Soul Of A Man (The Dark Souls)

by Jamie Begley

  “Yes, and you have driven me to it, you idiot!” Still not content with the damage she had inflicted upon him, Cara moved in on him again. Jericho had enough sense to know when to get the hell out of dodge and this was it. He moved to slide by the enraged woman, but she blocked his exit. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

  Jericho tried tact. “Look, Cara, maybe I was wrong and read more into the situation than there was. I’m sorry.” Jericho got nervous when he saw the calculating smile begin to curl her luscious lips.

  “You weren’t mistaken Jericho, in fact you were right. I was trying to do what normal couples do on a Sunday morning, and if you’re trying to keep me from caring about you, then you’re too late. You see, I have fallen in love with you and no matter how much of a jackass you show yourself to be won’t change that fact.”

  “You don’t love me.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Jericho, no matter how many times you deny it, you won’t change my feelings.”

  This time Jericho didn’t let her stop him from leaving the room; he pushed passed her. Cara doggedly followed him down the hall. When he went into his room and slammed the door behind him, she followed. Jericho was jerking his egg stained jeans down his hips while Cara admired his firm ass while she also couldn’t help staring at his cock straining upwards. He may be furious with her, but he wanted her badly. She didn’t miss the small gleam of moisture clinging to the crest.

  “Get out!”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere.”

  This time her words let loose a storm of fury within him. Cara could see it overtake him. His eyes darkened until they were almost black, and his muscles tightened until she thought they would surely burst from his arms. Jerking his shirt off before throwing it down on the floor, the loosened crumbs of her biscuits fell at Jericho’s feet.

  Cara tried not to laugh at him, she really did, but the big, bad Indian staring back at her, looking as if he had a serious case of dandruff, did her in.

  He grabbed her and pushed her up against the door. One hand buried itself in her hair, straining her neck back until she was looking into his stoic expression. He had trampled his fury down so all that was left was a coldness that Cara did not know if she would be able to reach.

  “If you want to play rough, then you came to the right man. If you can dish it out, then you had better be damn prepared to handle it.” Crudely he ground himself against her, forcing her legs to part and allowing him to plaster himself closer to her.

  “I can handle anything you give me.” Cara didn’t flinch from him, knowing that was what he expected of her.

  If she wanted Jericho, then she had to prove to both of them that she was more than a match for him. He was a warrior, he had fought his whole life for survival, and he wouldn’t tolerate less from the woman that would finally win his heart. Cara had every intention of being that woman, whether Jericho knew it or not.

  “Let’s just see, shall we.” His mocking tone left Cara in no doubt that he believed she would call a halt when things got too hot. Well, he was in for a surprise. She happened to want him as bad as he wanted her. His hand slid the shirt up her soft thighs, going immediately to grasp her wet heat, a finger plunged into her. Using a knee, he forced her legs wider so that he could move further within her.

  “Jericho...” Cara could not help moaning his name. She wanted him unbelievably bad. It seemed that most of the time since she met him was spent wanting him. She ground her head back against the door.

  “You’re hot for me, aren’t you?” he whispered into her ear, making her shiver. His finger began to move quicker and harder within her, making her hips thrust forward as each stroke sent flames of desire burning higher until she thought she would burst. Jericho wouldn’t allow her release, though; he stilled his finger until her body pulled back from the edge of the climax he had brought her to. Cara couldn’t keep the whimpers of need from escaping.

  Jericho eased away from her body until he could work the t-shirt up her waist and over her breasts. He immediately sucked a nipple into his waiting lips, suckling and nibbling until he saw that it had gone from a pale pink to a red before he moved to its twin.

  Cara couldn’t keep her hips still. Desperately, she tried to grind herself against the thigh between hers, but he wouldn’t let her, moving it away. Cara felt the heat of his cock as it strained against her belly, she tried to reach for it, to put it exactly where she wanted it, but Jericho jerked her hand away, pulling it behind her back. Using the grip he had kept in her hair, he pulled her away from the door. Cara thought he would lead her to the bed, but the warrior in him didn’t have that necessity in mind.

  “Get down on your knees.” His guttural voice shocked Cara. Though his face remained expressionless, his voice gave his desire away.

  Cara let herself go to the floor where a braided rug protected her knees from the hardwood floor. Jericho followed her until he covered her back. His lips buried themselves in her sensitive neck while his strong hands pulled her thighs apart until he was between them, his cock at her entrance. Another whimper left her lips as he nudged at her wetness, yet did not enter.

  “Jericho, please, please fuck me.” Cara didn’t care that she begged him. She wanted him to know how desperately she wanted him.

  “Oh, I’m going to fuck you, when you beg me to.”

  “I’m begging! I’m begging!”

  “Not hard enough.” His lips picked a patch of skin and began to nibble at the same time his hands held Cara in place and, when she tried to reach back to touch his cock, he once again grabbed her hand.

  “No, you don’t.” He rose up slightly, pulling her t-shirt over her head without allowing her arms to slide free. He maneuvered the garment until it circled both wrists now bound behind her back. He moved forward again until her forehead touched the rug. She was completely open and helpless.

  “I’m going to teach you a new phrase,” he said with another seductive murmur in her ear.

  “You are?”

  “Yes, I am. Would you like to know what it is?”

  Cara’s newfound sexual confidence began to stutter at the sexual domination he was exhibiting. “I don’t think so.”

  “How about I just show you?” With that sinister tone in his voice, Cara didn’t know if she wanted him to show her anything. She felt him moving down her back, his lips grazing her spine. When he lingered at the small of her back, searching the small crevice with a slow lick of his tongue, Cara knew she was in trouble.

  “Jericho…” He ignored her.

  She felt his hands as they spread the cheeks of her buttocks. His lips lowered, following the crease that he had exposed. Cara tried to rise, but one hand pushed her back down until her forehead was once again on the rug. Jericho’s tongue found the rim of her anus and nibbled until she thought that her lungs would burst with the need for oxygen.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t take another second, his lips slid lower until they reached the weeping wetness they were searching for. One second he was licking, the next his tongue was buried as far as it would go within her before he would draw it out just to plunge it inside once again while his fingers were busy rubbing her clit. She ached to climax, but every time she stiffened to, he pulled back to nibble at her anus until she was a withering mess, held up only by his hands on her hips.

  “Please let me come, Jericho… please… please...” Again, he ignored her. Each time he pulled her back, he would once again delve into her slick cunt. Sweat dripped down her body as the torture he imposed on her continued. There was no area of her body that he didn’t tease and taunt until Cara could not take it and her screams filled the bedroom.

  It was only when she began to cry that he swiftly rose up between her thighs, circled her waist with a hard arm and pulled her hips up until her knees no longer touched the floor. He then took his cock and placed it at her entrance, sliding just the tip into her wetness; lubricating himself, moving c
loser, poised to enter her. Sobs were now tearing through her chest. She felt him removing the shirt from her wrists until they fell to her sides and he once again covered her back as he also let her knees touch the floor.

  “Open for me.” Cara knew what he wanted. She moved her hand, sliding it down her quivering belly until she touched herself. Using her fingertips, she parted herself, feeling his cock waiting. This time, she knew not to try to touch him. She was rewarded by finally feeling him stroke within her.

  Quickly, Cara braced herself, placing her hands on the rug as he bent over her, pushing every massive inch of his penis within her tight channel. He wasn’t gentle, no one could say Jericho was a gentle lover, but what he did was give her what she desperately needed. A hard, pounding that drove every inch of him inside her over and over again. Just when she thought that she could not possibly take him deeper, he pushed her thighs wider and gave her another inch. The force he was fucking her with made her slide across the rug. His hands left her hips to hold onto her shoulders, holding her still.

  “Do you still love me?” his voice hissed out between his gritted teeth.

  “Yes, Jericho! Yes!”

  Her answer stopped him mid stroke until, with a curse, he levered himself off her.

  “Jericho, please, I can’t bear anymore.”

  He rolled Cara to her back then sat back on his knees, pulled her toward him until she was once again impaled on his cock, and entered her with one long, hard stroke. Tears leaked out of her eyes as he pounded within her, his fingers rubbing her clit.

  Jericho watched as his cock slid in and out of her slick cunt. When he felt her muscles spasm with the beginning of her climax, he took his slickened finger and thrust quickly through her anal ring, finger fucking her ass. Cara screamed at the unbelievable pleasure he wrung from her. The climax that had begun spiraled even higher with a force that had every muscle in her body jerking. When he felt Cara’s contractions easing, Jericho allowed himself to bury himself to the hilt, taking her hips in his hands and tilting her pelvis until he could fuck her as long and hard as he needed to reach his climax. When he felt Cara trying to struggle away from him, he held her still, never missing a thrust.

  “Jericho, I can’t take anymore.” Cara felt as if her cunt was on fire; tight and raw from his hard pounding. The man was a fucking machine.

  “Yes, you can. I need more.” Jericho stared down into Cara’s eyes. Understanding, Cara ground her hips back against his, fucking him as hard as he wanted. The pain burning in her pussy lightened as her excitement grew at trying to make Jericho lose control. Cara heard him groaning as he tried not to come. She knew he was enjoying fucking her tight cunt.

  “Give it to me, Jericho, harder.” As soon as the words left her lips, she felt Jericho thrust high within her, reaching to her womb. Cara felt her body explode in another climax that turned her world black as Jericho flooded her with his come.

  His cock was still twitching when he pulled his penis from her and rose to his feet. He stood staring down at her. Cara looked up at the man who stood above her and didn’t move. She could imagine how she looked, naked and sprawled on the braided rug with his semen still on her thighs. Yet she didn’t move or cover herself and raised her chin proudly, staring back at him with all her love plain for him to see.

  Pain flickered in his eyes so fleetingly that Cara would have missed it if she hadn’t known about his past.

  “Damn you.”

  “I love you, and no matter how hard you fuck me or how much you curse me, I’ll still love you. In fact, one I enjoy wholeheartedly, the other I can put up with.” Cara wiggled her ass on the rug and let her legs spread wider to let him know which one she had enjoyed. All modesty Cara determinedly suppressed, she had to prove to show him her love was real.

  “You can’t love me. We’ve known each other, what? A total of three days? You can’t love someone you don’t know.”

  “Now, that’s where your wrong, lover. I know every tiny thing about you. I have ever since Grimm touched you that day at the restaurant, just as you know me.” Cara saw the widening of his eyes and laughed mockingly at him. “You honestly can’t believe that he would show you my life without returning the favor? He showed me everything.”

  “Be quiet.” Rage, hot and heavy was plain on his face.

  “He showed me a beautiful, little, lost boy whose soul was so pure it was white. You glowed.”

  “Stop!” Jericho yelled, trying to drown out her voice as if his life was a movie playing out in her mind.

  Sadly, with tears in her eyes, Cara raised herself to a sitting position, knowing it was now or never.

  “Then one day that monster entered your life and your soul began to die. She tortured you in every way imaginable. She pretended to home school you, so you were given no reprieve from the vicious bitch. She wanted to keep you dumb and subservient, but she couldn’t break your spirit, could she, Jericho? When her and that spineless husband left the house, they locked you in a cage made for animals so you could not escape.” Jericho stood still, her words bringing back memories he swore never to revisit. His muscled body began to shake and he broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Her abuse was degrading and sick.” Cara moved closer to him, her hand gently rising to rest on his muscular thigh. “I know why you have never allowed another woman since to touch you or put her mouth on your penis, but you grew older and stronger. She could no longer hold you down or turn your body against you, so she brought another young boy home to abuse. She thought she had broken you, that you would stand back and watch, but she underestimated you, didn’t she, my warrior? Your fury broke loose and you took her neck in your hands and strangled her.”

  Tears slid down her cheeks at the soul she saw ravaged before her. She still heard the screams of the small child that Jericho had saved from the demented woman. She leaned against his thigh and laid her cheek against him. “The husband knew you were going to kill him and managed to call the police before you nearly beat him to death. When they arrived, he lied, said that it was you who had tried to harm the boy and when the woman had tried to stop you, you killed her. They believed him, the boy was in shock and unable tell what had happened. You didn’t even try to defend yourself.”

  “They wouldn’t have believed me, I could tell by their eyes. By that point, I no longer cared what happened to me.” Jericho’s emotionless voice drew her eyes upwards to him, letting him know he no longer shared those painful memories alone.

  “But you cared later, didn’t you? When they put you in prison with men twice your age and you had to fight just to survive those nights. You spent months in that prison before the boy was well enough to tell everyone the truth and gain your release. They tried to place you in another home, but you ran. You ran to this mountain and found your home.”

  “The Indian council gave me this land and made the government declare me an emancipated minor. They even helped me get my GED and help me find my job in construction.” Jericho tried to move away from her, relieved she would finally shut up and leave him in peace, but she refused to release his leg. Jericho looked down at her to find that tears were still pouring from her eyes.

  “Don’t cry for me.” He couldn’t help how harsh he sounded. He damn sure did not want her pity.

  “I’m not crying for you, I am crying for a child that no longer exists. Destroyed by a woman whose magnitude of evil I have rarely seen and, Jericho, I have lived a long time.” Lifting a trembling hand she brushed the tears away until they glistened on her fingertips. “They show the anger I feel for a woman I consider less than human who owes me a debt that will never be repaid. That bitch stole something that was mine.”

  Jericho didn’t want to know, but couldn’t help asking. “What did she take?”

  “Your heart.”

  Cara raised herself onto her knees and slid her hand up his body slowly. Her touch was feather light, loving, as she delicately touched his penis for the barest instant before moving to the dense b
lack hair at its base. Her hand sought and traced each of his abs before raising herself to place a tiny kiss on each of his hips. She worshiped with each gentle touch and kiss. Cara’s hands finally reached the area of his body she searched for. Her palm curved over his chest as if she was indeed able to hold his heart in her hand. She felt the steady rhythm of it beating beneath the bronzed flesh.

  Jericho tried, he really did, but he looked down in surprise as his hand reached out and his thumb smoothed away her remaining tears. “And that matters so much to you, why?”

  The horror of his childhood prevented him from becoming emotionally involved with anyone. The only way he had survived the violence was to bury his feelings until they no longer existed, yet her tears were proving to be a balm to the scars that remained and her next words made him wish for the impossible.

  Softly, she whispered, “Because you would have loved me.”

  His voice thickened as he asked, “Are you so sure about that?”

  Cara nodded and a glimmer of a smile found her trembling lips. “Yes, I’m very loveable.”

  “I can see that.”

  Jericho looked down at the brave woman who had bared her soul to him. He did the only thing he was capable of doing in that moment. He reached down and picked her up into his arms.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Carrying you to bed.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “You made this mess, you get to clean it up.” Jericho and Cara stared at the disaster in the kitchen.

  “All right.” Cara wasn’t going to argue. She had enjoyed the afternoon of loving that the mess had brought about.

  Jericho smiled at the happy woman. He could feel himself lowering his guard toward her and thought to break the moment, but couldn’t bear to see the happiness leave her face just yet. He knew he was not able to give her the love she wanted returned, however that was something she would have to find out for herself.