Chapter 22
22
brAIDEN
C hrist .
I’ve lost her.
The woman who let me spank her arse purple. The one who let me plow between her tits and spray her face with spunk. The one who trusted me enough to come till she collapsed.
This past month I’ve spent more time than I should admit dreaming of this night, of our finally making our wedding vows real, of all the ways I’ll fuck her.
I had the collar made just for her. The emerald. The lock. I’ve had them for two weeks, and Valentine’s Day seemed ideal timing.
But penetration—even just my fingers—terrifies her.
I slip my hand out of her cunt. I don’t need a fancy law degree to understand why she’s panicking. Whatever she knows about me, however she’s justified living in this house, she understands that I’m Captain of the Fishtown Boys. A mobster like Antonio Fucking Russo. And we both know exactly what that animal did to his own wife.
I’m going to choke Russo on his own cock before our war is through. He deserves it, for breaking mo chailín maith the way he has.
But I’ll get that revenge another day.
Tonight, I have to protect my sub.
“Eyes on me,” I snap.
She’s startled enough to obey. But immediately, she starts to think again, starts to work through what just happened. Her fingertips go to her collar, but she’s staring at something a million miles away.
“Stop thinking,” I say.
She blinks, like she’s never heard the English language before.
“Get out of your head,” I say. “Stop figuring out a dozen whys and wherefores for everything I say.”
“I don’t— I can’t?—”
“If I hear those words one more time, I’m flushing your collar and throwing you out of here for good.”
She can’t keep her gaze from going to the door. There’s safety on the other side. Safety and solitude for the rest of her days in this house.
But she swallows. She licks her lips. She takes a deep breath and meets my gaze and says, “Yes…sir.”
And that’s when I know I can keep her.
I tug on her hair again, pulling her close enough that I see her pupils dilate and contract with her pulse. “Your eyes stay on me,” I say. “And you say out loud, exactly what I’m doing.”
“I c—” But she stops herself. She discovers how easy it is when all she has to say is, “Yes, sir.”
I tighten my grip on her hair, yanking to crane her neck. “What am I doing, piscín ?”
“What does that mean?”
I curl my fingers closer to her nape, tightening the angle, forcing her chin to jut toward mine. “Did I give you permission to ask a question?”
“No, sir,” she says, her tone sullen.
I tug again and repeat, “What am I doing?”
“You’re pulling my hair,” she says. And then she remembers to add, “Sir.”
I shift my grip to her chin, finding the hinge of her jaw. “And what am I doing now, piscín ?”
“Holding my jaw,” she says. “Sir.”
I slide down her throat, until my wrist presses against her emerald. “And now, piscín ?”
“Touching my collar, sir.”
I make her take off her bra. I pinch her nipples. I fill my hands with the weight of her breasts. I stroke her sides, so lightly that goosebumps bloom up and down her entire body. I suck on the lobe of her ear, and I bite it when she moans.
“Take off your knickers,” I tell her.
“Yes, sir,” she says. She breathes hard as she slips them over her hips. She kicks them toward the rest of her clothes, and I catch a whiff of hot, excited girl.
“Sit on the bed,” I say.
“Yes, sir.”
“Lean all the way back.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Heels on the edge.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Spread your knees.”
She’s shown me her cunt before. I already know the secret color, the pink that’s deeper than the skirt she’ll wear, the lips that are darker than the ones that barely murmur, “Yes, sir.”
“Eyes on me,” I remind her, and I wait for her to find my face. I lean over far enough to plant my thumb on her lower lip. I wait for her to suck me into the hot dark heat of her mouth. I shift my weight to accommodate my cock, which is far too heavy against my zip.
She whines, deep in her throat, when I take my thumb away. I settle it near her cunt, close enough that I can feel her heat like waves rising off a summer motorway. “What am I doing now, piscín ?”
I sink into her, shifting my wrist so I can press on her clit with the web between my thumb and fingers. She gasps, but she’s looking at me. She doesn’t lose her focus, doesn’t slip away. And she whispers, “Fucking me with your thumb, sir.”
“ Mo chailín maith ,” I say, because I know that was hard for her. And because I want her to feel good, because I need her to know how much we can give each other, I slide my thumb in and out of her. I maintain eye contact. I keep a steady pressure on her clit. I wait until her thighs grow tight, until she rocks her hips, fighting for a better angle.
“Oh yes,” she says. And, “That feels so good,” which I’ll allow. But then she says, “Faster, faster,” which I shouldn’t let her say. And, “Press right there,” which isn’t in the rules at all.
She’s shocked when I pull my thumb free, and she cries out a protest. I tap the emerald at her throat. “That’s topping from below,” I say. “And I should send you to your room right now.”
“No!” she says. “I mean, please, no, don’t do that. Please…” And then, after a flicker of conflict plays across her face, she looks up at me through her lashes. She whispers, “Master.”
My cock twitches so hard I grunt. For just a moment, I consider grabbing a johnny from the nightstand and fucking her now, hard enough and fast enough that I could get both of us off before she thinks to panic.
But my little piscín needs more from me tonight. She needs to last longer. She needs to stay present. She needs to learn that panic never has a place between us.
So I show her two fingers. She tells me that I’m fucking her with both of them. I bring her to the very edge, stopping one quick stroke from granting her release, and she huffs and she writhes and she groans with need, but she finally manages to say, “Thank you, Master.”
I open the nightstand and take out a vibrator. I own a small one, meant to hold between two fingers so I can focus on her clit. But it’s not her clit that worries me tonight. It’s whether I can fill her tight snatch without losing her to the ghosts inside her head.
She tells me the vibrator’s in her pussy, but I make her go for cunt . She closes her eyes, which earns her another warning. But she responds to my threat by begging so prettily, by pleading so nicely that I take her to the very edge again.
Tears leak from her eyes when I stop this time. Her hands twitch, fingers reaching toward my enormous hard-on, but she’s learned enough not to touch without permission.
The room smells like honey and salt. Her thighs tremble as I stroke from her knee to her hip. Her lips move— oh God, please God, oh please, now —but she remembers not to make a sound out loud.
She’s almost there. Almost ready. But I need her to learn one more lesson, to conquer one more fear.
Her eyes go wide when I show her the dildo. It’s heavy and it’s veined and it must be larger than any boyo she’s bedded before. I pull out the bottle of Fuck Water I bought for her the week between my proposing and our crazy so-called wedding. I knew she’d be in my bed soon enough. I knew she’d need the lube, and I wanted to give her something she already knows.
She swallows hard. She chews on her lip. She braces her palms on the mattress, beside her hips. But she looks me in the eye as she says, “You’re fucking me with a dildo, Master. You’re filling me, sir. You’re pushing, you’re pumping, you’re…”
Her words die as she catches her breath, working hard to take the monstrous thing. A ripple crosses her belly, like she’s an Olympics athlete fighting for gold. She gasps, and she starts to say, “If you—” but she stops herself, because she’s a brilliant study, and now she knows better than to top from the bottom.
I lean in close. I rub my cheek against the tender inside of her thigh. I touch my tongue to the salty crease behind her knee.
And I stop just short of letting her come.
Four times, I’ve brought her to the brink. Four times, she’s accepted my control. I want her. I need her. Now.
I start to work the buttons on my shirt. I want to rip them free, but I’m trying to model some restraint. Trying, until Samantha touches the emerald at the hollow of her throat.
“Please, Master,” she asks, holding my gaze, because that’s what I’ve commanded. “May I do that? May I unbutton your shirt?”
She’s still trying to manage me. Still trying to retain control. But my aching cock insists I accept her offer. “You may,” I say. “Because you asked so nicely.”
She sits up on the edge of the bed. Her fingers shake as she unfastens the first pearl button. Her tongue darts out between her lips—she’s trying to be good.
I let her pull my shirttails from my trousers. When she finishes with the buttons, I shrug out of the shirt.
She’s drawn to my scar, like a woman dying of thirst aching for a long drink of water. I haven’t been embarrassed by that strip of puckered skin for decades. But this is the first time I can remember wanting someone to touch it. I want to feel that pressure, the solid weight of connection.
But more than that, I want to fuck my needy little piscín.
“On your knees,” I command, pointing to the floor beside the bed.
She sinks like a statue slipping underwater.
“Take off my belt,” I order.
She works the buckle with absolute confidence. She slips the leather from its loops quickly, eagerly. I catch the moment she’s about to toss it aside but then she drapes the belt around her neck. She slides the end through the buckle and tightens it to ride on top of her collar.
Eyes up, completely trusting, she hands me the end of the belt.
I pull it tight. I see her trust as I grip the leather, as I cut off her breath.
I give her my shoe to ride. She rocks like it’s a hobby-horse, spreading her knees to gain a better purchase.
She’s back on the edge in seconds. I measure each flex of her hips. I feel each shift of her weight. Her spine arches, her thighs tighten, she fights for the breath I manage, the one I control.
And she freezes when I say, “Stop.”
Her fingers are knotted into tight little fists. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Every muscle in her body is wrapped around bone, she’s holding, holding, holding…
And when I know she won’t tip past the breaking point, I loosen my grip on the belt. She gulps in a huge breath, tears once again sparking in her eyes. She rocks back on her heels, the motion raising the perfect arcs of her tits, and suddenly I can’t take any more of the game.
I kick off my shoes. My toes peel off my socks, and my hands tear at the button of my trousers, at the zipper. I strip them off with my boxers, kicking both away as I catch Samantha’s arms.
We both fall onto the mattress, and I stretch across her toward the nightstand drawer. The string of foil packets arcs across the front, and I tear one loose, scrambling to free the rubber, to roll it over my pounding erection.
I’ll shatter if I lose her now; I don’t know how I’ll stop if she breaks beneath me. So I snap out, “Eyes on me,” which isn’t needed, because she’s staring at me, she’s reaching for me, she’s guiding me to her hot, wet cunt.
I don’t have to force her to say what I’m doing, because she’s begging for it now. “Please, Master. Fuck me,” she says. “Fill me with your cock. Fuck me hard. Fuck me blind.”
She’s begging, but she’s also telling, saying what she wants me to do. I could stop. I should stop. But her first day in this house, I told her she would plead like this. She’s only following the path I set for her that morning.
She’s tight and she’s ready and I barely have time to reach between us, to brush my fingertips against her clit before she’s coming hard. She squeaks with each new thrust of my cock, a desperate hungry growl between her whispered litany of, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
As her muscles clench around me, I tangle my hands in her long, dark hair. I graze my teeth down the length of her neck, burying my nose against the pulse point above the platinum of her collar.
Her entire body is convulsing beneath me, around me, through me, and I come like an imploding building, shattering and collapsing and rolling, rolling, rolling with the force.
When I can breathe again, I make myself shift off of her. She whimpers, so I find that tangled lace at her hairline. I whisper against it, telling her I’ll be back.
I take care of the johnny and fill a glass with water, then run the tap till it’s warm. I come back with a flannel and wipe my piscín clean, holding her close against me until she’s able to drink down the cold water. I head back to the nightstand drawer and find the emergency Dairy Milk there, and I feed her the chocolate, bite by precious bite.
It’s an hour before she’s grounded and more than that before I’m willing to get out of bed. She watches as I pull on a pair of gray joggers and a hoodie I grab from the closet.
I toss her one of my cashmere jumpers, a burgundy one, which makes me think of the bruised petals between her legs. She holds the sweater to her face for a moment before she pulls it over her head. Then she steels herself and staggers to her feet.
She reaches for her knickers at the same time she picks up her trousers.
I make a tsking sound with my tongue, and I point to the skirt.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” She reaches for her collar, which is still locked around her throat.
“House rules,” I say.
“But you said?—”
“The skirt rule is different from your collar.”
I watch, to see what she’ll do. She wants to fight. She wants to throw the skirt on the floor, to grab her trousers and flee to her room.
It’s all there, as clear as if she spoke the words out loud. So I see the exact moment she decides not to fight me. I see her resignation as she pulls on the pink skirt, flowers and all. I see her clear decision not to add her knickers.
So I kiss her neck before I unlock her collar. I tell her she’s mo chailín maith.
And I tell her I’m calling Doc Kelleher in the morning. He’ll take her blood and mine. He’ll clear us both and give her a packet of pills, and we’re done with johnnies forever.
She nods, and I kiss her again. “Let’s go, piscín. ”
We’re halfway out the door before she says, “What does it mean? Pish-keen?”
“Piscín,” I correct. “Kitten.”
She wrinkles her nose. But she keeps her claws sheathed. And we head downstairs to raid the kitchen, making up for the Valentine’s Day dinner we missed hours earlier.