23. Dove
twenty-three
Dove
“ J esus,” my friend Sterling says, her lips frozen in a silent gasp.
Her hand squeezes mine as I relay everything to her. How Rowan and I got together. How I met the president and his wife, how I got kidnapped and injected with a deadly virus with no cure. I tell her about my brother being alive. And about the EFW and everything I found about them through my research so far. She sits by my side on the couch and listens, lost behind her furrowed eyebrows and fiery eyes.
“I… I have no words,” she says when I’m done. “I’ve been back for over a month and thought you were straight-up ignoring me. Then I saw you in the magazines and I felt so betrayed. Like you had suddenly gotten this whole new life,” she gestures around the house, “and didn’t want me to be a part of it. To think that you were out there, fighting for your life, Dove…” She looks down at our entwined hands. “I am so, so sorry. I’ve been a terrible friend. I should’ve known something wasn’t right.”
I shake my head. “I should’ve messaged you the moment I was back. But I had no idea how to tell you about all of this. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want—”
She scoffs. “Be around you anymore? Dove, fuck, this is some serious shit. You know my mom died of cancer. If these assholes have the cure and keep it hidden from the public, that’s a crime I can never forgive. Besides…” She smiles faintly. “I’m pretty sure I told you when I was hammered that I’d follow you through a ring of fire if I had to. That still stands.”
“No, you said you’d throw me into a ring of fire if I took your fifth shot away.”
“Semantics.”
She laughs, throwing her head back, and I can’t stop my shoulders from shaking as I laugh with her. I can’t believe she’s here. I didn’t think I could see her with my precarious state and all, but after our last dinner, Rowan sent a car for her and she agreed to come.
“Damn,” she says, her finger swiping over my ring. “How much money does this guy have?”
I huff out a laugh, not knowing or caring about the answer to that.
Then the whole day turns into much-needed girl talk. My thoughts go back to Rowan now and then, wondering if he’s all right. He said he had something to do with Cole today and that he wouldn’t be back until later tonight. When I asked for details, I didn’t get any, but I didn’t let it bother me. I thought it was time… time for me to weave my own secrets and give my new friend at the White House a call. Cam, it turned out, was more than happy to indulge me.
Rowan
When I get home, it’s already past one in the morning. It’s raining hard. The cold water glides down my skull mask as I walk toward the main door with Cole and Hawke by my side. It’s been a shitty day, and the only thing that makes me feel better is knowing Dove is sleeping in our bed right now. But the lies… the fucking lies are getting to me. I had to lead my friends astray tonight so I could make progress with my plan—not the one I told Dove, nor the one I told Cole and Maddox. I knew neither of them would’ve agreed to my real one, and we’re running out of time. Dove coughed up blood this morning. Her condition is only getting worse.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I take it out, seeing a string of messages pop on the screen.
Well done, Commander
So very close to getting everything you want
Cheer up
My jaw clenches and I close my eyes tightly, trying to block out the world for just a second. Then I dial the doctor’s number and bring the phone to my ear. When he picks up, I only tell him, “I’ve got the cure. A car is on its way to pick you up.”
Dove
The air feels damp and heavy, carrying the faint scent of holy oil and aged stone. The soft hiss of wind and rain splattering against the distant windows tells me something’s wrong. Against my closed eyelids, the lights are warm, red, as if a fire burns nearby. I nudge my hands forward, but they’re tied up somewhere above me. Instantly, panic rises to my throat and my eyes snap open.
“No. No, no, no,” I whisper, realizing I’m back. Back in that horrible place, into that never-ending tunnel maze, where no one can find me, where no one will ever—
The shadows on the walls writhe through the spacious room. As if a beast lives here and I’ve just woken it up from slumber. I follow them with my eyes, hoping to see a body, but there’s no one inside. A shiver crawls up my spine. I glance down at my body, and I realize I’m naked from the waist down. Whoever took me, took me exactly the way I went to sleep: in my burgundy nightgown.
To my right, there’s an altar. The candles crowning it makes it glow as if it’s a breathing organ, their light spilling across the polished stone walls like blood smeared on marble. I blink and shapes emerge from the darkness. Wooden pews stretch before my eyes, the shapes of saints and martyrs haunting the empty seats.
Why am I in a church? Why am I naked and tied up in a church late at night?
My pulse quickens and my breath comes out in soft gasps when the sound of footsteps echoes to my ears.
I won’t be afraid.
I won’t be afraid.
I won’t be afraid.
A low growl rumbles close to my ear from behind me. I close my eyes and grind my teeth.
“Hello, little angel.” Rowan’s voice registers simultaneously with the warm finger coming between my pussy lips, gliding across my clit.
Instantly my body sags with relief, and I’m held by my pussy like a bird with her feet coiled around a forest branch. Moisture dampens his skin, making my cheeks burn.
You’re… you’re in a holy place, Dove. Shit.
Two hollow eyes meet mine when he comes around my suspended body, his mask looking grim and psychotic, making my fear return. Flashbacks of the night he saved me strike through my mind. I remind myself he’s not a danger, but my body doesn’t seem to want to listen this time.
His voice pulls me back a little when he asks, “Afraid of me, Dove?”
I shake my head.
“Use your words. Or I’ll take them away from you.”
“W-What are we doing here?”
His hands take my breasts out of my nightgown, one by one. They hang heavily in his wide palms, soft against his callused skin. My nipples harden as he swipes his thumbs over them. It’s such an erotic thing to have your breasts out while having the rest of your torso covered up. The action does things to me—things like making me rub my thighs together and scolding myself in my mind.
“Rewriting history,” he says plainly. “I never want you to be afraid when you’re in the dark. So I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to use you. And I’m going to show God you’re mine, no matter how much he likes to think otherwise.”
Rowan
I leave her hanging with her breasts out as I go behind her to pull the other end of the rope. It has an anal hook attached to it. If she moves, it will hurt her, so for her sake, I hope she doesn’t. I want her still while I use her holes in every way I can think of.
God, I fucking love this—stealing away her last bit of innocence in the church where she’ll marry me in a few days. I haven’t even told her yet, but she’s already mine… I forged the marriage papers and made sure she gets everything I own if I die. The wedding is for her. Because she deserves the world, and I’m nothing if not a madman completely obsessed with his wife.
“Open wide, angel,” I tell her as I bring the anal hook to her mouth. “Get this hook nice and wet for your little asshole.”
“It… it still hurts.”
I smile but ignore her implied plea. “I know it does. Now show me your pink tongue.”
She knows what to do if she doesn’t want it. But my girl loves a little pain when I use her. She likes to feel it all. Otherwise I wouldn’t be staring at the way her soft lips open up for me right now.
“Oh?” I ask with false surprise. “You’re really going to let me fuck your aching ass right here in the church?” It makes her squirm with embarrassment, her breasts swaying lazily from the movement. My cock grows harder at the sight. “That’s so embarrassing, Dove. You know that, right?”
Her whimpers cause my body to roar to life. I smile behind my mask. I wanted to bring her here so I could replace the monster in her nightmares with the one she’s known for the past few months. The one who loves her, kills for her, kneels for her… I won’t be able to hold her through the night when I’m gone. But at least there’s this. At least she’ll wake up to dreams of me claiming her before God’s almighty eyes.
I praise her when she takes the hook into her mouth and starts sucking on it like a good girl. I leave it in and grab her thighs, pulling them apart. Her swollen clit welcomes me again, but I ignore it this time. I push two fingers into her drenched cunt, pumping them in and out. Her body rocks back and forth from the movement. The thought of seeing how many fingers she can take comes to mind, but I know she wouldn’t be able to take it right now, not before the cure settles in her body and takes that fucking virus out.
I only stop to slap her dampening cunt.
Once.
Twice.
Harder the third time.
She cries out and rocks into my touch, her pussy swollen and bright red like a juicy cherry.
“You love sucking on that thing, don’t you, Dove? I bet you wish it was a cock instead. Who knows…” I run my knuckles across her sensitive pussy, caressing where I caused pain. “Maybe I’ll call Hawke to do that part while I fuck your pussy and push that hook into your ass. Would my little wife like that?”
My words make her groan, and it’s all the answer I need. I know she enjoyed it that night when I held her down so Leon could lick her pussy and make her come. We talked about it afterward. She enjoyed it more than she was confident to admit. But as much as I’d love seeing her come undone under my command, there’s no time for it now. Just another thing I’ll never be able to experience with her because of what I did. Her imagination does the work for me, though—I know that because my fingers slide across her slippery pussy easily as she continues to wet herself like the perfect little slut she is for me.
I unzip my pants and take my cock out, positioning myself at her entrance and feeling the way her soft pussy pulses around me. My head dips back as I reel back my control, refraining from slamming into her. I want to feel everything. I want it all.
“Remember the day I picked you up from work and held my fingers in your cunt the entire ride? I wanted to do the same with my cock. Wanted you to sit on my lap, with my cock buried deep inside you for hours. Just so I can feel you there the entire fucking time. How you clench around me. How you squeeze my cock like a needy little whore.”
I dig my fingers into her soft hips, knowing it’s going to leave bruises. The rope keeping her hovering above the floor straightens more as she pulls on it with her hands. She sobs quietly, ashamed while arching her pussy back toward me, offering herself to me like a sacrifice. I fucking love it.
“We’ll have to leave that for another time,” I say, knowing full well it will never happen.
The way she sucks on that metallic hook has me desperate to ram my cock to the back of her throat, but I refrain from that too. Everything in due time. First, my cock inches slowly into her tight cunt. She’s so warm inside, like a goddamn oven. Her channel pulses around me, stretching and making space for me until my pelvis makes contact with her bare ass. I fist my hand in her hair, pulling her head back. Then push my hips forward, fucking her slowly and increasing my pace when my impatience runs out.
I’m fully dressed in my combat uniform and she’s almost completely naked save for the sheer layer of silk that covers bits and pieces of her upper body. It’s how I love to see her. Bare, wet, and ready to take me in every single hole she has.
Her cute little whimpers echo in my ear, together with the wet sounds her pussy makes when I fuck her. I take the hook out of her mouth, and a huge gasp of air leaves her lungs.
“Jesus, fuck. Oh my God, Rowan,” she cries out.
“Language, angel. Look at where you are,” I say, motioning to the rest of the church. “Wouldn’t want you to be dragged down with me into the dark now, would we?”
My cock slides in and out of her with ease now, and I press the hook against her asshole, waiting to insert it when I’m done coming in her cunt. I don’t want to hurt her, even if she told me to stop holding back. She’s still too weak for the depraved things I have in mind for her.
One last thrust brings me over the edge, my cum spilling inside her warmth where it belongs. She’s started taking her birth control again, and I got too excited at the thought of throwing it away for her and replacing it with sugar pills. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it knowing the reality that awaits us after the wedding. I push the thought away from my mind, wanting to focus on the now. Because now, I have her. Now, she’s all mine.
“Hold it in, angel. Don’t let a single drop out. Is that understood?”
“Yes. Oh, God. Please…”
“You’re wasting your breath asking God for anything right now. He’s too busy watching to listen to you pray.”
Her legs shake and spasm as I bring my fingers to her clit and massage the area. Naturally, my cum slides out of her, making her sloppy and slippery as she rocks into my touch. Her first orgasm flashes through her small body. The ropes move with her, and I push the hook all the way into her ass this time.
Then I simply back away and admire what I’ve done. My cum is slick on her swollen pussy, dripping down her thighs and gleaming like early morning dew. She hangs like a broken doll in the middle of the church, her arms spread above her head as I watch—I watch her with carnal need and curiosity, waiting to see how much more of me she’ll need before the subdrop hits. It makes my lips curl into a wicked smile, knowing it still hasn’t. She’s such a good, patient girl for me.
I take out a cigarette from my pocket and use a church candle to light it on. I quit smoking in high school, but right now I need to watch something burn. To remind myself of what I’ve done: that Dove is here, and I have a long trail of sins to account for saving her life.