21. Daphne
“Your wife was having an affair?”
“She was.”
“I’m so sorry.” I plant my palms against Weston’s chest, his hands on either side of my neck, his thumbs brushing against my jaw.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. It was my fault; I don’t blame her at all. In her defense, she tried to get me to choose her instead of work. She begged me to be more present, to be a better husband.”
“But she didn’t leave?”
He shakes his head. “She got sick pretty quickly after I found out about it. Truthfully, I don’t know for sure if it was just her attempt to get my attention but somewhere along the way she fell in love with him or started to at least. Sometimes I wonder if I should have let her go, then she could have spent her final months happy, with the man she loved. I’ve always heard that mourning someone who is still alive is the hardest kind of grief you can deal with, but it’s not. Losing someone to death slowly while they fall out of love with you is.”
It breaks my heart hearing this. I had no idea he experienced this kind of pain. It’s hard enough losing your spouse but losing them before they”re even gone is something I can’t imagine. “You can’t think like that. If she wanted to go, she would have. I’m sure she wanted to be with you and Daisy. Maybe it was her way of getting your attention, as painful as it was, but I’m sure she loved you.”
He looks down at me, kissing the tip of my nose softly. “I worried I wouldn’t know how to be a father on my own. I also worried I would grow to resent Daisy because every time I looked at her, I saw Mira, but actually the exact opposite happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I grew to resent Mira… for leaving the two of us, for not getting to see Daisy grow up, for missing out on so many memories with her. I know it’s irrational and probably emotionally immature because she didn’t choose death, but it was how I coped. I felt sorry for Daisy for not having a mother, for not having that bond that other young women have.”
My heart aches for him. “Death and loss make us irrational. It’s total bullshit that people expect us to grieve or cope in any one specific way. It makes me sad for Daisy too. The bond I had with my mom was everything which made losing her all that much harder. I did have a conversation with Daisy the night I babysat her. I meant to tell you and honestly it slipped my mind. She asked me where my parents were and I said I lived alone. That’s when she told me her mom had died. I wasn’t sure what to say, what you’d told her about death, but I told her that my mom had died too. I tried to get her to talk about her mom, but she said…” I hesitate, turning away because I don’t want to make things worse.
“She said what?” He turns my face back toward him.
“She said she didn’t remember her mom.”
He nods. “I know she doesn’t. She was just two when her mother died. I think that’s why seeing you with her, the way she responds to you, the way you look at her, I know you love her and it just made me realize that what you and I have, it is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. The fact that Daisy feels so open with you and comfortable, she isn’t like that with anyone else besides me and my parents. I’ve struggled lately with how busy I’ve been, how I’ve been absent from Daisy’s day-to-day, but I won’t live like that. I worried that I would do the same thing to you. I convinced myself that you made the right choice running away because I already ruined Mira’s life and you deserve far better than what I could give you.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Is that how you feel now?”
“No. You and Daisy are my world.” He presses his forehead to mine for a brief moment, taking in a breath. “I regret that I couldn’t see what I had with Mira when I had it, but it taught me how valuable and short life can be. I don’t want to live for work. I want to spend as much time as I can with you, Daisy, and hopefully our family. I know that asking you to step in to Daisy’s life in that capacity is a lot, but I won’t live with regrets any longer.”
I look up at him and I feel what he’s saying. I feel the love that we have between us growing and burning with every passing minute it feels like. “What are you going to do about Mr. Fein, his brother, and Steve?”
“Do you really want to know or do you want me to just handle it and let you know when you can go back to work?” He doesn’t smile and I know he’s not joking.
“You really think I’ll get my job back?”
“Are you questioning my ability to make things right, Daphne?” He gets that look in his eyes.
“No.”
“Good.” He picks me up, wrapping my legs around his waist as he walks us toward the stairs to his bedroom. “Because I’m not the kind of man who takes lightly to threats, especially against you. If you thought for one second I wouldn’t tear this fucking world apart come hell or high water to defend you and protect you, then you don’t know me very well.”
“I think I know you pretty damn well, Mr. Vaughn,” I whisper against his ear before running my tongue over it.
“Well, then you know that I will make sure all three of those pieces of shit are fucking destroyed.” I slide her down onto my bed so she’s sitting on the edge, staring up at me. “There is no mercy when it comes to you, no second chances for people who try to fuck over my family. And I’ll get a lot of joy out of ruining them. Do you understand me?”
I nod my head, his hand coming down to wrap delicately around my throat.
“I don’t want there to be secrets between us. I want you to know exactly what kind of man I am. I will be loyal to you and honest. I want to say that if you need more space and time, I’ll give it to you, but I don’t think that I can, Daphne. I don’t think I can spend one more fucking second without having you as mine and if I do have to, I’m prepared to burn the world down so you have no other choice but to crawl back to me.” His eyes are dark, his voice practically a growl as he stares down at me.
“I want to be yours. I don’t want to run any longer.”
“That means you belong to me.” He squeezes my throat a little tighter. “You are mine and mine alone. You don’t get to run away again. You don’t get to live life without me. Every fucking inch of you is my property.”
It might be messed up, and I’m sure there’s some psychological explanation that I don’t want to delve into, but when he speaks to me like this, telling me who I am to him, my insides melt, my pulse quickens, and I feel a need start to burn inside me that I know only he can satiate.
“You’ll move in with me tomorrow. We’ll tell Daisy… And you’re going to stop taking your birth control. No negotiations. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mr. Vaughn.”
A devilish grin tugs at the corner of his mouth as his thumb slowly slides across my lips. “Such a good girl. You deserve to be rewarded. What do you want, baby?”
My eyes drop from his down to his belt. I reach forward, slowly undoing the buckle. I pull his zipper down next, reaching up to run my hand down the front of his shirt while my other hand reaches into his pants to palm him through his underwear.
“Fuck my mouth, please.”
“Oh, baby.” He bites down on his bottom lip as I pull his cock free. “It’s gonna be rough, sweetheart. Are you prepared to take it rough?” I nod my head as I dart my tongue out to swirl around his tip, licking off the bead of precum before opening my mouth and sliding halfway down his length.
“Oh, someone’s a greedy little slut tonight. Fuck me.” He grabs my head, pushing me down a little further till he hits the back of my throat, making me gag. “I’ve got a better idea.” He pulls himself from my mouth, stepping back to slip his belt free from his pants. “I’ve wanted to do this to you since the second you opened your smart little mouth in your classroom.” He wraps the belt around my throat, pulling it just tight enough that it squeezes me.
“Don’t move,” he commands, walking over to the chair by the window in his bedroom. He unbuttons his shirt, tossing it to the side before he slowly sinks down into the chair, spreading his legs apart. His chest is bare, his cock rigid in his hand as he looks at me with a hunger in his eyes. “Now crawl to me and beg to suck my cock.”
I keep my eyes on him. I slowly place my hands on the floor, moving one and then the other as I crawl forward, the belt dragging between my hands.
“You look so good like that, baby, like my little pet.” He smirks, leaning forward to grab the end of the belt once I’m close, tugging on it so that I almost fall forward. “Are you mine, baby, to do with whatever I want?”
“Yes.”
“What if I want to stuff my cock deep in your ass, would you let me do that?”
I flinch. I’ve never had any man ask to do that to me. “Yes.”
“Why don’t we start with just my tongue?”
“Your tongue—in my ass?”
He chuckles. “Mm-hmm. You’ve never had your ass eaten before?”
“No.”
“I promise you’ll like it. Now why don’t you come a little closer and let me fill your belly with cum first.” He tugs on the belt, pulling me up to my knees. I grab his thighs, leaning forward till his cock is at my lips.
“Can I please suck your cock, baby? I want to swallow you.” I barely get the sentence out before he’s sliding himself between my lips with a groan. He tugs on the belt in time with my head movements, his hips rising off the chair as he grips the back of my head. I relax my mouth and throat like he taught me, taking him faster, deeper than I ever have until he can’t stand it any longer. He pulls himself free just as he comes, spilling himself all over my lips and chin.
“I’m sorry,” he pants, looking down at me. “I’ve had so many fantasies about coming on those lips.” I drag my tongue across my lips, tasting his salty release. “Oh, you like it, don’t you?” He smiles, rubbing his thumb across my lip as he gathers more of his release and slips it into my mouth. I wrap my lips around the tip of his thumb, biting down softly. “So naughty.”
He reaches down to release the belt from my neck. “Go wash your mouth out, baby. Now it’s my turn to decide what I want to do with you.”
I strip out of my clothes while I’m in the bathroom, walking out slowly to see him sitting on the end of the bed.
“Now that is a vision I want for the rest of my life.” He holds out his arms toward me as I approach, pulling me onto his lap so I’m straddling him. “You are so beautiful, baby, so stunning.” His lips find mine and the kiss is soft and warm. His tongue is demanding, his hands gripping my waist as he pulls me against him. “I will never tire of kissing these lips, of holding this body, of tasting you.” He trails his warm breath down my neck and over my collarbones as he tells me how much he loves me.
I push his shirt from his shoulders, dragging my nails softly over his skin. “Are they still there?” I ask, looking for the marks from my fingernails.
“They are.” He chuckles, dragging my fingertips down to where they’ve scarred.
“Oh my God, I was joking.” I trace the small mark I left on him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize. I want to be covered in your scratches and bite marks. I wear them like a badge of honor, baby, knowing I can make you lose complete control like that with me. Hell, maybe I’ll tattoo them on me.” I laugh and he leans in to bite down on my nipples. “Or maybe I’ll just mark you as well so that you have a permanent reminder that you belong to me.”
He lifts me, turning us around as he lays me on the bed. He removes the rest of his clothes, slowly crawling up my body as he peppers my skin with kisses.
“I want to know there’s no part of you that hasn’t had my lips or tongue on or in it.”
“Did you really get yourself off to thoughts of getting me pregnant?”
“Mm-hmm, many times.” He runs his hand over my breasts down to my belly. “It’s not just the thought of coming in you with nothing between us; it’s about knowing that you’ll be growing a part of me inside you. The idea of seeing your belly swollen, your breasts full, your hips widen… probably some evolutionary biology kink that dates back to caveman or something but it’s more than that. It’s not just a fantasy; it’s the idea that our love manifests into a human that is equal parts both of us.”
“So poetic.” I fight back tears at his words. Carson and I never got to this point in our relationship. Sure, we talked about having kids one day, about the fact that we both wanted a family, but we never expressed desires like this. “Is that why you said you weren’t worried about it on the boat after we didn’t use protection?”
“Yes. I knew even then what I wanted with you. I knew you were going to be mine.”
“Presumptuous much?” I laugh.
“Not at all. I saw the way you looked at me, the way your body responded to me. You wanted me to take you, to control you… And now, I want to ravish you. I want to worship every inch of you.” His hands trail down my thighs as he sits back, pushing my legs apart. “I want to devour your delicious pussy until you’re dripping off my tongue.” He doesn’t hesitate, leaning in to drag his tongue up my slit as his shoulders press my knees wide.
Within minutes I’m coming undone on his tongue and he’s sliding himself inside me. It’s not rushed or frantic. It’s slow and deep, his eyes on mine as he reminds me that I’m his. When we find our release together, he’s still on top of me, kissing my lips sweetly.
“Now, I’m going to flip you over and defile you.” He grips my chin gently, my eyes locked on his. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, so deep that you’re not going to be able to sit down for a week as punishment for leaving me. Every time you move or breathe, I want you reminded that my cock is the only cock that will ever be inside you again. I’m the only person who will ever bring you pleasure again. I want you screaming my name so loud that every time you hear it after this, your body will ache for me.”