Chapter 15
ELSIE
I can’t see the clock on the wall as I wake, but I know the night still fits the sky, the blackness seeping through the curtains. A little light makes its way in from the moon, shining bright above.
My husband sleeps soundly beside me, his tanned bare back visible, the comforter slung over his hips. Hoping not to wake him, I sit up, flipping my legs off the bed and rising to my feet.
When he doesn't move, I breathe a sigh. The last thing I want is to talk to him after he refused to help Kayla.
How can he fucking live with himself? Having all that power and not using it for good. My chest grows heavy, the resentment brewing.
I start for the window, raising my eyes to the moon, that magnificent sight before me. If I look hard enough, I swear it smiles back at me.
Rubbing at my eyes, I know I won’t be able to sleep right now, so quietly I walk toward the door, hoping to get a glass of water and a snack. But when the floorboards creak beneath my feet, I freeze, my pulse jumping to my throat.
He grumbles, turning his face to the other side, and I stay glued to my spot, hoping he doesn’t see me.
I stay that way for a few moments more before I attempt another step, and when I pass his side of the bed, I catch the sight of a gun. That definitely wasn’t there before.
Without thinking, I move toward it. And before I realize what I’m doing, I’m right in front of it, like it’s calling for me, like it wants me to have it.
My fingertips glide across the cold black metal, wrapping around it, and I pick it up, feeling the weight of it in my palm. I slowly raise it until it’s pointing to the back of his head, my shaky finger on the trigger.
I could just kill him and run. No one would know. And if they found out, I’d have Kayla free by then. I don’t care if Michael’s people find me after that.
But then the image of Sophia walking in and finding him that way destroys me. I can see her screams, her cries for her daddy, shaking him, her hands with his blood on them.
What am I thinking? I’m not a killer. This isn’t me. I don’t kill people.
But that’s not true, now, is it? I’ve killed before.
I fit a hand over my mouth, remembering that very day, but I push the thoughts away. Just as I lower the weapon back on the nightstand, intending to go and get that glass of water, he flips over, his hand shooting out to grab my wrist. My pulse slams in my neck as my entire body shivers.
He turns on the bedside lamp, and I find a predatory smirk lining his mouth. Those charcoal eyes narrow, his fingers tightening around my wrist.
I can barely breathe, chest climbing with every hurried breath. “I…”
What the hell can I say to explain what I was doing? Nothing. There’s nothing I can do or say to dig myself out of this hole. Because the man before me knows I was about to kill him. And now, he’s going to kill me.
“Should’ve taken the shot when you had the chance, my little dove.”
A hand swoops around my lower back, harshly lifting me off the ground until my body’s pressed over his and he’s holding me there with the power of his thick forearm.
And through the comforter, I can feel him hard, his thickness pushing right into the juncture of my thighs as those eyes delve into mine.
Fear mingles with desire like it did the day he held me up against the wall by my throat. That’s what he does to me: scares me while turning me on.
I told you I was sick.
The gun’s still in my palm, as though glued to my skin, while his rough hold of my wrist keeps me prisoner.
“I’m disappointed, wife,” he rasps. “To try and kill your husband when the ink on the paper has only just dried.”
I’m afraid to move, to speak. His eyes are full of wrath, making a chill of darkness coat over my skin.
“I hate you,” I breathe, though the words feel like a bitter lie even to me, because all I want is to kiss him.
His cold chuckle swoops down my body, prickling down my spine. He arches his hips in one harsh stroke. I let out a single croaky moan, and the most satisfied smirk lands on his face.
His lips curl at the corner. “You moan like that for every man you hate?”
His heavy palm slithers down to my ass, grabbing a fistful through the nightgown I have on, pushing me further into the swell of his cock.
I hiss out a groan, hating it. Hating what he’s doing to me. He laughs like he’s just proven a point. Like he knows that even though my heart may deny him, my body…it wants him bad.
“Nothing smart coming out of that mouth now, is there?”
He bows his hips once more, and my eyes fall to a mid-close. A whoosh of a breath tumbles from my mouth, my hand trembling enough for the gun to fall onto the bed. My heartbeats pound, filling my ears, any response lost in my throat.
“You may make my cock hard…” The whisper of his tone is laced with an undeniable urge. “But I can still sleep well at night knowing that you’re dead for crossing me.”
He drops his grip of my wrist, and now he’s the one holding the gun in his hand. With his palm still on my ass like he owns it, he shoves the weapon to the underside of my jaw.
There’s a callous glint in his eyes as he stares up at me. “Tell me what I should do to you.”
His gaze zeroes in on my mouth, and my tongue snakes out to swipe across it on impulse.
A throbbing pain slams into my jaw. But he won’t scare me. I’ve been scared for too many years to die without at least fighting back.
“Kill me,” I grit, narrowing my gaze. “Because if you won’t help Kayla, I might as well be dead.”
His intake of breath is sharp as he gives my ass a little squeeze, and in one quick motion, he’s on top of me, the gun pressed up against the pulse thumping in my throat.
“I should kill you. One bullet and you’d be dead.”
He runs the muzzle of his weapon down my neck, slowly grazing it over my hip, lower…until it slinks down my bare thigh. I feel helpless, pinned underneath him, while his hard body molds roughly into every curve.
I should detest this feeling of weakness. I should grow enraged, but it doesn’t come. Not at all.
The rigid length of his cock nudges into my core, and instead of being horrified at that too and wanting nothing to do with it, I grow achy and even more aroused.
My teeth sink into my lower lip as he watches me, the gun tipping up toward my inner thigh, and on instinct, I spread my legs wide, giving him better access to my most intimate place.
With him, I somehow forget that my body hasn’t been my own in forever. With him, I feel myself, like I am me and these feelings are real. They’re mine, and no one can take them away.
His chest widens, eyes hooded as he rides the gun up my inner thigh, hunger dripping from his gaze as he lowers his lips to my neck. I can hear the rush of his breath at my ear, causing my skin to come alive, to crave him more—this monster, this madness of a man who’s my husband.
“You are a naughty little thing.” His voice is gruff. “If it were anyone else, Elsie, they’d be dead already.”
His hips rock into me, and my pussy clenches as I feel myself grow wanton and dazed with desire.
“But, no matter what I tell myself, I can’t seem to kill you. And I’ve never hesitated to kill anyone. Until now.”
Before I know what I’m doing, I tilt my hips higher to feel him on me.
“Fuck.” He grits his teeth. “You drive me insane.” He rises on his elbow, fingers finding my jaw and gripping tight. “I can make you come right now. All you have to do is tell me you want it.”
I swallow on a sharp exhale, his hips slamming into me with gentle strokes. My words won’t come out, even as I try to say them. The need climbs, the throbbing so strong, all I want is to get lost in it. In him.
“Elsie, my sweet Elsie.” He practically hums the words.
My body is molten, every inch of it on fire for a man I should not want in any of my lifetimes.
But I do. I need him. I want him. I want to feel him inside me.
Am I truly ready for that? Maybe not. But maybe I can get off with him pressed up against me. Maybe I can let go and really forget what the men in my past have done to me.
He gazes into my eyes, a thumb swiping across my lips as I pant louder the more he thrusts his hips deeper.
The pistol slinks up further, until it reaches that spot where my thigh and my core meet. He moves his hips back a little, shoving my panties to the side with the muzzle, the gun tracing up my slit until my breathing turns ragged and a smirk etches to his mouth, a satisfied one.
“You’re not scared.” He utters the words like a statement, like he can tell I’m not afraid at all.
Instead, I grow even hungrier for that orgasm. Staring into his eyes, I ride the muzzle of the gun, spreading my thighs wider, wanting it on my clit.
“Fuck.” He clenches his jaw, sliding his body off to the side, his gaze now dipping to my thighs, watching himself stroke me with his weapon.
“You don’t know how bad I want inside you right now, pounding into your pussy like I own it.”
“I just tried to kill you,” I whisper softly on a moan, his words hitting me with a slice of intense desire.
“I know…” His gaze hurries to my eyes, brows tugging. “But I could never kill you. Not now. It’s a problem I never expected to have.” His lips move to my ear. “So the next time you pull a weapon on me, wife, make sure you do it right.”
My hand flies to the back of his head, pushing his lips deeper into my neck, wanting him, while I draw my hips in circles over the pistol, wishing it were his fingers there instead.
“Michael,” I cry, tugging his hair as he groans.
“You keep saying my name like that, and it’ll be bad for the both of us.”
“None of this feels bad right now.” The words slip out velvety soft as I gasp from the friction of his mouth on my skin. “I haven’t felt this good in a long time, if ever.”
“God damn it.” His rough breaths are as heavy as the pounding of my pulse.
My eyes drift shut, my core pulsing with the need I’ve never felt before. Not this way, not this strongly.
“I’m close,” I tell him, not sure if he’ll even care.
“Not like this,” he says.