Gant
Peace. Now that my dove’s descended upon me, that’s all I feel because all is right with the world again.
Almost.
I ignore my phone buzzing on the vanity as Bart’s name rolls across the screen. Instead, I cradle my little doll against my chest and turn off the blow-dryer as the last lock of her hair falls to her shoulder, completely dry.
She moans at the warm touch, her head lulling against my arm.
“Are you sleepy, baby?” I ask.
She nods against me, her limbs growing heavier by the second.
Of course, she’s sleepy. I made sure of it with that drink. She’s here now, but there’s no way I’m taking a chance that she won’t be here tomorrow. I don’t just mean in the penthouse but in this realm.
Nightmarish images of my dove looking so lovingly at the IV line assault me as I scoop her up in my arms and carry her to our bed. I can’t stay awake forever, so if I sleep, my baby sleeps too, and I need to sleep desperately because I haven’t in days. Not since I lost her.
And I’ll never lose her again.
I catch a glimpse of us in the standing mirror and drink in the view of her crossed ankles, her knees hooked over my arm, her slit so fat and perfect, pressed between her thighs and still glistening.
I lay her softly on the bed and reach for her favourite lotion before squirting it over her, neck to ankles. The shimmery white reminds me of my artwork just a few moments before. She flinches at the cold, but a second later, I’m warming her, rubbing every centimetre of her skin as her eyelids droop. When I reach her feet, I hook them over my shoulder and take turns massaging them with the medicinal balm the doctor prescribed for pain and swelling.
She’s gazing at me so sweetly, her tits rising and falling with every slow breath, her pussy bald and spread, when I finally lower her legs she’s too weak to press together.
“A shirt?” she mumbles softly as I slide the blanket over my shoulders before descending upon her so that we’re flushed, her warm pussy French kissing the head of my cock. My bent knee keeps most of my weight off of her, and my right arm cradles her head so I can play with her strands until sleep takes me too.
“Skin-to-skin is the best form of healing,” I say, kissing her parted lips. “That’s how you healed so fast to run away from me.” I slide down to suck on her nipples until my eyes grow heavy as that perfect, rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts lure me into a blissful slumber.
◆◆◆
My cock is dry and my chest isn’t pressed against pillowy tits but the pillow top mattress instead. It hadn’t been that way an hour ago when I’d woken up, only to fall right back into heaven with Elle still warm, beating and pinned beneath me.
I spring up, tug on the nearest sweatpants, and bolt for the living room, my heart thundering in my ears. I fiddle with my phone, blindly opening the video surveillance app as I scan the living room and kitchen.
She has to be here. The lift won’t work without my keycard I’d hidden, and the emergency exit to the stairs would’ve let off a ring so shrill it could wake the dead.
A cool breeze rustles my hair, and ice rushes through my veins as I storm back into the living room and peer out the open balcony doors. It’s empty.
No. She wouldn’t have —
But she wanted to in the hospital, and that was merely days ago.
Fear grips my throat as my bare feet slide across the textured, graphic tile of the balcony. I will myself to not believe it even as I peer over the railing. I’m so high up that I can’t make out the details of the street below, but what’s clearly absent are flashing blue lights and hundreds of spectators.
A painful gasp of relief escapes my lips as my stomach resettles, but not for long. I’m about to tear through the surveillance app when something catches my eye. An ajar door. The theatre’s ajar door. Fuck.
I’d forgotten to lock it after our shower. The last thing I needed was for her to stumble across the death portrait when death was already on her mind.
There’s a trail leading to the doors, my mother’s letters I’d shredded, and I know she’s followed them like breadcrumbs. Because of my pet, Jarett, I’d held off on any staff coming over to clean and while I could damn well pick up after myself, I couldn’t touch those letters. They burned my skin and my eyes every time I saw the slanted handwriting. The destroyed evidence left behind of someone I’d never see again.
Elle doesn’t glance up when I first enter the dark room. She’s too preoccupied reading the fragmented letters without a hint of shame at being caught. She looks so damn cosy in one of my long-sleeved sleeping shirts.
“Don’t you know that following a trail someone else has set is a trap?”
“I’m already here in your lair…” her eyes drift to the tanks. “Or your aquarium? I didn’t know you liked fish.”
“I like to watch them swim.”
“But there aren’t any.”
“I had to say goodbye before Beaulieu.”
“ Oh .”
“Don’t worry. It went to a doting home.”
She nods before refocusing on the papers. “These are letters from your mother? She had another son?”
“You read my letters?” I stall. Instead of her, I look at the corpse portrait that Elle has already become accustomed to because she’s still here with her.
Aria read those letters, and I had to explain them to her, but Elle took one look at those endearing descriptions that didn’t match me, and it was crystal clear to her.
“Yes,” she says unapologetically. “I didn’t think we had many boundaries left between us. Besides, you said to make myself at home and that nothing was off limits,” she says at my cock pointedly.
“And I meant it.”
“Then?” She lifts a scrap of paper.
I make her straddle me before spreading her ass cheeks so that they warm my hardening cock like a bun. Then, I rest my chin between her tits and sync my breathing with hers. I can’t talk. Not yet.
I’ve wanted to share this secret with Elle and only Elle. Had Aria not come along, I wouldn’t have told any of the horsemen. I don’t know why. Pride? I’d always held my mother in such high regard. Having a kid didn’t change that, but having a kid, a prince that I thought was me this whole time, did.
I was never special.
“,” she runs her soft fingers through my hair. “There’s no escape for us, right? You said our lives are irrevocably intertwined.”
I kiss her, and she lets me. It damn near hurts to pull back as I release her lip from between my teeth a few seconds later. “Absolutely no escape.”
“Then…if we’re fated to be together, I don’t want any more secrets between us.”
Fated? Fated… I love the way that sounds.
“I would’ve told you, but you wouldn’t speak to me. Look at me. Spit on me. Whoever found those shoes is going to hurt far more than any wound they’ve inflicted on you, and I know they were excruciating.”
She nods slowly, her eyes finding mine. “I want you to find them.”
That takes me by surprise. “You do?”
“I said you were from the underworld. I said you were a demon, a monster, and I need a monster to do what I can’t.”
She’s too sweet when I sink my tongue into her mouth for another kiss. What have I done to deserve her? What will I do to keep her?
Anything.
“I think I’m ready to listen now,” she says when we break. “If I give you this chance…do you promise not to hide anything from me from now on?”
I swallow hard. A chance or not, I’d break her heart open and force myself back in, but would she let me in willingly?
“Why? What changed since last night?”
She adverts her eyes suddenly lost in thought. I squeeze her ass tighter, pulling her flusher against me.
“Dove, what happened in that house with Jaime and Jarett? She always chose Jarett. Why was last night so different?”
“Because…this time, she chose him even though he’s utterly worthless to her now.”
“What do you mean?”
She chuckles, but there’s no humour, just a hollow emptiness. “Before I could make an excuse, even if it was lame. Like, she wants him around to help with bills even if he only gives her a hundred this month. Or I’d think, maybe she’s dick-whipped and so utterly lonely that she would rather have the devil she knows versus the one she doesn’t. But Jarett can’t work now, or fuck.” Her eyes flash to mine. “And if he can, it’d be like…she was taking advantage of him because I don’t think he has any concept of self any more.”
I stroke her hair back from her cheek.
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know. I was only there for a few minutes, but he wasn’t on a normal high. It wasn’t like he was acting like an animal; I think he thinks he is an animal. The way he spoke, his fragmented thoughts…it’s like he’s brain-damaged, and I think Jaime likes it in some twisted way.”
“Because now Jarett can be her baby forever?” I ask, but of course, I already know. I’d already foreseen it, planned it.
She nods, her eyes growing wet. “She already had a baby, but she didn’t want her. Not like she wants him.”
“You finally saw it with your own two eyes.”
“I always knew it, but having her choose him outright cemented it for me. If Jarett had run out the front door that night, she would’ve chased after him. She knew what predators lurked in the dark. She knew you were lurking after what happened at the play, and she didn't even look to see if I made it down that dark street okay. Because her baby was babbling.”
“What was he saying?”
“Variations of my name, and isn’t that funny? ”
“He’s lost his mind,” I say. I know I had.
“I finally get it. She won’t ever love me.” Her eyes flicker to the portrait, and the tears she’d been holding back finally brim over. “I’m sorry she’s gone. I hated her as a teacher, but you loved her as a mother, and not having a mother’s love isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. Not even someone I hated.”
“Do you hate me, dove?”
“I tell myself I do.”
“No more secrets, remember?” I whisper. “Not even to yourself.”
“I tell myself I do,” she repeats. “But it’s a lie. No matter how much I want to hate you, I can’t. You play on my greatest weakness.”
“Being seen?”
She nods, a tear rolling down her nose onto mine before it falls onto my lips, and I lick the salty taste away.
I told her I’d drink them all.