Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ava looks up at me, her eyes sparkling with arousal, confusion, and fear.
Her cheeks are blotchy and tear-stained.
The sunlight streaming through the window catches on the lines of spit that coat her throat, giving her skin an unworldly shine.
My little bird is perfect. I release her, crawling down her body until my knees rest between her thighs.
I trail my fingertips gently down her stomach and over her mound. I run my fingers through the strip of hair above her pussy, gently tugging on the coarse strands. My thumb presses against her clit and she gasps. Her body quivers with need and she inches her hips closer to my hand.
“I-I uhh,” she stutters.
“I know, precious. You’re confused, aren’t you?”
Her eyes widen and she jerks her head in a small nod.
“You don’t understand why you love the way I hurt you and yet,” I trace my finger around her opening, feeling her arousal slick my fingers, “you’re so wet and needy from it.”
I push a finger inside of her and she bucks into my hand. I insert a second and she cries out.
“You were a very good girl just now,” I say, “but you broke my rule, little bird.”
She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, chewing on the soft skin until it pinkens.
Her forehead crinkles and her eyes dart between my fingers and my face.
She tries to pull away, but I wrap my hand around her hip, holding her in place.
My fingers slide in and out of her slowly, making her writhe and wiggle.
“I told you that you aren’t allowed to come unless I say you do. But you’re so fucking desperate for my cock that you made yourself come thinking about me last night.”
Her face reddens with embarrassment and a new flood of her arousal coats my hand. She sputters out a few syllables that most certainly don’t form words. A smirk tugs at the corners of my mouth. My shy girl gets so wet when I force her to see the way she wants me.
“You want to come, baby?” I ask.
Her eyes light up like Christmas lights as she nods furiously.
“Say it.”
“Yes,” she whimpers.
I let my fingers still inside her. “Beg me,” I growl, “Beg me to let you come.”
She exhales a whine and grinds against my fingers. “Please, Gray.”
“What’s my name to you?”
“Please, master,” she murmurs.
I pinch her clit and she moans, her back arching off the bed and pushing her perfect tits into the air. My hand slides up her body until I have one in my hand. I grasp it firmly, kneading her soft flesh with my fingers. “Please what?” I ask.
She sucks her lip into her mouth and stares at me, pleading with her eyes, but not saying a word. I pinch her nipple hard between my fingers until she lets out a yelp.
“Please, master, make me come!” she screams.
I pull my fingers from her cunt before slamming them back in.
She’s so wet that they slide in and out of her with ease.
Her slick coats my fingers and drips into my palm.
I lean my face in, inhaling the scent of her arousal.
I suck in greedy breaths through my nose until I can almost taste her.
My cock hardens again as it hits me—sweet summer strawberries and the flavor that belongs uniquely to her.
She releases a low moan as I flick my tongue out and swirl it around her clit.
I suck the bundle of nerves into my mouth and pump my fingers into her, hard and fast. She clenches around my fingers as her pleasure builds.
My teeth scrape lightly over her clit and she screams out her orgasm.
I slow my fingers, watching her pant and shudder as she rides out the aftershocks.
She cries out when I suck her clit back into my mouth, rolling my tongue over the sensitive bud. I plunge my fingers into her wet heat, hooking them inside of her to hit the spot that makes her legs shake. She closes her eyes and grinds her hips in unison with my fingers.
“Eyes on me,” I rasp against her cunt. “You’re going to look at me while you come on my fingers.”
She tightens around me, her body pulling my fingers deeper. A shiver runs through her, tensing her limbs. “That’s it,” I purr, “come for me again, precious.”
I watch pleasure color her features, her eyes half-lidded and her cheeks red.
She stares down at me as she screams her release.
She whines as I pull my fingers from her, her face scrunched up in a pained expression.
The sheets drag across the mattress as she pulls away from me, inching herself back toward the headboard.
Her eyes widen as I grip her hip and drag her back toward me.
“We’re not finished, little bird.” I reach behind me, grabbing what I hid at the foot of the bed. When I pull her purple dildo out from behind my back, she lets out a shaky whimper. She clamps her thighs together as I move it toward her.
“Y-you can’t,” she stammers. “It’s…it’s…dirty from when I…used it.” She looks down at her lap, a blush crawling up her face.
Putting a hand on each leg, I pry her thighs apart.
She fights against my hold, trying to push her legs back together.
I look down at her pussy and groan. It’s pink and raw, glistening with her cum.
I press my thumb against her clit, rubbing slow circles around it until she stops fighting and lets her legs fall apart.
Her eyes don’t leave the toy in my hand, which she looks at with a wary expression.
“It’s clean,” I say, twisting it back and forth so that she can inspect it. “I washed it before you woke up. I’d never put you at risk, not even with small things.”
Her expression softens into something tender, something I don’t fully recognize.
My heart thumps faster in my chest and my lungs feel too full.
Something stirs inside of me, clawing at my chest as if it’s reaching for her.
It feels wrong and yet I don’t want her to stop looking at me that way.
I shake my head, refocusing my attention between her thighs.
She shudders as I swipe my finger through her wetness, dragging it across her clit.
I press the toy to her opening, making her breath hitch.
Inch by inch, I push it into her, watching her mouth drop open on a whispered moan.
Ava writhes on the bed, her face distorted in both pleasure and pain.
She moans deeply as I drag my thumb over her clit and thrust the toy into her.
I quicken my pace, rubbing circles over her sensitive nub and sliding the dildo in and out of her quivering cunt until her back bows off the bed and she sobs out her pleasure.
She eyes me expectantly, telling me without words that she’s satisfied and sore. Instead of pulling the toy out of her, I turn my hand, angling it toward her g-spot and continue thrusting.
“Please,” she whines. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“You can,” I demand, slamming the toy against the spot that makes her scream, “and you will.”
Her legs shake and her hips twitch as she mumbles and cries incoherent sounds.
“This is what happens to bad girls who don’t ask permission to touch themselves. You’re going to come for me one more time.”
I push her to the edge, rapidly fanning my fingers against her clit and undulating the toy inside of her until she shatters.
I lay down next to her and pull her into my arms as she comes down.
She curls into me, resting her head on my shoulder and laying her arm across my stomach.
She fits so perfectly in my arms, like she was made to be mine.
“Good girl,” I whisper into her hair, “you did so well for me.”
Ava snuggles against me, her breathing slowing into a soft stream that fans across my neck.
I can’t stop my face from breaking into a smile at the way she melts for me.
I’ve never held a woman the way I’m holding her now, the way I always want to hold her.
I’ve never wanted to. With other women, the expectation of cuddling always felt like a chore.
It’s different with Ava; with her, I need it. Maybe even more than she does.
“Gray, I have to ask you something.” Ava’s voice is quiet against my neck, wavering with the slight shake of anxiety.
“Anything.” I stroke my hand through her hair, hoping that whatever answers I give her won’t make her move further away from me.
“Did you…” She huffs out a shaky sigh. “Did you kill my father?”
My smile widens. I hadn’t planned to tell her, but I knew my smart girl would figure it out.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Why?” she asks, lifting herself onto her elbow to look at me.
“To set you free.”
Ava’s eyebrows knit together, forming creases on her forehead. I reach out my hand and smooth them with my finger. “I don’t understand,” she says.
“I know what it’s like for you.” I trace my finger along the edge of her face and she doesn’t pull away. She leans into my touch with that soft look in her eyes. “I know how the memories of what he did haunt you.”
She flinches at that. Her eyes lower to my chest like she can’t meet mine. I press my finger under her chin and tilt her head up. “I know because I’m the same. That’s why I am the way I am, Ava.”
She shoves her hand into the pillow, twisting the fabric between her fingers. She tugs her lip into her mouth with her teeth.
“I wasn’t always a monster. I became one because I had to.
I was a normal person once, a kid who wanted to be a teacher, actually.
I came home from college during winter break and that’s when I found my mom.
” A heaviness builds in my throat and I swallow it back.
“She was dead, and my dad had killed her. I killed him. I freed myself from him, but it changed me.” My lungs deflate, emptying the stale air that it feels like I’ve been holding in for years. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
A tear rolls down Ava’s face. I track its descent, watching it slip down the slide of her nose and onto her pink lips before she brushes it away with the back of her hand. My mouth pops open and I suck in a sharp breath.
She’s crying…for me. If I needed any more evidence that she’s falling for me, this is it.
The tears that drip down her beautiful face are mine.
She is mine. Since the moment I first saw her, I knew that she’d love me, that I could make her love me.
I knew that my obsession couldn’t remain one-sided, that I could give it to her, transmit it like a disease.
That’s how I feel for her. It’s a disease.
It’s a madness that seeped into my veins and spread through my body.
It’s been eating away at me, corroding the iron shell around my heart so that I can rip it from my chest and hand it to her.
A sigh seeps past my lips as I stare into the teary eyes of the woman who’s mine. “I’m not a good man,” I say. “I can’t offer you anymore than what I am, but I can give you everything that I am. Every fucking part of me is yours, Ava.”
“Thank you,” she whispers just before her lips touch mine.
Bells, whistles, and party horns scream in my head as Ava kisses me for the first time.
My hand slides into her hair, gripping the strands in my fingers and pulling her into me.
I part her lips with my tongue and taste her, and a bit of myself that still lingers.
My teeth scrape over her soft lips and I swallow her moans.
We pull apart breathless, our kiss having sucked all of the oxygen from the room.
“Tomorrow night at seven,” I say against her lips.
“Huh?”
“Tomorrow at seven, I’m going to pick you up and we’re going on a date.”
Ava stiffens in my arms. Her eyes bounce around the room before settling on my chest. “I don’t know if that’s a—”
I press my finger to her pouting lips. “I wasn’t asking. I’ll be here at seven and you will either be at the door, waiting for me like a good girl, or I’ll be dragging you to the car by your hair.”
An adorably meek whimper squeaks through her closed lips, but she nods her head.
“That’s my girl. I left something in the kitchen for you. Wear it.”