25. Elizabeth
— ? —
Elizabeth
I wake to sunlight and the feeling of his body curved around mine.
I’m sore in places I didn’t know could be sore. There’s a pleasant ache between my thighs, a reminder with every heartbeat of what we did last night. Of what we became.
His arm tightens around my waist.
“Good morning.” His voice is rough with sleep, his breath warm against the back of my neck.
“Good morning.”
“How do you feel?”
I consider the question. The soreness, yes. But beneath that, something else. A satisfaction so deep it feels like it’s settled into my bones.
“Like I was thoroughly ravished by my husband.”
I feel his smile against my shoulder. “That was the goal.”
We lie there for a while, tangled together, watching the morning light creep across the ceiling. His hand traces lazy patterns on my stomach, and I feel myself relaxing into his touch in a way I never could before.
“I want to learn,” I say eventually.
His hand stills. “Learn what?”
“Everything.” I turn in his arms to face him, heat rising in my cheeks but my eyes steady. “What you like. How to touch you. How to make you feel the way you made me feel last night.”
He stares at me, and I watch something shift in his expression. Surprise, then heat, then a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
“You don’t have to-”
“I want to.” I press my palm against his chest, feel his heart kick beneath my touch. “You’ve done all the giving. Let me give something back.”
He doesn’t argue.
Instead, he takes my hand and guides it lower, beneath the sheets, to where he’s already hard against my hip.
“Like this,” he murmurs, wrapping my fingers around him. “Slow at first. Feel how hard you make me.”
He’s thick and heavy in my palm, velvet over steel. I stroke experimentally, watching his face, cataloging every microexpression. The way his jaw tightens. The way his breath hitches. The way his eyes flutter closed when I find a rhythm that works.
“Tighter.” His voice is strained. “A little - yes. God, just like that.”
I learn quickly. Learn what makes him groan, what makes his hips buck, what makes his hands fist in the sheets. I learn to read his body the way he’s been reading mine, to anticipate what he needs before he asks for it.
“I want to taste you,” I say, surprising us both.
His eyes fly open. Dark. Hungry.
“You don’t have to-”
“I want to.” I push the sheets aside, shift down the bed. “Let me.”
He doesn’t stop me.
The first touch of my tongue makes him curse.
I’m hesitant at first, uncertain of technique, but he guides me with gentle hands and rough praise. Tells me what feels good, what drives him crazy, what makes his control slip.
“Your mouth,” he groans, fingers threading through my hair. “Fuck, Elizabeth, your mouth is-”
I take him deeper, and he loses the ability to form sentences.
I figure out what he likes. The swirl of my tongue around the head. The suction when I pull back. The way he shudders when I use my hand and mouth together, working him with both.
“Enough.” He pulls me up suddenly, flips us so I’m beneath him. “I need to be inside you.”
“Then take me.”
He sinks into me with one smooth stroke, and I’m still sore enough that it makes me gasp - but it’s a good gasp, a full gasp, the gasp of something clicking into place.
“You’re learning fast,” he says against my throat.
“I have a good teacher.”
He laughs, and the vibration travels through both of us, and then he’s moving and I’m moving and there’s nothing left but sensation.
After, tangled in sweaty sheets, I trace the lines of his chest with my fingertip.
“I like this,” I say quietly. “Being able to do that to you. Having that power.”
He catches my hand, presses a kiss to my palm. “It looks good on you.”
“The power?”
“The confidence.” He pulls back to look at me, and his expression is soft, wondering. “When I first met you, you were so careful. So guarded. Waiting for permission to exist.”
“I didn’t know how else to be.”
“I know.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “And I made it worse. Made you smaller instead of helping you grow.”
“You’re helping now.”
“I’m trying.” He kisses me, soft and slow. “Whatever you need. Whatever you want to explore. I’m yours to practice on.”
I smile against his lips. “Careful. I might take you up on that.”
“I’m counting on it.”
A week later, we attend a charity function at the club.
I’ve been dreading it. Not the event itself - I’ve grown comfortable at these things, or at least competent at faking it. But I know who will be there. Who will be watching.
Victoria stands across the room, relegated to a table near the back, stripped of her social standing but clinging to the edges of the world she used to rule. I feel her eyes on me the moment we walk in, hot with jealousy and hatred.
Good.
“Come with me,” I murmur to Jarec.
He follows without question, letting me lead him through the crowd, past the bar, down a hallway toward the private restrooms. I can feel Victoria watching us disappear, can practically hear the assumptions forming in her mind.
Let her assume.
I pull Jarec into the bathroom. Lock the door behind us.
“Elizabeth, what are you-”
I drop to my knees before he can finish the question.
His breath catches. “Here? Someone could-”
“Let them wonder.” I reach for his belt. “Let her wonder.”
His hands find the wall behind him, bracing himself as I free him from his trousers. He’s already hard, already straining toward me, and I take him in my mouth with none of the hesitation I had that first morning.
I’ve learned since then. Learned what makes him curse, what makes his hips buck, what makes his fingers twist in my hair with barely restrained desperation.
“Fuck.” His voice is strained, rough. “Elizabeth, you’re going to make me-”
“That’s the idea.”
I work him with everything I’ve learned, hand and mouth together, until he’s shaking, until he’s gripping my hair so tight it stings, until he’s cursing my name like a prayer.
He comes with a groan he muffles against his forearm, spilling across my tongue, and I swallow every drop while he trembles above me.
When I rise to my feet, I find him staring at me like he’s never seen me before.
“Where did you-” He stops, shakes his head. “Who are you and what have you done with my wife?”
“Your wife is right here.” I step close, press a kiss to his jaw. “She’s just not interested in being timid anymore.”
We emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later, both of us slightly flushed, his tie askew in a way that leaves no doubt about what we were doing.
Victoria is watching.
I meet her eyes across the room, and I smile. Not cruel, not triumphant. Just satisfied. The smile of a woman who knows exactly what she has and isn’t afraid to claim it.
She looks away first.
“You’re dangerous,” Jarec murmurs in my ear as we return to our table.
“You made me this way.”
“God help me.” His hand settles at the small of my back, possessive and proud. “I love it.”
That night, I surprise him again.
We’re in the bedroom, and I push him down onto the mattress before he can reach for me.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking control.” I straddle his hips, pin his wrists above his head. “You don’t get to touch until you beg properly.”
His eyes go dark with want. “Elizabeth-”
“That’s not begging.”
He swallows hard. I can feel him beneath me, hard and straining, but I don’t move. Don’t give him any friction. Just hold his wrists and wait.
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please let me touch you.” His voice is rough, desperate. “Please let me be inside you. I’ll do anything. Whatever you want. Just please-”
I lower myself onto him, take him deep, and we both groan at the sensation.
I ride him slow at first, savoring the control. The power. The way he looks at me like I’m a goddess made flesh, like he can’t believe he gets to have this.
“You’re incredible,” he gasps. “Do you know that? You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever-”
I silence him with a kiss, deep and claiming, and I set a rhythm that has us both spiraling toward the edge.
After, tangled together in the dark, I trace patterns on his chest.
“I like who I’m becoming,” I say quietly.
“So do I.” He presses a kiss to my hair. “Elizabeth. You are the most incredible woman I have ever known. However you want this to be, whatever you need, I’m yours. All of me. Forever.”
I lift my head to look at him. His eyes are soft, open, hiding nothing.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you too.” He pulls me closer. “Now and always.”
I fall asleep with his heartbeat beneath my ear and a smile on my lips.
I’ve spent so long feeling powerless. Invisible. Waiting for permission to exist in my own life.
Not anymore.
Now I take what I want.
And what I want is him.