Page 83 of Graciously His

“What?” she asks, her eyes glazed over.

“A perfect pussy just begging to be fucked.”

“No,” her hand comes down, hiding what I want to see, “you can’t—”

“I know, Grace,” I look into her eyes, prying her hand away. “I can’t have her. But I fucking want her. Now, instead of taking your pretty pussy,” I lean in, staring at her from beneath my brows as I get closer, “I’m going to kiss her until she comes.”

“Yes,” she whispers, the word barely a breath, but it’s more than enough.

I apply my mouth, tracing my tongue down her labia. She’s tangy and hot and messy. Grace lets out a high-pitched whine when I thrust my fingers into her. I lean back to watch her pussy pulse with her panting breaths and the pressure of my fingers. I add a third, stretching her.

“Fucking perfect,” I whisper just before I slurp her clit into my mouth, focusing the pressure from my lips on the surrounding flesh.

She bucks and I shift my free hand to squeeze her ass hard. Grace comes, her hips rising to meet my lips, her breath stopping altogether. She comes hard and quiet, writhing beneath me, eyes shut tight. I pull back, working her sex with my hand as she breaks a second time. I keep her warmth steady beneath my fingers, my other hand kneading her ass, prolonging her orgasm.

“Stop,” she sobs, and I’m surprised to see tears in her eyes, shame on her features. “I don’t want you to—to make the pain into something else, Nate.”

I look at her more closely, trying to see if this is sub drop, or something even more complicated. Her conflicting emotions haven’t quite resolved. I sit back on my heels, my hands poised on my own quads.

“It’s okay to use your apology to heighten your pleasure, Grace.” I feel myself getting hard again at the defiance creeping into her eyes. “You know what I think you need now, to bring all of this home?”

Her pupils are wide, her lips slightly parted. She’s defiant all right, but still intrigued.

“No,” she whispers.

I kiss her, thrusting my tongue into her mouth, making sure she gets a taste of her own tangy perfection.

“This cunt,” I press the outline of my cock against her, “needs a hot dose of this.”

A blush rises in her cheeks and I see the longing in her eyes. “That’s what you want.”

“Of course it is.” I grab her hands, pinning her wrists to the bed, beyond myself with the need to take her. “I love you and I need to make love to you properly. Come on, Grace. Let me in?”

She parts her thighs with a moan, and I can’t undo my trousers fast enough.

“Such an obedient wife,” I murmur, positioning myself at her entrance. She’s gleaming with fertility and I know this is dangerous, and that makes me want it all the more. I want to fuck the woman I’ve finally put into her place. I want to rock my hips hard against her red, punished ass. I want to make her mine more profoundly than ever before. I push in partway—fucking bliss—then I look into her eyes.

Grace is crying, and not in surrender. I freeze, unsure of what’s wrong.

“Grace?”

Then she says the last thing I expect, her voice breaking: “I love you.”

My world shatters.

Chapter 33

Grace

This isn’t like the other time Nate and I had sex when I was fertile. That time, my diagnosis had just landed and I was a broken woman who wanted to break even more. Now, he’s turned my pain into the most potent pleasure I’ve ever known, and his penetration is more than I can handle. It’s love, pressing into me from above, and there is no way I can reciprocate. My safe phrase slides from my lips: “I love you.”

I lie still after saying it, blinking tears away. I don't know if Nate heard me, or if I should say the words again. Shock slackens his features for less than a second, then he’s off me, his hands clawing into his own hair. The gesture is so out of character that I have the absurd urge to laugh, even as my heart threatens to break. The urge dies when I see how wide his eyes are.

“I heard your safe phrase,” Nate says, calm despite the anguish in his voice.

He’s mostly naked, trousers caught awkwardly around his ankles, hands falling slowly to his sides. I wipe away the last of my tears, unsure of what to do now that I’ve triggered this ‘safe phrase’ protocol. I scoot to the side of the bed, the sheets like sandpaper against my raw, painful bottom. Nate makes a low noise in his throat, putting up a hand to stop me. Gone is the man who put me over his knee with the perfectly-controlled darkness he first unleashed, then restrained. I realise that, in his corrupt way, Nate used pain to give me a chance at redemption.

For what? I want to demand of myself.