A few months after graduating, I turned eighteen, and Adnan just had to take me to Paris. He said he was in love with me. I didn’t fuck him in the city of love. Mama once said, “The wrong love makes you ponder where God is. Fall forthe one, and you’ll experience God’s presence everywhere.”
The thing is God’s presence was fleeting since the death of my parents. At age twenty, he convinced me to place the scholarship I had at a small university north of Los Angeles on hold.
Our marriage was an extravagant affair, and God abandoned me for good.
A short time later, Adnan no longer laughed, kissed me . . . waited. He was no longer satiated. He started fucking the maid. But if a scuff marred our imported marble floors, guess whose face got shoved into the ground? Who was at the knife’s edge of every lesson learned? Not her.
Me.
It all had to do with image. Say the wrong words.Wam!Genuinely laugh at a colleague’s joke.Bam!Wear the wrong shade of blue.Clickgoes the sound of his gun at the side of my dome.
Of course, these occurrences happened through my ability to go numb. Transporting myself to another time and place took practice. Inattentiveness was conducive to the severity of punishment.
As I silently beseech Kieran to cross the line in any inexcusable way, his only transgression results in my climax.
Long.
Hard.
Deliriously broken-down climaxes.
Over the next month or two, Kieran appears at various times, day or night. At the sight of the tiniest sliver of silk in his hands, an earthquake quivers, overtaking the lining of my labia.
So far, that’s all I am to him—a thing for pleasure.My pleasure, as he’s screwed me with everything but his dick.Now,I’m content with this version of heaven.
When Kieran stalks into my bedroom today, my eyes flicker over him from head to toe. Lean, steel muscles and the hair along his jaw curls in disarray, kissing places my lips have never touched. And though Kieran’s been everywhere on my body with his mouth, I’ve yet to reciprocate.
“Let’s go to dinner.”
I sigh. “Yougo to dinner. Kieran, you were the most eligible bachelor at the pub last night. I’m sure if you arrive alone this evening, you won’t leave that way.”
His head cocks. “Have I disrespected you?”
I’m always baffled by his statements. One would assume we were in a relationship. I run a thumb over my brow. “When can I g—”
Kieran’s on me in seconds. A soft cushion rests beneath me while an avalanche of muscles is atop me. Primitive, growly, demanding, he says, “Let’s pretend you followed up on my inquiry with something . . . uh, sweet, nice. That you said something nice to me, Ava.”
I struggle beneath him, the muscles in my body still sore from last night’s orgasm. “Why? Show me your true colors.”
He sniffs. “I’m the truth. Between you and me, I’m the one giving, conceding.”
With my palms flush against his chest, I pop as hard as possible. “You demand, Kieran, and take.”
His fingertip strolls down the center of my belly, isolating the ache between my thighs. “I’ve not taken anything,yet,Ava. But between you and me, I get typecast as the bad guy. You? Well, you’re this sweet lassie, no sins.”
Oye,no sins? God strike me dead for lying. I retort, “I didn’t say I’m without fault in this life—”
“But you are, sweetheart. You take, take, take.” His forehead molds between my breasts, and he breathes deeply. I’m secretly dissolving into warm putty while he groans, “Here, I thought I was brilliant in the sack.”
Between the globes of my breasts, Kieran glances up at me, eyes aflame with erotic amusement. He clutches my mounds into his hands and lets his thumbs draw circles over my furious nipples, then smiles. “Just waiting for you to beg.”
I massage the lump in my throat by swallowing hard and glance away.Oh, I beg. I’m begging like a singing group of schizoids and damn near scathing my tongue with my teeth not to scream aloud.Chin lifted, I retort,“I’ll never ask.”
“You will.” He ascends to his full height. “Wear walking shoes. Time to show you our land.”
“Our?”
“Did I not tell you that you’re bound to me for life? You’re entitled to half of what is mine. Look grateful.” Kieran walks out of the room, muttering about wishing he were poor.