Consent (The Loan Shark Duet Book 2)

by Charmaine Pauls

  “No.”

  Right answer. “Then let Kris enjoy the gift and stop worrying about it. Except for the nauseating pasta, how was your lunch date?”

  Her expression brightens. “Good. I missed Kris. She’s a good person, you know.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  I remove her boots and then the stockings, allowing my fingers to linger longer than necessary.

  “You’re back early.” Her look is thoughtful. “How did Carly take the news?”

  “Not well, but she’ll come round.”

  “Oh, no, Gabriel. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant––”

  My gut twists with guilt. “I don’t want to hear you talk like this.”

  If I were going to come clean, now would be the time, but my decision is made. She opens her mouth, but I still her with a finger on her lips. No more talk of our inside-out, right-in-every-wrong-kind-of-way relationship. No more talk, at least not for the rest of tonight, not while her naked body is right in front of me. Going down on my knees, I cup her hips and pull her toward me. She gives two tiny steps, but the momentum makes her stumble into me. I press my lips against her abdomen and hold them there until her gasp startles me.

  “Oh, wow.” She utters a delighted giggle. “I felt him.”

  My throat tightens with an unknown emotion. “The baby?”

  “He moved.” She stares at her stomach in wonder. “It felt like butterfly wings.”

  We laugh together as I splay my hands over the tight skin of her belly while she cups her hands over mine. I’m unable to process the wonder unfolding beneath my palms. She’s a miracle, and she makes my life happier for this incredible gift.

  “Do it again,” she says, lifting her hands to give me access.

  I plant kisses all over her belly, starting with her navel and ending on her pubic bone.

  She says my name like it’s a happy word. A ten-megawatt smile burns on my face.

  “Did it work?”

  “Yes.” She laughs again, her eyes filling with reverence. “Oh, my God, Gabriel.” She takes my hand and moves it back over her stomach. “Can you feel it?”

  “It’s too early, beautiful. Tell me what it’s like.”

  “It tickles inside.”

  A happy glow transforms the pale face with the dark rings. It’s a beautiful moment I don’t deserve, but I take it greedily. I’d stay on my knees forever to be part of these magical milestones Sylvia wouldn’t share with me. For another moment longer, I hold her to me, pressing my face against her warm skin, inhaling the raspberry fragrance I associate with her. I’m reluctant to let go, but she’s probably tired and weak from the bout of sickness. Tearing myself away, I run a shower. There’s enough space for us both to stand comfortably, but I sit on the bench and drape her over my body, unwilling to break our contact. She lets me take care of her, washing her body and hair.

  When we’re both dry, I carry her to our bed. My only intention is to hold her while she rests, but when her hand wraps around my shaft, my willpower dissolves. I roll over her, keeping my weight on my arms, and kiss her lips. She gasps as my cock sinks into the heat of her pussy, and then there are only moans as I make love to her, slowly and reverently.

  Comes morning, I force myself to leave our bed. Valentina is sleeping, and if I stay another second, I’m going to wake her with my cock in her pussy. Again. We made love until late, and she needs her sleep. I can’t act like a goddamn horny teenager around her all of the time. The problem is I want her more than ever. With enticing curves and pretty features, she’s always been my perfect little toy, my pet, but now she’s a goddess. When I fell for her, it was for her strength and loyalty. This time round, I’m smitten by her unconditional love for the life she carries and her uncomplaining nature in dealing with the pregnancy curveballs.

  Some women get sick, some feel tired, some have backache, and some develop cravings, but Valentina has everything. This pregnancy came at her with the full-blown force of a hurricane. I’m in the shower when she storms into the bathroom and vomits her guts out.

  I’m out in a flash, wrapping a towel around my waist. I let her finish before helping her up.

  She wipes the back of her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  Tangling my fingers in her hair, I push her cheek against my chest. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. We’re in this together, baby.”

  She puts an inch of distance between us and gives me a grateful, guilty kind of smile that shatters my heart, because I don’t deserve one drop of her thankfulness and especially not her guilt.

  She touches her wild morning hair. “I must look a mess.”

  “You’ve never looked more beautiful.”

  This time her smile blinds me with its radiance. She cups my cheek on the scarred side of my face. “You’re sweet.”

  “Sweet?” I advance on her, trapping her against the vanity. “Is that how you’d describe me?”

  “Like sugar.”

  “Sugar, eh?” She shrieks when I catch her around the waist and lift her onto the counter. “You’re doing serious damage to my reputation.”

  “Just a big, old, fluffy, sweet bear,” she taunts.

  “Old? Fluffy? Now you’re asking for it.” I tickle her sides, inviting more shrieks and a wild bout of screaming.

  “Stop,” she says through tears of laughter, trying to catch my wrists.

  I catch hers instead and pin them to the mirror above her head. I want to look at her. She’s insanely gorgeous when she wakes up and even more so when she’s happy. Laughing tears cling to her eyelashes, making them appear darker. Traces of the same wetness run over her flushed cheeks. Silky hair tumbles in curls over her shoulders. Her breasts are firm, their new weight pulling them slightly down. Under my unabashed scrutiny, her nipples harden, pulling her areolas tight. I’m standing between her legs, her knees brushing up against my hips. My cock stirs. My breathing quickens. The mound of her shaved pussy presses against my dick where it rises under the towel. I rip the towel from my body and cover the taps to protect her back before bending her knees and placing her heels on the edge of the countertop. She’s spread wide, and it’s all for me.

  I place the pad of a finger on her clit. “Mine.”

  “Yours,” she echoes, her breathing shallow.

  “I want to make you burn.”

  “Then touch me.”

  The laughter and playfulness are gone. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Touch her. I shouldn’t, but I’m not strong enough to resist. My conscience says she needs to rest, but my lust says she’s awake, anyway. Fuck my good intentions. I need her. I need her pleasure. I need her intense pleasure. It’s too soon to take her like at Mount Grace. Fucking her ass like that, I kind of lost it after not having had her for so long, and I don’t want to lose it again. I don’t want to hurt her, at least not in a non-erotic way.

  I squeeze her wrists. “Keep your hands up.”

  Fear mixes with excitement in her eyes. She wants this, because this is what I taught her. This is how I made her. It’s all she knows.

  Reaching over her for the wall cabinet, I take out the orgasm oil I saved for an occasion like this. I unscrew the cap and deposit the bottle on the counter. She watches me with wide eyes, licking her lips nervously.

  All of my attention hones in on her pussy. Carefully, using the fore and middle finger of one hand, I part her lips, exposing the treasure buried between them. Her clit is engorged. Wetness glistens around her slit. She’s turned on. Hell, so I am. My cock is about to combust, and I’m only looking at her. Holding her open, I turn the bottle upside-down and wait for a drop to form at the dripper nozzle.

  I catch her gaze, silently commanding her eyes to hold mine. “This is going to feel warm, but it’s perfectly safe.”

  She communicates her trust with a small nod.

  “Good girl.”

 
I drip the stimulant oil on her clit and massage it into the nub. Her flesh swells and turns a shade darker. Heat penetrates the calloused skin of my fingertip. I can only imagine how hot her delicate clit must be burning. The sight of that delectable flesh turning to a torturous blaze under my ministrations is enough to make me ejaculate without touching my dick, but I tear my gaze away to read the expression in her eyes. Her head is resting against the mirror, her face turned to the side. Two more seconds, and the hotness will turn into a quick-lasting, intense inferno. Right on cue, her eyes fly open. Red blotches color her cheeks.

  She utters a low moan. “It burns.”

  “I know, baby.”

  I stop the massaging, giving her time to absorb the sensation. As the intensity climbs, her clit swells. Her feet slip from the counter. She tries to relieve the sensation by closing her legs, but I need to watch. Pushing open her thighs, I trap her body with the weight of mine and press my oil-coated finger on her asshole.

  “Want to burn here, too?” I ask, kissing her shoulder.

  “No.” She squirms under me. “Please.”

  “Then keep your legs open.”

  She rotates her hips, trying to press her burning parts on the cold marble, but I catch her legs to keep her still. She gnaws on her bottom lip and tries to be quiet as she rides the wave that burns through her genitals, but her whimpers are becoming louder.

  “Please, Gabriel. I need to come.”

  The stimulant makes her clit pulse with need, and the bite of heat will only make it hotter when she comes. Her pussy is wet with her arousal, the lips dark pink and swollen, inviting me to sink my cock into the soft, warm depth beyond. On the brink of exploding, my cock spills pre-cum. I part her folds with one hand and flick her over-stimulated clit with my nail. Every time my nail connects with her skin she dilates a little more and screams a little louder. I count every flick, measuring the pressure carefully. Too hard or soft and she won’t find release like this. She comes on the eleventh count with a wail that lifts the roof. Her pussy contracts around nothing but air, but it won’t be empty for long. I press the head of my cock on her clit, rubbing in circles to prolong the orgasm. She clamps her legs around my hips. The heat that drove her to this high penetrates the tip of my penis and burns down my shaft in a slow, agonizing mixture of painful pleasure. The urge to spear into her is fierce, but I count to five, take a few deep breaths, and enter her carefully.

  Her pussy is tight, hot, and wet with a distant echo of a burn. I stop when I’m buried to the hilt. This is what I always want, to take her so deep she doesn’t know where she begins and I end. There’s an endless need to my rhythm as I start pumping. She drops her arms to grip the basin for support as I shove into her, making her back collide with the mirror. I need her to come again, with me this time. Having made it my business to understand her body, I know how to make that happen. Gripping both nipples between my fingers, I use the hard tips as leverage to bounce her curves. The clench of her pussy on my cock is the reaction I’m after. I thrust harder and pick up my pace. Her body tenses, and her legs hug me tighter.

  “Come, beautiful.” I release her nipples and grab her breasts in my palms, kneading the flesh as my own climax starts to build at the base of my spine. “Goddamn. Fuck.”

  My load explodes like hot jets of lava. I bite back another curse and fall over her, trapping her body between my arms.

  “Goddammit, Valentina.” I rest our foreheads together while I catch my breath.

  By the time I feel more or less steady, she’s still lying back against the mirror, her muscles like mush.

  “Don’t move.”

  I turn on the shower and rinse us both, taking care to wash her gently. When she’s dry, I coat her genitals with a vaginal balm to alleviate any lingering burn and just to be sure her asshole, too.

  Wiping my fingers on her inner thigh, I search her eyes. “How are you doing?”

  Her smile is soft and sleepy. “Mm.”

  I wish I could take her back to bed, but our first appointment will be here in thirty minutes. We don’t have time for more than a chaste kiss. “Get dressed and come down for breakfast. You need to eat. After breakfast, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  “Who?”

  “Just do as I say.”

  “I’ll go check on Charlie, first. It was his first night in his new room.”

  “Let him sleep. He was up late with Rhett, watching movies.”

  “This is new to him.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “I just––”

  My palm lands on her naked backside. Smack. “Are you deliberately provoking me to spank your ass?”

  For a crazy moment a new bout of lust flares in her eyes. It looks as if she may consider that forbidden spanking, but then she turns to brush her hair.

  My phone buzzes on the nightstand with a message from Magda. Our appointment arrived early. Thank God Valentina doesn’t ask more questions. I have no idea how she’ll react to the man waiting for us downstairs.

  7

  Gabriel

  By the time I get downstairs, Christopher van Wyk and Magda are conversing in the lounge. Magda introduces us. He’s a close friend, and this was her idea.

  “I’m early,” he says, shaking my hand, “but I didn’t know how traffic would be from Pretoria.”

  “Why don’t you join us in the dining room?” I offer. “We can talk over breakfast.”

  Magda is in the middle of pouring coffee when Valentina comes down the stairs. Like a fool, I stop what I’m saying to stare at her through the open door. She’s crazily, inhumanely, angelically beautiful. Her hair has more volume, and her face has a pregnancy glow. Maybe some of it is the post-orgasm endorphins coursing through her blood, but the pearly quality of her smooth skin is something I’ve only seen with expecting mothers. The blue dress is fitted, showing off the roundness of her full breasts and stomach. There’s a spark in her eyes as she looks straight at me, a telltale sign of secrets, of moments in bathrooms only we share.

  “You were saying?” Christopher urges.

  “I–uh…”

  Valentina saves me by stopping in the door.

  I get to my feet. “Let me introduce you to my wife. This is Valentina. Valentina, meet Christopher van Wyk. He’s a hypnosis psychologist.”

  Christopher comes around the table to shake her hand. “Please to meet you, Mrs. Louw.”

  Magda tenses when Christopher attributes Valentina with our surname, but she plasters a smile on her face. “Christopher is a friend. I wanted you to meet him, Valentina.”

  “Me?” Valentina takes the chair I hold for her.

  “Since Charlie is now part of the family,” Magda says, “I want to look into all possible treatments.”

  Valentina looks at me quickly, a question in her eyes.

  “I didn’t have time to tell you.” The truth is I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to refuse.

  “We’ve already tried everything,” she says politely.

  “Not hypnoses, I’m sure,” Magda says.

  “No, not hypnoses, but I’ve met with all the specialists in Johannesburg. Nothing can reverse the brain damage.”

  “We’re not talking about repairing damage,” Christopher says, taking his seat again. “We’re talking about making sure he’s comfortable and happy.”

  “I assure you, Charlie is as balanced and happy as he can be.”

  “Hypnoses can help him be more autonomous.” Magda brings her cup to her lips. “He needs more stimulation and friends. There are wonderful institutions in Johannesburg that can provide that.”

  Alarm flashes across her pretty features. “Gabriel, you said he could live here.”

  “He can.” I cup her hand. “I only want you to consider all possibilities now that money is not an issue.”

  “He needs me.” She glances at the people around the table like a trapped rabbit. “I’m his only family.”

  “Shh.” I pull her chair
closer to mine and put an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t want you to get upset. The decision remains in your hands.”

  “You’ll let me decide?”

  “Of course.”

  Her tense shoulders relax a fraction. “What does the treatment entail?”

  “A few sessions of hypnoses,” Christopher says, “during which Charlie will go into a state of deep relaxation. He’ll come out of the sessions feeling centered and at peace. I’ve used my technique in similar cases to help with insomnia, loss of appetite, speech problems, ticks, repetitive actions, involuntary cussing, anti-social behavior, and incoherent thoughts.”

  “Charlie has a short attention span, and he repeats syllables, but he eats and sleeps well.”

  “We’ll do an extensive evaluation beforehand,” the doctor says.

  “If it’s in Charlie’s best interest…” She looks at me.

  “It is,” I say. “There are also legal issues you neglected, such as declaring Charlie financially incompetent and formalizing your guardianship. We’ll look at that after breakfast.”

  Her gaze flickers between Magda and me. She doesn’t trust us, and I don’t blame her. She always took care of her brother without help, and we were going to kill him, after all.

  “You’re not alone any longer,” I whisper in her ear. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  Valentina

  After breakfast, Gabriel gives me documents to sign to declare Charlie financially incompetent and to secure my guardianship. I’m eager to see how my brother is doing this morning, but Charlie wakes late. I’ll have to have a word with Rhett about the movie nights. Charlie is happy with his new bedroom, especially the flat screen television mounted on the wall.

  I make Charlie a breakfast of tea and toast, and introduce him to Bruno, but the two don’t hit it off. Bruno must sense Charlie’s apprehension. Usually, Charlie doesn’t venture outside unless lured by someone dangling a reward in front of his nose, but I give him strict instructions about asking before going to the garden. I don’t think Bruno will attack him, but I prefer to be over-cautious. To get Charlie out of the house, I decide to take him shopping with me after lunch.