Chapter 18 - Kayla
My heart is racing as I press my lips against his.
His words are still spinning in my mind.
I can’t stop loving you. It’s something I have dreamed of hearing.
Something I have longed for in my hidden fantasies.
And in this moment, I let those words cradle me in comfort, and I ignore the fear in my heart as he lifts me in his arms and holds me closer.
Josiah groans with need as he steps backwards towards the sofa and sits down, pulling me onto his lap so that I’m straddling him.
My pink dress rides up, and the slit falls open.
He doesn’t hesitate to brush his hands over my thighs, rubbing them slowly up my legs and causing ripples of desire to wash through me.
He cups one hand around my hip and pulls me forward, rubbing me against his cock. His other hand travels up my spine to the back of my neck. Josiah’s grip is firm, and as his fingers press into my skin, I feel the emotions spilling from his body.
Rocking my hips back and forth, I slide myself over his engorged cock, monstrous beneath me, as it pushes against my pussy and sends sharp currents spiking through my body, making me shiver.
He brushes his fingers over my shoulder, and the strap of my dress slips off. He does the same to the other shoulder.
Pulling the dress down, he exposes my breasts to the cool evening air, and both nipples turn hard as he takes them between his fingers to gently squeeze and play with them.
A soft moan of pleasure spills from my mouth.
It causes his cock to throb, and I gasp at the effect it has on me.
Teasing.
Tempting.
I can’t wait any longer. I want to feel him inside me.
“I need you,” I whisper as my fingers tug at his pants, pulling the belt off, fighting with the buckle.
I tug at the button, and it springs open.
His pants fall open, and I lift my ass high enough to reach in and grab his monstrous cock, pulling it free of the fabric restraints.
My fingers press against the thick veins that pulse over his shaft, and I bite my lip, realizing how hard he really is.
Josiah slips his hand down my back again, behind me, over my ass, between my legs. His fingers move against my silk panties, slipping beneath them, pulling them aside.
My entire body melts against him when he gently, slowly, pushes one finger into my pussy.
My lips part as I tilt my head backwards and arch my back to push harder against his touch. My hands dig into his shoulders because I fear if I don’t hold on, I will drift away and lose my mind.
He pushes his finger deeper, curling it against the most sensitive spot inside me, and my entire body shudders, ready to explode so quickly. He still remembers.
As though he can read my thoughts, he grabs a handful of my hair and pulls my ear close against his mouth. He speaks with a low growl as though he is threatening me, as though he is warning me.
“I remember every inch of you, beautiful girl. I remember every piece of you and everything that drives you wild. At night, when I’m alone, I still think about you.
Your perfection. Your lips. Your beautiful little pink pussy that I would open like a flower and tease for hours.
” He pushes another finger into me and I can barely breathe.
“I would think about you, and in the dark, in the quiet night, I would fuck you in my mind. I would take you over and over again and I could never get enough…” he says dangerously.
I picture him, year after year apart from me, stalking me in his mind. Owning me in his thoughts.
His words are dark whispers of obsession. As though I am his compulsion. pushing him into a manic state of constant need.
“Josiah,” I say softly, wrapping my hands around his jaw and pulling his face up towards mine. “Do whatever you want to me,” I whisper as my warm honey of desire coats his fingers.
He growls and reaches between us, grabbing his cock in his hand.
He lifts me with his finger still inside me and he drops me down onto his rock-hard cock.
The tip pushes against my opening. My nails dig into his shoulder.
He thrusts upwards and I cry out as his cock slips inside me, pushing against my walls, spreading me open, yet still he doesn’t pull his finger out of my pussy.
It’s too much, but it’s not enough, because I still want more. I want him to rip me apart with his love. I want to feel the words he told me. I want them inside my bones, knotted in my soul.
I can’t stop loving you.
I cry out in pleasure as he fucks me harder with his finger curled against my secret spot.
Desperation and urgency flow back and forth between us as we claw at each other, pressing our lips together, writhing and pulling. Moving as one.
But I can’t hold back anymore. He plays my body like an instrument, and who am I to fight the pleasure that he gives me?
My legs start to shake, wrapped around him, and my breathing catches in my throat.
He grabs my jaw and forces me to look at him.
His eyes are locked onto me like prey. My heart races even faster at the intensity of his gaze.
“Who do you belong to, beautiful girl?” he snarls.
“You,” I answer without thinking. “I’ve always belonged to you,” I gasp.
The orgasm slams into me at a million miles an hour. And it doesn’t stop. My pussy waves and pulses over him as every muscle in my body contracts and shivers in ecstasy.
He thrusts deeper into me and explodes, causing a second orgasm to hit me before the first has subsided.
By the end of it, I can’t breathe, and I am holding onto him as though he is my lifeline.
We sit in silence. Not moving. Not speaking.
He runs his fingertips up and down my back.
As the high of the moment begins to fade, anger slips into my mind.
I clear my throat as the clouded judgment of desire fades.
“I, uh, I am just going to clean up,” I mutter, climbing off his lap, letting his cock slowly slide out of me.
“Kayla,” he calls my name as I try to slip away without letting him see the change in my mood.
I glance over my shoulder, keeping my back to him. “Yes?” I ask, and my voice causes it to slip out as one cold word.
“Nothing,” he mutters.
I hurry away, searching for the bathroom. I rush into it and close the door behind me.
Tears are stinging my eyes.
I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to claw at him and tell him he is an asshole.
How dare he tell me he loves me. How dare he tell me that all those years while I was alone, terrified and in pain, he still loved me. But he left me alone in this world. He snatched that love away from me and left me alone.
The ache of heartbreak pushes into my chest, and I clutch at my skin, trying to hold on so I don’t collapse.
But the tears fall. They fall in heavy, body-wrenching sobs.
I am clamping my hand over my mouth to try and smother the sounds of pain, but I’m still being too loud.
I’m fighting years of emotions. Years of buried feelings.
There is a knock at the door.
“Kayla, what’s going on? Please don’t shut me out,” he says gently.
“Please go away,” I mutter. Forcing myself to stand up.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. You have to speak to me.”
I pull my dress back on, tugging it so it sits properly over my body.
Rushing to the basin, I splash water on my face, desperate to wash away the feelings.
I hear the door opening and grab a towel, pressing my face into it.
“Kayla, what is going on? I heard you crying,” he demands.
I had no intention of confronting him with the turmoil inside me, but it spills out anyway.
“Why would you say something like that to me?” I blurt out.
“Why would you tell me you never stopped loving me when I have spent the last five years so utterly and completely alone and terrified and struggling to survive. Is that what people do to the ones they love? Is that the kind of love you give? Because that doesn’t seem right at all! ”
“Kayla,” he walks towards me, his hand reaching out and his eyes dark with regret.
“Don’t,” I huff. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. It doesn’t change what I went through. It doesn’t change the fact that I had to raise our girls alone. You have no idea what my life has been like.”
“I did what I thought was right for you. To keep you safe!”
I scoff, shaking my head and throwing the towel into the sink.
I push past him and storm towards the living room.
He follows close behind me. At some point, I stop in my tracks and spin to confront him again.
“So, you get to decide my life for me? You get to say what will and won’t make me happy?
Is that how it is? You’re in charge, and I have no say in anything? ”
“Uh…” he stammers. But I ignore him.
“I might have been young back then, but I wasn’t young.
I was mature enough to choose. Na?ve, maybe, yes.
Na?ve because I believed that while I had never had it before—love was real and possible.
But at the same time, I was mature enough to understand and take a risk if I wanted to.
I might have been more protected than most children who came from the system, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t strong.
All you saw was a weak little girl who you had to protect…
and the way you chose to protect me was to shatter me in every way possible!
And then afterwards, I had to deal with everything alone while I tried to pull myself back together! ”
“Kayla, I am so sorry. I truly am. Please understand that I made a mistake back then. I regretted it every day of my life…”
My shoulders slump, and I hide my face in my hands, forcing myself to breathe.
“Back then? What about now?” My voice has faded to a whisper. The urgency to fight, the fired-up anger, and all my resistance are fading.
My emotions are draining me.
“Now?” he asks as though he doesn’t get it.
I laugh quietly, shaking my head. “You tricked me into signing marriage papers.
You forced me to move in with you. You stole me from the life I had built because you suddenly decided you wanted me back.
Where's my choice now? Again, you assumed control without even giving me a chance to choose for myself,” I huff.
“And then you drop bombs on me. A Bratva king?”
He clenches his jaw and takes my hand, pulling me to sit next to him on the sofa.
We sit in tense silence for a moment before I turn to him and quietly say, “Everything I do in this life is for my children. The things you have dragged us into have been terrifying for me. How do I keep them safe when I am not the one making the choices for us? When don’t I even have a say in the choices being made, because you won’t give me one? ”
Slowly, Josiah nods.
Finally, I can see understanding in his expression.
“I was a fool,” he says softly. “You’re right. I didn’t…I didn’t even stop to consider it from your perspective. I only thought about keeping you safe, and I bullheaded my way through what I thought was the best way to do that.”
I breathe out, letting go of the intense emotions inside me.
“I get it,” I sigh. “If I think about the girls, and what I would do for them to make sure they were safe…I’d probably make some crazy choices, too.”
He chuckles, dry and lost, a choked sound of sadness.
“I definitely made crazy choices, choices that altered our futures, and now I desperately want to make it right, but I don’t know if it’s too late.
I realize that I should let you go. You and the girls.
I realize that I should send you far away, with all the money you could ever need.
Somewhere safe where even I can’t reach you.
But I can’t, Kayla. I can’t lose any of you. ”
Looking up at him, I see a man in pain. I reach out and take his hand.
Placing it on my leg, facing up, I carefully trace my finger over the lines of his palm.
“You are a good father, Josiah,” I say, thinking about how he is with the girls.
“I am not worried about whether or not they will have a good life if they stay with you. I know they will.”
I trust him wholeheartedly to keep them safe. I trust that he would do literally anything for them.
That isn’t the issue I am battling with. That isn’t the war raging inside me.
It’s my heart.
I can’t trust him with my heart.
I never want to feel such pain again.
I never want to break like that ever again.
I don’t know if I have the capacity to open my heart to him fully and let him love me. That terrifies me in ways I can’t let go.
Yet, somehow, when I look up at him and see the piercing gaze of those beautiful eyes, I hear myself whisper the words, “I’m not worried about our children. But I need time.”
In clear relief, he reaches out and cups his hand over my jaw. “I will give you all the time in the world, my love. I will give you everything you need if you give me the chance to prove what you mean to me,” he says.
“I just need some time,” I sigh.
He pulls his hand away in respect.
“I need something else too,” I say.
“Anything.”
“I need you to start treating me like an equal. Not like some timid little mouse who can’t think for herself.
On one hand, at work, you praise me for being independent, smart, and more capable than most…
yet at home, you want to wrap me up in bubble wrap and not let me out of your sight.
I am stronger than you think. I am capable of making my own choices.
I need you to see that and treat me like I am as capable as you are.
We are married. Husband and wife. We should be a strong team just like we are in the office.
Not one man drowning himself with worry while he tries to take care of a helpless little girl. ”
He nods, smiling. “You make a very fair argument. I can do that. It might take a little practice,” he chuckles, “but I can stop being so controlling and start changing.”
I smile, my heart still festering with confusion and fear, but my thoughts are clearer now.
Maybe this can work.
I want to believe it.
But time will tell.