50. MISCALCULATION
alistair
Yes I’m drunk, but never enough to think it would cloud my judgment or dull my senses.
At least, that’s what I’d believed.
I’d calculated the alcohol carefully—just enough to make the act convincing for Ariella. Just enough to sell the performance without surrendering total control of myself in the process.
Apparently, I miscalculated the effect alcohol would have on me when Ariella is this close.
Somehow, we stumble into her apartment without caring about anything beyond the fact that our mouths refuse to separate.
I barely remember driving us here. Barely remember deciding that her apartment was the better option.
Leaving her bike behind was deliberate.
I wasn’t about to let her ride home in this state. I also had no intention of leaving her alone long enough to arrange another way back. The bike can wait until morning. She can’t.
Besides, neither of us seems particularly eager to return to my mansion tonight.
Not after what happened there.
She was so dazed she didn’t even point out that I was driving in the opposite direction from my place. Then again, after the show I put on back at the club, I can hardly blame her.
Even my own thoughts have been reduced to little more than fragments ever since.
Right now, her legs are wrapped tightly around my waist as I carry her through the door, kissing her the entire time.
The moment we’re inside, I kick the door shut behind us without breaking contact.
For some strange reason, I can’t stop kissing her. Neither can she.
Even during the drive, every red light became an excuse.
The moment the car rolled to a stop, she’d lean across the console, and I’d meet her halfway, our mouths finding each other as naturally as breathing.
Then the light would change, forcing us apart just long enough for me to focus on the road again. Reluctantly.
At least I’ve enough sense left not to get us killed.
Especially Ariella.
My hands refuse to stay still. They wander over every inch of exposed skin I can reach—tracing, gripping, feeling.
The smooth warmth of her thighs keeps drawing me back, partly because they’re impossible to ignore and partly because I need one arm beneath her to keep her upright.
Not that she’s any better. Her hands are everywhere—over my shoulders, down my back, along my jaw, through my hair.
She keeps dragging her fingers through my hair, making an already disastrous mess of it, yet every pull sends another wave of heat through me.
We simply can’t seem to get enough of each other. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to remember where one touch ends and the next begins.
I wonder if she’s had alcohol too. At this point, I can’t tell anymore. She tastes exactly like I do.
“Do you happen to have any drink?”
The question catches not only her but also me completely off guard. I stare at her for a moment, trying to remember why I asked in the first place.
“I—I do,” she says breathlessly. “In the freezer.”
I remember I need more drugs in my bloodstream to continue this for as long as it requires.
The apartment feels oddly distant as I navigate through it in a haze, eventually finding the kitchen. I open the freezer and grab the first bottle my hand lands on, not bothering to check what it actually is.
Then I’m moving again. The master bedroom door flies open beneath the force of my foot.
There’s no need to turn on the lights. The matching lamps on either side of the queen-sized bed cast enough of a golden glow to paint the room in soft shadows.
I don’t register anything else—the furniture or the décor, nor the photographs. Nothing.
The only thing my mind manages to focus on is the bed.
I cross the room in long strides and crash onto the mattress with her beneath me, careful enough to catch my weight on my arms to not crush her.
The bed dips sharply under us.
Ariella lets out a surprised breath against my mouth.
Even though she’s already in my arms, it still doesn’t feel close enough.
Hot breaths and ragged pants soon fill the room as she works her fingers through the remaining buttons of my shirt.
Our lips break apart only long enough for her to rip the fabric from my body, tossing it somewhere behind us.
Hungry gaze drags over every inch of my skin, drinking me in with shameless greed as if she’s seeing me for the first time.
Those pupils have swallowed the hazel whole, leaving behind nothing but a dark, intoxicating abyss that threatens to pull me under.
Suddenly, without warning, she shoves me backward.
The mattress dips beneath my weight as she climbs over me, knees bracketing my hips.
Heat bleeds through the thin barrier of our clothes. The warmth of her core presses against me and sinks straight into my bloodstream.
My cock stirs awake instantly, throbbing with painful insistence as it strains against my pants, demanding immediate attention.
My hand finds the back of her neck, fingers tangling into her golden-brown hair as I drag her down for another thorough kiss.
It turns savage almost immediately. Tongue and teeth. Biting and sucking. Just taking from each other with no giving in return.
Ariella kisses me back with equal desperation, deliberately grinding herself against my cock.
The friction tears a rough groan from my throat. My grip tightens involuntarily as pleasure flashes hot beneath my skin.
Then she’s moving lower.
Sloppy, open-mouthed kisses trail down my chest, across my sternum, over the ridges of my abs, each one damp and sensual.
If not for the fact that every trace of lipstick has long been kissed away, she would’ve left marks everywhere. Instead, only the natural color of her swollen lips remains, flushed darker from our relentless kissing.
Fuck. If she keeps this up, I might actually come in my pants.
Needing something—anything—to redirect my attention, I reach for the zipper on her back and pull it all the way down.
The moment the fabric slips off her small frame, she freezes. Eyes snap to mine, suddenly wide with bashfulness. Color floods her cheeks.
A sight so unexpected that it nearly makes me laugh.
“Shy now, little kitty?”
Her small palms clutched onto the discarded fabric against herself before glancing away. “I’m not wearing anything underneath.”
Her voice comes out so small, so uncertain, that for a moment I forget she’s the same girl who dragged a blade across Delilah’s throat without hesitation.
My hand rises to her face. I brush away the loose strands hanging from her ruined hairstyle, tucking them behind her ear.
The gesture feels strangely softer than I intended.
Before I can dwell on it, I hook an arm around her waist and roll us over in one swift motion, putting her beneath me once again.
A startled gasp escapes her, with her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath me.
One hand pins both of her wrists above her head while the other reaches to undo my belt.
“What are you gonna do, Alistair?”
“Do you trust me?”
Ariella slowly nods, no longer looking away from me. No longer hiding away that she wants me.
“Good kitty,” I pull the belt free of the loop and lean over her, wrapping the leather around her wrists before fastening them tightly together.
Her lips part, teeth catching her bottom lip.
My thumb immediately slides across the abused flesh, freeing it from between. “Only mine to bite.”
I lower my head and capture that lush lower lip between my own to prove my point. A rough tug makes her gasp, still careful not to break the delicate skin.
Surprisingly, I don’t want to hurt her anymore. The realization unsettles me more than the tender act itself.
Her cheeks burn brighter when I finally peel the remaining fabric from her body and toss it aside. With her bound hands, she can do nothing about it anymore.
For a second, neither of us moves.
Ariella looks almost delicate like this, all soft skin and flushed cheeks, resembling a fragile porcelain doll placed directly into the hands of the devil.
A doll that should fear me.
A doll that should run away from me.
Instead, she lies beneath me as a sacred offering, looking as though she wants to be ruined by me.
I take her in for a long moment before I finally bend down till my mouth finds her nipples.
My tongue circles the hardened peak before my lips close around it, sucking on it gently, drawing a shudder from her delicate body.
A soft moan escapes her lips, barely more than a breath. Satisfaction coils low in my body as I release her with a wet pop, leaving the sensitive flesh glistening beneath the dim light.
My attention drifts lower.
Removing her boots and socks, I make quick work of her skirt, sliding it down her legs and tossing it aside.
She doesn’t protest while I remove it, but the second my fingers hook into the waistband of her underwear, her thighs snap shut.
A possessive amusement curls through me.
“You’ve had your fill of staring at me, little kitty,” I murmur, dragging my knuckles along her outer thigh. “Seems only fair if I get to enjoy the view too.”
She still doesn’t budge.
Instead, the stubborn little thing actually pouts at me, earning a faint twitch of amusement from my lips.
“We can do this the easy way, or…” I let the threat trail off.
Taking one of her ankles into my hand, I lift her leg and start slowly dragging my tongue along the smooth length of it, from her foot, and moving upward.
By the time I reach her calf, her resistance crumbles—thighs parting on their own as though her body has decided obedience is the better option.
A smirk pulls at my mouth before I sink my teeth hard into her upper thigh, sucking on the bruised flesh.
The moan that tears from her throat is immediate and unfiltered, vibrating straight through my body.
The sight waiting beneath, after I finally peel off the damn underwear, steals air from my lungs for good.
For a few moments, I simply stare at her, my throat working around a hard swallow.
Her skin is flushed pink from neck to chest, her body trembling beneath mine as she squirms and stares up at me through hazy eyes.
My lips part slightly. She’s stunning.
The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
The most beautiful thing I will ever do.
Every coherent thought abandons me as the reality of it settles heavily in my chest.
This isn’t programming.
This isn’t a command she was designed to follow.
She’s responding to me, wanting me, turned on because of me.
My cock throbs painfully behind the confinement of my pants, straining so tightly against the fabric that every pulse feels like its own form of torture.
Every instinct inside me demands the same thing—to take, to claim, to bury myself balls deep inside her until I forget where she ends and I begin.
She’s a masterpiece. A work of impossible perfection.
Despite how violently every urge in me is pulling at its leash, I still know how to keep control.
For now.