“Spread your legs.”
Her anger intensified and she defied him with her eyes, but spread her legs slightly apart, knowing hers were still no match for the fury swirling inside him.
“Tsk … tsk … Come now, honey. You know what I want. Open those lovely thighs wide.” She glared with open hostility at him.
“No! I am done! No more! I will not aid you in this!”
She rolled to the other side of the bed and came to her feet and screamed in pain when Tristan caught her by her long hair and pulled her back.
“I have no intention of hurting you, but if you run from me … I just might! Get back on this bed!”
She turned her head, tears of pain in her eyes, her hair tightly wound around his fist.
“Then hit me! Give me a hiding, anything! Please, just not … not this again! Please, I beg you!”
He laughed and yanked on her hair. She screamed and scrambled on the bed. He kept pulling until she was lying in the center of the bed. His hand moved to the back of her head and softly massaged her scalp where he pulled her hair. His breath was hot against her temple.
“It is much too early for you to start begging, honey. The morning is many hours away.”
She stopped breathing, her eyes green orbs of misery.
“No! You can’t mean … you can’t! Not until the morning! Please!”
“You should have come to realize by now, that I do not make idle threats. Pray Savannah that my anger has been sated by then … otherwise …”
Chapter Twelve
She prayed, she pleaded, she cried and she begged, to no avail. He drew everything from her body and her soul. He pulled strings she didn’t know she had, her gasps and cries echoed throughout the room the whole night long, to never once be offered a recess.
Every time he spent himself inside her, she begged for her own release. Then he played with her, watched the need build higher and higher until she could not bear it anymore and begged him hoarsely. Even when tears of despair and need ran down her cheeks, he did not relent.
He kept seeing James Wilson in his mind’s eye, throwing his son in the air and catching him, hugging him tight. Or tickling Tiffany until she pealed with laughter and the worst of them all, holding Savannah’s hand while she gave birth to his children.
Then his anger would take over and he would start all over again, feeding her desires and still refused her when she broke down repeatedly and begged for release.
The sun was already high in the morning sky when he pulled himself from her body, her cries and panting still continuing behind him where he sat on the side of the bed. He dropped his head in his hands and cursed himself. He spent himself in the usual unsatisfactory way a number of times inside her warm body, yet he was still hard, still totally unsatisfied. He did not feel the usual satisfaction he did the first time he demanded retribution.
Rather he was ridden by guilt. Maybe because he realized he took it too far. Knew she must be suffering like never before. The shaking bed from her shivering and trembling body was testimony to that. He strode to the bathroom and stood under the shower, first hot, then stinging cold water. He dried himself and walked back to the bed.
His heart shrunk inside his chest when he looked at her and he cursed himself again. How could he have done this to her! She was curled up in a little ball, drenched in moisture, her hair clinging to her face, her eyes closed as she shivered and trembled uncontrollably. She was breathing shallowly, broken by soft pants and shudders. He sat down and softly touched her hip and she cried out, trembling harder and she opened her eyes.
“P … p … please … n … no mmmo …” He put his fingers on her lips.
“Shh, honey. It’s over. Come here … let me hold you.”
She shook her head and kept her arms tight around her legs. “N … nno … sk … sssskin … t …to …sssenn …”
He cursed and picked her up amidst her panting and crying. He stepped into the shower and stood under the pelting rays of the tepid water, taking the sting and allowing it to run over her body until her breathing were slightly more normal. He turned and let the water run over her, turning and taking her agonized cries in his mouth as he kissed her. Her skin was still too sensitive and the water was torture. He kept kissing her until her arms curled around his back.
He turned the water off, and quickly patted both of them dry, her trembling only slightly receded. He carried her back to bed and settled between her legs, pushing inside her immediately and she cried out fearing he was not done, but then he surged all the way into the hilt and she quivered around his rigid staff.
He kissed her softly. “Shh, honey, it’s over … relax, feel me inside you … yes … take me deeper … oh God, yes!”
He lifted his body, straightening his arms and looked down at her. Her body trembled and her hands clutched at his arms, her eyes feverish when they met his.
“Tell me what you want. What do you want me to do … anything, honey … just tell me.”
“I … n … need … you!” she panted, still in the grips of her need, frustrated that he kept still inside her. She ground her hips against his. “Please … take me … now!”
He started thrusting into her, slow and tender, careful of her sensitized state and she screamed.
“Nooooo! Damn … yy … yyou! Hard … take mmme hard! Tristan please … I hurt inside! Help … mmme!”
She stammered through her trembling and he realized she was in a state of need equal to having taken an overdose of an aphrodisiac, and cursed himself once again.
Tristan plunged then, hard, deep and fast, driving into her with vicious force, her body desperately and uncontrollably thrashing against his. He winced when her nails bit into his back as her climax arched her back to lift from the bed, forcing him deeper. He kept plunging, through her climax and still further, until another and yet another shivered through her. He could hold his own back no longer. He shouted as he spilled his seed deep inside her, feeling her familiar tightening as she pulled him deeper and pulsed around his throbbing shaft yet again.
He struggled to breathe and his arms burned where he held himself above her. Their eyes met and his heart contracted. Her need still burned high … she still needed more, much more. Oh God! How did she survive the night? How could he have done that to her? So viciously and so relentlessly?
He knew how she suffered after only an hour or two. This time he stoked her desires and needs for hours … Good God, he calculated quickly, nearly eighteen hours! Guilt rode him and he cursed. He lowered himself on her and kissed her tenderly, his mouth slanting over hers, coaching her tongue to meet his and when she did, he pulled it into his mouth and drank deeply from her.
She mewled into his mouth and her hips rotated against his hips, he complied and thrust wildly into her, her legs clamped around his waist. He doused the fire and need inside her little by little and it was deep into the night, before she breathed normally and the trembling inside her stopped. He rose and drew a bath into which he lowered her gently. He drew her eyes up to his with a finger under her chin. His eyes were bright silver and earnest.
“It’s over, honey. I will never do that to you again. When I saw him with the twins … with you, knowing what he meant to you, to them … I … needed to rid my mind of those visions and I lost … focus. I am sorry, more than you could ever imagine! Finish your bath, I am going to prepare something to eat.”
He held her in his arms all night long and left her to sleep to revive herself through the next day, only to wake for dinner and then fall asleep in his arms again.
He woke her with tender kisses around her chin the next morning and she stretched into his body, at last having the freedom to caress his body freely. He grabbed her wandering hand and rose on his elbow to smile down at her.
“I would have thought you would be sated by now? Ahh, honey … another blush!
He leaned down and kissed her deeply, his hand searching and closing around a quivering nipple. He broke the
kiss and looked down at her breast, smiling as it shriveled under his gaze to pucker into a tight nub. He plumped it up, his hand around her breast and lifted the tip, feeding it to his hungry mouth. Her cries intensified as he suckled the tip deep into his mouth and bit down on it to pull it with when he lifted his head. His fingers quickly soothed the sting away and he looked at her, his hand stroking her belly.
“I can’t seem to get enough of you. Every time is more intense than the previous, and I get hard just thinking of you. What have you done to me, woman?”
She smiled and stroked his jaw. His sincere apology of the night before and his tenderness thereafter gave her the assurance that he would not continue on that same path.
He leaned over to look at the time on his watch on the bedside table and her eyes caught the glass with the pills half dissolved at the bottom. She bit her lip at the implication thereof, realizing that she already missed three days’ worth.
He noticed her look and his eyes hardened. He pulled himself in an upright position, facing her, waiting for the question. She bit her lip.
“Why?”
“Because it is my due. I missed everything of the twins. Your belly growing big with my children nurturing inside you, the excitement of feeling them kicking against my hand the first time … and holding your hand when you’re in labor!”
She sat up and took his hand in hers, her eyes pleading. “That is no reason to make a baby! Tristan … we … we’re not even …” She swallowed the words and dropped her hand from his, but he would not allow her to retreat.
“Not even what?” He looked at her motionlessly.
“It … doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it? Say it Savannah. I want to hear you say it!” He took her shoulders and shook her.
“Married! We’re not even married!”
“No we’re not, but something that will be rectified immediately. Get dressed, we’re getting married today.”
“You are crazy! We are not!”
“Yes we are.” He snarled at her, his face now angry. “I want the world to know Jason and Tiffany are mine. You will not defy me in this.”
“The world can know they are yours without marrying me, Tristan. I have not kept it a secret from anyone. I will not marry you … not until …”
“Until what?”
She sat looking at him, not daring to say it. He was too angry and still too resentful. Maybe he would never come to love her again, just keep her and use and punish her as he saw fit.
“I am waiting, Savannah.”
“Forget it. You may force my body to respond to yours, but you will not force me to marry you!”
“Not even if you’re pregnant again?”
She gasped and stared at him with shocked eyes.
“You … you wouldn’t!”
His face was expressionless, but his eyes flashed fire. “Wouldn’t I?” Nodding at the glass on the bedside table.
“That is wrong, Tristan! For so many reasons! Please, you can’t do this.”
“Again … Can’t I? Who is going to stop me, honey? You?” He laughed deeply. “We both know you can’t resist me. Your body belongs to me … and well you know it. Besides, what do you think I have been doing these past few days? You may very well be pregnant already.”
She stared at him, her mind blank. The significance of his deliberate action to destroy her tablets in front of her three days ago never sank in at the time. She was too scared of what he intended to do. Now it did … and he made a point of spilling his seed inside her over and over the past few days. He was right, she might be pregnant already!
“Ah … I see the penny dropped at last!”
“Tristan, not this way please.”
“Then what way, honey? With love and affection? After what you did to me? Don’t worry, my love, I do love your body!”
She flinched as his face hardened again and she cried in her heart. He leaned closer and loomed over her until she was flat on her back and he forced his leg between hers, spreading them wide.
“Well, let’s not leave anything to chance then!”
“Tristan … please … you promised!”
“Yes I did. But I can’t deny how much I want you, nor can you me. I did not promise never to give you pleasure again, honey. That I will never deny myself!”
He set out to seduce her then, and made her his, irrevocably and completely, proving without a doubt what he claimed was true … her body belonged to him. He whispered in her ear when her climax splintered through her.
“You are mine, Savannah … I need you … remember that, honey!”
Over the following four days, he set out to prove just how much they desired each other. He stayed at home and spent only a few hours a day working. He made love to her all over the house, where ever they were, where ever he wanted, over and over again. Promising her pleasure beyond belief … he delivered every time!
She chose not to go with when Tristan went to fetch the children. She was scared she would break down in front of his mother. She felt very fragile, unsure and hurt. Hurt that he admitted to not having any feelings left for her, yet he could not get enough of her body.
When the twins ran screaming in her arms, she broke down and cried. They clung to her, their eyes wide and scared. They have never seen her cry this much and were unsure how to react. Tristan loosened her clinging arms from around the twins and held her tight, trying to calm her down. He looked at the twins over her head and said soothingly.
“Mommy missed you rascals very much. She has been crying the whole week! We don’t even have any tissues left!”
That got him the smiles he was looking for from the twins and they ran closer to hug Savannah around her legs.
“Don’t cry, Mommy! We are back now! We missed you too! You and Daddy!”
She pulled out of Tristan’s arms and hunched down to hug them tight, her tears under control at last. She kissed each one on the cheek and ruffled their hair.
“Never again! Not for so long! Do you hear me, Tristan!”
She glared at him in between, but her smile was on her lips when she sat on the couch with them, listening to all the new stories they had to tell.
Savannah sat on the edge of Tiffany’s bed watching them sleep with a tender smile on her face. She only realized how much she missed them when they ran into her arms. It was the longest she has been separated from them and she realized how empty her life would be without them. She flinched at the thought … only now realizing the feelings going through Tristan all the time.
He walked in and stood looking at her before she noticed him. She was beautiful and he could never get enough of her. She appeared fragile where she sat, softly stroking Tiffany’s hair, the expression on her face one of sadness and regret.
“Savannah … come to bed. They are fine now, let them sleep.”
She looked up, the tenderness still in her eyes and he wished it was there when she looked at him too. She nodded, kissed each cheek and walked to their room. Tristan tucked them in again, and tenderly kissed them. It was his turn to stand and look down at them, his heart turned to mush. How much he loved these two little rascals! He couldn’t imagine his life now without them in it anymore.
Savannah was already in the shower when he walked into their room and he opened the balcony door. He stood gazing out to sea. He didn’t hear her walking up to him, but stiffened when her arms circled his waist and hugged him tight. Her body pressed flush against his back. He closed his eyes and exulted in the feeling of her unexpected advance towards him. He closed his hands around hers barely closing around his wide chest and squeezed.
He turned in her arms and gazed into her eyes, frowning at the uncertainty in hers. She lifted her hand and tenderly stroked his jaw.
“I haven’t been apart from the twins for more than two days before and only realized how much I missed them when they ran into my arms. How empty my arms have been and how empty my life would be without them in it. For the first time I r
ealized what you are feeling for not having had that for three years!”
Her eyes were open and earnest as she gazed at him. “I am so sorry for keeping them from you. You are a natural father and they love you so much, and you have so much love to offer them. You, more than anyone deserved to have been part of their lives from the start.”
He yanked her close and buried his face in her neck. They stood holding each other for a long time. That night Tristan made love to her so slowly and tenderly; she cried in his arms, the words of her love for him hovering on her lips. Yet, she held them back, praying that somehow his heart would soften towards her over time.
Chapter Thirteen
“I want you to move back into your own room.”
Savanna froze. She looked at Tristan where he stood staring out of their bedroom window. She was busy putting on makeup. They planned on taking the twins to the fanfare a few blocks away. She swallowed.
“Why? I thought you wanted the kids to see us as a normal family?”
“Which is why I need you to move out of my room.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Tristan sighed and turned to her. His face was inscrutable when his eyes traced over her beautiful face. He needed to make right with her. He treated her … well, he did not even want to think about it. They needed to cross the bridge between them and they needed to do it soon, otherwise there was no hope for them.
“I … know I treated you harshly from the moment you returned. And yes, I believed I had justification, but not to the extent I pushed you at times. It bothers me more than I can say that I could treat you like that. The mother of my children.”
He ran his hand over his neck and sighed. His eyes were smoky, but remained fixed on hers.
“I would not have been able to blame you had you run away and Lord knows … I can’t blame you if you wish to leave now.”
Savannah’s eyes widened. She never expected this. She accepted his treatment because of her own guilt and her love for him. Maybe it was pitiful, but she needed him in her life. She did not want to be alone any longer and he was the one that her heart belonged to … has belonged to for years!
Payback Time, Baby Page 12