Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
July
Oh my goodness.
I can’t move. My bones are made of warm butter. There are stinging marks all over my body, my throat feels raw and I’m not sure if I’ll ever catch my breath again. I completely overestimated my ability to handle Theo during one of his nightmares. I thought it would be so easy to snap him out of it. Soothe him. But I was wrong. He was in the midst of battle the whole time we made love and now, I feel like I’ve made it through battle, too.
And I’m exhilarated.
Sex is not this choreographed act I was expecting. It’s messy. It’s mental and physical. In my case, it’s…destruction. When Theo gave me orgasms with his tongue and fingers, it was like a knot loosening. A slow, wonderful melt into relief. With Theo inside of me, however, using my body so roughly and with such a lack of control, the orgasm hit me like a mean right cross. It choked me and robbed me of reason, cinched up my tummy so tight, I thought I would rupture from the inside out…until the pleasure arrived like a reward for making it through the briar patch.
I’m wrecked in the best way.
Sated, stupefied and…proud of myself. I’m stronger than I thought. I’m adventurous. I’m the embodiment of his needs. Need so strong, he can’t breathe when he’s fucking me. He has to bite and groan and squeeze me because the pleasure is so intense. With me. I’m good in bed, I think. Who knew? And it’s only my first time.
It takes me a moment to mentally wave away the haze and realize Theo is pacing back and forth beside the bed, visibly distraught. His reaction parts the bliss induced fog all around me and I struggle up onto one elbow.
“Theo. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong ?” He stops, raking an unsteady hand through his hair. “Baby, you’re…” His chest rises and falls. “You’re all covered in marks. Jesus, your throat…I could have killed you.”
“No.” I sit up and swing my legs around, scooting to the edge of the bed, reaching out for him, but he shakes his head and steps out of my reach. “No, you were rough, but you weren’t violent.”
“Rough is bad enough. You were a virgin, July.” For the first time, be notices the traces of blood on my inner thighs. “Oh God. Does it hurt?”
“No,” I lie. At first. Then I decide to tell him the truth, because honestly feels right with this person so vulnerable around me. And because I sense that the truth will assuage his guilt. I don’t want him to feel guilty about something I found so extraordinary. Something that taught me a lot about myself. “Fine, it hurts a little, but…I, um…”
“What?”
I cast my gaze down to the ground. “I liked when it hurt.”
His brows pull together, his chin lifting and I can tell her doesn’t believe me. “You said you were scared .”
“I was scared of how good it felt. How…b-big the feeling was.” He doesn’t respond to that, continuing to scrutinize me, as if searching for the truth. “Didn’t it feel good for you?” I whisper.
He starts, as if I’ve asked a question from left field. “Didn’t it—” He cuts himself off, dropping into a kneel in front of me, wrapping both arms around my waist and pressing his face into my thighs. “July, it’s no wonder I only get hard for you. One look at you across a table launched an obsession. Kissing your mouth, touching your soft skin, is like being admitted early to heaven. But now that I’ve fucked you?” His eyes glitter with heat as he eases my thighs apart, perusing my swollen sex. “It’s so tight, you’d have been a hot fuck if you just laid there and took it, but Christ, you worked that pussy like you were marking your territory. I couldn’t fuck you hard enough. Goddamn.” A shudder wracks his huge body. “Did it feel good? Did you really ask me that? I’d do forty more years in that enemy camp to get five minutes on top of you with your legs spread. It wasn’t good. It was worth dying for. You are…God, July. You are a work of art, and I abused that. Abused you .” He buries his face in my lap again, drawing me in close, so close I have a hard time catching my breath. “Maybe prison is exactly where I belong.”
“Stop. You’re not listening,” I whisper, threading my fingers through his hair. “I mean, I was worried in the beginning because you wouldn’t snap out of the dream and my heart hurt for you. But I knew we were safe, so I let myself…experience you.” I wet my lips. “I wouldn’t have thought it about myself, but the harder you…you know, took me, the faster that ticklish feeling in my belly spread. I don’t think you realize what a turn on it was to watch you enjoy me…so openly. It took away all my self-consciousness.”
He lifts his head, pressing his forehead to mine and staring into my eyes in wonder. “I don’t deserve you, July. You’re barely going to be able to walk in the morning.”
Heat rushes into my cheeks, a flip-flop taking place beneath my navel. “Really?” I breathe, surprised by the excitement in my own voice. “Am I this girl now? A girl who craves rough sex from her boyfriend?” I slap a hand over my mouth. “I mean, the guy she’s kind of seeing? I—”
I cut myself off because he slowly lifts his head, pins me with a look that could cut through a thick fog, his chest puffing up and down. “Boyfriend.” Before I can prepare, he’s moving, lunging to his feet and lifting me around the waist in one swift motion, throwing me down in the center of the bed and coming down on top of me—hard. I only catch a brief flash of his body before it’s flattening mine, but it’s long enough to realize his sex has become stiff again. Now it’s wedged between our bellies, long and pulsing. His forehead drops to mine, his warm breath moistening my mouth. “You’ve done it now, baby.”
“What do you mean?”
His teeth pull back in a wince, as if he’s in pain. “Call me your boyfriend again.”
“Is that what you are? Because if this is moving too fast—”
“ July .”
“Okay! You’re my boyfriend.”
Theo lurches on top of me, moaning, his shaft jerking against my navel and—to my astonishment—hot spend pools on my stomach. He continues to pant and moan, his hips wrenching in tight circles, his spend dripping down my ribcage on both sides. Once the worst of the spasms pass, he snares my mouth in a deep, cherishing kiss, and he can’t seem to stop, plying me with his tongue over and over until I’m delirious.
Then finally, “I’m going to find a way to be the man you deserve, July,” he says against my lips, his gaze boring down into mine. “I’m going to be the last boyfriend you ever have.”
“And the first,” I murmur, trailing my fingertips down his sweaty back, hesitating at the swell of his buttocks, then tracing the curve of them, as well. “My first everything.”
His jaw goes slack, his lower body jerking, and more moisture drips down my sides. “Are you trying to kill me?” he huffs, his muscular frame vibrating on top of me like a car engine. “Better yet, maybe you’re exhausting me so I’m too tired to have any more nightmares.” He nuzzles my mouth, sipping at my bottom lip. “It’s hard to believe nightmares even exist in the same world as you, July.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond, before he climbs off the bed, prowling to the bathroom in all his nude glory and fetching a towel, coming back to clean me off, his brow drawn in concentration. Then I’m tucked into bed like a princess, wrapped in two strong arms, drowsiness hitting me in a potent wave, dragging me under.
* * *
Theo
Oh Jesus.
The bruises look a million times worse in the morning light.
She’s covered in them. Finger and handprints all over her pristine body.
Her throat is red from the pressure of my grip, bite marks decorating her shoulders and neck. I can’t stop the miserable sounds leaving my mouth as she gets dressed, buttoning up a blouse that covers her neck and throat.
“I’m fine, Theo.”
I can’t stop shaking my head.
Finally, I must turn away from her, unable to stand the sight of her discolored skin. Almost immediately, she comes up behind me, wrapping her arms around the breadth of my chest. I bring one of her hands to my mouth, kissing the knuckles. Those, at least, bear no marks. “I must be a monster, because I’ve done unforgiveable things to you and I know you should walk away from me.” My voice drops to a guttural promise. “But I wouldn’t let you.”
“I don’t want to walk away.”
“Thank God,” I say on an unsteady exhale. “I’m going to make sure you don’t regret that decision. Starting today.”
Her fingertips stroke up and down my chest. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to take the mandatory therapy sessions. I’m calling my buddy to make the appointment as soon as I get the chance. I’m not going to be careless with you, July. I’m going to fix what’s broken, before I…break you .”
She’s silent for several moments. “I’m proud of you. For taking that step.” She holds me tight and there is no better feeling in this world than being squeezed in this woman’s arms. Being told she’s proud of me. “You’re so brave.”
“A brave man isn’t that rough with a woman.”
“I told you I liked it,” she whispers.
My body reacts like it’s been electrified, my cock stretching long and nasty in my briefs. “I’d quit talking like that, unless you want to be late for work.” I turn around, the beauty of her face knocking the breath out of me. She affects me so severely, my hand is shaking as I tilt her chin higher with my index finger. “I don’t think ‘my boyfriend needed an extra hour to raw dog me’ is an excuse your boss would accept.”
“ Theo .” She blushes to the roots of her hair. “I don’t even know what that means.”
I brush her hair back, lowering my mouth so I can whisper in her ear. “It means to fuck you without a condom. And be real goddamn dirty about it.”
“Oh.”
I walk her backward until she’s up against the wall, trapped between it and my body, my face grinding into the slope of her neck, licking the sugar cookie scent of her and swallowing it, hoping to keep the taste of her with me all day long. “Quit looking at me like that or I’m going to come, July.”
“Sorry.”
I bash the wall with the heels of my hands. “I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“I know.”
“God, I want to fuck you silly right now,” I growl.
She whimpers. “Me too. I just…the presentation a-and—”
With a guttural roar, I pull her off the wall and out of the bedroom. I’ve already done enough damage. I’m not going to cause my girlfriend to lose her job, too. Or be the reason she loses valuable working hours when she has a big opportunity coming up. Even if I do want to spend the day giving her leg-shaking orgasms. “I’m going to walk you right to the door of your building,” I say, once she’s checked her purse and slipped her feet into her office shoes, meeting me at the front door. I tell myself to resist the possessive urges wracking my being, but I can’t and…I don’t think she wants me to deny those feelings she inspires. So I reach under her skirt—a sensible one this time—and take firm hold of her sexy little pussy. “Any man comes within ten feet of this at work today, you’re going to call me. I’ll come handle the disrespect.”
Her eyes struggle to stay open. “I-I can just tell them I have a—”
“Don’t say it out loud. Just think it,” I growl, my balls pressing together on high alert. Boyfriend. That word, where July is concerned, is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. It has a direct line to my dick and every base instinct I possess, because it means she’s mine. I’m obsessed with being her boyfriend. I’m obsessed, period. “I want you back on the sidewalk outside your building at five o’clock.” I squeeze her mind-blowing cunt until she cries out, her panties turning sodden against my palm, her teeth sinking into her plump bottom lip. “I might just bring this home and lick it all fucking night. How about that?”
“Y-yes,” she stammers, her nipples peaking against the front of her blouse. “But I want you inside me, too.”
“Is that right?”
She nods, her mouth open and gasping. “I want my boyfriend to fuck me.”
Game over.
I actually black out for a few seconds and when I regain consciousness, July is up against the door and I’m wrenching her skirt up to her waist. “I told you not to say that word,” I snarl, working her panties down over those full ass cheeks, then giving up the battle to get them onto the floor, simply ripping them off in my hand. “Now I need to come in your pussy, July. Now I need to fuck your pretty little brains out. Are you happy?”
“Yes,” she moans as I throw her high against the door, rattling the hinges, my hips notching in tight between her thighs, her thighs, her smooth fucking thighs that are so perfectly molded for my body, hugging my hips with tenacity while I fumble with my zipper, our mouths locked and panting, sweat beginning to pour down my back. “Fuck me, Theo,” she whispers, her eyes glazed with lust. “Fuck me so hard that when I walk in late, they know exactly what I was doing. And exactly who I was with.”
I bellow into a kiss, almost losing my seed prematurely.
She’s some kind of miracle, my July. A sweet, innocent girl who discovered last night that she likes rough, rude sex. I have a moment of fleeting regret over the fact that I’m the bastard who stole her wide-eyed purity and replaced it with hunger for pleasure, but it passes very quickly as I sink into her too-tight cunt and listen to her wail my name, her thighs flexing violently around my hips. “Tight and horny, aren’t you.” I surge forward, pinning her as securely as possible to the wall and hit her with some upthrusts. “ You just want to make Daddy craz y, don’t you? ”
“I…” she hiccups, taking me like such a good girl, her tits jiggling around in her white blouse. “I think I do want to make you crazy. Is that bad?”
Watching her discover her sexual preferences while I’m ten inches deep is a gift I never expected to receive. “It’s a good kind of bad, baby,” I manage raggedly, drilling her against the door with inexcusable force, our tongues meeting to lap at one another, her eyes lighting up over the filth, over the depravity with which I’m plowing to the hilt, her pussy making wetter and wetter sounds, the door bumping loudly in its frame. “Listen to how much that creamy little thing enjoys my cock.”
“I love it,” she whimpers.
“Yeah?” I bare my teeth against the shell of her ear. “Stay still while I grind in it.” I pump all the way in and rub my balls with relish against the smooth underside of her, tightening those sacks to the point of agony. Sweet, sweet agony. Her thighs convulse wildly in response, her back attempting to arch off the wall, but I don’t allow it, using my body to keep her flat, rasping a breath into her neck. “I said, stay still.”
“I can’t,” she screams. “I can’t!”
“Does that make you need to come?” I ask, hitting her with mean little fucks now, only exiting her a small amount, before shoving back in, rougher each time, and I know by the way she’s suddenly clawing at me, I’m hitting her G-spot.
“Theo. Theo. Theo! ”
“What, little girl?” I slap her ass from below, the sharp sound echoing around the room. “Tell Daddy the problem. Is that cock just too fucking nice?”
“Yes!” July starts to cry, which swamps me with alarm, until I realize it’s…a good cry. It’s the breaking point of pleasure on display. I know that because her legs turn into a vise around my hips and my dick drips with telltale juice, her core flexing around me so hot and insanely snug, I can only do my best to hold on, not to blow too soon.
“Baby wants to walk into the office smelling like that jealous boyfriend dick?” I grind harder, pressing a snarl into her fragrant hair. “Believe me, I’m more than happy to make that happen. You want sticky thighs are a sore cunt from nine to five? Let’s go.”
Intuition tells me she’s on the brink of an orgasm and I’m proven right a second later when her tear-covered face goes almost peaceful as she passes over the jagged hill of lust into relief, her body trembling so beautifully, my own eyes become coated in a sheen just watching her cross over to bliss. Bliss I gave her with my body. And I take my own, erupting while memorizing her expression of satisfaction and knowing I’m responsible, my cock filling her with the substance that built inside me overnight while I held her and leaking all over the ground in gratifying splats, pressure leaving my loins in tidal waves, again and again until my legs are on the verge of buckling.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I chant against her forehead, holding her steady while she recovers. “I’ve got you.”
Those words ring true. Truer than anything ever has in my life.
But there’s an urgency growing inside of me now, telling me to earn her.
Do what I need to do to keep her safe. From everything. Even me.
And that’s exactly what I plan to do.