Chapter 41
Elijah
My knuckles are white on the steering wheel, not from nerves, but from the violent restraint it takes not to pull over and take my wife right here in the passenger seat.
My wife.
And theirs. But mine, in the way that matters, in the way that leaves marks no ceremony can sanctify. I used to build her in fragments—delusional photographs, fantasies that dissolved at dawn, half-dreams I pretended were memories. None of them touch this.
She was a vision in white, baptized in blood, but she was mine. At last, entirely, irrevocably mine.
“Elijah?” Her voice is soft, laced with confusion. “The hotel is the other way. Where on earth are we going?”
I don’t answer immediately. I just reach over, my fingers finding the bare skin of her thigh. She shivers, a tiny tremor that screams directly to my cock.
She knows… she has to know this was coming.
“I have a wedding gift for you,” I finally say, my voice rough with need. “But it’s private, and the others already know what we’re doing.”
She seems happy with that, nodding and laying her head against the window.
We drive for a while longer, in silence, until the city lights dissolve into the black of old woods.
The car bounces along a forgotten dirt track, finally rolling to a stop in a small, secluded clearing.
The headlight cut through the darkness, illuminating it.
A stone mausoleum stands tall in the middle, surrounded by trees. Doors locked that can only be opened by me. I kill the ignition, plunging us into a silence so deep I can hear the frantic beat of her heart… or maybe it’s mine. I turn to face Lottie, who’s staring at the building with curiosity.
“Is this?”
I don’t answer. I unbuckle my seatbelt and exit the vehicle, taking my keys with me.
“I mourned you, Mouse. I told you this,” I say.
I’m out of the car and at her door before she can respond.
I open it, the interior light washing over her stunned face.
I don’t offer her my hand; instead, I wrap my fingers around her wrist, feeling the faint trace of her heartbeat thudding against her skin, and pull her out.
She stumbles slightly, but I catch her. I’ll always catch her.
My wife.
“I poured my grief into this cold, fucking stone while you were off starting your new life. This is where I thought you’d be forever. Some shoes and a backpack.”
“Elijah—”
I crush my mouth to hers, swallowing her words. It’s a claiming… a branding. My tongue plunges into the sweet warmth of her mouth, tangling with hers, reminding her… showing her who she truly belongs to.
When I finally break away, we’re both breathless, and then I lead her inside. I unlock the heavy doors, pushing them open, and turning on the light I had installed after I got sick of sitting in the dark every night while I grieved her.
There in the middle of the crypt is a raised grave. A grey marble stone with her name etched into a plaque.
Scarlett Reyes.
My wife.
She freezes, her breath catching in a sharp gasp. Her eyes flick to the headstone to me. “Why did you bring me here?” she asks me.
“Because I needed you to see,” I pull her against me, my hands sliding down her back to cup the perfect curves of her ass. “You’re here. You’re warm. You’re mine, and you’re going to prove it. Right here, on top of the fucking plot of dirt I cried over.”
A low moan escapes her, a sound of pure surrender that makes my balls tighten. Her hands come up, not to push me away, but to claw at my shirt. I walk her backward until the back of her legs hit the smooth, cold granite. “Bend over,” I command, my voice guttural.
Her eyes hold mine for a heartbeat before she obeys, turning and leaning over her own engraved name. The sight is the most blasphemous, erotic thing I’ve ever seen. The white dress hiked up around her waist, the bare skin of her ass displayed on top of the monument of her death.
I don’t waste a second. I fumble with my fly, freeing my aching cock, so hard it was painful. I don’t prepare her or tease her. I need to be inside her, to feel her, to reclaim what was always meant to be mine.
I guide myself to her entrance, and with one powerful thrust, I bury myself to the hilt in her. She screams, a raw, torn sound that rips through the silent woods. Her body clenches around me, and for a moment, I swear I see stars.
“God, Lottie,” I groan, my forehead dropping between her shoulder blades. I stay there, buried deep, just feeling her, the way her body stretches around me, the way her inner muscles flutter around my cock, trying to pull me even deeper.
Then I begin to move.
I set a brutal, punishing pace, each thrust slamming her body against the hard stone.
The sounds are obscene… The wet, rhythmic slap of our flesh meeting, my ragged grunts, her cries of pleasure with every drive of my hips.
I tangle one hand in her hair, pulling her head back, arching her spine.
The other hand slid around her hip, my fingers finding the swollen, sensitive nub of her clit.
I rub firm, tight circles there, matching the rhythm of my thrusts. “This is mine,” I snarl in her ear, my voice barely recognizable. “This tight, perfect cunt. It belongs to me. You can marry a hundred men, but you will always remember who owns this. Who fucks you like this.”
“Elijah!”
Her body begins to tighten around me, and I drive into her one last, final time, so deep I fear I might hurt her, and I hold myself there as her climax crashes over her. Her inner walls convulse around my cock, milking me, pulling my own release from me in hot, pulsing waves.
I spill into her, my own groan lost in the sound of her shuddering breaths.
We collapse together over the gravestone, spent and panting. Slowly, I pull out of her, turning her limp, pliant body in my arms to face me. Her eyes are glazed, her lips swollen from my kisses. She looks well and truly fucked.
Mine.
My Wife.
My Lottie.
I look down at her, at this beautiful, intoxicating woman. A possessiveness, darker and more profound than anything I’d ever felt, surges through me. I need one final thing.
The final seal on my ownership. “Open wife,” I command.
I gather a small amount of saliva in my mouth, and my eyes lock on hers. Her breath hitches, her gaze flicking to my lips with a knowing smile. She glares, but there’s no heat in it, and she obeys.
I lean down, my mouth hovering just above hers, and I spit directly into her open, waiting mouth. She swallows, accepting it, accepting me, in the most primal way possible.
A slow, wicked smile spreads across my face. “Welcome back from the dead, wife.”