“Let me look at you,” he murmurs, his voice thick with lust. “I want to memorize your freshly fucked cunt so I can picture it forever. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
I squirm, my face heating with shame at how dirty I feel with him so intimately close. I’m torn open and wrecked, leaking blood and cum.
“Are you okay with this?” he asks, looking up at me, a stitch pulling between his eyebrows.
Of course I’m not fucking okay with it. How can I be okay? I’m drowning, screaming inside my head, but if I open my mouth, the water will rush in, so I only nod.
“Have you ever done this?” He pulls my legs onto his shoulders, running his hands from my ankles and along my calves, cupping my knees before he runs his hands down the front of my thighs.
I don’t have the strength to worry what he’ll say, if he’ll be mad. I nod again.
“Good,” he says, giving my legs a reassuring squeeze. “Then you know it doesn’t hurt. I’ll never hurt you again, Eliza. I promise. Just relax and let me make you feel good.”
Don’t be afraid of you own body, Eliza. Don’t fear your own pleasure.
It’s like a taunt inside my head, the chants of a hundred cruel bullies on the playground. But there was only one bully, one bully and a bathtub, and the water was too cold, and I can’t stop shivering.
I nod.
King slides down closer, spreading my lips and taking a deep breath. “You smell amazing,” he says, his voice husky.
It’s not so bad, I tell myself. It feels good. But I’m not sure, because I’m not here, I’m somewhere else, and the feeling good part is not connected to my brain, only my body. King strokes my swollen clit with his fingertip, murmuring again how beautiful I am as he opens me with his fingers.
“What are you doing?” I manage, my whole body tensed even as I try to calm my racing heart, my quaking limbs.
“I’m tasting my bride,” he says, and he buries his tongue in my raw cunt.
And I…
Shatter.
eighteen
King
Eliza shoots out from under me like she’s propelled by something inhuman. I don’t even know how she gets out of my grip, only that one second I’m taking the first taste of my wife, and a split second later, she’s tumbling off the bed. She spins on her heel to face me when she’s halfway across the room, her stance defensive and ready, like she might bolt in either direction if I move a muscle. She stares at me with her bourbon eyes incomprehensible, wild and animal and filled with what can only be described as instinctual terror.
“Whoa,” I say, kneeling up on the bed and holding up both hands. “What’s going on?”
My words seem to bring her a little closer to reason, and she crosses her arms over her tits. “I—don’t—like that,” she says, grinding out her words between heaving breaths.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Then we don’t have to do it. Jesus, Eliza. You could have said something.”
“Like I said something when you were about to fuck me?”
I swallow, feeling that blow down to my soul. “I’m sorry,” I say again, sinking down on the bed. “You’re right. I just wanted to make it better.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” she says. “It makes it worse. I hate that.Hate it.”
The vehemence in her voice and the fierceness in her eyes tells me she’s not playing, not testing me. I fucked up, and I know it. It’s finally sinking in just how serious a crime I’ve committed against my wife. The moment my head cleared, guilt started to creep in, but I’m still not sure how badly I hurt her. I was supposed to be getting her to trust me, not making sure she never would. I don’t know when she stopped playing, when it became real to her, too. I only know I realized it too late. I got her to submit, yes, but submission that is forced and not willingly given isn’t submission at all. It’s defeat.
“What do you need?” I ask.
Without a word, she steps into the bathroom and closes the door.
Fuck. I fucked up, and this time, I’m not sure how to fix it. I know one thing for sure—I’m not going away. She can try to push me away all she wants, but I’m here, and I’m making up for what I did.
Her attitude drives me over the edge, but I don’t want her to lose it. I don’t want her defeated. I’m not supposed to win againsther. We’re supposed to be a team. We win and lose together. Her defeat is my defeat. I’m supposed to be the man, to be in control. I’m not supposed to lose control and hurt her, erasing all the progress we might have made. The last time I lost control, my sister wound up dead.