The Queen of Dauphine Street

by Thea de Salle

  “You are unbelievably hot, do you know that?” he asked, rolling onto his hip, his hand cemented to his dick.

  “I do,” she said, turning around so her ass pointed his way. There was a little shake of her butt, allowing that gold loop to settle across her hips at a different angle, before she straddled the chair. His mouth fell open appreciatively as she braced a hand on the chair back and slowly dropped down. She reached beneath her body for the toy, grabbed it, and angled it. He got to see the rubbery tip of the cock tease at her pink pussy before she nudged it toward her opening. Her fingers adjusted, making a V, as she pulled her lips open and leaned forward so he could see the gradual impalement.

  She speared herself on it. Her ass was on display, that purple gem notched home as she sank down on the dildo. She whimpered, and so did he, as she stretched out not one, but two of her holes, granting him the obscene pleasure of witnessing every debauched moment of her double penetration.

  She wasn’t exactly gentle to herself from there on out. She took it all in one go and nestled onto it. She threw her head to the side, granting him a momentary glance at her profile. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. His girl, that lovely white creature, was stuffed to the brim and clearly enjoying herself. The hand she’d used to lube herself snaked down over her front. He couldn’t see her rubbing herself, but he could hear it, a wet smacking thanks to the copious lube.

  “Maddy,” he whispered, and she rose up from the chair, hips hovering before she shoved back down again, pussy gliding over that cock and swallowing it whole. He couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried. He was transfixed by her distended folds, by the raw carnality of her fucking herself just out of reach. It was slow at first, deliberate, each rise and fall measured, but the harder she rubbed at her clit, the less control she had.

  He liked when she moaned. He liked the erratic jerk of her hips. He liked the notion of two toys occupying the same space separated only by a thin membrane. He liked that he was a brilliant bastard who’d packed all the right sex toys.

  He would have patted himself on the back, but he was too busy jerking his cock for such nonsense.

  Up and down she bounced, every once in a while twisting her torso in a way that let him see how her heavy breasts moved. She was a thing of wet, squishing motion, and the fingers on his dick squeezed harder, his urge to come rising with every breathy gasp spilling from her mouth. Every slap of her body against the chair was more frantic than the last, and she stopped rubbing her clit to grab on to the back of the chair railing with both hands, her body pumping quicker. Harder.

  Come, come, come, he chanted in his mind, and just like that, like he’d willed her to the peak with some bullshit Jedi mind trick, she screamed. That body that had been so intensely fucking itself went completely still at the crest. Her head fell back, mouth agape, eyes pinched shut. Her legs trembled and she flopped forward, chin perched on the back of the chair, shuddering with every pulse that tore through her. The aftershocks were intense, making her twitch, like she’d gnawed on a live wire. He could see the base of the dildo and the gloss pooling beneath it on the chair—some of it lube, most of it her.

  She’s soaked.

  I want that. Want to get in it.

  “Maddy—” he started to say, and she sat up straighter, her head flopping like a bobble head when she nodded.

  “Yes. Just . . . now. Do it now.”

  She wasn’t specific, but she didn’t have to be. He was up and off of the bed in half a heartbeat. He hauled her up off the chair, tearing her from the dildo. He spun her, throwing her facedown onto the bed and shoving her legs wide, his hand going to the back of her neck so she stayed folded in half. There was no foreplay because there didn’t need to be. They’d worked themselves into a tizzy despite the chasm separating bed and chair, and him lifting his cock and sinking into her with one hard shove was the only acceptable answer to any of it.

  He filled her to the hilt, balls nestled against her, and then he paused a moment before he pulled back. She was tight, tighter. More snug than she’d been before. Her cunt gripped him, molded to him, and it took him a moment to realize what he was feeling was the pressure of the plug in her ass changing the contour of her pussy.

  He whimpered and leaned over her, his tongue tracing the top of her ear.

  “I can feel it in you,” he moaned.

  She didn’t respond—possibly couldn’t—so he started to move. He pulled out, paused with the head of his cock barely inside her, and fucked right back in. Again. Again. Again, again, again. He didn’t go gently, but they were past that point, and really, who the hell had a gentle fuck when your woman was stuffing two of her holes at once? It called for a pounding from hell, a solid workout with cock violating willing pussy, which he provided with enthusiasm.

  He slapped at her until every thrust was met with a wet squish. He ground into her until he felt a sheen of sweat breaking out on his body. He took off his shirt and gripped her hips, holding her steady as he shoved home, his sole desire to fuck her into oblivion and back again.

  She practically keened as he worked her. She clawed at the bed and tried to balance, but his body kept shoving hers up farther on the mattress, higher and higher. He gritted his teeth and leaned over her, angling his dick down, the urge to hose her insides rising, but he’d wait. He wanted her to go again, to squeeze around him. He wanted to see how tight she could get when she came—he wanted to see what that plug in her ass did to the viselike grip around his shaft.

  She was mewling and sticky—with sweat, with lube, with her own cum. He loved that she was so fucking glossy. He loved that the gold chain around her hips bounced while he wrecked her. He loved that when he lifted his head, he could see himself in the vanity mirror fucking this beautiful creature who was so amenable to whatever he saw fit to do to her body. Maddy was such a savage little whore and he wouldn’t want her any other way.

  Except coming, of course. He did want her that way.

  He adjusted his position, taking a moment to haul her back so her feet once again touched the floor. She squealed, and he angled himself so he could reach under her. It wasn’t hard to find her steaming twat. The heat radiating off her was obscene, and he dipped his fingers between her pussy lips, finding the distended nub of clit flesh and rubbing it. Back and forth, left to right. She sobbed; there was no other way to describe the noise that spilled from her mouth, so he kept doing it, over and over, and resumed his thrusting. He couldn’t be as frantic with his fucking that way, not concentrating as he was, but he could do long, steady strokes, and he did them in hopes of milking her for a second come.

  “Yes, yes, yes. Darren. Yes.” She panted his name, reached back with one of her hands to grip his hip, steadying herself for more cock.

  “You want it, baby? You want me?”

  “Yes. Fuck yes. I want you.”

  “You’re so tight. You’re so fucking tight. I can feel it, you know, the plug in your ass. I can feel it.”

  The dirty talk did the trick; four more feedings of dick into sopping hole and she nearly knocked him back with a thrust of her own. She slapped back at him, their bodies colliding, her movement forcing him as far into her as he could humanly go before her orgasm broke. Her face planted into the bed, her spine arched. She was a bucking wild thing, and he slid both of his hands to her hips to hold on for the ride. The rhythmic grip on his cock was everything he hoped it would be. It was tighter and wetter than anything he’d felt before, and his body could only take so much. Another few seconds of thrusting, faster, frantic, and he was blasting her with his seed, filling her. He pulled from her and shoved back in again, still spurting, every drag of cock from the soiled recess pulling tendrils of white, gummy spunk with it.

  He didn’t care. He didn’t care and she didn’t care, and he pushed himself into her one last time as he moaned her name.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE BATH
WAS full, up to her chin, and so hot her skin was pink like ham. Maddy lay back, eyes closed, face tilted to the ceiling. She was relaxed and happy. She was at ease.

  She should have known better.

  Hypervigilant, Madeline. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and we need to be hypervigilant.

  Those words had left her mother’s mouth almost fifteen years ago. Maddy’s father was on the decline; the nurses were only able to do so much. They didn’t know Maddy’s father the way Maddy or her mother did. They didn’t know how clever he was at hiding some of his more destructive behaviors. They couldn’t tell the difference between an earnest smile and the one he wore to mask the pain. Maddy and Lenore being on, constantly—always alert, always watching—had been the only way to keep him afloat, and in the end even that failed.

  Maddy wished she wasn’t thinking about such things minutes after Darren worked a Maddy-shaped hole into their shared bed, but she couldn’t help it. Darren had pulled from her with a grumble, and seeing her curling up contentedly, sucking her thumb in pleasure, he’d patted her on the flank and staggered off to shower with a plastic bag wrapped around his injury. A quick rinse, he’d said, before he’d run her a bath. He’d had to help her walk to the bathroom, and there’d been a lot of giggling at the mess they’d made of her body as she climbed into the tub. Those giggles had turned to kisses, those kisses had turned to soft words and praise for one another, with Darren leaning over the ledge of the bath wearing only a towel around his hips, his forehead pressed to Maddy’s, his fingers stroking her cheek.

  They were content, and being content made them vulnerable. When Darren’s phone rang, he thought nothing of snagging it off the counter and answering it. Immediately Maddy knew something was wrong. His body went stiff, and the color drained from his face before he dropped the phone like it’d become a scorpion.

  Hypervigilant, Madeline. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and we need to be hypervigilant.

  Maddy scrambled from the bath, body slick with water, suds, and the vestiges of their sex. Darren stared at the discarded cell, his eyes glazed, and she guided him over to the toilet to sit, her hands settling on his shoulders.

  “Dove? Are you all right? Darren?”

  His eyes swept her way. No, he wasn’t all right. He was anything but all right. The lights were on but no one was home, and she ran her fingers through his hair like she could rub some life back into his too-still body.

  Daddy got that look sometimes. That look that said the world had betrayed his trust. That everyone had lied to him and the monsters under the bed were real.

  The phone squawked by their feet. Maddy grabbed it before she could think better of it, swiping it up and lifting it to her ear.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, but she knew who it was. Darren wouldn’t have gone from happy and sated to shivering and sheet-white unless it was his personal bogeyman come home to roost.

  “Wait, who’s this?” came the warbly, raspy reply.

  “Kelly? Is this Kelly?”

  “Yeah. Yes. You’re the lady from TV. With the boat. I s-saw you on the news. I need to talk to Darren, okay? To apologize. I’m so sorry. So damned sorry. I didn’t mean it. Can I talk to him?” Maddy had been around her share of drunks over the years, and the slurring and sniffles and weirdly enunciated words all pointed toward a very drunk Kelly, which was in line with everything Darren had said about her.

  “Kelly, he can’t talk to you. You need to call the police right now and tell them where you are. Right now, do you hear me? You need to turn yourself in. They’ll sober you up and help you figure out what to do next.”

  “But Darren. I love him, you know. I just . . . I get so mad sometimes. So stupid. Can I please talk to him?” Kelly’s voice broke and she started crying, loud, gut-wrenching sobs that hurt to listen to. Had Maddy not witnessed firsthand the confusion and trauma Kelly had wrought, she might have felt sorry for her, but no. Kelly had made her choices. Awful choices. Terrible, bad, rotten choices that could have gotten a good man killed. That had seen Maddy splattered with blood and reliving the worst moment of her life.

  Because of Kelly Adams Roberts, a good man was trembling like the last autumn leaf on the branch. Because of Kelly Adams Roberts, Maddy’s rabbit heart was slamming in her chest.

  Maddy terminated the call and shouldered into a robe. Her first priority was Darren’s welfare. She darted off into their suite, snagging the knitted throw from the corner of the couch so she could loop it around his bare shoulders.

  “I’m going to get you some pajama pants,” she said quietly, her voice even. “And I’m going to get dressed, and I’m going to call Julio and Vaughan, okay?”

  Darren said nothing. He stared at her, watching her every move, his healthy hand clasping his bandaged wound like Kelly’s voice had brought the pain and shock of the gunshot back threefold. She was loathe to abandon him there, sitting on the toilet looking terrified, but they needed clothes so they could get help from the professionals who could keep them safe.

  She found fresh boxers and a pair of blue and white lounge pants in Darren’s luggage. Dressing him, having to tell him when to stand, when to stretch out his legs, when to spread so she could pull up his pants was far, far too similar to things she’d had to do with her father years ago, and her unease mounted over the minutes. She guided him over to the couch, seating him, the blanket still draped over his shoulders like a mantle as she pulled his bare feet up onto the ottoman. Darren was nearly comatose. She didn’t expect it’d last—it was far-fetched to assume it’d be a lingering condition—but the fear was there. There’d been that pivotal moment for her father, and then her mother, that had seen both of them succumb to their demons in different ways. Hell, she’d teetered on that precipice with her own anxiety and depression. She’d done her hospital stints and rehabs and every other goddamned thing because straws sometimes broke camels’ backs.

  Please not Darren. Please not Darren, too.

  Spare him.

  She dressed quickly: T-shirt, yoga pants, pair of flip-flops. Her first call was to Julio to tell him what happened. He said he was posting security outside her door and contacting the local authorities. Her second call was to Sol, who picked up his line with an all-too-familiar, and this time all-too-jovial, laugh.

  “Darling. What can I do for you? Dinner still a go?”

  “No,” she said. “Kelly called. Darren’s a mess. I don’t know what to do. I talked to Julio already.”

  The shift in tone was immediate. “Stay put. I’m on my way with Vaughan,” he said before hanging up. Maddy ran her fingers through her hair and went to the couch to sit by Darren’s side. Her body lined his, hips and legs touching, because touch was comfort and he needed lots of that. Her fingers snagged his, looping around them, but he was limp in her grip.

  “Dove? I’m here, okay?” she said.

  “I know,” he managed, but it sounded squeaky. “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

  “You don’t have to apologize or explain. I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”

  And she would. And she’d do a good job of it—the best job she could. He was scared and she was scared and everyone was scared, but goddamn it, she’d get them through it.

  Vaughan called Sergeant Lopez for them. Maddy called Tempy for legal counsel. Sol called room service, which in turn delivered a carafe of coffee and a platter of sandwiches. Darren was too tense to touch any of it, but Maddy mainlined coffee like it was the only thing keeping her alive. She kept her grip on Darren, and every once in a while he’d squeeze her fingers, but he kept to himself for the most part. He only bothered with complete sentences when the New Orleans PD showed up and he handed them his phone. Maddy relayed her part of the story, a tall, balding man with glasses listening and writing copious notes in a little notebook.

  At least the authorities were forthcoming about what t
he call meant and what it didn’t mean. What it meant was Kelly had all but confessed to doing it and was at least trying to stay in touch with Darren; maybe even keeping tabs on him. He should operate under the assumption that she’d continue to do so until she was apprehended. Keeping a security detail was smart. Avoiding his usual haunts was also advised. The Texas contingent of police would maintain their watch on Darren’s house, his mother’s house, and his business office in case of a sighting. Unfortunately, Kelly was proving good at keeping herself off the police’s radar; none of the tips on the tip line had panned out, and she still wasn’t using any of her credit cards, nor was she logging into any computer accounts. Even the phone number she’d called from was one of those disposable prepaid phones you could buy at a convenience store.

  Kelly might have been a drunk crazy person, but she was a prepared drunk crazy person, and that made her scary.

  What the call didn’t mean was that they were any closer to finding her. They couldn’t trace the location of a disposable phone. The police asked Maddy if she heard anything in the background of the call like birds or street sounds, but it’d just been a sniveling Kelly, nothing more. Maddy was irritated with herself that she hadn’t thought to keep her on the line talking for longer, but someone had needed to take care of Darren. He was her priority. He would continue to be going forward, too, because the poor bastard looked miserable.

  And yet.

  Somehow, in the whirlwind of phone calls and policemen and Sol and Vaughan and Julio and every other imaginable distraction in the world, when he looked her way, he found a smile for her. That hadn’t been the case immediately postcall, but given some time, a lot of hand holding, and reassurances from everyone that he’d be safe, that the authorities were doing everything in their power and that Kelly would be found, he relaxed enough to smile for her.