Tension released from my bones and the nightmare of the fire seemed to fade away as I luxuriated in the lavender scented water in the antique bath tub I had quickly grown to love. With my eyes closed, I allowed the shoulder deep water to take away the aches and pains.

The wooden floorboards creaked as Pope knelt down behind me. “Let me help you wash your hair.”

I swallowed hard. The tenderness from someone who just hours ago had lost his mother in a horrendous fire spun the emotions inside me to chaos. Such power, such strength, and now showing such compassion. Rather than wallowing in his own misery. The sweet aroma from the steaming water helped me relax as his strong hands began to massage my scalp, gently scrubbing away the smoke and grime.

“Just lean back and let me do this. Let me take care of you,” he soothed.

Firm and gentle, the same hands that had just saved my life. The same hands that had just comforted me until I cried myself to sleep were now caressing their way to my very soul. I closed my eyes and moaned as he pressed against my temples, while raking his fingernails along my scalp. A waterfall of warm water cascaded over my head, followed by a rag softly dabbing at my closed eyelids.

“You’re beautiful, Demi.”

I opened my eyes and turned my head so I could stare into Pope’s eyes. “I’ve never had anyone do this to me… I mean… for me.”

His lips brushed my hair, and he whispered in my ear, “You deserve to be taken care of.” He continued to wash and rinse my hair, making my muscles melt right along with my heart.

I reached up behind me and wrapped my hand around Pope’s neck. “I think there is plenty of room for two, if you want to join me?”

“This is for you. I want you to relax. I already showered and got some rest while you slept.” His voice was as calm as I felt, even as a heavy sadness still rested on my heart. I was so sad. So relieved. So happy. So many conflicting emotions.

I missed her.

I was happy to see her get what she deserved.

I mourned her.

I relished a sense of victory.

It was just Pope and me, and that made me happy.

I was so fucked up. So, so fucked up.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” he asked softly. “For allowing her to die?”

I shook my head. “You’re not a monster. I could never think that. You’re a survivor and nothing more.”

“You wouldn’t have done it though. Even after all she did to you, you were still trying to save her.”

“Yes. I was still trying to save her.”

“Why?”

“It was Viv lying on that floor. My friend.”

“My mother.” Pope took a deep breath. “Which is why I allowed her to follow through with her plan. She wasn’t planning on telling me or you after we both said no. I think she thought I would still be asleep. But when I walked in on her pouring gasoline all over my shed, she pleaded with me to understand. She wanted to die and become one with the earth she loved so much. She wanted her sickness to end. She was in so much agony.”

“I know,” I whispered. “It took so much strength for her to do what she did. For what you did.”

“And now we move on. We have no choice but to move on.”

I wasn’t sure what moving on meant. How do you move on after terror has dominated every inch of your being?

“Viv would have wanted us to move on,” I agreed.

His hands made their way to my shoulders and began to work the same magic he had done on my head. Pope’s hands continued to stroke, the movements unhurried, lingering, stretching over my collarbone down to the tops of my breasts in slow easy circles.

“Your body…” his voice rasped.

Over and over, he ran his calloused hands along my breasts, barely grazing my nipples with each pass. Tingling and fire grew within my core, my pussy longing for more.

I needed the pain to go away. The confusion had to end. Anything but this. Anything to overpower the darkness.

His momma had just died.

This was wrong.

But nothing about our lives had ever been right.

The need, the hunger, the passion building as the warm water washed over my skin. A bolt of sensation shot through me as Pope caught the sensitive tip of my nipple and gently pinched. My gasp no longer able to be contained.

As if the gasp was Pope’s green light, he continued down along my stomach. His fingers sliding their way to my bare sex—as Vivian had dictated it to be so. Without hesitation, he cupped his hand around my mound and slid his finger between my needy lips. Finding my clit, he rubbed softly. Coaxing my pleasure, rather than demanding it.

Pope used his other hand to cup my breast, while he placed searing kisses along my neck. I lifted myself into his touch, spreading my legs wider for his access. I needed more. I needed to feel him deep within me. I needed to be taken, conquered and mastered.

“I need you,” he said huskily between the kisses along my flesh. “I need my pain to stop. I can’t fucking take the pain.”

“Please… Pope… please,” I could barely get out. “I need the pain to stop too.”

“Just us. I need it to be just us. Leave the fucked up world we live in behind us. Just us. Now.” Pope increased his pressure on my clit and rubbed my nipple in between his fingers, keeping a steady rhythm, driving my need to a boiling point.

I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed his hand and directed his finger to the entrance of my pussy. Grinding my hips hard against his hand, I thrust his finger into my depths. Pope pulled his hand loose, only to drive his finger, plus a second one, back into my wanting sex. My hips shifted and rose, meeting each push of his hand. Water splashed everywhere as I desperately tried to quench the burning demand inside of me.

“I want to feel you come around my fingers. I want to feel you,” Pope commanded.

His strokes became harder. His pinches along my nipple grew in intensity, causing me to helplessly thrash beneath his touch. Every nerve ending pulsated, electricity coursed to my womb as I allowed a cry to escape my mouth.

“Yes, baby. Come for me. Let yourself go.” His demand was punctuated by another thrust of his finger.

I closed my eyes and allowed the pleasure to take over. Water splashed over the side of the bath as the satisfying feeling of completion overtook my body. My head fell back, and my hips convulsed as ecstasy exploded outward.

Before the last wave of the incredible orgasm rocked my body, I felt Pope’s arms lift me out of the bath in one swift motion. The cool air heightened every touch, and my body hummed for more. He lay me down on a soft towel and quickly removed every item of his clothing that blocked his body and mine from uniting.

He sat on the ground and pulled me on top of his body. “Straddle me,” he demanded.

I did as he asked, wrapping my legs on each side of his hips, pressing my wet knees against his warm and dry body. He grabbed his thick cock with his hand and directed it toward my entrance. “Put me in you. Bring yourself down on me.”

I grabbed his dick, placed it at my wet pussy, and slid all the way down. My breath caught as my body struggled to adjust to his size. Any discomfort from the stretch was replaced with pure pleasure when Pope parted my pussy and found my clit. He continued the sensual caress as I rode his cock. Rising up slowly, and then driving down with a solid force. The slow pass of his fingers over my clit sent a shiver down my spine. The shiver turned to a heat that burned to my deepest core.

Pope’s gaze, so full of confidence and strength, never left mine. He didn’t hide the pleasure or passion he felt. He didn’t hold back his groans as I thrust myself onto his cock, taking him deeper and deeper with every movement.

He pulled me against his chest and parted my lips with his. His kiss smothered my moans and captured my breath. He grabbed my hips with both hands and took control, increasing the pressure and building the speed, bringing me closer and closer to the sensation of pure bliss.

He moved his finger to the tight entrance of my backside and pressed firmly. My breathless gasp was rewarded with him pressing his finger all the way into my taboo depths.

I clenched around him as he pumped his finger in and out, releasing a hot desire from within me. Lust surged through me, my ass squirming… not away from the sensation but towards it as I leaned into his touch. Demanding more with my silent movements, he added a second finger past my tightly clenched rosebud. I couldn’t help but press back against the invading fingers. I cried out his name as he worked his fingers inside the searing heat of my tight channel.

I saw him reach his hand and submerge it into a puddle on the floor, wetting his fingers with the oily lavender water from the bath. I bucked against his other fingers still in my ass, anxious of what was to come.

I tensed. Hearing the words of Vivian.

A good wife takes her husband’s cock in the ass without complaint. A dutiful wife allows her ass to be fucked often.

“Relax, don’t fight me.” Pope’s soothing words brought me back to reality.

I clenched on his fingers, struggling to ease my muscles and succumb to the intrusion. I moaned with a depraved sense of loss when he slowly withdrew his fingers from my ass and then groaned in pure pleasure when he switched hands, working his wet and oily fingers in and out, stretching my opening with each tantalizing pass.

Now we must prepare your tiny hole so that it is able to accept Pope’s manhood.

Again, I fought back the thoughts of Vivian’s perverse advice.

“Demi, don’t. It’s just us. No one else. Just you and me. Relax. Let me love you.”

I closed my eyes and relaxed as Pope had instructed. I relaxed and enjoyed every little delicious taboo move.

The next time he pulled his fingers free, I was panting, desperate for his wicked digits to return. He ignored my, “Please, Pope,” lifting me off his cock. He flipped me onto my stomach onto the cool tiled floor. “Stay still. Don’t move,” he commanded.

Hearing the sound of a bathroom drawer opening and closing, then a snap of a lid, a shiver worked its way down my body. Pope was getting lubrication. I didn’t need to see it to know what he had in mind next.

Moments later, his hand went between my thighs, resuming playing with my clit, reminding me of my out of control passion again. His hand returned to my behind and he began to spank lightly.

He bent over me and pressed his lips to my ear. “I’m going to fuck this ass.”

I jerked as I felt Pope’s cock nudge between the crevice in my behind. He spread my cheeks with his hands as he placed his hardness at my prepared opening. I cried out in pleasure as my tight hole eased open, stretching beyond what I thought possible.

“Pope, I’m not sure I can.” Doubt, mixed with lust, clouded my mind.

“Trust me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You’re so big, I don’t think I can take you.” I whimpered as he pressed his bulging cockhead forward.

“Relax your muscles. Allow me in. I need to have you here. Breathe, Demi. Trust that this will feel good. It’ll fucking hurt, but feel so good.” His words were followed by kisses against my neck.

Pope moved a hand to my pussy and slid through the folds. Gently rubbing my clit, he pressed his cock past all resistance, burying his thickness all the way in. A ragged cry escaped my lips as a searing heat exploded deep within my anus.

Intense pleasure heightened with every move of his possession. “That’s right. Just like that. Feel me take your ass.”

Pope pressed two fingers into my pussy, moving in time with the thrusts of his cock in my tiny hole, letting me feel the pleasure of double penetration. His cock plunged harder and deeper inside of me as my moans echoed in the bathroom. Convulsive ripples ran from my anus to my pussy as an all-encompassing climax threatened to conquer me completely.

“Oh, God. Pope...”

“Press back into me. Drive my cock all the way into your ass. Make it hurt, allow the sting to make you come. Have the pain in your ass take away the pain in your heart. Fucking feel me!”

I did as he ordered. Shuddering, crying out, bucking against his hardness, I allowed the electricity to shoot through all parts of my body. I could only hold still as Pope grabbed my hips and forcibly thrust his cock hard one last time as he shot his seed deep within my forbidden channel.

No more pain.

No more darkness.

Pleasure. Long awaited pleasure.