really. I never saw any of this coming. In my head, rough was getting cabin fever. Not being able to do things the way we wanted. Having everyone else plan our wedding and make plans for our child. Being constantly followed around and watched from every angle. Herded in every direction.”
Gently, Christopher strokes my face. I didn’t realise I was crying. All I was focused on was him.
“We’ve had some fucking great times too, Belles.”
“We have.”
“Like that time I took you shark diving.”
“That wasn’t fun. You and Casper have a seriously warped sense of a great time.”
“Yes, but afterwards…the adrenaline made for great—”
“Jesus!” Covering his mouth with my hand, I scowl at him. “Really? We’re back to you and your cum-rod getting all up in my butt?”
“Shitbox. I said shitbox. Swapping out that word changes the context. It’s not as jovial and fun. And getting all up in there is…fun.”
Fucking hell.
“I swear to God! You know what else I told your sister?”
“That I’m God?” he grins.
“That you’re a fucking pain and that sometimes I really have to hold on to all the cares I give for you because you are hard work!”
“You’re the one that said if you really want something, you have to work for it. I’m sticking with your motto.” Leaning in, he kisses my forehead and then the tip of my nose. “I guess it means you really want me, huh?”
Scorch (Virtues & Lies Book 2) Page 29