Chapter 5 The Ritual #2
He did not leave her room. She did not leave her room. He brought food from the kitchen and fed her in bed. He made her drink wheatgrass, made her drink water, and made her rest between sessions.
The sessions came in waves, every few hours.
Sometimes fast and intense. Sometimes slow and deep.
Occasionally he took her from behind, her face pressed into the pillow, his hands on her hips, his cock driving into her while she gasped and begged.
Occasionally she rode him, straddling his lap, taking him deep while he watched her face and gripped her waist.
Each time, he stayed inside her afterward. He held her. He let his release do its work, his hands on her stomach, pressing, possessive.
"You're obsessed with my stomach," she said on the second night.
"I'm obsessed with everything about you." His palm spread flat against her lower belly. "But this. This is where it happens. Where our child grows. If it grows."
She covered his hand with hers. "You keep saying 'if.'"
"Because I don't take anything for granted. Not this. Not you."
She turned in his arms and faced him. His eyes were soft, unguarded. The military precision had cracked open. Underneath was something raw.
"What happened to the clinical approach?" she asked.
"You happened. I tried to keep it controlled. Optimize. Track. But every time I touch you, the plan unravels. I just want you. The data doesn't matter."
"It matters. It's why we're doing this."
"That's why we started. It's not why I'm here now."
She kissed him, soft and slow. His hand slid to the back of her neck, holding her close.
"I crave your control," she said. "I crave your control, especially in the way you tell me what to eat—the way you track my body." Your assertiveness is evident. I've never wanted that before. But with you, I crave it."
His grip tightened. "Why?"
"Because it's not about control. It's about focus. You focus on me like I'm the only thing that matters. Like my body is the only thing in the world worth paying attention to. Nobody's ever done that."
He pulled back and looked at her. His jaw worked.
"I've never paid attention to anything the way I pay attention to you," he said.
"In the field, I was good because I could shut everything out.
I focused on the mission. With you, I can't shut anything out.
I notice everything. Your breathing. Your pulse.
The way your pupils dilate when you're aroused.
The way your skin flushes when you're close. "
"That's not clinical."
"No. It's an obsession. I'm obsessed with you.
With your body. With the idea of my child inside you.
I think about it constantly. When I'm cooking.
When I'm reading. When I'm inside you. I think about my seed taking root.
Growing. I contemplate your belly swelling, your breasts changing.
I think about it, and I get hard, and I want to be inside you again. "
She felt the wetness build, the ache. "You're going to make me want you again."
"That's the plan." He rolled over and pulled her on top of him. She straddled his hips, feeling his cock beneath her, already hard and thick.
"Ride me," he said.
She positioned herself and took him inside, slow, inch by inch. His hands gripped her hips, guiding her. She rocked, ground against him, and took him deep.
His hands moved to her breasts, squeezing. His thumbs rubbed her nipples. She gasped. Her hips moved faster, grinding and rocking. The pressure built.
"Touch yourself," he said. "I want to feel you come while I'm inside you."
Her hand moved between her thighs, found her clit, pressed, and circled. She gasped. Her body tightened around him.
"That's it," he said. "Come for me. Let me feel it."
She broke. The climax rolled through her. Her body shuddered. Her walls clutched around him. She cried out, a trembling cry. Her body shook.
He gripped her hips, held her still, and thrust up, deep and hard. Three times. Four. Then he groaned. She felt him thicken. She felt the hot spurt, filling her, spilling out. His body shuddered beneath her.
She collapsed against his chest. His arms wrapped around her. His cock remained inside, still pulsing.
"Stay," he said.
"I'm not going anywhere."
The window closed on the seventh day.
She knew because he told her, matter-of-fact, over breakfast. The wheatgrass, eggs, and spinach she'd been eating for a week.
"Your temperature dropped this morning," he said. "The window is closed."
She set down her fork. "So we stop."
"For now. Two weeks. Then we test."
Two weeks. Fourteen days. It was the longest and shortest wait of her life.
She looked at him across the table. This man. This soldier. This stepbrother had spent a week inside her body. He fed her nutrients, tracked her temperature, and made her come until she could not think straight.
"What do we do for two weeks?" she asked.
"We live. We wait. We do not touch each other."
She felt the loss before it happened. "The contract specifies that we can only have sex during the fertile window."
"The contract says during the fertile window. I am honoring it."
"You'll go two weeks without touching me?"
His jaw tightened. "I will go two weeks without being inside you. Touching you is another thing."
"That is not what the contract says."
"I know. But I am not a machine. I cannot turn it on and off like a switch. I need the boundary for myself, not for you."
She understood. He maintained control all week. The precision, the tracking—it was his way of managing the obsession. Without the structure, he would be inside her every hour of every day. The boundary was not for her. The boundary was meant to prevent him from drowning.
"Okay," she said. "Two weeks. No sex. But you can still make me breakfast."
"Deal."
He stood and cleared the plates. She watched him move through the kitchen. His back. His shoulders. The way his hands handled the dishes. Careful. Controlled.
She had spent a week under those hands. She knew what they felt like on her skin. In her body. She knew their strength. Their gentleness. They could grip her hips hard enough to bruise. Then they could trace her scars softly enough to make her cry.
She wanted those hands on her now. Right now. The boundary already felt like a wall.
He turned and caught her staring. His eyes darkened.
"Stop looking at me like that," he said.
"Like what?"
"Like you want me to break the rule."
"I do want you to break the rule."
"I am not breaking the rule."
"Not even a little?"
"Not even a little." He dried his hands and walked toward her.
He stopped close. She could smell him. Cedar and skin.
"But I will think about it. Every minute of every day for the next two weeks.
I will think about being inside you. About the sounds you make.
About how you feel when you come. And I will wait.
Because waiting is what I do. I am good at it. "
She swallowed. "You are good at everything."
"Not everything. Just the things that matter."
He left the kitchen. She sat at the table and pressed her thighs together. The ache was already building. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours.
She went to the estate office, sat at the desk, and opened her sketchbook. She tried to draw, but her hand kept drawing his body: the scar, the tattoo, his
jawline, and his thick build. She closed the sketchbook.
Two weeks passed.
He kept his word: no sex, no touching below the neck. He cooked for her, tracked her temperature, and made her drink wheatgrass. He read studies and worked in the east wing, leaving notes on the kitchen counter.
Day 3. You look tired. Sleep more. — C
Day 5. Your temperature is stable. Good sign. — C
Day 8. I can hear you in your room at night. I know you're touching yourself. Stop. Save it for the window. — C
She stared at that note for ten minutes, her face burning. He could hear her through the walls and floor. She thought she'd been quiet.
She wrote
Back: You try going two weeks without touching yourself. — V
His response appeared the next
Morning: I haven't touched myself since the wedding. Every release I've had has been inside you. I'm not wasting any. — C
She folded the note and put it in her pocket, next to Eleanor's cards and the contract.
On day twelve, she woke nauseous.
She sat on the edge of the bed, saliva flooding her mouth. She breathed through it and counted to ten, and the nausea passed.
She told herself it was the wheatgrass. She had been drinking it for two weeks; her body was probably rebelling.
On day thirteen, her breasts ached. She touched them in the shower. They felt tender and swollen, her nipples sensitive in
an unusual way. She told herself it was her cycle, hormones, and nothing more.
On day fourteen, she woke at four AM, unable to sleep. Her stomach felt tight, and her mind raced. She went to the bathroom and found the test she'd bought in Portland and hidden under the sink. The caretaker had driven her there.
She held the test, staring at it.
One line or two? Positive or negative? Life-changing or
heartbreaking? She could not do it alone.
She walked to the east wing, down the hall to his door, and knocked.
He opened it fast, as if he'd not been sleeping either.
"It's day fourteen," she said.
He looked at the test in her hand. His eyes widened, then narrowed. An unreadable expression crossed his face.
"Do you want me there?" he asked.
"I can't do it alone."
He took her hand and led her to the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the tub. He sat on the floor beside her, their knees touching.
"Whenever you're ready," he said.
She opened the package and read the instructions again, though she'd read them five times already. She took the cap off and positioned the stick.
"Turn around," she said.
He almost smiled. "I've been inside you for a week straight. You're shy about this?"
"Turn around, Cillian."
He turned. She set the stick on the counter, capped it, and washed her hands.
"Three minutes," she said.