Chapter Rafferty
Rafferty
I wake up hard.
That's not unusual. What's unusual is the reason. There's a woman in my bed. Warm, naked, pressed against me with her back to my chest and her ass tucked against my groin in a way that makes thinking about anything other than the obvious completely impossible.
Nadia is still asleep. Her breathing is slow and even, her body relaxed in a way I haven't felt from her before.
Not the wound-tight, bracing-for-impact tension she carried the first time I met her.
Or the fragile, careful stillness of the morning she let me into her parents' house. This is real sleep.
Her brown hair is fanned across my pillow. The bruise on her cheek has deepened overnight, purple and blue against her skin, and seeing it makes my knuckles ache with the memory of what I did about it. My hand rests on her hip, my thumb tracing the curve of her waist.
Morning light pours through a gap between the curtains. The estate is quiet. I can hear birds outside and the faint sound of someone moving in the kitchen downstairs. Ma, probably. She's always the first one up.
Nadia shifts in her sleep. Her hips press back against me and my cock throbs against the curve of her ass and I close my eyes and try to think about something else. Anything else. The seating chart for the wedding. Liam's voice on the phone. The weather.
She shifts again. Deliberate this time.
"You're awake," I say.
"Mm." She presses back against me, slow and lazy, and the sound she makes is somewhere between a sigh and a hum. Then she stills. I feel the exact moment she registers what's pressed against her. "Again?"
I exhale a laugh against the back of her neck. "You sound surprised."
"I am surprised." She rolls onto her back and looks up at me.
Her eyes are sleepy, her hair is a mess, the bruise on her cheek is vivid in the morning light, and she's smiling. It’s the kind of smile I haven't seen from her before.
Lazy and warm and completely unguarded. "We went three rounds last night.
How can you possibly need to go again already? "
"You're lying next to me naked." I prop myself up on my elbow and look down at her. The sheet has slipped to her waist and the morning light is painting her skin gold. Her breasts, the dip of her collarbone, the small mark on her neck from my mouth last night. "How can you possibly be surprised?"
She laughs, full and bright and it fills the room in a way that makes my chest do something I'm not equipped to handle.
I've heard her cry. I've heard her whisper.
I've heard her moan my name in the shower with her legs around my waist. But this is the first time I've heard her laugh, and it hits me harder than any of the rest.
"Fair point," she says.
I trace my finger along her collarbone. Down the center of her chest. Slowly. Watching the goosebumps rise on her skin, watching her breath catch, and the laughter in her eyes shift to something darker and warmer.
"How's your cheek?" I ask.
"Sore." She touches it lightly. "How are your hands?"
I flex my fingers. My knuckles are stiff and swollen, the skin tight over bruises that go down to the bone. "Functional."
"Functional." She reaches up and takes my hand, examining the damage. Split skin, dried blood, purple and black bruising across every knuckle. She presses her lips to the worst of it. The gesture is so tender it makes something crack open behind my ribs.
"Stop looking at me like that," I tell her.
"Like what?" she asks, lifting her eyes up and looking through her lashes.
"Like I'm a good man."
"You are a good man." She slides my hand back down to cup her breast and I squeeze it lightly, brushing the pad of my thumb over her nipple.
"I beat someone to death twelve hours ago."
"For me." She laces her fingers through mine, careful around the swelling. "You did it for me. That doesn't make you bad, Rafferty. It makes you mine."
I stare at her. This woman. Bruised face, tangled hair, lying in my bed in the morning light saying the exact thing I didn't know I needed to hear.
A week and a half ago I was in Dublin, dodging my brother's calls, convinced that marriage was a cage the Council was locking me into.
Now I'm lying next to a woman who makes me feel like I've been looking for something my whole life without knowing what it was, and she just handed it to me like it was obvious.
"Five days," she says softly.
I lean down and press my lips to her forehead. "Five days until you're my wife."
She lifts her face up. "That seems like a long time from now."
I brush a strand of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear. "It does."
"We should practice," she says with a grin.
"Practice what?"
Her smile turns wicked. "The wedding night." She hooks her leg over my hip and pulls me against her until my cock presses against the heat between her thighs and my brain short-circuits.
She rolls her hips against me and the friction makes us both groan. "Unless your hands are too sore."
"My hands are fine."
"Then stop talking, Rafferty, and touch me."
I kiss her. Slow at first, careful of her split lip, tasting the warmth of her mouth and the small sound she makes when my tongue finds hers.
Her fingers slide into my hair and grip.
Her hips move against mine with purpose, seeking the pressure, finding it, rocking against the length of my cock until I'm gritting my teeth.
I roll us over and pull back just enough to look at her. "Tell me what you want."
"You. Like this. Facing you. I want to watch."
I settle between her thighs. She opens for me, knees falling apart, her hand sliding down between us to wrap around my cock. She guides me to her entrance, slick and hot, and looks straight into my eyes.
"Slow," she whispers. "I want to feel every inch."
I don’t push inside her yet. I sit back on my heels instead, hands gentle on her knees, and spread her legs wider.
The morning light hits her perfectly. Golden across her stomach, her thighs, the soft, pink perfection of her pussy already glistening for me.
I just look. Drink her in like a man dying of thirst.
“Fuck, Nadia,” I breathe, voice rough. “Look at you. So fucking pretty. So wet already and I haven’t even touched you yet.”
She bites her swollen lip, cheeks flushing darker. Her hands fist the sheets but she doesn’t close her legs. She lets me stare, lets me worship with my eyes the way she deserves.
I slide my palms up the inside of her thighs, thumbs brushing the crease where leg meets body.
Then I use my fingers to part her pussy lips slowly, exposing every slick inch of her.
She’s pink and shiny and perfect, clit already pebbled and begging.
I stroke one thick finger up through her folds, spreading her wetness, circling her clit with a feather-light touch.
She gasps, hips twitching.
“So sensitive,” I murmur. “This little pussy is already dripping for me. You want my mouth on you?”
“Yes,” she breathes. “Please.”
I lower myself between her thighs, shoulders spreading her wider. I hook my arms under her knees and push her legs back and open, stretching her completely so nothing is hidden from me. Then I lean in and drag my tongue through her in one long, slow lick from her entrance to her clit.
She cries out, back arching.
I groan against her. “Taste so fucking good. Sweet and mine.” I do it again, slower, savoring her. Then I seal my mouth over her clit and suck gently while my tongue flicks. Two fingers slide into her tight heat, curling, stroking that spot inside her that makes her thighs quiver.
I eat her like I have all the time in the world. Long, lazy licks. Deep, filthy sucks. Fingers pumping slow and steady. Every time her breathing speeds up and her walls start to flutter around me, I pull back just enough to keep her on the edge, never letting her tip over.
“Rafferty—fuck—please,” she whines after the third time I edge her, hips grinding desperately against my face. “I need to come. I’m so close—”
“Not yet.” I pull my fingers out and spread her open again with both hands, thumbs holding her lips apart so I can watch her clench around nothing. “I want you dripping down my chin before I let you come. I want you shaking and begging and so fucking desperate you forget your own name.”
I dive back in, tongue fucking into her while my thumbs stroke the sides of her clit. She’s begging now, fingers twisted in my hair, thighs trembling violently around my head. I edge her twice more, bringing her right to the brink and then backing off until she’s crying out in frustration.
When I finally slide three fingers back inside her and suck her clit hard at the same time, she shatters.
“Rafferty—oh god—I’m com’—fuck—!”
Her whole body locks up, pussy pulsing around my fingers, flooding my tongue. I don’t stop. I work her through it, licking and sucking until she’s boneless and whimpering.
Only then do I crawl up her body, cock heavy and leaking against her thigh. I brace myself over her, one hand cupping her bruised cheek with impossible gentleness.
“Look at me,” I rasp.
Her eyes flutter open, glassy and wrecked and full of trust.
I notch the head of my cock at her entrance and push in slowly, just like she asked. Inch by thick inch, stretching her open until I’m buried to the hilt, balls pressed tight against her ass.
“Fuck,” I groan. “So tight. So fucking perfect. This pussy was made for me. You feel that? Every inch of me owning you.”
She moans, nails digging into my shoulders. “More. Give me more. Please.”
I start to thrust in deep, deliberate strokes that drag over every sensitive spot inside her.
“That’s it, Nadia. Take my cock. Take every fucking inch like the good little wife you’re going to be.
This cunt is mine now. No one else ever gets to touch it.
No one else ever gets to make you come like this. ”
I pick up the pace, hips snapping harder, the wet slap of skin filling the room.
“I can barely control myself around you. I’m going to fuck you full every morning.
Wake you up with my tongue and my cock until you can’t remember what it felt like to be anything other than mine.
You’re going to come on me again, Nadia.
Right now. Milk my cock while I fill you up. ”
Her walls clamp down around me, the second orgasm ripping through her with a broken cry. I follow her over the edge, burying myself deep and coming hard, pulsing inside her as I whimper her name like a desperate plea.