Chapter 30
I was in Levi’s bedroom, not knowing where to put myself while he undressed. I had found myself in his bedroom once, but I was drunk. Now, this felt all too real.
Real as in I was in Levi Delombre’s bedroom right after I brought him to an orgasm— Grandma would be proud. Would we have sex? Did I want to have sex? Yes . Was I ready? Probably . Was I ready for him? Probably not .
“What are you doing?” I thought it was about time to ask.
“Showering. Want to come with me or go first?”
He was now in the bathroom as I peered at him from the back—completely naked and unapologetic, confident. He turned around, and I gulped, freezing on the spot. It was the first time I was seeing him fully naked.
He was built with lean muscles, gorgeous, and still hard and thick. But my heart squeezed. He had some scars and some burns in the shape of holes on his forearms, contrasting with his skin. What were those? What happened to him? He tilted his head, and a blush crept through my cheeks.
“Are you going to watch me like that for long or…” he trailed off.
I turned around, drifting my stare away from him. “Nope. All good.”
“I’ll be back. You have your own toothbrush, towel, something for your makeup, and pajamas are folded on the bed.”
He didn’t close the door behind him and turned on the shower. Did he seriously plan all this? Not that it’d surprise me. At this moment, I really needed to have a girl talk, but Grandma was probably asleep, and I didn’t want to bother Yas. She was probably not experienced either, but the books she was reading were instructive enough—they’d gotten me through up until this point.
Levi eventually returned, clad in nothing but a towel wrapped around the V-shape of his abs with his wet hair pulled back. My middle throbbed again. The moment he stepped through the door, I darted straight to his bathroom and locked myself in, trying to gather my strength. It was new. Scary. I took the longest shower of my life and changed into his pajamas, one of his black sweaters that smelled just like him.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Levi stood before me, now wearing only black silk pajama bottoms. “I like seeing you wear my clothes.”
My eyes landed on his scars once more. Did someone do this to him, or did he do it to himself? Should I ask him?
“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” he offered out of nowhere, and I blinked.
Levi Delombre wanted to watch a movie.
I was in his bedroom to watch a movie.
Dad always said if a boy tricks you into going to his place, it means he wants sex from you and nothing more.
“You want to watch a movie with me?” I repeated.
“That’s what couples do, no?” he continued, and I was utterly convinced he had studied what a normal couple meant and what they did.
I wasn’t used to affectionate Levi.
I smiled, noticing he was trying to make an effort and maybe starting to trust me. “Is this what you want?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m not opposed to it.”
“What would you have wanted?”
His gaze lingered on my legs. “If it was up to me, I’d have continued what we started earlier, and I’d have fucked you all night long. Bed, first. Second, shower. Third, the counter. Four, mirror. I’m open to switch the order,” he said, as I was literally gasping for air. “But you’re clearly not ready for all that, and I want you begging when I’ll take your first because it’s going to hurt.”
I clasped my hands together and cleared my throat, ignoring the fact my body couldn’t maintain a normal body temperature when I was next to him. I sauntered to his side, and let my fingers brush over his hard chest.
“What are you doing?” his strained voice accused.
“Exploring your body,” I whispered, tracing the contours of his biceps down to his forearms. Despite his outward appearance of control, each of his muscles seemed taut with tension, but he didn’t push me away. “Levi… Can I ask you something?”
He hummed, probably knowing I would ask anyway.
“Where did you get those cuts?”
“Are you disgusted by them?” he asked.
“No,” I denied, feeling my heart contracting that he would think that. “Of course not. Did someone do this to you? Was it… Patrice?” My fingers stopped on the cuts in the shape of lines by his wrist. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”
“Patrice wasn’t a violent man. He was too smart for that. He was more of a payback kind of guy when drunk to help with his conscience.”
“What do you mean?”
“He tried to raise me like his son and taught me chess, but he was weak. An alcoholic. When he was drunk, he revealed his true nature. I had the tendency to annoy him in rather creative ways, so when he had a bad day…” His tight smile said it all. “Let’s say I was there to make him feel much better. Over the years, he begged my mother to get rid of me.”
So he did that to him. Trailing my fingertips along the uneven texture of his scars, I felt like I could somehow absorb his dark past through my fingertips.
“These ones are from a soldering iron.” Levi’s eyes sliced straight to mine, as if testing my reaction. “He got pissed when I used to meddle with his electronics and computers, so he made me fix my mess, including punishing myself. If I were to say something, he would blame me, and I could have kissed goodbye to my sole occupation in this fucking house.”
Patrice is horrible. I gulped, my fingers brushing over the scars in the shape of holes. “These ones?”
“Cigarette burns. He was a sore chess loser. I could have avoided them by losing, but I didn’t want to.” Levi flashed a smile. “Fun times.”
“This is child abuse, Levi.” How could he smile? My heart was already breaking into thousands of pieces for him. He never showed his pain. He never showed anything. Why ? “Lucie didn’t know?”
“No, not that she would have believed me. I’m the man I am today, thanks to him. You never forget your first monster.”
I crossed my arms. “If I had known back, then I could have—”
“Told your daddy so he’d adopt me after his daughter kissed me?”
I remembered each of Patrice’s smiles and jokes when I entered their house. You’d have never guessed that underneath his charming facade hid a disgusting man. He’d kept the same job at Dad’s company for ten years, always presenting himself properly and well.
“By reading people with ease and discovering their secrets, you can only be disgusted by them. The sooner you learn that, the better.” Levi’s voice dripped with cynicism.
I curled my hand into a fist. “I wish he had paid.”
I was glad my father fired him, publicly humiliating him, but it didn’t feel like enough.
Levi’s fingers traced my cheek. “He did. I found him a year later at some bar. I was there to force him to end his pitiful life.” His eyes searched mine, but I didn’t flinch. “When I saw him being thrown out of the bar, drunk, homeless, and pitiful, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. I simply laughed. I’m not a nice man, Dalia, but murder is a line I wouldn’t cross.” A dark smile stretched his lips. “Except for you.”
I gulped, sparks skittering down my spine. “I care about you, Levi.”
He shrugged. “So that means no movie, I suppose?”
I knew that just like that, he was deflecting, closing himself off. I nodded and pointed at his marble chess set, which hadn’t moved an inch since the last time. “How about chess? You could teach me.”
He gestured to me to take a seat. “But if I win, you’ll have to do a dare, and it won’t be an easy one.”
“What if I win?”
“You’ll win everything you want from me.”
“Fine, game is on.” I took a seat facing the white pieces. “But first, I want three games where you teach me all your tricks.”
He flashed a sly, cutting-sharp grin. “Sounds fair. First lesson.” Levi picked up the white queen, her alabaster hair cascading like a ghostly veil around her shoulders. “If you want to checkmate the king, you’ve got to wield the queen wisely. You can’t get her out too quickly, or your opponent’s pawns will attack her.” He trapped my queen between his black pieces. “You can either trap your opponent’s queen in your ranks, caging her to your will, or…” He took out his black queen and lowered my white king onto the board, emphasizing, “Free your queen and craft a strategy around her to take the useless king down.”
We were playing for two and a half hours. While I could have ended the game an hour ago, watching Dalia find new ways to attack me was fun. She wanted my king dead, and her queen was ruthless—just like her.
With some training, she could be a strong opponent. She had already mastered her favorite opening, the Queen’s Gambit, wanting to push me into a defensive position. She had a drop of sweat on her forehead and squinted her eyes to focus on every move while my eyes were locked on her solely.
I sacrificed my bishop, knowing this offer would be too tempting for Dalia to resist.
“Check,” she said, taking my bishop with her queen with a proud smile as if she had won the game.
It was exactly where I wanted her.
That was my thing: making my opponents pretend they were winning only to destroy them harder. They were too focused on the prospect of winning that they didn’t see my trap closing on them.
“Impressive,” I said, sliding my rook into position to protect that king.
She retracted her attack so I wouldn’t get her queen, and it’s only then that I launched my assault, anticipating each of her moves and the weakness of her position.
“You’re stuck, Dalia. Check.”
She frowned and pouted, trying to flee.
“Check.”
“Oh come on.” She threw her head back and groaned. “How? How do you do this every time!”
“I’ve practiced since I was four,” I said, trying to make her feel better.
“Playing against you is no fun. You’re cruel,” she pretended to be surprised by this, still contemplating her escape routes.
“But losing against me is another story,” I hinted, my lips turning into a thin line. Her white king found itself cornered as my queen descended on him protected by my tower. “The Kiss of Death.”
That was checkmate.
She blinked, her lips parting. “What did you say?”
“The Kiss Of Death is when the queen gives a fatal kiss, a checkmate to the king while being protected by a pawn from her team,” I said, not wavering my eyes away from her.
She knew what it meant.
Four years ago, she had given me a checkmate, her daddy protecting her. I was trapped. Weak.
“Levi, I—”
“I think you owe me a dare.”
She gulped. “Tell me.”
I leaned back on my chair and trailed my eyes over the length of her body. “Masturbate in front of me.”
Her eyes widened twice their size. I’d noticed how shy she was acting, and I wanted to break that barrier her dad had surrounded her with. She wasn’t his queen anymore. And with me, she wouldn’t have to feel ashamed of her own pleasure.
“I can’t.”
“I’ll guide you,” I said. “If you don’t know how to please yourself, how could you accept pleasure? You need to know what you like and what throws you over the edge, even if I have my own ideas.”
Dalia Mercier didn’t want sweet; she didn’t want to feel fragile and breakable. She had been caged, but I would free each of her impulses and break her mask apart so Mercier wouldn’t even recognize his own daughter. He couldn’t accept her just as she was.
“Have you ever touched yourself, Dalia?” I knew she did.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But it wasn’t… I couldn’t… finish.”
“Undress yourself.”
“I won’t be able to touch myself if you watch me.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of with giving yourself what you deserve and giving me a show that would be engraved forever in my brain.”
I put my phone on the table, starting the playlist I’d made for her based on her YouTube history of songs—mostly classical music.
She laughed. “I won’t even ask how you know my favorite music. I can’t tell if this is romantic or creepy.”
“Just appreciate the gesture.”
“A bet is a bet, I guess.”
She bit her lips and threw my sweatshirt over her head, revealing her perfectly shaped breasts, her pink nipples pointing hard at me. She crossed her arms to cover them, and I had to readjust my growing hardness in my pants.
“Dalia.” My voice was almost pleading. “Use your hands for good. Touch your breasts for me. Caress yourself the way you want to.”
She held my stare, her fingers slowly caressing her chest. Her cheeks flushed. Right now, she could finally appreciate the body she was gifted. I felt my muscles tensing. She pinched her nipples, her eyes closing.
“Now touch yourself.”
She leaned backward on the chair, traveling her hand to her sex, the string of classical music rising higher. Her chest heaved up and down, and, fuck, I had compulsions. Raging compulsions. Murderous ones.
“Slide a finger inside your pussy.”
She did, and a part of me thought of choking her with my cock, before pounding inside one of her holes so savagely. I wanted to feel her break, melt, plead under me. The other part wanted to worship her, not daring to lay one hand on her, almost afraid of how I could ruin her. I readjusted my hardness again, my breathing becoming ragged. I would come before she did. How pathetic was that?
“Slide another.” Her eyes bulged, questioning me. “It’s either your fingers or my cock, and I assure you, it’s way thicker than that.”
I rose from my chair and watched her from the top. She was a masterpiece. I tucked her chin up to me, and her eyes creaked open on me. Seeing her like that, flushed with one hand in her panty, stroking herself shamelessly, was delightful.
I should take a picture of this moment, save it for my eyes only. I cupped her breast and kneaded her nipple, her back arching in response.
“Do you want me to take care of your breasts for you as you finger yourself?”
She nodded, and I lowered myself on my knees to be at the same height as her. My tongue swirled up on the bud of her nipple, and I sucked, kissed, and claimed what only I could. She moaned, and my cock pulsed again.
“Part your legs wider as if you’re getting ready to be filled with my cock.”
She did, and I moved back up. My fingers caressed the length of her neck, feeling the pulse of her heart. So fast. I then skimmed over the strands of her rainbow-colored hair. Her stomach tensed, and I tightened my grip on her hair, coiling it around my fist and tilting her head back. Her sultry lips parted. I let out a groan, looking at the fucking ceiling. Otherwise, I would literally burst and come in my pants.
“I changed my mind. Watching you give yourself an orgasm right in front of me is making me fucking envious,” I rasped as I seized her hand and licked the taste of her from her fingers. “Delicious. I promised I’d eat you, but the question is how. Should I do it my way, or do you have any preferences?”
“You pick.”
She shouldn’t have said that. “Drop your panties.”
She got up and dropped her panties on the floor. A nerve worked my jaw. I made her back face my chest and kissed her nape before tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “On the bed, on all fours, like a good girl, and wait for me, would you?”
Goose bumps traveled on her soft skin, and she leaned over the bed.
“Crawl on the side of the bed.”
At the sight of her, waiting in angst on all fours, my heart, an organ I barely acknowledged, betrayed me with its erratic beats, pounding against my rib cage. On the prowl, I closed the distance between us. My hand roamed on her ass, my eyes engraving the shapes of her curves for my memory. Her wetness was pooling over her thighs. I slapped her butt cheek, and she jolted forward as if she thought she could stand and escape me now.
“Ass up. Legs wider. Do you know how beautiful you are right now?”
I’d never been allowed to grasp beauty for myself. I captured it, but I stayed at a safe distance or I’d just destroy it. She arched her back, and I palmed her breast, grazing on the satin sheets of the bed. Dalia defied all my assumptions. I never found one part of ugliness inside her, no matter how hard I tried.
I stroked her folds, spreading her wetness all over her clit. She gasped, her ass rubbing against my hand. I leaned forward, my breath on her sex, and I sucked her throbbing clit into my mouth. I pumped two of my fingers inside her, coordinating them with each flick of my tongue. Mine. Between whimpers, she tried to ride my fingers, her face crashing on the mattress to muffle her moans. I tasted her until her legs shook, her whole body spasming.
“Levi,” she moaned, and I lost it.
My fingers pumped inside her faster. My tongue swiveled on her clit harder. She consumed my mind. As her orgasm exploded, she tried to push me away, but I continued so she could savor the moment longer. When she was done, she rolled on the bed, out of breath, washed out.
I pulled the hair away from her flushed face. So beautiful.
“That was… intense,” she said, covering herself with my sheets. “In a very good way, thank you.”
I crawled next to her on the bed so I could force her into my arms, my erection killing me. “You’re welcome.”