Chapter 25
MICHAEL
I kiss her like a desperate, starving man. One who hasn’t known the true power, nor the intensity, two people can create when they feel this much for one another.
And with Elsie, I feel like the world is mine. Because she is that world, and I hadn’t been living in it until she came along and showed me how beautiful it can be.
To kiss someone seems like it’s nothing—two mouths meeting—but with her, it’s everything I’ve been missing. Every single piece of the puzzle that has come undone is slowly returning to its rightful place.
I don’t even remember the last time I did it. It didn’t mean a damn thing before I made the promise to never do it again, not until it meant more. And with Elsie, more isn’t even enough of a word to define what my heart feels in this moment.
I nip and suck on her bottom lip, groaning as she does too, rocking her hips on top of me.
My palm fists her hair, and I slant her head, deepening our connection, needing it to fill the very marrow of my bones.
My cock lies heavy and throbbing between us, my skin alive as though breathing for the first time.
Everything is somehow heightened. My body. My heart. My soul. I feel it all. Really feel it for the first time.
And I know with a certainty no one can break that after today, there’s no one else I’ll ever kiss again but Elsie Marino.
ELSIE
He groans as he presses my mouth deeper into his, kissing me with every passion that’s been gathering between us, like a combustible flame waiting for just the right spark.
His hands rough the fabric of my shirt, fingers riding up my back, into my hair, tugging, pulling. His tongue demands entrance as I hum out a moan, my nails scoring his back, his shoulders, anywhere I can touch him.
This all-consuming need flitters through me, and all I want is him. I want to bare myself to him in every sense of the word. I want to be his, and I want him to be mine, if only in this moment.
His mouth grows more urgent, teeth tugging my lower lip, sucking on my tongue. I’ve never been kissed like this in my entire life. It’s like a possession, like he wants to mark himself on my skin forever, so that I never forget what kissing him felt like.
And I know he’s succeeded. No one can top this. The way I feel right now, it’s his until the day that I die.
“Please,” I cry when his mouth sucks on my jaw, teeth raking my skin as I rock my hips against him.
He growls under his raspy breath, tongue riding from my throat to my lips.
“What are you asking for?” He brushes his lips to mine. “Use that smart mouth of yours, little dove.”
“You know what I’m asking for.” I barely get the words out.
“You wanna see how good we fit together, don’t you, baby?”
“Yes,” I gasp as he bows his cock right into my clit, fisting my hair in a rough palm, narrowing a beastly gaze at me.
“Then I’ll show you.” He flips me over in one fluid motion, settling on his knees before me, spreading my thighs open.
His palm rides my pussy, delving into me as I moan, my nails digging into the mattress beneath.
“You just tell me how you want it.”
His nostrils flare as I whimper his name, needing to come again from the way he touches me, my panties creating even more friction.
“I want you to make me feel again. Break me from my cage and let me fly.”
“I’m gonna do that, little dove. I’m gonna have you soaring.” With his index finger, he flips my panties to the side, staring at my core as he swirls a finger around my clit, sending a jolt down my spine. “I’m gonna fuck this pussy so good, you’re never going to forget me.”
The tip of his thick finger enters me as I buck against it, and he keeps it there, teasing the hell out of me.
My brows snap when his steely gaze goes to mine.
“I’m going to fuck you every day that you’re my wife,” he promises. “Until you’re not. Until every man after will never compare. Until you’re alone in bed, remembering me while your hands are touching what will forever be mine.”
I can barely breathe. His words, the way he touches me…it all becomes too much. It all makes me quiver and ache and want everything. Because I don’t want anyone else but him.
Slipping his hand away, he searches for something in the drawer of the nightstand. And in his hand is a condom.
He pauses, staring right at me, and the intensity I find there…it’s too much. I heave a gasping breath. My chest grows heavy, my pulse drumming in my ears.
He roughly lowers his pants and tears off the wrapper of the condom with his teeth, all the while keeping our gazes locked.
My stomach rolls watching him as he seats himself fully into it, tossing the wrapper on the floor. He spreads my legs open, rolling his fingers up and down my inner thighs.
“So soft,” he whispers. “So beautiful.”
I pant, gripping the sheets. His palms tuck under the back of my knees, and he pulls my hips up into the air, his cock nudging at my entrance.
And that familiar fear, it tethers to me. I snap my eyes shut, tightening my lips together.
“Shhh,” he lulls. “I’ve got you, baby. I’m right here. You’re safe. They don’t get to come between us. You’re mine now.”
That has me slowly lifting up my lashes, finding no danger here. Not even a hint of it as I stare at this stranger who somehow became more.
“Concentrate on me, my little dove. It’s just us here. Just you and me and what we feel.”
“Do it,” I say, focusing on his face, his eyes, needing the intimacy of this moment.
He grinds his jaw as he slowly pushes the crown of his cock inside me inch by inch.
“Fuuuck…” he hisses, stroking my clit with his thumb.
“Keep going,” I gasp.
He continues until he’s halfway inside.
“Please,” I groan. “Just do it hard.”
He growls under his breath, teeth gritted. Both hands encompass my hips, fingers biting into my flesh, and with one hard stroke, he slams himself fully inside me until I let out a cry. The pleasure twines with pain, and I like both. I want both. And he gives it all to me.
His thrusting drives deeper while I try to keep my voice low, not sure why I’m afraid to show him how much I enjoy it. He grunts, his cock surging thicker, hitting me so deep, I can’t help the whimpering moans that escape me.
“That’s it, let me hear you.” He lowers his body forward and perches himself on his elbows, dropping my thighs as he gazes at me with aching tenderness, his hips slowing a fraction. “It’s okay to enjoy your husband’s cock. It’s okay to feel good, Elsie.”
He circles his pelvis, and my mouth parts.
“Because this is good. You look damn gorgeous wrapped around me.”
He cups my face with his free hand, his thumb stroking my parted lips, and slowly, he lowers his mouth to mine and steals my gasps away, his tongue not asking for an invitation as it sinks into me, tasting me as he groans in approval.
His thrusts deepen, the pace increasing with the desire spilling from his lips.
My hands go to his back, gliding downward until my fingertips sink into the hardened muscle of his ass.
His teeth tug at my lower lip, and his grunting turns animalistic. “Now that I’ve had a taste of what it feels like to be with you, I’ll never get enough.”
“Michael…” I cry.
My brows snap as he rams so fast, the sensations in my body become too much, like fireworks crackling. I close my eyes on impulse, my core clutching tightly around him.
But he slows his movements. “Open those beautiful eyes and let me watch you come.”
I do what I’m told. My body is his to command. He knows just what to say to make me even needier.
And as he lifts up, back on his knees, he bends my thighs until they’re beside my shoulder and lets go. He plunders deeper. Faster. Losing all control. Those eyes never separating from mine.
“Fuck, fuck!” I scream as heat washes over me with a red-hot current, spreading from my chest down to my fingers and toes, until I tremble, until I fall. “Michael!”
His name on my lips has him grunting, pounding into me as sweat coats his brows.
The release rolls through me like wave after wave of unsurmountable pleasure.
“Damn perfect,” he groans as he flips me over until I’m on top of him, and he’s still completely hard and inside me.
“Ride my cock, baby.” He grabs my throat, bowing his hips hard, rotating them.
The need to come again has me spinning out of control.
My palms land on his chest as I start to move, circling my hips around him, not sure what I’m even doing.
The men, they took all the power. We were helpless. We were nothing to them. They demeaned us. Hurt us.
But with Michael, there’s no pain. There’s only pleasure.
My fingernails run up to his neck and I clasp it tight, feeling the vein there throb as our eyes align. And once I move faster, bouncing up and down his cock, he fires a curse, clenching his teeth. His other hand snaps to the back of my neck, and he yanks me to him and kisses me.
I move faster, owning the power that’s been taken from me. I’m the one who fucks him, my release cusping to the edge. I’ve never wanted a man to come inside me this badly before, condom or not.
With them, I was forced to take the pill, and the men always wore condoms, or they were kicked out of the club. Being with them made me sick.
But with Michael, I find myself craving him bare. I want him spilling inside me without a barrier.
“Fuck!” he snaps, his orgasm mine as I capture his lips and let him have me.
I can feel him grow thicker, our bodies meeting in hard slaps of skin on skin, and the friction to my clit has me begging him to fuck me harder.
He does. He takes over, thrusting so rapidly I scream, his fist tightening around my throat.
“Michael!”
“That’s right, baby,” he roars against my lips as he chases his own release.
Faster. Deeper.
Yes…
I feel it the moment he comes, shooting inside me. His thumb rubs the erratic beat of my pulse while he kisses me, nipping my lower lip, unhurried passion treading through us until his movements slow, until he’s given me every drop.
He removes his hand from around my neck, mouth feathering against the corner of my lips, then my jaw as his chest rises higher with each breath.
“How am I supposed to let you go now?” He kisses in between my breasts, his heartbeats pounding over my palm. “The mere thought of anyone but me touching you has me wanting to commit murder.”
He groans, wrapping an arm around the small of my back, and drags me against him, his searing breaths teasing my lips.
“My heart feels like it’s going to rip right out of my chest, Elsie.” His voice drops. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
The way he just said that…
“Michael,” I practically cry.
My heart tosses with pummeling beats.
I’ve never felt this way before either.
I know what I could be giving up if I leave him. Him wanting to kill because of what I do to him should have me scared, but it does the opposite. It only makes me feel more cherished.
His jealousy, the confession of what I make him feel is all I hear, until it consumes me, saturates my soul until it’s all I want. To be desired to this magnitude.
He kisses my temple, another arm slinging over my back as he holds me tightly, bound to him. I roll my hand up and down his arm, listening to his heart beating like mad because of me.
And my heart? It beats just the same, as though our rhythms are symbiotic, joined as one.
A knot forms in my gut. I don’t want to hope. I don’t want to dream. I want to go back to the woman I was when I first met him, the one who didn’t dream of silly things like a future with a man. Because men…they hurt women like me.
But Michael hasn’t hurt me, has he?
Neither of us says anything for a while. We just listen contently to each other’s breaths, to the quiet melody of our heartbeats.
“Are you okay?” He cuts through the silence, kissing the top of my head.
“Too good, in fact.”
But there’s more I want to say, like how imagining him with someone else kills me too. That he makes me hope and wish, and I’ve always been afraid of both.
His chuckle rumbles in his chest, and I hold on to him just a little tighter.
“So, twenty, huh?” I ask, trying to pivot the conversation. “Why was that the last time you kissed someone?”
I find that incredibly hard to believe, but as soon as he told me, I knew it was the truth.
He takes a long pull of a breath. “That was the first time I saw my father having an affair.”
I jolt upward, my brows arching, and he gives me a weakened smile.
“He was all over a woman at a bar my friends and I happened to go to that evening. His mouth was all over her, someone who wasn’t my mother.
He was kissing her like he kissed my mom.
Like it meant nothing at all. When I confronted him, he laughed and brushed it off, saying that one day I’d understand.
But I knew from that moment…” He sighs heavily, shaking his head.
“I didn’t want to be like him, and I swore an oath that the next time I kissed a woman, it'd mean something. That when I finally found that woman, I’d never kiss anyone else again. ”
Did he just say...
I gasp. “And I mean something?”
The word is a mere whisper as tears fill my eyes.
No, I can’t possibly…
“Fuck, little dove…” He places his palms on the back of my head as he lowers my forehead to his. “You do. And I’m sorry for that.”
Why would he be sorry? I mean something to a man, and it’s not because he paid for me. A quiet sob pours out of me; I’m unable to contain it.
He brushes his lips over my mouth, rocking his hips against me, like he wants to permanently attach himself to every inch of my skin.
And I’d let him. I’d give him everything.
My chest squeezes. This is too much. These feelings…I don’t know what to do with them.
“After Bianca, my brother’s wife, died, I swore off relationships completely.
Before that, I had wanted a mother for Sophia, but none of the women were what my daughter needed.
But the desire to give her the mother she deserves vanished the moment I realized I’d only be putting another person in danger.
And Sophia would be left mourning another person she loved.
But seeing you with her, and how happy she is… For a moment, I saw it.”
“Saw what?” I whisper.
“Saw what it could be like. The three of us.”
His hand cradles my cheek, and it rests there as he stares deep into my eyes, undoing every crevice of doubt festering within my head. The ones telling me how wrong we are for one another.