Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Joseph was not a bright guy, as Romily wished she’d understood from the start. He did not make it easy. Not at first.
They ended up in court. But Zachary’s friend Frederick, who seemed to affect a courtroom the way Zachary affected a bedroom, handled everything.
Eighteen months after Zachary and Romily faced Joseph on the front step of that cursed little house in Walnut Creek, the divorce was final and Romily was free.
She stood in the window of their apartment, looking down at the marina where she’d lived for those six months before she’d actually met Zachary. That was hard to imagine now.
As far as she was concerned, her life had begun that foggy night she’d met her Viking at last.
She could hear music thumping from the gym downstairs, where she still worked. She’d taken on more of the business side of things over time, freeing Zachary up to do more of the private coaching that he liked. Zachary had started to refer to it as their gym.
He did that with everything. Like all of this was theirs.
Their life. Their beautiful, beautiful life, filled with more wonder and joy than she ever could have imagined.
If anything, the games they played had only gotten hotter. And the longer they were together, the more that power exchange he talked about on the very first night consumed them.
Though that wasn’t the right way to put it, Romily thought. It wasn’t that it consumed them. It was just… who they were.
Radical trust. Radical honesty.
It wasn’t always easy, but it was so beautiful, and it was theirs.
He had turned her into a gym rat like him.
She was barely recognizable from the haunted, terrified creature who had scurried around this neighborhood when she’d first moved here.
Now she had muscles everywhere. She could lift well over her body weight, do actual pull ups, and was training for a half-marathon.
She’d learned how to box, too, just in case any unpleasant memories slithered into view one of these days.
She could more than take care of herself, and that made her feel safe.
But she also didn’t have to take care of herself, because Zachary did that—and that made her feel even safer.
She took care of him in return, fully aware of what an honor it was that she was the only one he let close enough to do that.
Her marriage had been so twisted and suffocating that it had never occurred to her to imagine that she could have a life like this.
Zachary expected her to be his partner in all things.
The gym. His life. His friends. Nothing was hidden.
Everything was open. He’d insisted that she study this lifestyle that they’d fallen into, but most people plotted out more deliberately.
The way he should have done, she knew now. It made her smile, standing there, to think back to those early days. He’d been a Viking god to her, and it never would have crossed her mind if he was anything but in total control of himself.
And now she knew that he’d fallen as hard as foolishly she had.
It made her feel giddy.
But not as giddy as she felt when the door opened and he walked in.
And they both smiled as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.
“I am, at last, a single woman,” she told him. When his dark brow rose, she smiled wider, even as that electricity coiled side of her. “Legally speaking, of course.”
“Of course,” Zachary agreed.
He moved over to her and looped a hand around the nape of her neck, pulling her close so he could kiss her. Just as filthy as ever.
She was wet instantly. She was shivering immediately.
And she gasped as if it was the first time when he whirled her around and bent her over the narrow bench in front of the window that was there for precisely this purpose.
His hands were on her hips, then he tugging the flirty little skirt she wore out of his way.
She didn’t know when she’d stopped wearing pants outside the gym. She only knew that he approved of her wearing skirts, because it was easier to get his hands on her. He liked her unencumbered, without panties as well, so he could fuck her pretty much where and when he wanted.
Which he did. All the time.
Zachary was deep inside her with one hard thrust and she let her head fall forward, gripping the bench with her fingers. Romily wanted to come, desperately. But he was silent. She knew what that meant.
“We’ll get your tattoo tomorrow,” he said as he fucked her, deep and hard and right on the verge of uncomfortable, just the way she liked it.
As he set that relentless rhythm of his, he slapped her ass with one hard palm. Then the other side. He wasn’t gentle.
Because he knew. He knew exactly what spanking her while he was fucking her did to her. He knew exactly how much she loved it. How that stinging pain swirled around and seemed to pierce her clit.
Where she was already pierced. They had picked out the rings in her nipples and the jewel in her clitoral hood together. And it had all taken some time to heal, so she’d gotten even more skilled at the kind of face fucking he liked most.
She remembered that very first night and how he’d watched her watch him fuck the blonde so intensely, with his cock so far down her throat.
Romily still took pleasure in recreating that scene—and making it better for him.
If anything, the longer they stay together, the more intense it all got.
“Please,” she was panting. “Please, Zachary. Please.”
“This is the real end,” he told her as he slammed himself into her. “The final moment. He’s gone, baby. Everything that happens now is only ours.”
Romily had to breathe so hard to keep from coming that it sounded like a sob, and his cock kept making it this close to impossible.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she managed to pant out, bewildered. “Who’s gone?”
Zachary’s laugh was dark and deep. It seemed to wind all around her like her favorite lash, making her clit throb.
She was a scant second away from disappointing him?—
“Come,” he told her, and she exploded.
And still he kept fucking her in that same hard, deep rhythm, sending her screaming through one orgasm and then building right back up toward another one.
All the while, he could spanking her, so it was no time at all before she was begging him once again—only for him to deny her.
He pulled out and Romily thought that she might actually cry.
Zachary pulled her up from the bench, then lifted her into the air and held her there, like he was remembering their first night too.
And then, holding her gaze with all of that intense blue, he lowered her down onto his cock once more, and worked her there.
Like his own fuck toy, once again.
Romily knew that she was a thousand things to him, but these moments where he used her to slake his own lust made her glow, from the inside out.
He moved across the room, his cock still deep inside of her, and flattened her up against the wall. Then he held her up with the pressure of his body and got his hand around her neck.
“Right here,” he whispered. “Tomorrow.”
His cock was still pounding into her. His other hand gripped her ass, and hard. She had to fight and fight to keep from coming.
“Tomorrow,” she agreed.
They had designed the tattoo together. It would be her only one. An intricate collar around her neck, marking her as his forever.
She couldn’t wait.
Romily tilted her head back so she could look at him. Directly in the eye.
“Zachary,” she whispered. “I love you so much. I can’t wait for everyone to know that I’m yours with a single glance.”
“Sneaky,” he said reprovingly, but he bit her lip, gently. “Very sneaky, little bird.”
Because his thrusts were getting wilder. Deeper. He was reaching his limit.
“I love you,” she said again, and kissed him.
“Come, Romily,” he gritted out, against her mouth. “Come for me.”
And she did. Over and over again, she shattered around his beautiful cock as he flooded her, deep inside.
The way she intended to do—with his collar inked in deep around her neck and her ass likely red from his hand—at his command, forever.