Chapter 9 – Matías
Night stretches long and empty, a void without end. I don’t know what time it is. The clock across the room glows with useless numbers, but I don’t look at it. It doesn’t matter. Sleep isn’t coming. I don’t necessarily want it to.
I lie on my back, arm draped across my forehead, staring at the ceiling until it distorts.
Shapes move in the shadows, phantoms lurking in my periphery.
I know they’re not real. That doesn’t stop my body from bracing against them.
A prickling sensation skates across my skin, each nerve on edge, buzzing with tension.
My muscles stiffen, locked in a taut bunching, as if bracing for a blow that never comes.
Every time I shut my eyes, fire roars behind them.
The burst of the explosion. The way Tomás’ body twisted, limp and blood-slicked.
His howl of agony. The stomach-turning stench of burning flesh.
My own blood dripping hot down my face, searing into open wounds.
Pain is an old enemy; it still lingers beneath my skin, sharp and insidious, long after the wounds themselves have healed.
Beside me, Noa breathes steadily, deeply immersed in her untroubled sleep. It feels like getting away with something to get to look my fill of her, no guard or wall in place.
The sheets pool at her waist, her skin appearing lit from within against the bone white cotton.
My fingers itch to touch the curve of her cheek, from which the glow of pleasure has softened and faded.
She lays on her side now, facing me—and I can see the way her rosebud mouth parts slightly in sleep, little snuffling sounds slipping dreamily from her lips.
She is a euphoric portrait, an ode to peace.
So unburdened by the demons that keep me awake.
How is it so easy for her? Her father is dead. Her fiancé, too. She’s bound to a hideous beast—and it isn’t a reference to my ability to torment the truth out of the most willful of motherfuckers. Though, as many have already ventured: it’s still a cruel consequence that’s been delivered to her.
What would she see, if she were to open her eyes now?
She had no trouble riding my face from the looks of it.
The memory brings a smug flush to my chest, eliciting a swipe of my tongue over my lips, too.
But what other options does she have? She’s stuck with me.
It isn’t a fate that anyone would envy her.
Not for the first time tonight, I think it: I should leave.
Slip out of bed, disappear into the den like I have every night before this one.
She sleeps so deeply, I’d need to check for her pulse if she weren’t prone to those painfully adorable, snuffling snores.
The nightmares will follow me wherever I go, I know that by now.
At least I don’t have to fret about waking her with my screams, sweat or wails, like a broken little boy wetting the fucking bed.
If nothing else, I could sink into the buttery leather of the couch, and drink my nerves numb.
Let exhaustion take me when it decides to be merciful.
And, just like every time the itch to make a run for it has stricken tonight, I don’t move.
Because I don’t want to leave her. The thought of it—of leaving her to wake up alone—when she looks like this…
Like an angel… It stirs awful, inexplicable distress in my gut.
It’s fucking irritating. I don’t even know the woman.
I may know what her pretty little pussy tastes like, yes.
But I definitely don’t know much beyond that, bar her fascinating ability to read concerningly fast, or so I’ve assumed, seeing as she’s had a different book in her hand every time I’ve seen her in passing the past week.
Still, I watch on as she sleeps blissfully, like a woman who has never been hunted, never been haunted, never had to claw her way back from the edge of death.
Hell hasn’t clawed its way into her the way it has me, and I resent that.
I resent how easily she melts into sleep when I cannot even close my eyes without drowning in the past. The venom of it cools in my veins, a contrast to my blood, hot and repeatedly routed southward over her.
My fingers twitch with the urge to touch her.
A single strand of hair has fallen across her cheek, dark against her cheek.
I reach before I think better of it, brushing it back, letting it slip through my fingers.
It’s softer than it has any right to be.
She shifts in her sleep, the smallest sigh escaping her lips.
Her body begins to wriggle closer, like a sunflower to the sun’s rays, her face nuzzling ever so slightly into my touch.
The tenderness twists in me like a knife.
I force out a strained breath. My palm drips down the slope of her shoulder, the dip of her collarbone, the flat, quivering plane of her sternum. Her skin is warm. She is always warm. I cup her small, pert breast, kneading carefully.
My wife.
Her lips curl. I stare hard, grappling, gauging if she’s awoken at my touch. But no, she hasn’t. She’s smiling… in her sleep. That’s what her inner life affords her. That is who I’ve tied my life to. A precocious beauty with a sweet cunt and sweeter dreams.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, flipping flat to my back to scowl at the ceiling, unable to bear the sight of her.
Except I underestimate how much my body’s mass undulates the mattress, jostling both our bodies, like it’s one of those preposterous waterbeds. I hear Noa’s breath catch. And I can’t help myself. My head turns to her instantly.
She’s stirring—and she squirms even closer, half-conscious, as she begins to blink heavily. Hazily. Her brows knit together, puckering, and her tongue darts out to wet her lips. The sight of her… Fuck, it just makes something inside of my fucking snap.
“Fuck it.” I rip the covers the rest of the way off her body, baring her anew to my gaze.
Noa shifts, a soft breath escaping her, her body shifting as the cool midnight air assaults it.
As if her very instincts are shy, a thigh slips over the other, tucking the view of her pussy away in the crisscross crease it forms. The slow drag of consciousness wrenches her toward wakefulness when my fingers catch on the back of her knee—but it isn’t immediate; she is still caught somewhere in the haze between sleep and reality.
Her lashes flutter, a muted moan forming at the back of her throat.
Whether it’s protest or agreement, I don’t know.
I roll over her, bearing down against her when I wrench her knees apart. Her eyes widen, locking on mine. It doesn’t last long. My head drops to lap lazily at her nipple, coaxing the cool bud hard before pulling away with a harsh suck.
Just the sight of her has my cock full and rock hard all over again. I press at her entrance, spreading her with the thick head of my cock. There’s no need to tease her. It’s glistening with her wetness already.
“Mat—” her breath hitches. It’s soaked in need.
I don’t need to hear more. I thrust forward in a hard drive of hips that sheathes me completely in impossible, divine heat.
Her pussy clenches at my cock needily. My hands grip at her hips, hoisting them when I pull her off my length, rising on my haunches just to yank her back on.
She chokes on a sweet cry, her lithe fingers reaching up to clutch at my arms, her nails breaking skin as she writhes beneath me.
“You sleep so fucking easy, Noa,” I snarl at her, unable to help myself, building up thrusts she takes like she was fucking made for it. She bulges where I make room inside her. “Makes me wonder if no one’s been fucking you hard enough.”
The sound that leaves her, then…
Noa lets out a strangled moan, clawing at my skin wherever she can reach.
Her lids droop like she’s still drowsy. I’d say her body is wide fucking awake.
I can feel it in the way she grips at me—the way she responds to each thrust with a tilt of her pelvis, meeting me, her legs shaking due to the angle I hold her aloft at.
I grit my teeth and push deeper, bending my head to lap my tongue over hard buds again, starting with the one I’ve neglected, like both haven’t been begging for my mouth all night.
I play with her. Teasing, licking, sucking.
Making her cry out for me, my name, for God, more, until none of it is intelligible any longer.
Just needy little sobs that beg for nothing she has a name for.
“You were fucking made for this, you know that?”
“Matías,” she whines, trying to speak.
Her mouth grapples with words that just may come.
Not if I have a fucking say in it.
I wrap my hand at her jaw, pinching her mouth open to tangle my tongue with hers, growling, “Don’t fight me.
Take it, baby,” giving her my weight, shoving at her knee till its shoved to her chest, her body folding in on itself.
The other, I hook over my shoulder. I fuck into her harder still, holding her in place for each new thrust her pussy stretches for.
Noa’s whines, those broken little cries, turn to screams.
Her nails make a battlefield of my back—and it’s fucking worth it to drag her hand between us, mindlessly brushing where we are joined, her eyes rolled so far back into her skull all I can see is the whites.
“Feel how wet you are,” I order. “Feel how much your body loves this…” Her whole body jerks like the words are a jolt of electricity. I feel the same about the way she moans, her fingers etching delicate circles into her puffy clit between us.
I can tell it isn’t the first time she’s touched herself. It’s more interesting a fact than how many pages she can read a minute.
Grinning, I bite at her swollen lips. “Come for me, Noa,” I plead with her, voice raw.
Her moan shatters, her back arching in pleasure that inundates every inch of her slick, sweat-glossed body. The climax tears through her, her pussy tightening around my cock, convulsions wracking her frame passionately, making her shake against our sheets.
It grits my teeth and blows my fucking mind, watching the silent cry her mouth gasps around. Over how fucking ruined she is for me.
My own release slams into me sideways, brutal, relentless. I bury the groan in the hollow of her throat, milking it thrust after thrust, spilling inside her, claiming that pussy as mine.
All mine. Forever.
“Fuck, Noa,” I rasp a final time before my body collapses against hers. She’s still panting when I roll off her, lest I crush her beneath my weight. Her eyes are glazed as she stares off into nothing.
There’s no staunching my smirk when my lips brush over her temple. At least now I’m not the only one awake—or haunted. “Now you can go back to sleep, esposa,” I say.
I don’t expect the shaky, breathless giggle that escapes her. “A week late,” she sputters. “But still…”
It isn’t often that one finds me at a loss. But I’m undoubtedly at one right now, watching her rosy cheeks rounded and the flash of her pearly white teeth while she shakes with laughter. “Pardon?”
My heart jerks to a standstill when she turns to face me.
I’m not sure I care to know what she sees across my face—but it’s no comfort when her laughter tapers off, leaving tenderness and humor sitting in the upturned corners of her lips.
Her eyes are already falling shut. “We consummated our marriage,” she breathes out, exhaustion tugging her back under, wave after wave. “A week late... But it’s good.”
“It’s—” I blurt stupidly.
But she’s already slipped back under.