The Uprising (GRIT Sector 1 Book 2)

by Rebecca Sherwin

  “Okay. Now, how will you react if I tell you to slurp?”

  “I’d tell you it was most unladylike to slurp, Mr Blackwood.”

  Rolling his eyes, Elias shook his head and tipped his glass. He took a small sip, a slither of wine entering his mouth through barely parted lips. He sucked, drawing air into his mouth to join the wine and God damn, the sound was exquisite. How could slurping be sexy? How could it warm me from the inside out, and turn my cheeks a blazing pink, before any alcohol had made its way into my body? I didn’t have the answers, but I did have instructions. I had a competent but impatient teacher. I watched Elias’ throat; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and glanced at me expectantly.

  “You are supposed to spit it out but-”

  “I’m greedy,” I teased. “I never spit.”

  Clearing his throat, Elias shifted in his seat and nodded with the twitch of his mouth portraying the urge to smirk in triumph. He’d proven his point. Learning from his experience could be fun.

  “Take a small sip,” he said, touching the bottom of my glass to tip it at the right angle. I let the wine trickle into my mouth before Elias took the glass and placed it on the table before resting his fingertips beneath my chin to tip my head back. “Now, slurp. I want to feel the wine against my fingers. Pretend you’re drinking from a straw.”

  Taking a deep breath, I did as he’d asked. I slurped the wine, allowing it to ripple and vibrate in my mouth.

  “Open. Don’t swallow.” He tipped my head back further. “Now.”

  I parted my lips, drawing my tongue back to stop the wine slipping down my throat.

  But then Elias covered my mouth with his and I was lost, instantly floating in a galaxy of Elias and heavenly wine intoxication. He took a share of the wine from my mouth, and pulled back. I watched him swallow, and then I followed, drinking down the wine as it settled as a decadent warmth in my throat.

  “See?” he said, tracing his thumb over my flushed cheeks, kissing one and then the other. He smoothed my hair out of my face and his thumb slid over my bottom lip, collecting the residue from our kiss so he could suck it off. “Teaching you pleases me immensely.”

  “I like being your student.”

  “Good.” He leaned forward to pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. “Now, eat up.”

  I smiled and sighed with content as I picked up my tiny little gold fork and stabbed at another grape. This Elias…he was easy to love. This Elias made it easy to live in a prison. He made loving and living easy, period.

  I woke up with a stretch, as birds sang in desperation for summer to return, granting them mercy from a frigid British autumn. Elias wasn’t in bed; I would have been shocked if he had been, but then I heard the shower running. The water burst from the jets and collided with something hard and unrelenting. I knew Elias was already beneath the spray and I pictured thick droplets of water dripping and cascading over his golden skin and solid form. I wanted to be the water, the sponge, and the soap that cleaned him after a day in the Sector and a night in our bed. Perching on the edge of the bed, I curled my toes in the carpet as I pulled his t-shirt over my head and tossed it aside. I stood up, naked, ready to join my husband in the shower. The door was ajar and I crept over the threshold, searching for him beneath the steam that enveloped him in the scent of sandalwood and ginger. I watched as he cleaned himself. He was methodical, his movements rigid and strict. He washed his shoulders, his arms, his stomach, his legs and feet and back up to scrub the globes of his tight ass. When he bowed his head and leaned it against the tiled wall, my breath caught. He was fisting his cock, trembling in resistance, but it failed as his biceps flexed and he made the first stroke along his impressive length. With his back to me, all I could do was watch his back muscles tighten, his thighs clench, and listen to the muted grunts that left him as he raised his forearm to his mouth. Why was he so ashamed to be masturbating? Why wasn’t he revelling in the feel of getting himself off, knowing exactly what he liked and how to free his mind before a day at work? It was torturous to watch. I couldn’t stand there and watch him torment himself with masturbation. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t need to. My feet carried me across the room and I slid across the screen that separated our bodies, instantly stepping in with him and closing the door.

  “Ashford?” he said, dropping his hold on his cock and looking at me from beneath his forearm.

  “Do you want me to help?” I took a step forward and reached for his shoulder to turn him so his back was to the wall.

  He shook his head and held onto my hips to keep me at what I supposed he considered a safe distance…although I didn’t know why.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Why? Why is it a sin to get yourself off?” When he didn’t answer, I reached out and took a firm hold of him. “It’s not a sin to fuck me, so it can’t be a sin if I make you come with my hand.”

  He hissed through clenched teeth as I worked him liked I’d watched him do to himself. I tried to apply the same pressure, stroke in the same rhythm, and kept my eyes on his eyes so he couldn’t slip away from me.

  “So good,” he murmured. “You feel so good.”

  “Tell me why you think you can’t do this.”

  “It’s forbidden,” he groaned, flexing his hips into my eager hand. “We’re not even supposed to have sex.”

  “We’re husband and wife. The rules don’t apply to us.”

  “They do. Sex should have one purpose and one purpose only.”

  “You don’t believe that.” I changed the subject and slowed the pace, stroking my thumb over the silky slit at the tip of his soapy cock. “Does this feel like a sin to you?” He shook his head. He groaned. I stroked again, eliciting another sharp hiss. “Does this feel wrong? Do you not like it when I touch you?”

  He shook his head again. “I love it when you touch me.”

  “Then how can it be wrong? If you want it and I want it, doesn’t it make it the rightest thing in the world?”

  “Confusing,” he murmured, closing his eyes and resting his head back on the tiles. “I can’t think straight.”

  “So don’t.” I dropped to my knees in front of him silently, careful not to draw attention to the shift. “Just feel.”

  I took him in my mouth, salivating for him as his smooth hot skin slid past my lips and I pressed my tongue flat to his shaft.

  “Shit!” He gripped my head and held me still, hunching over to find my gaze. “Fuck, Trixie.”

  I shook my head as I eased him back out, keeping the tip in my mouth and swirling my tongue around sensitive flesh. He shuddered and sighed. Then he moaned and bucked his hips.

  “Yes,” he hissed. “I’ve missed your mouth, princess.”

  Arching my back, I took him to the back of my throat and bobbed my head, dragging my tongue up and down his length as my mouth sucked against him. I pressed my hands flat to his stomach and dug my nails into toned muscle.

  “God.”

  His words spurred me on. Repetition of how good it felt. Moans and groans of sheer pleasure. Hisses and growls and the flex of his hips that told me the animal was never far away. I loved it, the power I held over him. I had the ability to clear his mind and by God, I’d try to dispel thoughts that orgasms and pleasure and satisfaction were sins. They weren’t. They were the things that made us human and the glue that kept us together.

  Elias’ breaths became shorter. His stomach tensed against my hands and his thighs bunched as release moved closer. Fisting the base of his cock, I moved my hand and mouth together, drawing his orgasm from him.

  “Don’t-” He paused, remembering what I’d said at the dinner table last night. “No. No, I want you to swallow it.” He groaned and fisted my hair, taking me at the rhythm he needed to get off. “Swallow every fucking drop.”

  I planned to. I wanted him in my mouth. He’d rewarded me with the salty burst of pre-cum and now I wanted it all. I wanted everything he had to gi
ve and I’d devour it like it was my last supper. I hummed, and heard the effects as it vibrated along his shaft and drew a growl from deep in his lungs. I’d never felt so fucking powerful. Elias rammed his cock into my mouth, dragging my gag reflex to the surface as he raced to release. The first hot spurt shocked me and I struggled to swallow it down as Elias stilled, shuddered, and hunched over me. His cock jerked against my tongue, each pulse drawing another bead of cum to reward me for letting him be free. When he convulsed and gripped my head, I freed him and looked up into eyes that resembled an abyss of mystery.

  “Trixie fucking Blackwood,” he said, swiping his thumb over my glistening bottom lip.

  “Don’t be ashamed.” With his help, I got to my feet and held onto his wrists. “I don’t care what the rules and regulations are, I give you permission to masturbate, and I’m far more powerful than outdated traditions and whatever goes through your head when you grip your cock.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. I wasn’t sure he was really agreeing to let go of the shame, but I wouldn’t push him further. Not today. “Time to begin the day.”

  Elias grabbed the sponge that had cleaned his own body moments ago, and squirted his shower gel onto it. Mine was on the shelf beside it; he could have used the soap I used every morning when I showered in preparation for time in the sun, but he didn’t. The scent of sandalwood and ginger and sex joined us as he washed me tenderly. He marked me with his scent. He gave himself to me with something as simple as a bottle of body wash. It was the most precious gift I’d ever been given and I would remember this soft moment all day, every time I moved and smelled my husband on my skin, with the reminder of how he tasted on my tongue.

  Weeks passed in a blur. Elias disappeared during the day, getting into the back of the car at the crack of dawn, and returning home after dark. I watched him every day, and became the queen of judging his body language. Not once did he emerge from the car relieved that he had made it back in once piece; he wasn’t afraid of the underground because he was the king of it. He allowed it to thrive, he convinced criminals he was on their side, and when he caught them off guard, they had no hope of running or convincing him they weren’t monsters. I saw the tension that rippled from head to toe when he’d taken a life…or planned to. I felt his conflict when he returned to the estate with a carriage behind him. Made of wood and rusting bolts and screws, the carriage looked like any mode of transportation that was often seen in historical textbooks documenting life in Victorian London. But this was no ordinary carriage; it was reinforced with padlocks and chains, and metal bars secured every slide of wood in place, so whoever was in the back would fail in their attempts to break free. I watched from the window many times over those weeks, as Charge dragged the carriage to the front of the house and then carted it around the side, to where I assumed there was another entrance to Sector 1. On those nights, I wondered if Elias knew I was watching. He always looked up at the window with sadness in his eyes and aggression in his posture. His anger never left him. The rage became him. The war was how he lived—torn between doing the right thing, and doing the wrong thing because it was all he knew. The power changed him slowly, and I’d never felt more severed from my husband’s life, or more in awe of the man he had become. The authority was who he was; the right he had been granted because of an organisation that began when Henry IV was on the throne. I’d never understood the importance of history until I looked at Elias Blackwood and knew that his ancestry—our ancestry—was the key to saving the future.

  Charge pulled the cart around the side of the house, and Elias looked up at the window. I expected him to head into the house, to come and find me like he did every night. He’d cared for me; he’d been tender and sweet, and he’d suffocated me with love until I felt like I depended on him for every breath I took. I stayed in the darkness of our bedroom, my gaze fixed on his as his trained on me on instinct. He knew I was there. I knew he did, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to see. I wanted him to know I wasn’t afraid of him. I needed him to know that I was here, I wasn’t going to break, and I longed for him to accept me into his world. I’d been training. Elias had allowed Christen to work on my battle skills with me and I’d upgraded from Kali to a heavy metal sword. I could feel my father’s presence with every swing, I could reach for Richard’s acceptance with every swipe; by learning to fight, I could please both of my fathers and it was my driving force most days. I would protect Elias by learning how to fight for us both. I could shoot; I could hit a target whilst holding the gun in either hand, closing either eye, and looking down the barrel with both eyes open. I wasn’t sure how many bullets I’d gone through, how many casings I left discarded on the ground of the garden, but I did remember how it felt to hold a gun and know it gave me insurmountable power to punish. To protect. To end. To claim justice.

  Elias was gone. I hadn’t seen him look away from me and I hadn’t watched where he’d gone, but he was no longer standing on the driveway below me. The car was gone. Charge was gone. There was no evidence that the convoy had returned at all. The estate was silent once again, and I grabbed my robe off the end of the bed, pulling it on as I crossed the room and swung the door open.

  I still didn’t know where Ambrose stayed, but he was always on my mind. I worried daily about bumping into him over breakfast. I panicked when I was alone without staff or Christen. After what had happened in the foyer what felt like a lifetime ago, although I could still hear the venom in his voice like he was injecting it into my veins, I was afraid. After seeing him dispose of bodies after Elias had let loose on the criminals of the whore house he’d found, he had become my nightmare. I was terrified every minute of the day when I was alone, and my own company had become a prison. Ambrose had become my demon. He hated me, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, and I didn’t trust his control and obedience when his son wasn’t present.

  I couldn’t hear anything as I peered outside, gripping the door in case I needed to slam it in haste and protect myself. It was one thing I hadn’t been taught—combat. I had no idea how to fight with my fists, and no idea what I’d do if a body pummelled mine.

  “Elias?” I whispered as I crept from the bedroom and pulled the robe tight around me.

  The front door had been left open and the harsh November air cut through the silk, sending goosebumps up my legs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I closed the door and listened for Elias. He was in the Sector office. I could hear him flicking through sheets of paper and my core clenched when he cleared his throat. He didn’t sound pent-up. He didn’t sound frustrated or angry, and there was no tension leaking from the room to tell me to beware. He was just a man, working through the night. Slipping into the parlour, I poured him a glass of whiskey and grabbed a bar of chocolate from the box he’d told me to help myself from, and shuffled along the hallway to return to the office. He always came to me. Always. He hadn’t tonight, and I hadn’t adjusted, been manipulated, enough in this world to realise I shouldn’t have interrupted him. Men from centuries gone were dangerous. They’d lived to very few rules along lenient guidelines, because councils and governments were run by men. Perhaps they’d told us to stay away to protect us. Perhaps they’d wanted us away from the business of men, because we’d be disgusted by what they did in the dark. I hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t entertained it, and didn’t care. Elias was mine and whatever secrets he held would become mine, too.

  I stepped into the office to find him at the desk, his hand on his jaw as his little finger stroked his bottom lip back and forth. He was lost in his reading, twirling his pen between the fingers of his free hand. I wanted to know what he was reading. I wanted to know what he was working on. I wanted to help him with it so he could come to bed with me.

  “Hi,” I whispered, place the glass on the desk.

  He inhaled sharper than normal, but made no other response to tell me he hadn’t known I was there.

  “Hi, Ashford.” He tapped the side of the glass with his pen. “Thank you.
”

  His voice was low and calm, but he still didn’t look at me. He was reading by candlelight and my tired eyes couldn’t make out what it was. It wasn’t words. It was images, drawings, sketches perhaps. Had he purchased more art?

  “How was your day?”

  Finally, he sat back, tossed his pen onto the desk and folded his arms across his chest. I felt like a schoolgirl standing in front of the headmaster; I didn’t know how to stand, where to look, or what to do with my hands. I settled for locking them behind my back as Elias’ hungry eyes drank me in and he licked his full bottom lip.

  “It was good.”

  “Will you tell me about it?”

  His eyes narrowed and curiosity got the better of him.

  “Why the sudden inquisitiveness?” he asked. “What do you want to know?”

  “Can I ask you about more than today? If I ask you questions will you answer them?”

  He shrugged and the corner of his mouth twitched into a wicked smirk that matched the explosive glint in his eyes. It reminded me of the night we’d met, when we’d toyed and played; when I’d antagonised, Elias had hated it, and together we mapped out this journey without knowing it.

  “Try me.”

  “Okay.” He’d as good as agreed, so I would reward him with flecks of the submission he wanted from me. “May I sit?”

  His body heat flared with instant lust, desire thick in the pools of his dark eyes.

  “Yes, princess, you may sit.” He raised his hand before I could move a muscle to grab a chair. He tapped the desk. “Here. In front of me where I can touch you.”

  “Why do you want to touch me?”

  “Why do you question it?”

  “Because I’m curious.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” he rasped.

  “Then it’s lucky I’m not a kitten.”

  “Tigress,” he said, knocking on the desk to remind me of his instruction. “You’re a tigress.”

  “Lioness,” I said in return, taking the first step towards him. “Because you’re my lion.”