Chapter 33 #2
Heat rushed to my face so fast I felt dizzy.
“Don’t call me that.”
“You emptied the bottle.”
“You went through my bag. You had no right!”
“Yes.” His eyes lifted. “And you tried to poison me.”
“I tried to protect myself.”
“That is what you call it?”
“What would you call it then?”
“Murder, if you had been competent enough to finish the thought.”
My breath caught.
He smiled faintly, but there was no warmth in it now.
“Tell me, Céline. How exactly were you planning to get away with another murder when you were already so careless with the first one?”
There was no pretending after that.
No performance available. No clever answer. No lie beautiful enough to dress the truth.
He knew.
He had Katherine’s phone, and he knew.
My knees nearly weakened, but I forced myself to stay standing.
“Fuck you.” My voice sounded raw.
“There she is. My lovely little murderess. I was tired of waiting for you to bring it up yourself. I can’t believe this is how we are ending up discussing it.”
I lunged for the bottle; it didn’t matter anymore, but I needed something to do with my fury.
Vincent caught my wrist easily.
I tried to twist free.
He caught the other.
For one moment, we stood too close, my wrists in his hands, the empty bottle trapped between us, the air thick with dinner and rain and everything we had not yet admitted.
“You have Katherine’s phone,” I said.
His face did not change.
“It fell on the terrace, and you took it… How long have you had it?”
“Since that night, sweetheart.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.” The confirmation came quietly.
The truth opened beneath me, endless and black.
“Did you watch us?”
“From the beginning to the end.”
He released my wrists slowly, as if I might break if he let go too fast. The thought enraged me enough to steady me.
“You sick bastard. You watched her fall and didn’t even attempt to help! You watched me—”
I stopped. My throat closed around the rest. I could not say it. Not to him. Not while he stood there holding the bottle I had emptied into a glass and the knowledge of Katherine’s last living moments in the same hand.
Vincent stepped closer, and I stepped back.
He dragged me by the hair back to the dinner table.
“You think this makes you powerful?” I whispered.
“No,” he said. “I think you trying to drug me at dinner makes you careless and afraid of me, and I need to teach you a lesson.”
I laughed, but it shook.
“I should be afraid of you; you have too much over me!”
His grip tightened slightly in my hair, enough to tilt my face up.
“Are you?”
I should have said yes, but the truth was uglier.
“I don’t know.”
That was the first honest thing I had said all night. His face changed with hunger.
He leaned down until his mouth was close to mine.
“You should have asked me what I know before deciding to kill me.”
“You would have lied.”
“Yes,” he said. “Probably.”
I laughed coldly again.
Then his mouth brushed mine, but it was not quite a kiss.
My hands came up against his chest, and for a second I meant to push him away.
I did. I swear I did.
But he was warm. Alive. Dangerous. Mine in the worst possible sense, because he held the secret that could end me and looked at me like ending me was the last thing he wanted.
“I hate you,” I said.
“I know.”
“I might still kill you.”
“I know that too.”
His mouth curved faintly against mine.
That was what did it for me.
The arrogance. The certainty.
The way he stood in front of me with my attempted murder in his hand and found me more interesting for it.
I kissed him like I wanted to split his mouth open.
He kissed me back like he had been waiting for me to choose violence, but this time with honesty.
His hand stayed in my hair. He guided me backwards onto the table after he cleared it with one swipe of his arm, and dishes clattered to the floor. The candle tipped and went out. The sound of breaking glass mixed with the rain against the windows.
He laid me flat on my back with my head hanging off the edge of the table. My hair brushed the floor, and blood rushed to my head. The position made everything feel sharper, more helpless. I tried to sit up. His hand pressed against my chest, keeping me there.
“Tell me what your plan was,” he said, voice low and rough. “If I had drunk that glass. What did you imagine would happen to me?”
I struggled against his hold, but he was stronger. “Let me up.”
“No.” He unbuckled his belt with his free hand. “You wanted me choking on my own breath. Saliva filling my throat. Body getting heavy. That was the idea, wasn’t it?”
He freed himself. His cock was already hard. He gripped my hair tighter and guided the head to my lips.
“Open.”
I tried to turn my head. He held me steady.
“Open your mouth, Céline. I’m going to show you exactly what that feels like.”
I parted my lips. He pushed in deep on the first thrust, filling my mouth until I gagged. My eyes watered. I pushed at his thighs, struggling for air, but he kept going, slow and deliberate, fucking my throat while my head hung off the table.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Feel how tight your throat gets when you can’t breathe. That’s what you wanted for me. Choking. Gasping. Helpless.”
I made a muffled sound around him. Saliva dripped from the corners of my mouth.
My hands scrabbled at his hips. He thrust deeper, holding himself there until my vision blurred at the edges.
His cock was lodged completely inside my throat, thick and pulsing, the heavy bulge pressing outward against the soft skin of my neck.
His hands slid down, wrapping tight around my throat right over that swollen ridge.
He squeezed hard, fingers digging in as he began to stroke his palms and fingers aggressively up and down the length of it, jerking himself roughly through my neck like he was using my throat to fuck his own fist.
“Struggle all you want,” he said, his voice thick. “You tried to kill me at my own table. Now you’re going to take every inch while I teach you what choking really feels like.”
He pulled back just enough for me to gasp a breath, then drove in again, rougher this time. Tears ran down my temples into my hair. My throat convulsed around him. He groaned, low and satisfied.
“Fuck, you look good like this. Mouth full, eyes watering, still fighting me even while you’re dripping for it. You hate me, and you still get so wet when I use you.”
I tried to push him away again. He caught my wrists with one hand and pinned them to the table above my head. His other hand stayed in my hair, controlling the angle so he could go deeper.
“Relax your throat,” he ordered. “Let me in. This is what you wanted me to feel. Helpless. Overwhelmed. Fighting for air while your body betrays you.”
He fucked my mouth harder, hips snapping forward. The wet sounds mixed with my choked gasps and his low, filthy praise.
“Good girl. Take it. Choke on my cock the way you wanted me to choke on my own spit. You feel that? That’s your punishment. Every time you gag, remember what you tried to do to me.”
My lungs burned. My thighs pressed together, aching. Shame and heat twisted together until I couldn’t tell them apart. I struggled harder, legs kicking uselessly against the table leg, but he held me there and kept thrusting until my throat was raw and my face was wet with tears and spit.
When he finally pulled out, I gasped for air, coughing, chest heaving. He didn’t give me long. He flipped me onto my stomach, yanked my dress up and pulled my underwear down. He thrust into me from behind in one hard stroke.
I cried out, still struggling, still angry, still so wet it embarrassed me.
“That’s right,” he growled, pounding into me. “Fight me. Hate me. Come anyway. Your pussy doesn’t lie even when your mouth does.”
He reached around and rubbed my clit in tight circles while he fucked me deep and rough.
I came with a broken moan, clenching around him, hating how good it felt.
He followed a moment later, burying himself to the hilt and spilling inside me with a low groan.
His cock pulsed hard, thick jets flooding me in heavy, endless spurts that I could feel painting my walls and leaking out around his shaft.
He kept grinding slow and deep through his orgasm, milking every last drop into me while my pussy fluttered and squeezed him like it never wanted to let go.
For long seconds we stayed locked together, his hips flush against my ass, both of us shaking as the last shocks rolled through us.
Only then did the apartment go quiet except for our ragged breathing and the steady drum of rain against the windows. I lay on the table, dress bunched around my waist, body trembling. Vincent stayed buried inside me, one hand still gripping my hip like he wasn’t ready to let go yet.
He finally pulled out slowly, inch by inch, and I felt the hot mess of his cum immediately start to drip from my swollen, used pussy, sliding thick and wet down my thigh. He turned me over gently, almost tenderly, and looked down at me.
“Selena… You tried to kill me. This can’t happen again.”
“And you watched me kill my best friend.”
I laughed once, broken and breathless.
“I may have killed Katherine,” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes, “but I cannot be with you when you can hold that over my head.”
“No,” he said quietly.
The softness of his voice frightened me more than anger would have.
“What?”
“No, Céline.”
His eyes held mine.
“You didn’t kill Katherine.”
A cold, impossible silence opened between us.
I stared at him.
Rain tapped against the bedroom window, gentle and indifferent.
Vincent’s voice lowered.
“I did.”