Promises and Pomegranates: A Dark Contemporary Romance (Monsters & Muses Book 1)

by Sav R. Miller

  “You think so?” As he steps into me, igniting that age-old song and dance our bodies have grown accustomed to over the last few weeks, I feel my core twist and flip at his proximity. His scent envelops me as he backs me up against the table, leaning down to bracket me in with his forearms.

  A strand of his inky hair falls over his forehead, and I resist the urge to push it up out of his face, trying to focus on my anger before it slips away, lost in the sea of his touch.

  “Maybe you should refresh my memory,” he says, dropping to his knees, his hands immediately skimming up the sides of my thighs.

  I suck on my teeth as he begins inching up the hem of my yellow sundress, clutching the annulment papers to my chest. Every single nerve ending in my body is screaming, telling me to put a stop to this until we have an actual conversation, but then his breath skates across my pussy, and I no longer care about talking.

  What’s one more bad decision in the grand scheme of things?

  “Lift your ass,” he commands, and I obey without even thinking, moving forward so he can slip the fabric of my dress up over my cheeks. He swears under his breath, shaking his head. “Still no panties, I see. Adding adultery to our list of sins, or were you just hoping to get lucky?”

  One of his hands comes up, flattening between my breasts, urging me down; I go without complaint, hissing as my bare butt comes into contact with the cool glass surface, followed quickly by my shoulders as he pushes me all the way down.

  Teeth scrape across my clit, and I jolt, the sharp bite sending a flash of delight through me. “I was hoping to get lucky,” I say, knowing that’s what he’s waiting for.

  “Of course you were. Perfect little cum slut, ready to be fucked any time her husband takes his dick out.” A slap lands on the top of my pussy, pulling a yelp of surprise from my throat. “Now, what was your favorite form of poetic delivery? Recitations with the tongue?”

  Kal’s fingers run slowly over the scars on the inside of my thigh—the K, plus the A he added the night of the recital. My own personal brand.

  Good luck getting rid of me after that, asshole.

  I stare up at the patio covering, tracing the cobwebs with my eyes, seeing his head dip between my legs again. His tongue tracks behind his fingers, leaving a trail of cool saliva in his wake, and when they graze my clit, I shiver, my body already dangerously close to falling apart, wound tight after weeks of abstaining.

  “The key, as we know, to any good poem,” Kal breathes, swiping his tongue across me once. Twice. Three times, until I’m tossing the annulment papers aside, gripping the edges of the table to keep from bowing off of it. “Is passion.”

  With that, he buries his mouth in my pussy, forming a tight seal around my lips, sucking my clit into his mouth and showering it with lashings of his tongue. An arm snakes up my torso, fingers hooking in the top of my sundress and yanking one breast free.

  He squeezes as his tongue penetrates me, massaging in and out, then slides up between my folds and swirls over my clit. Repeating the passage, alternating between the sucking and licking, he creates a tempo that has pressure building in my belly, spreading outward like a heatwave.

  “Do you know how many nights I dreamed of having you here, just like this?” he asks against me, the vibrations from his lips sending shock waves of ecstasy through me. “How many times I pumped my cock dry to the image of you spread open and whimpering for me?”

  I shake my head in answer, even though I’m sure he can’t see. He hums against me, speeding up the flickering of his tongue, and this time when I come, he doesn’t even have to ask me to look at him; my eyes immediately seek his, locking on as my orgasm rocks my entire body, back arching away from the table, a strangled sound ripping its way from my throat.

  “There. I know I’m a little rusty on my spoken word, but judging by the flush on the audience’s cheeks and the cum on my taste buds, I’m inclined to believe I still know what I’m doing.”

  Wiping his mouth on my thigh, Kal straightens into a standing position, reaching up and undoing the buttons on his shirt. He shoves it off his shoulders, the black material falling to the ground, and then works his pants open, pushing them down over his hips and kicking them to the side.

  His cock bobs free, a pearly bead of arousal seeping from the tip of his thick crown, and he strokes himself slowly, dragging his gaze over me. “I will never get tired of seeing you like this,” he says with a little shake of his head, like he can’t quite believe I’m here.

  Taking a step toward me, he fists his shaft, rubbing roughly between my lips, smearing my juices all over. Each pass over my clit sends a bite of pain through my sex—the kind that curls on the end, into immeasurable pleasure.

  “You want this?” he asks, lifting one eyebrow, and even though I should say no and put myself together, get back to the matter at hand, my body is in disagreement.

  One tiny, almost imperceptible nod, and that’s it; he lets out a soft groan, shoving in to the hilt with one thrust of his hips, filling me so tightly that I’m not sure I’d be able to get him out if I wanted to. After this, they’ll be scraping bits of Kal’s DNA from my insides for the rest of my life.

  Slamming his hands down on either side of my head, he starts slow, dragging his cock against my inner walls, smoothing the tip over every ridge and sensitive muscle. The table creaks beneath our weight, shifting with each thrust, and I wrap my legs around his waist, trying to pull him as close as possible.

  “Fuck,” he says, closing his eyes and tilting his head back, that one syllable flooding my entire being with warmth, making me lightheaded. “I’ve missed you so goddamn much, little one. Your pussy, your brain, your smart fucking mouth. The Asphodel is not the same without you in it.”

  I grit my teeth, trying not to lash out while he feels so incredible inside of me. My stomach tightens, another orgasm already rolling up my spine, and I reach up, smoothing my thumbs over his cheekbones, my palms over the light beard dusting his jaw.

  His eyes snap open, narrowing. “You’re doing it again.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Saying goodbye. Don’t fucking do that, Elena. Don’t touch me like you think it might be the last time.”

  I gasp as he picks up his pace, driving into me with such force the table starts to move backward, slamming into the wall before it comes to a stop. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he says, reaching up to collar my throat with one hand, flexing his hold on the sides. “Why did you come all the way here if you weren’t planning to stay?”

  “You served me annulment papers!”

  Growling, he increases the pressure on my throat, fucking me harder, like he’s actively trying to split me in half. “I was trying to be mature and respectful about our situation.”

  “You didn’t even come find me after I left you at the theater,” I cry, release pounding through me, dragging all the hurt along with it. My orgasm crests, looking over the hill as my vision scatters, the ability to speak becoming more difficult. “How can you say you missed me when you didn’t come after me?”

  “Oh, fuck, Elena.” He squeezes harder still, pistoning into me so roughly I can feel the bruises forming. “I came after you. I wanted to barge into your grandmother’s apartment and throw you over my shoulder, take you back home with me where you belong. I stood outside for hours, trying to decide how much you’d hate me if I took that choice from you. If I didn’t let you come to terms with things on your own.”

  I start to spasm around him, my climax erupting before he’s even finished his sentence as black spots flood my eyesight, that familiar sense of floating suspending me in time as I fall over the cliff.

  “That’s it, my sweet wife. You come on your husband’s cock. Make him regret not spending the last two weeks buried inside of you.”

  “God, Kallum,” I moan, the orgasm still pulsing, sending wave after wave of euphoria.

  “Does my little cock whore need filled?”


  I nod, frantically, clawing and scratching at his marred chest, propping myself up into a sitting position and yanking him down into a kiss. Rocking my hips back and forth, meeting each thrust with a miniature one of my own, I tangle my tongue with his, relishing the taste of myself on him.

  His palm finds my back, spreading out and holding me flush to his chest as he pushes in one last time, a throaty moan tumbling past his lips. Sweat slicks down our bodies, the origin of which drops belong to who gone as he collapses on top of me, the table groaning under us.

  I poke his side as the table buckles. “Maybe we should move elsewhere.”

  Pulling himself upright, Kal stares down at me for several long beats, the expression in his eyes completely unreadable. “Okay,” he says softly, standing up and tugging me with him. “Let’s go inside.”

  He falls eerily silent once we’re indoors, taking me to the living room and sitting me on the couch. He wraps a plush blanket around my shoulders, then shimmies back into his dress pants, zipping them up and perching on the coffee table directly across from me.

  I swallow thickly, awareness prickling on my skin, realizing he’s likely waiting for me to go first. I open my mouth to speak, but he beats me to it.

  “I’m in love with you, Elena.”

  Snapping my mouth shut, I sit back against the couch, smothering a smug smile. “Well, as far as apologies go, that’s a good place to start.”

  He sighs, a small laugh falling from his lips, startling me in how... genuine it sounds. In all the weeks I’ve spent with him, I’ve never heard an actual laugh come from those vocal cords, and the onset of it now causes butterflies to erupt in my chest.

  Dragging a hand through his hair, he looks up at me, those dark eyes softening to their natural, warm brown, intoxicating in their soft depths. “I’ll admit, it doesn’t feel like any amount of apologizing will ever absolve me from the sins I’ve committed against you. Not that that means I’m going to stop trying, but still. I just want you to be aware that I know everything I say will feel inadequate.”

  Reaching out, he hooks a finger over the ring he gave me the day we married, a small smile splaying on his lips. “I don’t deserve you, you know that?”

  “Relative, but go on.”

  “When I was a kid, I grew up shrinking myself, making space for my mother and her illness. It needed the attention, needed the focus, so that’s where the majority of everyone’s time went. They came to visit my mother, came to talk to my mother, and I just slunk to the shadows, trying my best not to begrudge her any more than I already did.”

  He pauses, shaking his head. “Cancer’s a funny disease, in that it inspires jealousy in some people. There my mother was, slowly decaying, and I had the fucking nerve to resent her for leaving me. Like she had a choice in the matter.”

  My heart aches, breaking with each word he speaks, my hands itching to comfort, to relieve his pain, but knowing I need to hear this, too.

  You cannot love a person fully without knowing the darkness etched into their soul.

  I want to know his so well that it becomes my darkness, too.

  “Anyway. I met your parents about a year before she passed, and when she finally did, I went looking for my biological father, hoping he’d... I don’t know, take me in, I guess.” He wraps another finger around mine, covering the diamond. “Long story short, he wasn’t interested in a fourth kid. So, I fell victim to the system, and found myself in a foster home in Boston. Sometime after that, your father approached me on the street, and offered me a job.”

  His throat bobs as he swallows, shifting. “I don’t need to go into all the details of the beginning of my career, but the point is, I was starved for attention when I met your parents. Your dad gave me a life of luxury, and for a kid with quite literally nothing, the hero worship came easily. Your mom, well. She gave me the affection I’d been lacking from my own, and I guess the attraction kind of just spiraled from there.”

  Tears burn my eyes at the cavalier way he addresses the way my mother treated him, as if there was never anything inherently wrong with it. “She abused you, Kal. They both did, stole an impressionable boy off the streets and manipulated him into their little puppet.”

  “It wasn’t like that—”

  “Kal,” I say, reaching out to cup his cheek. A tear slips out, rolling down my face as I stare into his eyes. “You didn’t know any better. They were supposed to teach you, and they taught you wrong.”

  His eyes burn with unshed emotion, and he seems to look right through me for a long time, processing my words. Maybe I shouldn’t have jumped right into an accusation, but I could feel the apology building, feel the weight of him thinking he ruined me crushing his soul, and I couldn’t take it.

  “I don’t want you to apologize to me for the way you coped with what life dealt you,” I say softly, “because I see nothing wrong with the way you are. A little rough around the edges, and far from perfect, but...”

  “Lucky,” he breathes, shaking his head again as if dislodging the range of emotions. “I’m fucking lucky, if you coming back to me is any indication.”

  He pulls me to the edge of the couch, palming the back of my head and covering my mouth with his; our tongues dance to their familiar tune, frissons of heat and bright light crackling in my core, passion and love sizzling in my soul.

  When we part, our breaths tumble heavily from our mouths, and he smooths his thumb over my mouth.

  “For what it’s worth, I am sorry I didn’t tell you. You deserved to know.”

  I swallow, nodding, even though the memory feels like a slap to the face. Skimming my hand over his side, I frown, something still bothering me. “Did she do this?”

  His eyes follow my fingers as they smooth over the puckered skin, and he nods slightly. “Indirectly, but yes.”

  My chest pinches, aching for the damage my parents inflicted on him. For not even being their blood, they sure did do a number on him.

  “I hate knowing she ever touched you,” I admit softly, knowing I won’t be able to move past it until it’s hurled out in the open. “Hate knowing she ever got to see you like this.”

  “She didn’t,” he interjects, catching my hand, flattening it on his skin. “No one but you, little one. What can I do to make you believe that?”

  I shake my head, declining that he even needs to prove it, saying that there are just some things that only time can help work through. But he doesn’t accept that, leaning back and shoving his hand into his pocket, pulling out the utility knife he keeps tucked inside.

  “Mark me,” he says, holding out the blade.

  My hand recoils from him completely, falling into my lap. “God, no! I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Yes, you do.” He grabs my hand, pushing the knife into it and curling my fingers around the handle. “Hurt me so I can feel what it was like for you.”

  I hesitate, the knife heavy in my palm, the metal cool against my skin. Fear seizes my throat, making me tense up as my mind tries to decide if this is a good idea or not.

  Best case scenario: if we divorce and he hooks up with someone else down the line, at least they’ll see another girl’s initials carved into his skin.

  Worst case: I cut too deep, and he bleeds out and dies.

  Still, it’s hard for me to pass up such a rare opportunity, and maybe inflicting a little pain will help me fully move on.

  Flipping open the blade, I nod, pushing up off the couch. He grins wickedly, leaning back on the coffee table; I get up, letting the blanket fall around me, and straddle his hips, trying to ignore the immediate arousal stiffening beneath my ass.

  “You want a shallow, rough stroke,” he says, guiding me to his left pectoral muscle, pressing the tip of the knife into his skin. “Something that’ll draw a little blood and scar, but not, you know. Kill me.”

  I swallow, throat tight, pressing down with a little force as he gently coaches me; the tip pierces a layer of skin, and his praise makes my pussy pul
se.

  “Now, flick your wrist and finish the letter,” he says, clenching his jaw. The cut opens some previously healed scar tissue, nicking the edge of a site on the last line of my first initial, but he doesn’t react aside from the clenching.

  Blood beads in the shape of an E, and I stare at it for a beat, mesmerized by the bright crimson color; before he can sit up and stop me, I’m dipping down and pressing the flat of my tongue against it, savoring the metallic tang, something primal responding in kind to the taste.

  I don’t know what it is, exactly, that happens when his blood touches my tongue; maybe it’s because he’s drawn mine so many times that my body is just happy to repay the favor, or maybe it’s something deeper than that.

  It’s not the first time I’ve tasted him, but there’s something different in it now. A chaotic desperation in the action, and the vulnerability in the situation sets my entire soul on fire.

  “Jesus,” Kal chokes, his hand flying to my hair as I push up, sitting back on him, and toss the knife to the floor. “Fuck, I’m so in love with you, Elena Ricci. Do you believe me now?”

  “Anderson,” I say, correcting him with a grin. “I filed to have it changed legally. Don’t want to be a Ricci when the business goes under.”

  His eyebrows raise, his entire body freezing as he takes in my sly expression. Eyes narrowing, he tugs at the ends of my hair. “What did you do?”

  I shrug, feigning innocence. “Maybe Papá should’ve learned not to spill all his secrets to his family members, since anyone can email the news stations these days.”

  Kal twists his fingers in my hair, sitting up so our mouths are almost touching. “Did you rat?”

  I fold my lips together, knowing how people in this world feel about informants. And yet, since I’m leaving the world anyway, I couldn’t give a fuck less about their opinion.

  Still, it’s nice when Kal sweeps me in for a passionate kiss again, plundering until I’m a shivering mess, stealing each of my breaths for his own. “You’re crazy,” he says, pulling back. “Hope you liked being my captive before, because you’re damn sure not going anywhere now.”