Chapter 9
9
BIRDIE
A laric’s body is warm and comforting. I feel like a fool for clinging to his side, but I can still feel the breeze on my bare ass and between my legs, something that makes me feel very, very vulnerable.
His arms provide safety and comfort.
I can’t seem to look at Violet as he signs the contract. If I could, I would run to her. I wish I could pull her into this warm embrace, but she can’t leave her mother’s side. Not yet.
I know she wants to. I know she loves me and wants to be free of her mother too, but I also know how incredibly complicated this all is for her.
So I won’t make eye contact. I won’t let her see my fear, so she won’t have to worry too much. It’s the least I can do.
When Alaric signs the contract, he throws the pen down in anger and stares at my stepmom as he waits for further instruction.
I find his obstinance in this situation endearing. It’s nice to feel protected. Fought for. Cared for. I don’t know how long it will last with Alaric or what it means, but I’ll take what I can get.
“The clock is ticking, Mr. Stone.” Clarissa’s tone is frigid and cruel.
“Can we have a moment of privacy before you force me to defile this beautiful girl?” he replies with sarcasm.
My stepmom rolls her eyes. “By all means, Alaric. Take her to your room. You have fifteen minutes. And then we’ll be knocking.”
He scowls at her before scurrying me up the stairs and down the long hallway toward the room I slept in last night between him and Violet.
He mutters obscenities the entire way. When we reach his room, I feel a cold panic wash over me. This is really happening.
When we get inside, Alaric starts for the bottle of whiskey we drank last night. “This is some seriously fucked-up shit, Birdie.”
“I know,” I mumble in reply as I follow him.
“Did you know about this?” he asks as he pours two glasses, each a bit fuller than last night. He hands one to me, and I slowly shake my head. His expression is sympathetic.
“Drink up,” he says before tossing his back with a wince, blowing through his pursed lips after the liquid goes down. In the distance, I hear the thunder roar outside. It matches the pounding of my heart in my chest.
I don’t want to be drunk for this. I want to have my head about me, or else I’m afraid I might really freak out. But I would like to take the edge off and stop this incessant trembling in my hands. So, with a deep breath and following his instructions from last night, I shoot the whiskey back and hold my breath for a second before blowing out the way he did.
“Atta girl,” he replies with a smile and a nod.
The next thing I know, I’m smiling softly.
After a second, his fades though. And I can tell he forgot for a moment what we’re about to do. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I shrug. “We don’t have much choice. But I’m not afraid. I know you won’t hurt me.”
He huffs out a laugh. “No one has ever said that about me before.” Then he reaches forward and brushes my hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “But it’s true. I won’t hurt you. Not if I can help it.”
I force myself to swallow, something warm building in my belly. I’m afraid to ask my next question, but I have to know. “You do…want to, right? Because if you don’t…you can imagine I’m someone else.”
“Wait. Want to…what?” he asks, shaking his head with confusion.
“Want to sleep with me.”
His lips part, and he freezes in surprise. Then he takes my glass and sets it on the counter with his. Crowding me toward the wall, he places his warm hands on my bare hips and brings his mouth so close to mine that I can barely breathe.
“Want to…” he mumbles. “My sweet princess, you have no idea how much I want you. I’m just not as sweet or as gentle as you are. I don’t want to sleep with you, Birdie. I want to fuck you. I want to do filthy, awful things to you. But I know how scared you are tonight, so I’m going to do my best to be gentle. Please don’t you dare take that to mean I don’t want you. Understand?”
I let out a whimper as I stare into his eyes, feeling those words brew in my belly like a fire burning so hot my body aches with need.
I’m a terrible person for how much I want this. Just yesterday, I saw Alaric as a father figure. He protected me and cared for me. And now…I want to hear about these filthy, dirty things he wants to do to me. I want to hear every single one.
But what about Violet?
Just thinking about her and remembering her reaction downstairs make my insides feel hollow and cold. If we go through with this, I’m not the only one at risk of being hurt.
I love Violet more than anything, but I’ve never been more torn in my life. How can I love her so much and still want someone else physically?
But what choice do I really have? There are far worse men downstairs who would not be as kind as Alaric. Even after the dirty things he just said, he still looks at me with tenderness. Not like I’m just a warm body to use.
I lean closer to him. “I’m not afraid of you,” I whisper.
He lets out a grumbling sigh as his brows draw together. “You don’t want to lose your virginity to a forty-year-old man, Princess.”
I shrug. “I don’t care about that. If you help me get away from my stepmom, the only thing I’ll be losing is the nightmare I’m living in now.”
After a moment, he pulls away and pours another two shots. As he hands one to me, there’s a knock on the door.
“We don’t have all night,” my stepmom barks through the wood.
I look at Alaric, and we take the shots together. The whiskey burns, but it’s already in my bloodstream, calming my nerves and loosening the tension in my body. Alaric slams his glass on the counter with a loud thunk before walking to the door. When he opens it, he does it with a scowl on his face.
I watch from the bar as my stepmom walks in, my stepsisters, Luna and Violet, behind her.
Luna is wearing a smug, almost giddy expression. She always did love to see my pain.
Violet looks despondent. There is evidence of her tears still streaked down her face. She won’t look me in the eye, no matter how much I want her to.
Behind them, two security guards trail in.
“Is all this really necessary?” Alaric gripes from the door.
My stepmother takes a seat on the large chair while everyone else stands around her. “My late husband had a taste for sharing me with his friends while everyone watched, often against my will. I’m sure you and Birdie can handle this much.”
Bile rises in my throat as tears sting my eyes. She really is trying to make me pay for the awful things my father did to her. And there’s not a thing I can do to stop her or make her see how unfair that is.
Alaric looks me in the eyes as he tears at his tie with a reluctant jerk. He walks over to where I’m standing, frozen in fear. He leans in, and the scent of his cologne is already familiar to me. It calms my nerves, and for the first time all night, I’m able to take a deep breath. Instantly, my lungs are filled with him.
In a whisper next to my ear, he says, “I want you to lie down under the covers. Then I want you to close your eyes and pretend they’re not here. Understand?”
With a gulp, I nod.
Then I do as he said.
Walking over to the bed, I don’t look at the crowd of people standing across the large room. As I’m climbing under the sheets, I shrug off Alaric’s jacket so I’m naked again. I pull the covers around me and close my eyes, anxious for the moment when I feel his touch.
I hear his footsteps and the rustling of his clothes. When I peek my eyes open, I notice the room is dimmer, almost too dark to see the ceiling.
Then I feel the bed dip with his weight, and I let out a gasp. My eyes close again. His warm body slides under the covers next to mine, but I stay still as I wait.
He brushes his fingers softly across my stomach and then my waist. They are soft and gentle as he drags my body closer to him, and then I feel his nakedness against me. His chest is hard with a tuft of hair tickling my arm. His legs are firm and against my thigh as is the unmistakable shape of his erection. I tense immediately when I feel it.
When he climbs over me, he places his legs between mine, and hovers so that I can no longer feel the intimate part of him. My hands are clenched into fists over my chest.
“Open your eyes,” he whispers.
When I peel them open, I just see him—his perfect, handsome face and the tan skin of his chest and abs. He notices the way my gaze travels slowly downward.
“Touch me, Princess. Feel my body.”
I have to force myself to breathe.
When my gaze finds his, the expression is sweet and encouraging. He wants me to feel him? Why?
Slowly, I open my hands and reach out to place them against his chest. The hair is curly, and his muscles are tight. Each of his hands is pressed into the bed around my head as he props himself up.
As I drag my fingers down over the ridges of his abs, I watch the way my touch affects him. He lets out a tiny gasp, and his breathing picks up speed.
I continue my trail downward, lower and lower until my fingers graze the patch of hair below his belly button.
“Keep going,” he whispers.
I pause as I stare into his eyes through the darkness. It makes sense now why he’s letting me do this. He wants me to have a moment of control. He wants to be the one being touched instead of the other way around.
I have to lift my head an inch to see the jutting length of his cock, aimed directly at the core between my legs. With shaking hands, I touch it. I wrap my fingers around his cock, surprised to find just how hard it is. It’s unnaturally rigid and thick, like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt.
When my fingers brush the soft mushroom tip at the end, he trembles and makes a sound of pleasure. So I do it again.
I watch as his eyes roll with the stroke of my hands around him.
He clearly loves it when I play with the tip. I even toy with pressing my finger into the slit at the end, and his hips jerk as I do. I’ve never felt a dick before, hard or soft, and I’m fascinated by just how rigid and smooth it is.
I’m so enthralled with exploring his erection that I forget we have an audience.
I also realize, as I take in the size and girth of his cock, that it’s going to hurt more than I anticipated when he puts it inside me.
He must read my hesitation, because he leans down, resting his length between my legs. Settling on his elbows, he brings his face close to mine. “I need to get you wet, Princess. It won’t hurt as much if you’re wet.”
I drag in a deep breath. “How are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to touch you, and I’m going to put mouth down there. Is that okay?”
Feeling instantly self-conscious, I clamp up. The only person who’s ever touched me like that is Violet.
“Is that…what you want?” I whisper.
He lets out a deep chuckle. “More than anything.”
There’s a buzz of arousal from his words. So I give him a small nod.
Slowly, he travels his way down my body, kissing a trail from my neck to my belly.
“Let’s get this over with,” my stepmom barks, and I shut my eyes, trying to convince myself she’s not really here. “We don’t need the foreplay.”
“You said we have until midnight,” Alaric bellows from where his face is lingering just near the apex of my thighs. “And every time you open that ugly fucking mouth of yours, it kills my boner, so I suggest you shut the fuck up.”
I let out a laugh just as Clarissa gasps across the room.
Under the covers, Alaric gently pries my thighs open. My laughter quickly dies when I feel his breath so close to my delicate skin. When I feel the soft friction of his wet tongue lap through my folds, I let out an embarrassing whimper. One hand dives under the covers to hold the back of his head. The other clamps over my mouth to keep me from making that sound again.
I was quite sure when I climbed under these covers that I could never get aroused with my stepmother in the room watching me. But right now, I’m focused on Alaric, and only him…and at the moment, he’s proving me wrong. I feel my body tightening and the blood in my veins growing hotter. To my surprise, I sense the building pressure of a potential orgasm—especially if he keeps doing that.
He licks and licks, coating me with saliva before latching his lips around my clit and sucking so hard my hips lift from the bed. I can’t keep the sounds in anymore. I’m moaning through my hand and holding his head there so he does it again.
He sucks once more, but this time, he slides a finger inside me while he does it.
It’s too much.
He thrusts it in and out as he continues to suck. I feel like a balloon slowly being filled with air, ready to pop at any moment. It’s a mixture of pleasure and pain as he forces my body closer and closer to something I didn’t see coming.
When he crooks his finger, I reach the pinnacle of this sensation. Writhing on the bed, my thighs fidgeting around his head, I finally feel the balloon pop, and my body erupts in a seizing tide of pleasure. It courses through me, wave after wave.
I don’t realize I’m now biting my hand to keep from crying out until the orgasm crests and I start to feel the pain of my teeth around my own flesh.
When Alaric pulls away, I open my eyes and lift the blanket to find him wiping the moisture from his mouth. I reach for him in desperation.
As he climbs back up my body, I wrap a hand around his neck and haul his mouth to mine. I taste my own sex on his lips as I devour him in a passionate, bruising kiss.
When I feel the head of his cock prodding my entrance, I don’t feel fear or hesitation.
I pull away and look into his eyes. “Alaric,” I whisper. “I’m ready.”