Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CADENCE
The pleasure reaches down into the deepest refuge of sleep, tugging me towards the light, dangling the temptation of more, of better, as I slowly ascend the layers of consciousness.
It’s always like this. The hit of pure release as my body responds to his attentions without the baggage of thought. A call and response that burrows through any reservations, bestowing me with the gift of untold pleasures that slowly, slooooooowly, tug me awake.
“Fuck, your pussy’s so tight,” Drake moans in my ear, unleashing a ripple of heat that spreads until I hum from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. “I love it when you’re gripping my cock like you’re scared it might up and leave.”
He chuckles and I bow down a few layers, chased by the reverberations in his chest. My dream spins around the feel of him plunging inside me, arranging my body to suit his needs, my legs over his shoulders when I surface again, arms splayed above my head. Tits bouncing with every thrust while he kneels, staring at the show as his cock thrusts deep inside me.
The heat grows more intense, tightening my belly with a promise, while my hips rise and fall to meet each motion as he slams into me.
Then his full weight is on me, crushing my breasts against his hard pecs, his fingers plunging into my hair, cupping my head, then ruthlessly tugging it back to expose my neck while his mouth sucks and bites and licks the sheen of sweat off my skin, his other hand caressing my pussy, thumb knuckle circling my clit until I come with a long cry.
As I rise into full consciousness, I want to exclaim, voice my appreciation, but I’m panting too hard, the pleasure washing away only for the tide to turn, bringing the heat, the tension, the friction back until the waves again crash on the shore.
My hands are sleepily useless at first, not even sure which way is up as I grab for him, needing to hold on to his reality, dig my fingertips into his tight arse, feeling his muscles contract and expand until they harden like rocks as he reaches the pinnacle of his pleasure.
When he falls to the side, he rolls me with him, gently manoeuvring my limbs until they’re relaxing softly on the sheets.
Drake presses a kiss on my abdomen where I wrote his name.
The frosty night air penetrates enough to make me shiver, and he drags up the duvet, circling me with his arms to warm me while my brain sighs with contentment and drifts back to sleep.
“You should let me get it tattooed,” I say the next morning, spooning in Drake’s arms while my brain resolutely refuses to start the day. “Can you imagine how many pens it would save?”
He gives a warning growl, and I giggle, combing through the hairs on his chest with my fingers, then snuggling closer.
A tattoo had been the original plan, and he’d happily sat next to me while the artist permanently marked his initials on the inside of my lower lip.
He also sat, far less happily, while the tattooist inked his name around my nipple.
When the man asked if I was okay to go ahead with the third design, Drake baulked, dragging me out of there with dark mutterings about men and their tattoo guns and where they could stick them.
A dark curse that he expanded to all womankind when I suggested perhaps a female artist would be better suited.
“You’re going to be late,” he murmurs against my neck, grazing his teeth against the tender skin there, practically guaranteeing I’ll be a no-show altogether as my thighs clench, pushing back against him while his cock swells with interest.
“There’ll be another intake next semester.”
“You’re going to join the one today, young lady. Do I make myself clear?”
I reach behind me, working my hardest to change his mind but he lifts me in his arms, leaving me in danger of being dumped on the floor as I reluctantly concede the day is important, and I should probably move.
Drake and I never returned to school after our terrifying ordeal. He started an apprenticeship with a security firm, hoping to gather his mates into a collective to test out potential breaches for corporate agencies.
I have doubts they’ll remember it’s for testing and not for individual gain, but it really doesn’t matter.
One of the great discoveries about wealth is the ability to change your mind without fearing repercussions. There’s always another option in the wings, waiting.
Personally, I hope it goes well but bores him out of his mind, then he can go to university where I believe he belongs.
The unpaid role he’s recently taken is far more interesting, acting as an older brother to a nine-year-old boy. He takes him two weeknights and one full day each weekend, lessening the pressure on his single mother.
Not only keeping him company, and letting him try out new activities, but mentoring the boy so he’s aware there are more options in life than those he’s been exposed to up till now.
It probably helps that he chose the boy with a black mark for arson on his record. Just a bin fire at this stage… and hopefully that’s where it ends.
I lazed in bed so long my shower is more of a dunking, then I’m scrambling to do my hair and makeup and get dressed before running downstairs to grab a coffee, my mother helpfully having a cup already poured in anticipation.
“You don’t always need to be in a hurry,” she gently chides me, smiling like a benevolent goddess while she passes across a piece of toast already spread with butter and dabbed with marmite, just the way I like it. “Surely, the point of all this needless luxury is to stop and enjoy it.”
I smile, remembering the first day when I happily told Arnold if I owned this house, I’d never work, content to just stare at the view.
My smile falters around the edges as it always does, thinking of the man who caused such harm to the people I love. Myself included. Then it reappears as I claim the memory anyway.
If I let Arnold continue to taint things with his poison, he’ll win.
“Sit,” Mum insists, kicking the chair out as an added inducement. “Christian tells me if I connect more deeply with the people around me, it’ll lessen my intrusive thoughts.” She pouts. “And you don’t want your mother having intrusive thoughts, do you?”
I snort with amusement, taking my seat, bowing to peer pressure and happily passing it along as Drake wanders down, seeking more sustenance than when he dined out on me.
Christian is the trauma counsellor that Victim Support Services connected her with. A man whose advice might sound more persuasive if Mum hadn’t seduced him within the first three sessions, deciding he made far better partner material.
A change of tactic that offers her the best of both worlds.
Advice and a thoughtful man in her bed.
Five months and she is absolutely wrapped with her taboo boyfriend—not only in a patient therapist way, but he’s also closer to my age than hers—and his advice didn’t stop working just because he crossed an ethical line.
Given she ignores outside offers of help, him whispering sweet nothings accompanied by practical steps to improve her well-being is a fantastic solution.
And if it doesn’t work out, who cares?
Not the lady with a half-million dollars of engagement ring on her finger.
She takes it as proof that, beneath the madness, anger, and gross entitlement, Arnold really cared.
In my view, the only things he cared about were appearances, but that thought stays safely behind my sealed lips, a debate that doesn’t help anyone.
“Not a word about speed,” Drake warns when I hop into the passenger seat. “It’s my civic duty to get you to class on time and as you know, I take my duties seriously.”
A claim belied by his broad grin and the way he kisses me goodbye half a dozen times when we arrive at the community hall, miraculously on time.
“Cadence, over here,” Elaine calls to me, waving, and I hurry over to greet her. “Thank goodness you came. I had horrible thoughts of teaching a class full of strangers, judging and finding me wanting.”
“And now you’ll know one of them.”
She frowns then bursts into laughter, bumping my shoulder while her hands crisscross over her stomach.
“How’s the book coming?” I ask, trying to distract her. From the moment she signed on to take the community journalism course, her nerves have been breaking through her aura of calm.
“The editor had lovely things to say, then returned it with so many notes that I’ll probably still be drowning in revision hell a decade from now.”
“Going well then?” I interpret and she scrunches her nose.
“As well as can be expected.”
We file into the hall, and I sit in the front row, a marked change from school. The two-hour lecture is crammed full of so many interesting discussions, I’m shocked when it ends and can’t wait for the next session.
Outside, I sit on the stone steps, the winter sun warming my bones, waiting for the boy I adore to collect me.
He pulls the car to a stop. I look at him, and he looks at me.
And when our eyes meet, neither one of us looks away.
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