––––––––

“WHO?”  HE SEETHES THROUGH gritted teeth, and for a moment I forget what he’s asking.  “Who the fuck kissed you, Cricket?”

The sound of my nickname almost pushes me over the edge into a mini orgasm.  But there is a need in his eyes, a desperation for something to hold onto.  I answer quickly.  “His name is Marco.  In Mexico, he and my father did business together down there.”

“You kissed him?”

“No!”  I sputter as he thrusts upward, driving his girth deeper as his other hand comes to the base of my throat, rubbing up and down before finally coming to a gentle squeeze just beneath my jaw, controlling my breath.

“No what?”

There is a darkness about Walker I don’t remember.   His body is every bit as powerful as I remember, even larger, stronger, but the shadows under his eyes tell me the years have been long.

But now I see hatred in his eyes.  His erection has lost nothing as it stays seated inside me.  After I answered his question, he’d shifted us so I am sitting forward on his lap.  He’d entered me in one hard motion and I fight the urge to move again, even as the darts of pain from his size shoot through me.

“He kissed me.  I didn’t kiss him back.  I had no choice.  It was a business thing.”  The most pleasant sort of fear begins to rise in me.  I feel like I’m floating and my hands flutter up and around, coming to rest on Walker’s shoulders.  “He’d asked me out like a thousand times.  I always said no.  Until...”

Walker licks his lips, then his teeth bite into the bottom one on a sniff.  “Cricket, you do realize I’m about to come completely undone.  Tell me everything right fucking now before you kill me.”

The throb between my legs turns to a pounding as he pulls at my hair and re-focuses my attention as he repeats his question.

“Okay.”  I clear my throat and feel the tension of his hand there.  “Dad was running out of money, again.  He’d gone through everything he brought with us, spent anything he’d made... the huge compound where we lived, the cars... it was all for show. He put some deals together but for whatever reason, we were broke again.  Marco offered him a deal.  I don’t know how much money, but if I didn’t agree...”  I trail off again as I see the fire in Walker’s eyes, and for a moment I’m mesmerized.  Then his hand slips to the back of my neck and I forge ahead.  “Dad said, if I didn’t agree to marry him, he would put Nana on a plane back to Michigan that next day.  She has no one here. No money.  I had to take care of her.  So, I agreed.  That day in my Father’s office, they signed a contract and he kissed me.  Put a ring on my finger.  But this morning, before we left, I took it off.  I just dropped it on the floor of my room.   I didn’t want him or any of it.”

Flames flicker in his eyes but his hand falls from my neck, drifting down to cup the weight of my breast.  Two fingers pinch the already sensitive nipple, making me close my eyes and gape as his mouth comes to cover mine.  His tongue slips inside and my body ignites.

“No one will ever touch you but me, Cricket,” he whispers into our kiss as his hips surge upward and then his teeth bite into the nape of my neck, sending shivers through me.  “Or they will die.”

His hand moves to my other breast while the other controls me by my hair. Our bodies begin to move together as if by some invisible force and the sound of my wetness slipping up and down on his thick hardness makes him smile.

“So wet.  So beautiful.  My shy little girl. Cum for me, baby.”

He shifts upward into me, every inch of him owning me from the inside.  His hand swoops to my lower back, pressing me down, the perfect amount of pressure, the exact friction needed to bring me to the edge as his eyes stay pinned to my face.

“That’s my girl.  You’re right there.  I want to feel you soak us. Can you do that for me?”

He moves us faster and my hands grip tighter into the hard muscle of his shoulders.  My hips grind into him as my orgasm springs forward on a yelp.

“You make me feel like a king, Cricket.  When you cum I’m a fucking warrior.  I’ve never been so happy.”

His words echo around in my head as my body spasms and I fall onto him, heaving each breath as if it was my last.

As the seconds ticked by, he whispers the most beautiful words into my ear.  The hand that only moments before pulled my hair, now lovingly caresses my back in long, even strokes.  The safety I’ve always felt with him is now multiplied tenfold.

When blood begins to return to my brain, I begin to think about how we’ve gotten here.  I bury my face into the rough scrape of the day’s growth on his neck, breathing in his spicy masculine scent and feeling it center me. “Things will be different now.  I promise.  I’ll never risk losing you again.”

I let out a giggle, wondering how he knew exactly what to say at that moment.  “Things are always different.  But we never know if they will be better or worse, do we?”

“I do.  I know. I’ve spent every moment of every day since I last saw you planning our life, Mia. It was the only thing that kept me going.  Imagining us together like this.”

Walker shifts and in one smooth motion he takes me by the hips and lifts me cleanly, up in the air away from him and settling me into his arms as he stands, stretching, muscles cracking.  His words comfort me, but the pain of being at the financial mercy of others still tugs at me. 

It’s been a prison from which I couldn’t escape.  Without my own means, I was trapped.  My entire life I’ve been kept like that by my father; unwilling to ever let me find my own way, using everything in his power to keep me powerless.  He refused to ever let me work even a meaningless job, refused to let me be out in the world. College was a topic that only brought down a tirade of venom of which I never knew the source.  I just knew I was trapped.

But There’s a speck of hope. A bit of a plan forming in my head.  Nana’s words from earlier now seem like a direction. Taking something I love, something I think I’m good at and turning it into a source of income.  Maybe even a career. 

“Where are we going?”  I ask as his long strides carry us toward the door of the office.

“I know you’re hurting.  And it’s my job now to take care of every part of you.  Your heart.  Your body.  Your spirit.  And right now, your body needs a bath and some gentle TLC. I’ve dreamed of giving you a bath for so long.  That may sound weak to you but it’s part of how it will be.  You are mine to care for now, Mia.  Hope you can get used to that.”

I’m lost in the moment, even as that tiny voice in my head chirps for me to be careful.

When he stops at the top of the stairs where light is streaming in through the wall of leaded glass windows, he cocks his neck to look down at me.  I squint into the beams of bright light and feel more exposed than ever.  For a moment, I wish that he’d wrapped me in the blanket before carrying me.

“What?”  I mutter, casting my eyes into his chest.  The hard pectorals are outlined by deep valleys every time the muscle shifts.

“You do realize I love you, right? I never stopped loving you.”

Heat covers my face.  All the nights and dreams I’ve had since I was fourteen, dreams of hearing him tell me he loves me, he wants me, all of it comes flooding back.  For the past few years my nights have been haunted by the realization I would never know or never hear him tell me that again, but all of that is suddenly swept away.

I take a moment, my ears ringing, unsure what to say.

“No.  I guess I didn’t.”

“Well, make no fucking mistake. I do.  I fucking love you.”

With that, he ascends the remaining stairs and carries me to my room and the attached bath, leaving me feeling safe and in danger all at the same time.