Chapter 44
forty-four
Sheets warm, but slippery. Pleasure and wetness and heat and bliss and—
“Aiden! Oh gods—”
He’s already awake, hair a black tangle between my legs, grin slow and dangerous. “Mmm. Morning, baby girl.”
His mouth hums into my pussy, and as he lifts his head, his chin is covered in my blood. He looks like a feral animal, cannibalistically eating me until he’s coated with everything I have.
“What are you doing!” I murmur. “It’s messy.”
The flutter of his laugh sends tingles in waves over my skin. “So am I, baby. Let me eat you anyway.”
Covering my face with a pillow, I groan. “You’re crazy.” It’s muffled, staccato, but I mumble it loudly.
“Romantic,” he corrects, tugging me into his face, hands gripping under my knees. “You took care of me every morning, remember? Let me return the favor.”
My heart stutters. “Yeah…”
“Now shut up and let me ingest your blood so it flows in me, too.”
I relax as his tongue slips against my clit, pulsing. A whimper of pleasure filters from my lungs, and the pillow is gone. Aiden tosses it across the room.
“I want to watch your face as I do this, so I know I’m hitting it good.”
His tongue, fingers, chin, lips all work me into a frenzy. Back bowed, I snag his silky locks and squeeze his head with my thighs. Riding like I haven’t had an orgasm in forever. Or two days… Same difference.
“Yes, there!” I scream, rubbing my pussy all over him.
With force, he grips my hips and holds me against him firmly as I peak. His tongue deep inside me. It even slips to my ass as he gorges on me.
“Fuck! That was good pussy,” he rasps, half out of breath, chest heaving. Face stained and satisfied. He swipes up my arousal and licks his fingers one at a time, a sly grin sneaking across his lips.
When he shimmies over me, his cock is fully erect. Girthy. And that torturous vein that twists around the shaft pulses as his length twitches. He slots himself at my entrance and thrusts inside.
“You’re going to be so filthy,” I tell him, and he nods enthusiastically.
“Then we’ll take a shower together after.” He grunts with another thrust, and it doesn’t take him long to finish. His full body collapses on me as he presses tiny kisses to my neck and shoulder. “Listening to you get off makes me so fucking hard. And your taste…”
“Ha, like iron. I’m sure.”
“Let’s say you should get checked for diabetes,” he murmurs into my hair.
“Why?”
He leans up on his elbows and slips out of me. “Because you’re so sweet.”
Letting loose a loud laugh, I slap his chest. But he snatches my hand and pulls me up, leading me to our bathroom.
After cleaning up, we eat breakfast with ridiculous smiles, trading looks like teenagers.
“I cannot wait to do this every morning with you,” he says, swallowing a big spoon of cereal.
“One of us is going to have to learn how to cook.”
“Not it!” we both yell at once.
“Nah, I’ll hire someone. But after…” He doesn’t finish his sentence.
“After?”
His eyes grow heated. “After I’m done fucking you all over the house.”
I shrug and give him a seductive bat of my lashes. “The cook can watch.”
“Grr.” He makes a deep, fake growl and creeps closer to wrap his arms around me. “No, they cannot. You’re mine to see. Mine alone.”
Whipping my hair over my shoulder, I grip his chin until he’s forced to look at me. “And you’re mine alone.”
His lips capture mine. “Absolutely.”
When he breaks away, he sighs with sadness. “We have to go back to the Manor. Classes tomorrow. My last semester.”
I toss my napkin toward the trash can, but it falls on the floor. “I’m thinking of dropping out.”
“What? No, you’re not.”
“Yeah. I have a billionaire husband now. No need.”
The little muscle in the back of his jaw works overtime. “Don’t waste your brilliance. Ashlyn, you can be whatever you want to be. I wish—”
“Fine. I’m switching my major to architecture.”
It almost makes me sick how proud he looks. But it also warms me up inside. “That’s my girl. My genius baby.” He swallows another bite with a wide grin. “What made you change?”
“This house. The drawings… Julien. I think I’d enjoy creating spaces more than decorating them. But the problem is, it requires more math. And I hate it.”
“You can do it. I’ll help.”
“On your lap?” I ask flirtatiously.
“Of course.”
“Sold.”
Sunday, we drive back to Northview City and the Theta Manor in Dad’s Escalade for the new semester. I hate to admit that I’m looking forward to a change in major and a new outlook on my life. Fresh starts. New place to stay. And my life is now tangled up with Aiden’s.
The foyer explodes with shouts of reunion as soon as we walk in—bro hugs, chants, and the crash of shot glasses. A keg stand competition’s already raging in the game room, the air thick with beer foam and whiskey heat.
Aiden carts our bags inside and snags my hand in his possessively.
“Will you be busy with them?” I ask, and he nods with a roll of his eyes.
“I have to lead the meeting tonight, but Tade will take care of the problems.”
“Should I go to the Omega meeting tonight?”
“No. I don’t want you out of my line of sight—”
“I have to be away from you sometimes.”
He shifts, his hands skimming my hips to guide me ahead on the stairs. “No, you don’t. I’m watching you, and if we get a single clue where that fuck went? It’s KOS.”
Kill-on-sight…
I kind of enjoy that thought.
“You know what I’m thinking…” I muse as we wander down the hall toward his suite. “Talon was texting a brunette, and now that I think about the pictures I saw.” I pause, trying to bring up the image in my head. “I’m pretty sure it was Elowyn.”
Aiden’s steps stutter. “Elowyn? Price?”
“Yeah. Same hair color and style. Same body. At least from what I could see.” And given what happened on Red Night, part of me wonders if Talon never quit fucking her after that…
“I’ll ask her for sure, then.”
I open the double doors as Aiden sets our stuff on his sofa. Both of us immediately gag from the intense putrid odors erupting from the room.
“What the fuck is that?” he asks, slapping the back of his hand over his nose.
Pulling my sweater up to my eyes, I shake my head. “Did we leave food out?”
As we turn around, I freeze. My hand clutches my throat. But it doesn’t stop the scream that erupts from my lungs. Shock and horror flood my system like a bucket of ice water.
There, in our bed, in the center of the mattress…
Elowyn Price.
Dead.