Chapter 33
Love You Like Me
THE MAESTRO | Past
Something has shifted in the house over the last few days, and the silence that usually carries a razor-sharp edge feels… different. Quieter.
Selene is happier. I notice it in the way she walks through the corridors, no longer flinching at every shadow, no longer looking at me like she’s trying to locate the exact artery to sever in my neck.
Bizarrely, she hasn’t mentioned her Father.
For months, his name was a weapon she hurled at me to keep me at a distance. Now? Silence.
Hannah is playing the part of the doting Mother-in-law, blending seamlessly into the background of a happy family. I watch her during our meals together, dissecting every polite smile, every soft word she offers my wife across the dining table.
I am skeptical of her. A woman who carried that much venom doesn’t lose her fangs overnight. But I allow the charade. I let them have their quiet breakfast on the patio.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what Hannah plots; there is nothing she can do to touch me. This is my kingdom. And Selene is my queen, whether she admits it or not.
Besides, the real victories are won behind the closed doors of my bedroom.
She sleeps in my room now, her body instinctively curling into my chest when the night grows cold, even if she still tries to claim the opposite when the morning sun breaks through the curtains.
We have our own encounters… vicious, beautiful tangles of pride and desire.
I take her whenever the urge strikes, pinning her spine against the cold stone walls, clearing my desk with a single sweep of my arm, or bending her over the plush leather couch.
I enjoy keeping her on edge. It has become my favorite addiction.
Right now, she is trapped between my chest and the wall of the dressing room, the fabric of her skirt bunched up around her hips.
She writhes beneath my touch, whimpering as her skin turns a violent, beautiful shade of crimson.
She is so fucking responsive; it drives me insane.
Every touch eliciting a gasp, every shift of my weight making her arch into me.
“Zagreus… please,” she pants, her fingernails digging through the fabric of my shirt, balancing herself on my shoulders.
“Please what, Dolcezza?” I murmur, dropping to my knees between her legs. I hook her thighs over my shoulders, exposing her completely to the harsh light of the room. She is already dripping, her slick heat glistening against her skin.
I don’t waste time. I press my mouth against her slit, my tongue sliding deep inside her as I suck the absolute soul out of her.
She gasps loudly, her head hitting the wall behind her as her hips jerk forward involuntarily.
“You like that, don’t you?” I growl against her wet flesh, my breath hot against her sensitive skin.
I don’t wait for an answer as I drive two fingers deep inside her, putting firm pressure against her tight walls, stretching her out. I work my fingers, curling them in a rhythm, listening to the ragged symphony of her breathing.
I need to loosen her up. She’s built so small, so devastatingly tight, that if she’s going to take all of me, I need to prepare her cunt properly. I refuse to bleed her out when the time comes.
“Stop… ah! Zagreus, you’re—” She chokes on a sob, her walls spasming violently around my fingers.
“I’m what?”
I look up, my fingers still buried deep inside her, stretching her open as my thumb firmly presses against her swollen clit. “Tell me to stop, Selene. Say the word.”
“No,” she breathes, a defiant, breathless sob escaping her. She grips my hair, pulling me back down toward her. “Don’t stop.”
I let out a low, rough chuckle, deliberately slowing the movement of my fingers to an agonizing crawl. I tease the entrance to her core, never giving her the full friction she is begging for.
“You’ve learned the game, haven’t you?” I whisper, my lips brushing the inside of her thigh. “You still say no when I ask if you want it, pretending your little rules are still intact.”
I pull my fingers out entirely, leaving her unfulfilled, her inner thighs trembling as I stand up and adjust my trousers. She looks up at me from the wall, eyes wide with a mixture of fury and blinding need.
“Zagreus, you can’t just—”
“I can,” I interrupt smoothly, looking down at my beautiful, ruined wife. “Today or tomorrow, Dolcezza… you’re going to spread those legs for me yourself. You’re going to beg me to fill you. And until I hear those exact words slip from your mouth, I’m going to leave you exactly like this.”
I turn on my heel, intending to leave her stranded in her own desire, but I barely take a single step before a pair of hands slam into my chest.
Selene lunges at me. She grabs the lapels of my jacket as she yanks me down. Before I can react, she crashes her mouth against mine. It’s not a sweet kiss, but a chaotic collision of teeth and tongue fueled by the very madness I just built inside her.
I love it.
“You are a monster,” she pants against my lips, her breath hitching, her fingers tightening like vices on my jacket. “A cruel, torturous monster.”
A dark, dangerous smile spreads across my face, stretching against her mouth. I taste the salt of her skin and the sweet heat of her hunger, and it sets a fire in my gut. “Is that so, Dolcezza?”
I grab her waist and back her harshly against the wall again.
She arches into me, her chest heaving against mine. “You want to play rough, little wife?” I growl, my voice dropping into a register that is predatory. “You want to assault your husband because you’re too greedy for his touch? Let’s see how much you like it when I take away your senses.”
I reach for my collar, ripping off the tie. Before she can process what I’m doing, I force her hands down, spinning her around so her back is to my chest. I wrap the silk tightly over her eyes, knotting it securely at the base of her skull.
“Zagreus—”
“Quiet,” I command, pinning her wrists behind her back with just one of my hands.
Without her eyes, every other sense is magnified tenfold. I can hear the exact moment her pulse spikes, the frantic, shallow pattern of her breathing, the tiny, involuntary tremors running through her thighs.
“Look how you shiver when you can’t see me coming,” I whisper, leaning down to trace the shell of her ear with my tongue. “Such a good, innocent girl, yet you’re acting like a greedy little whore for my fingers. Look how soaked you are for a monster.”
“I am not—”
She cuts herself off with a sharp gasp as I slide my free hand between her thighs from behind, my palm cupping her soaking wet slit through the fabric of her skirt.
“You are,” I counter roughly, my fingers dipping into her heat, testing how loose she’s gotten. “You’re begging with your body, Selene, even if your stubborn mouth refuses to say the words. Tell me how much you want it. Tell me.”
“I want you,” she cries out, abandoning her pride.
The darkness has stripped away her defenses, making her utterly raw, utterly nasty in her honesty.
She grinds her ass hard against my fly, seeking the heavy, rigid length of my arousal through our clothes.
“I want you inside me, Zagreus. Please. I don’t care anymore. ”
I let go of her wrists, letting them slam against the wall, and grip her hips instead, pulling her flush against my front.
“Good girl,” I growl. “So beautiful. So perfect for me. Look how well you take my fingers.”
I drive two fingers deep inside her from behind, pulling them up sharply against her sweet spot. Without her sight, the impact makes her entire body stiffen, her head thrown back against my shoulder as a choked scream escapes her lips.
“Zagreus! Oh God, please—”
“I’ve got you,” I murmur, my thumb ruthlessly grinding against her clit while my fingers stretch her out, preparing her small, tight core for what’s next. “You’re doing so well for me, baby. So wet. So tight. Let it go.”
In total darkness, the pleasure is too concentrated, too overwhelming for her. She clenches violently around my fingers in a soaking climax that leaves her knees buckling. If my hand weren’t holding her hip, she would slide straight to the floor.
I pull my fingers free, listening to her ragged, sobbing breaths as she hangs blindly in my hold. I adjust my trousers, freeing myself, my cock aching to finally claim the heat she just offered. I twist her around to face me, keeping the blindfold intact.
“Now,” I whisper, lifting her thighs to my hips, anchoring her against the wall as I guide myself to her entrance. “Let’s see if you can take all of me.”
I align the blunt head of my cock, pressing hard against her dripping slit. She is so slick, so perfectly prepped by my fingers, but she’s still devastatingly small. Every muscle in her thighs is tight with anticipation.
Before I can push inside, she reaches out through the darkness of her blindfold. Her hands find my jaw, her fingers digging into my skin.
“Zagreus,” she pants. “If you do this… if you take me now, it’s forever. Always. No more games.”
A lifelong vow in a moment of pure filth. I want it. I crave the total ownership of her.
I lift her higher, ready to drive myself deep into her core and seal the contract.
My pocket vibrates.
I growl against her neck, ignoring it. I push forward a fraction of an inch, stretching her open.
The phone rings again. Only three people have this number, and none of them would dare call unless the empire was burning.
Frustration boils in my gut. I pull back just an inch, my eyes locked on her blindfolded face. To punish her for the distraction—and to soothe the ache in my own veins—I bring my open palm down sharply against her soaked cunt.
Crack.
The flesh-on-flesh slap echoes as Selene shrieks.
Her hips jerk against the wall. She bites her bottom lip so hard it turns white, trying to stifle the moan as the sting of the blow melts instantly into a fresh rush of throbbing pleasure.
She trembles from head to toe, her slick heat weeping over my knuckles.
“Fucking beautiful,” I growl, watching her chest heave. The phone rings a third time.
A breathless, mocking giggle escapes her bitten lips. She tilts her head back against the wall, her blindfolded face turning toward the sound of my pocket.
“Go pick it up, Don Zagreus,” she whispers, her voice dripping with sweet, wicked malice. “Duty calls.”
“You think this is funny, Dolcezza?” I rasp, my grip tightening on her hip until my fingers leave white marks on her skin. “I should make you beg while I answer it.”
With a curse, I set her feet back on the floor. Her knees buckle, and she has to lean against the wall for support, still blindly shivering, her skirt bunched at her waist and her core completely exposed, glistening and swollen from my touch.
I pull the phone out, flipping it open. I don’t care who is on the other line; they are a dead man if this isn’t life or death.
“Speak,” I bark into the receiver.
“Vitale.” Judas’s voice is devoid of emotion. “We have him. Vane Davenport’s location just leaked through a secure channel. We’ve tracked his coordinates.”
The blood in my veins turns from hot, lustful fire to ice in a fraction of a second. The predator in me wakes. Davenport. The final loose end.
I look back at Selene. She is still standing there, leaning against the wall, her hands coming up to slowly pull the black silk blindfold from her eyes.
Her vision adjusts, her dark, heavy lids lifting to reveal pupils so dilated they are almost entirely black.
She looks ruined by my touch, yet her gaze locks onto mine. She knows that tone.
“Assemble the men,” I order, my eyes never leaving my wife’s flushed face. “I’m on my way.”