Malia
Ileanagainstawall, the smell of a fire filling my nose. A man towers over me, holding my wrists above my head with one hand while the other rests on my hip. A man so familiar it hurts that I can’t remember.
He has eyes so blue they don’t look like they belong on a human. Deep brown hair and tanned skin reminds me of the summer. A full beard cut close to his face perfectly outlines his full lips. He’s beautiful.
And the way he’s looking at me makes me miss something I don’t even remember. There’s warmth and need, like his whole world is standing in front of him in that moment.
“I love you, Malia,” he says and my throat catches.
I jolt awake with a gasp, my head spinning when I sit up too fast; the result of not fully sleeping off my medication. My breathing is labored and I rub at my wrists, as though the man in my dreams only just let go and my skin is still tingling.
Was that dream something out of my past—a memory finally trying to filter through and fill in the blank space. Or was it only an illusion conjured up by my medication?
“Bella,“ Elio rasps, his voice still raw from sleep.
He sits up and pulls me into him. Something he always does, now suddenly feeling wrong.
“Do you need more medicine?”
I look at him and my brows furrow at the question. It seems like an odd thing to ask right now. He is never still in bed when I wake up, which tells me it mustn’t even be dawn yet. Looking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows only confirms my assumption. It’s still dark.
“Malia,” Elio growls my name in impatience.
“No,” I snap, the bite in my tone taking even me aback as Elio narrows his dark gaze on me.
“Did you remember something?”
I shake my head.
“No,” I say again, calmer this time. “It was only a nightmare. The wedding is coming, and I’ve been stressed.”
Elio grabs my waist, picking me up and placing me so I am now straddling him. I yelp in surprise and he chuckles darkly, pulling me closer by my hair and grinding his hard dick against my core.
I swallow a shudder and let him pull me into a deep kiss, his large hands slowly roaming down my body and coming to a stop on my hips. He guides my movements back and forth, when it feels like too much, I pull away.
“Maybe we should wait,” I say through deep breaths, trying to take back the air Elio stole from me. “Until after the wedding.”
Elio raises a thick brow, flipping me onto my back as he rests between my legs, grinding slowly against me. A moan escapes my lips as pleasure takes over, no matter how bad I want to stop this right now.
Elio drops his head into the crook of my neck, pressing into me harder and I whimper, hating myself for falling into his trap.
“Are you denying me,principessa,“ he breathes. “When your body is so hungry for me.”
Bile rises in my throat and panic seizes my chest for unknown reasons.
“Elio,” I plead, but he ignores it. “Elio, listen to me.”
He jerks back, straightening himself before he leans over me and tugs on the dangling crystals to turn on the lamp. He sits back on his haunches as his eyes bounce between mine. That void is at the front of his gaze, the monster that lurks there almost making an appearance for the first time.
I furrow my brows again, feigning innocence as I take in the warning that’s so clear on his face. What the hell is going on?
“I just think we should wait so it’s more special on our wedding night,” I say with a shrug, trailing my finger down the hard planes of his chest.
Elio climbs off of me and gets off the bed.
“Are you mad?” I ask.
It’s obvious he is, but why would he be made just because I want to wait a week before we have sex again? It only makes the uneasiness twist itself up more in my chest. I don’t feel comfortable telling him about the memory. Not given the way he just looked at me.