CHAPTER 4
“It’s Beth and Lucas!” Tully raced out the door and ran to meet them down the pier while Lesion stepped onto the porch, hoping that satisfied the detested social duty while also keeping them out of their home. He didn’t like sharing Tully with others, not even for a minute of the day. He’d accepted his obsession as an inevitable Tully war casualty. He had incurred countless since the very first day of her rescue. And they never stopped. Every day he spent with her, the wreckage piled up and he coveted every one of his Tully scars.
“Oh, what a great idea!” Tully cried, holding a folder in her hand then racing toward him with it. An overload of chemicals rushed in at the sight of his beautiful wife, his sun star, shooting straight for him.
“Look!” she gasped, next to him. “It’s for our sex classes!”
“Marriage,” Beth said with a grin as her and Lucas walked onto the porch.
Tully’s face sobered at him. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
“It is,” he assured, capturing her with an arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer.
She returned to reading whatever was in the folder. “Love language!” she gasped, hitting him with a direct smile. “Have you ever heard of that?”
Maybe he had in medicinal language. Seeing her excitement, he decided to be dumb. “I don’t think I have, no.”
“Me either,” Lucas said, raising his hand with a huge grin.
“Because your father.” Beth said, implying a worn-out discussion.
“One would think educating a man before marriage would be wise,” Lucas sighed, shoving his hands in his overall pockets. “But…what does the slow swamp seventeen-year-old know?” He gave a shrug.
“And I have pleaded your case,” Beth said, pained for him. “I’m sure he’s near breaking but you need to give him a little time. It’s not every day your son falls in love with your daughter.” She shot up a hand. “I know you’re not technically related but, in his head, he can’t separate it.”
“Yet,” Lucas muttered with his Little Bishop cocky tone and wink.
“Love will find a way,” Tully said with exuberance, looking at Lesion. “Lee taught me that one.” She tip-toed and kissed his cheek, turning him into a blushing teenage boy. “He’s my hero. He saved my life and now he’s keeping me like a rare treasure. Right?” she asked, double checking with him.
“One thousand percent,” he assured, kissing her forehead.
“You’re all our treasure, Tully,” Beth said.
“I wish I could be,” Tully lamented, “But Lee said he won’t share.”
Lesion grinned at the laugh she brought them.
“And I don’t blame him,” Lucas said. “I won’t share my ray of sunshine either. If I ever get to have her.”
“You will!” Tully cried with a laugh. “Beth will make it happen!”
Lesion remembered those compelling gifts Ruckus had mentioned, stirring his curiosity. Judging by Beth’s eyeroll, she didn’t believe it for a second.
“I will do my best.”
“Use your hoodoo,” Lucas whispered loudly.
“There is no hoodoo or anything else,” she lamented with fanfare. “It’s called logic. It works on some but not on others.”
“Well, we have other couples in need of my love services,” Beth announced. “I’m trying to get these delivered before the meeting tonight.”
“Don’t you worry, darlin,” Lucas drawled.
“I know,” Beth cut in, laughing before turning to them. “Him and that Hurricane Hell we rode in on will see it done. Do pray for us,” she said, heading down the steps.
Lucas followed her with, “Why pray when you’re in the embrace of The God of a Thousand Thunders!” He performed He-Man theatrics as he left, getting Beth’s laugh and shove.
“Bye Tully and Lesion!” she called over her shoulder as Lucas tossed a blind wave above his head.
“Bye Beth and Lucas!” she called back with a happy wave then eyed him. In the span of a second, she went from innocent exuberance to sexy seductress, keeper of his wildest fantasies. “I hope I didn’t make you jealous.”
Mmmm. She hoped no such thing.
He led her inside and locked the door, every cell in his body loading up for what he planned to do. Play Tully’s sex games. She always wanted to play. Every day. Several times. He’d decided there was nothing in the swamp that needed his dissecting obsessions more than she did and with great eagerness indulged her every sexual wish, all while learning her inside and out.
He sat at the table, watching her pretend to be busy at the sink. She would wait for his direction, but he wasn’t going to give it today. His recent discoveries led him to a new tactic. How long before she got impatient and took matters into her own hands?
“You know,” she said, turning at the sink and holding her hands together. “There’s three hours and thirty-three minutes before your meeting tonight.” She grabbed her dress in her fists as her toes nervously fluttered. “But I’m sure you knew that. I was just saving you the trouble of thinking of other things besides me.”
A whole minute. He watched her, not answering while realizing his role as the hard-to-get-dominant would be a challenge when meeting her every need was his addiction.
She made her way over to him and opened her wrap around dress, sucker-punching him in his cock with her nudity.
He didn’t say a word other than to lock his gaze on her thick, hard nipples. She was pure voodoo. A wicked hex always sucking his cock every minute of the day. He raised his eyes to hers, already knowing he’d find that look. He stood before her, locking her in his gaze. That special mix he was becoming familiar with sparked in the crystal blue pools. Little burning embers of lust and hope. Desperation dictating its path. He was the path. And the destination was learning fully and exactly why Tully needed to be sexually punished.
He couldn’t deny that the process was creating something in him that wasn’t there before. Something intimately connected to her. Giving her what she craved made him crave it too. As though it were contagious. And there was a danger in that. He needed to understand the alchemy of it. But…it required risks and that was something he’d never dare with her, not with a single hair on her sweet body.
“Get the restraints my Wicked Elixir.”
While she hurried to obey, he went over her treatment plans. Punishment, pain, and pleasure. His pleasure. This was the unholy trio she seemed bound to. Unholy due to its origin being from the hell he carried her out of. Otherwise, utterly divine. After every sexual exchange, he always readied the next one in his mind. He varied positions and restraints. He varied punishments and pain. And he varied his pleasure. She was due to be tied in a particular way this time with particular punishments and pain thresh holds. And his cock raged with an eagerness to perform it, especially since he was using it to bring the pain, something he’d not done yet, nor had he ever wanted to do. But the latest data was conclusive. He needed to recreate safe pain pathways and they needed to be directly connected to him. All her pain and pleasure would become his to control. And only him. The vibrating bullet with clitoris stimulator that he could control was for the pleasure, only because he didn’t have two cocks. The universe be damned for it.
“What about my blindfold?” she asked when he finished restraining her. He didn’t answer. He had her on their bed, face up this time, her legs tied so they were bent at the knees. He forced each limb against the bed and added second restraints to ensure they stayed wide open.
“You want me to watch?” she wonder-whispered, arousal making her words soft as he climbed on the bed and tied her arms open and stretched to their limit. “Are you ignoring me?” Her curiosity held mild worry and he made a note of it. It was like fishing. Everything he did was bait for new data, and she’d just given him more. But he had to test it to confirm and so continued to ignore her.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked, her chest heaving as he undressed, her eyes on his body before raising to his face. Still, he didn’t answer her.
He turned and picked up the tin of oil then added lubrication to his cock.
“If you want… we can wait,” she said, her voice small, more worry coming through.
He looked at her, reading her gaze and measuring what he saw in it. Right before his eyes, the crystal blue windows shimmered with tears.
In a surge of panic, he spun for his knife and cut her free, laying next to her and pulling her into his embrace, petting her head. “Tully, why are you crying?” he cooed, laying her on her back and staring down in her face while covering it with kisses.
“You’re getting tired of me and my dumb games.”
“No, no, no,” he swore, kissing the tremble in her lips. “That’s impossible, you’re my sun and morning star. How would life exist if you’re not here with me? It surely couldn’t. The earth would stop spinning and gravity would be no more, and all the people would fall off into space and I would be glad for it because nobody deserves to live if I can’t have you all for myself. You are mine, yes? Tell me you are, quickly, before I die from sadness.”
She nodded and squeaked “I am,” while holding his face and kissing him.
“My sweet Tully,” he said in her mouth. “You know what I love more than anything?”
“What? Tell me so I can always give you that.”
“I love with all my being making love to my beautiful wife.”
She searched his face, tears pouring. “Me?”
His laugh gushed out and he kissed her. “Are you the beautiful, amazing, perfect Tully?”
“If you say I am.”
“I do say you are.”
She had hold of his cock and put it at her hot opening. “Do what you love with all your being. Because what you love I love. And you love me?”
The sincere, hopeful question broke his very soul. “So much,” he swore, kissing her deeply as he slid slowly inside her.
“How much?” she asked, because the measure of a thing was the only way to truly define it.
“More than all the numbers, and all the colors, and all the sounds and tastes.”
Her shocked breath filled his mouth when he thrust to the very bottom of her. “That’s so much!”
Fuck, she was crying again. “There aren’t enough things in this world and in this universe to measure how much I love you. I love you more than the sum of all things, Tully.”
She laughed and kissed him, her fingers clawing his ass, forcing him deeper faster.
“I love you the exact same!” she cried, amazed that their answers matched.
He held her jaw tight and slid his hand beneath her ass, holding and feeling the firm perfection as he fucked her slowly.
“Can you do it faster and harder?” she gasped in his mouth.
“You want my cock faster and harder?”
“Yes, so much, please!”
He picked up speed, watching what it did to her, feeling what that did to him. “Like that, baby?”
Her back arched with the thrash of her head. “Lesion, yes! Oh yes, yes!”
He raised up more, watching his cock hammer in and out as the perfect pair of tits in all the universe jerked with his rapid-fire strokes. The feel of his body slamming against hers brought his orgasm like a comet. He fell on her when it came to devour them, finishing with his body grinding into hers, leaving no space between them. He slid his hands under her shoulders, needing her to feel the fullness of what she did to him. Every powerful thrust was given by the man she created, the man from another realm, another world. Because the atoms in the universe had bowed before her beautiful heart and shattered laws and codes just to create what she desired. And by some kink in the matrix, it fell to him. He was the lucky bastard destined to become Tully’s man.
***
8-Bit pulled up the app for Cat’s tracking jewelry and adjusted the volume as low as he could while still able to hear everything going on in the Basilique meeting. Bishop gave them virtual attendance options and he took it happily. He was ready to get to the verification side of things with her and the less ears around, the better. He was only interested in knowing whether or not she was drama free in the ways that mattered. Real life drama was fine, but he couldn’t afford the bullshit kind.
So far, she was still proving to be the perfect match. But there were true color tests to perform with little time for them. As soon as he got what he needed, he’d remove the privacy invasion from her ring, but not a minute before.
He recalled her reaction when he presented the wedding ring before leaving a couple hours earlier. Or her non-reaction. She’d held it between two fingers, examined it front and back, slid it on her ring finger, gave comically mild expressions of surprise, removed it and put it in her apron pocket. He’d managed to hold back a laugh, probably a little too happy to confirm Jason’s gospel about her caring nothing about such things.
But before leaving, he had to insist she wear it. “Can’t risk it getting lost,” he’d said.
She’d nonchalantly withdrew it from her apron, put it on, and returned her hands to said pockets. Grade: A+.
“If you hate it, I can design a new one,” he’d half teased-tested.
“Hate it,” she’d muttered. “It’s a tracking device, what’s to hate?” Without breaking eye contact, she’d called, “Jason, how much jewelry do I own?”
“Uhhh, I didn’t even know you had none.”
“Had any,” she corrected. “Cause I don’t.” Then she gave him the best sermon he’d ever heard. “I’m not a jewelry fan, no sir. Hope that isn’t a problem. I’d rather adorn my neck with a can-opener on a rope than see precious metals wasted on body art.” Without breaking her sublime, merciless stride, she added kindly, “I ain’t judging others who wear it. I know why some do and there ain’t no harm in it. That’s between them and the good lord, what they do with the time and money they have on this earth.” She tied his gift up with a neat suspicious bow and quirked brow. “People who focus on what’s on the surface often miss what lurks just beneath it.”
In-fucking-deed. That was a gavel of warning, letting him know she was watching him as close as he was her.
He’d thoroughly enjoyed all his Cat findings. She was a lot deeper than he’d dared hope. So far, she was proving to be perfect material to stand as his right hand in just about anything. Which had his ass on the edge of his seat, quietly willing her to continue kicking ass. But he knew everybody had their flaws. He needed to find hers and decide if they were fixable or at least tolerable. Sometimes people resolved to becoming what they were due to life offering them no other choice. What would she do if life offered her everything on a silver platter? That’s what he needed to know. He was at debugging and cosmetic tweaks.
Speaking of cosmetics, the fact that she wore none had been another confirmation about her professed character. But in person, he found her more attractive than he liked. The single photo he’d found of her captured a one-dimensional image of that cold, calculating mainframe that had caught his eye. But seeing her in layered elements was an almost jarring experience. Thanks to Jason’s tell-all personality, he’d gotten a data-dump in the span of a minute. She’d changed into the only dress she owned, wasn’t one for frivolous pleasantries, fashion, makeup, or the male species in general. Didn’t get much company, didn’t go many places other than the Muck and Marsh where she both worked and shopped supplies, and to her booray games once a week with the only three female friends she had. Unselfish to a fault—which Jason seemed to spend time nagging her about.
Andshe hunted.
The boy’s father’s details had him troubled, though. He was one of their wounded from the Noctambule war and judging by the intel, he’d become a shell of man who’d lost his will and way. As soon as this meeting was over, he’d be paying him a visit with the Seer. He didn’t have time to guess wrong and needed to know the stuff he wasn’t able to see by simple observation. He was a member of Bullets hatch, so, he’d have a chat with him about what he knew. But being the closest thing to a father figure the family had, 8-Bit intended to make his intentions with his sister known to him.
His mind returned to the baby deal she’d struck with him. Still wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Not that he was opposed to kids, he just never had a reason to think of them as a celibate leader of his Hatch. When he mentioned it possibly requiring more than one attempt to make one, her reaction said it spoke more than just to her inexperience. She’d blushed and sputtered, and he’d found it cute. As well as a confirmation to everything he’d want in a woman. He much preferred an inexperienced one in that department.
He looked at his watch and turned up Cat’s volume at hearing consistent chatter, indicating she’d reached destination booray game. Operation listen and learn was officially launched with five minutes till the meeting. He hit record on his phone, intending to listen to the feed after. Her honest opinion about the marriage and all it entailed was what he was after. And her true thoughts about him.
Come on Cat. Do me proud.
“You keep your trap shut about the Ball business, not a word!” she whispered. “Or about Ethan!”
“I swear!” Jason whispered back, with a fiftieth-time stress.
“Our business is our business.”
“I know Aunt Cat. What about the ring? They gone ask questions. And you can’t take it off!”
“Well, I know that! How about it’s not their business?”
“You can say my dad gave it to you. A gift? Belonged to Gramma?”
“Boy, what did I tell you about lying! Is anybody dying? Getting hurt? And I don’t mean their feelings.”
“No ma’am.”
“It’s not their business and it ain’t like it’s the first time they hear that out of my mouth. And if I should want to tell them anything, I will.”
This was good.
“When do I know if you said yes?” Jason whispered. “You gonna tell me, right?”
“Of course I will.”
“Did you decide? If I get a vote, I vote yes!”
“Like I didn’t know that,” she whispered. “You realize he’s not doing all this so you can have a playmate.”
“I know,” he assured, sternly. “But I’ll probably see him more than I do now, which is never?”
“Boy, I need to tell you this like I’m speaking to a grown man. Ethan is not wanting a family. He’s wanting a woman that…” She let out a breath. “He’s wanting somebody who can…”
8-Bit’s curiosity burned.
“Just a friend?” Jason tried to help.
“No, not a friend, like a…a work…a work partner.”
“Well, I can work too!” he shot out, making 8-Bit grin.
“You’re missing the point. This is not that kind of marriage. He wouldn’t be living with us or anything like that. We’d be married on paper only.”
“But…I thought a marriage was what boyfriend and girlfriends did when they loved each other?”
Ah shit.
“That’s silly! In the bible, there was arranged marriages all the time,” she seemed to just remember. “That’s right, they arranged their sons and daughters to be married to certain people when they were still children, probably before they were even born.”
“Wow,” Jason whispered.
“Love ain’t some miracle, it’s a sacrificial act one gives without return payment. Free. Same way God’s love is free.”
His Cat curiosity took an upward turn with that one. Love wasn’t a miracle but a sacrificial act one does without return payment. Love sure might not be a miracle but finding a woman that new that was. And that he’d found her was another miracle. Hell, maybe he’d put her over training his men. She’d make a damn good Seargent.
Female chatter got louder as 8-Bit contemplated how to grade her answers. Definitely A +. Her arranged marriage was the perfect example to give the boy. Marrying for love was actually a novelty for the majority of history. Well fucking done.
His phone buzzed and he switched screens. “Bishop,” he answered. “Meetings still on?” He checked his watch. Three minutes till go time.
“We’re running a little late. But be ready in ten. How’d it go with Cat?”
“She hasn’t officially said yes, but she said everything that implied yes.”
“Merci Dieu. I may have told Ma Petite all about it.”
8-Bit stood, switching ears. “And?” He opened his small fridge and pulled out an energy drink.
“She has books at the ready. She wants to start classes right away. Required classes.”
8-Bit paused at that. “What kind?”
“The how-to kind for married couples.”
He twisted the top off his drink and dropped it in the wastebasket. “What exactly are we needing to know how to do? If you say sex, I’ll fucking vote no.”
He busted out laughing. “Why?”
“If a man doesn’t know how to stick his dick in a hole, a book won’t help him.”
“Ohhhh Mon Frier, this is not about how to fuck this is about how to fuuuuuck.”
8-Bit shook his head. “You drug that word through a gutter so dirty, my dick saluted you.”
Between his howling laughter, he managed, “She asked me to do the classes for the men.”
“Swamp Studs 101. Can’t wait to hear what kind of assignments you’ll give out.”
“Very useful things,” he assured around laughter.
“Trap’s wife will need Houdini classes.”
More howling before he gasped, “Oh fuck, you’re killing me.”
He remembered Cat’s baby request. “There is one thing. She wants a child. One. For herself.”
“For herself, what the fuck does for herself mean?”
“It means she wants to raise it, not me.”
“How…wait. What kind of marriage did you propose? A long distance one?”
“My hatch is only ten minutes from her, so not exactly long distance.”
“Are you telling me you don’t plan to live together?”
“I never said that.”
“Good because Mah Petite will not approve,” he assured. “Or me.”
“We’ll simply have two residences. She doesn’t want to move, and I won’t make her. I don’t want to move so we’ll have two places for living.”
“As long as it’s together, I don’t care if you live in a tree.”
8-Bit let out a sigh, bringing every manner of negative noise from Eveque.
“Mon Frier, you will need to live with her, that is non-negotiable, that is a marriage.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly require it.”
“Well, you had better.”
8-Bit rolled his eyes and leaned into his chair. “Fine. I’ll require it. Guess we’ll see just how detached she can be.”
“Oui,” he said, stomping out the word.
Could be seen as a test. One he’d rather not think about in that second. “How’s Nitro healing?”
“Fine and he’s doing virtual. I think it has nothing to do with his bat bites, though.”
8-Bit still had a hard time wrapping his head around the hardened soldier’s drastic fall from Mount Celibacy. “Will The Seer be at the meeting? I need to talk to him.”
“He will. What’s up?”
“I want to borrow him and pay Boone a visit. Cat’s brother. You realize he was one of our wounded from the Noctambule war?”
“Holy shit, I didn’t realize, no. How is he?”
He shook his head. “From what I gather, not so good.”
“What’s his disability, you know?”
“Paralyzed from the waist down.”
“What are you thinking.”
“I’m thinking to check on him and see what I can do.”
“He’s in same Hatch as her, I take it.”
“Bullets’ yeah. Need to talk to him too, see what he knows.”
“And Patches. He’d know something too.”
“Good thinking. I got data drops by the way.”
“On what?”
“Curly Larry and Mo. The triple demons.”
“It’s late for word puzzles, Mon Frier.”
“Noctambule, Holy Order and Five Runes.”
“Ah. Triple Demons. Noted. Tell me something good.”
“As you know, Seer, Maggie and his father interrogated him, and I ran down some of his claims.”
“Which ones?”
“He said they’re not after just any flesh in these swamps, they’re looking for two particular women.”
“Mon fucking Dieu.”
“He wasn’t sure, but it has to be your Belle Eveque and Maggie.”
“What makes you think this?”
“Bart said something that got me thinking.”
“Bart my brother?”
“Oh yeah, he’s been wrapping wires left and right on this one. Remember when we wondered if their abductions were connected? Well, he found links to quite a few of his properties tied to Noctambule. Our informant said to look in political high places for the ties. Well, remember the Senator who helped find Maggie?”
“Oui.”
“He thinks that’s where the blackmail began. It wasn’t Maggie they wanted, it was what he had, properties to hide their crimes. When he refused, they took Maggie and blackmailed him. Here’s where the wires cross. Somewhere between them taking his daughter and him getting her back, they discovered Maggie’s gifts. But somebody on the inside protected her. A woman in the coven. Another one of their gifted.”
“Protected her from what? Why?”
“From using her the informant said. Or assumed.”
“For what?”
“Recruiting victims.”
“Mon fucking Dieu,” he muttered. “What if they knew about Beth’s gift? And that’s why they took her?”
“Well, if she really does have the ability to get what she wants, that could surely be exploited by sick fucks like them.”
“I need to talk to Seer and his father.”
“They’ll be at the meeting?” 8-Bit thought.
“Oui. I’ll bring it up. See you in five minutes in the devil box.”