Je Suis a Toi (Monsters in the Dark Book 4) (16 page)

“Don’t struggle. You know I’ll keep you safe.” Q’s murmur danced down my back.

My panic receded as trust billowed fast and true.

Q was born into darkness, but he’d never baptized me in his blackest desires. And because of that, I could implicitly say he spoke the truth. No matter what he did to me, he would never truly harm me.

Q paused, his tattooed chest soaking. His feathered sparrows fluffing off droplets almost alive on his skin. “I told you once never to fall for me. That I didn’t want the curse of breaking your heart while I broke so many other pieces of you.” His hands landed on my breasts, cupping them reverently. “Yet you fought me, just like you said you would. You fell for me, just like you promised you would. And now, you’re willing to give me what I need even after I tricked you and lied.”

I swayed as I fell even deeper for this complex husband of mine. Q was all my fantasies in one glorious lifetime. The fact he finally wanted to share me with his child spoke volumes about his capacity to love.

“I’m so glad you ignored me,
esclave.
” His fingertips branded my nipples with pain. “So fucking happy you married me.” Pushing me backward, he smiled harshly as my spine met the pool wall. His chest strained as he sucked in a heavy breath. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

My heart hammered in my ears as he kissed me.

His tongue laced with mine, and I sank into the sweet embrace, knowing it would be the last I received tonight. The air crackled with an impending storm. Q’s control frayed every second, his eyes drenching in determination and the salacious need to hurt.

Breaking the kiss, he opened his hand, revealing the other item he’d retrieved.

A tiny pair of silver scissors from the toiletries in the changing room. I stiffened but didn’t flinch. This was Q’s signature. It wouldn’t be sex with him if he didn’t draw a little of my blood.

Gently, he placed the sharp twin blades against my breast just above my nipple. “If I get you pregnant, these won’t belong just to me anymore.” He pressed down, never breaking eye contact. My skin gave way, permitting a small puncture and blood to well. “Do you think that’s fair,
esclave
?”

I moaned as he ducked his head and sucked the bright red bead. His tongue swirled around my nipple, his teeth biting with ruthless sharpness.

Blood raced faster in my veins, either rushing toward him or running away. I could never tell when he put me in this mindset.

“No, they’ll always be yours.”

“Always?”

“Always,
maître
.”

Towering over me, water decorated his face as his hand disappeared beneath the surface to my lower belly. I stopped breathing as the scissors teased my delicate flesh.

“I cut you once here. Do you remember?”

I nodded. “Yes. You licked me clean and then permitted me to do the same to you.”

His eyes blackened. “And you liked it? Tasting me? Claiming me?”

My moan was answer enough as he cut me shallow and quick.

We both looked below the surface, fascinated by the slow curl of pink staining from me, vanishing almost instantly into the stinging salt.

“You bleed for me so willingly, Tess.” His lips latched around my ear. “Will you scream for me, too?”

My eyes shot wide as his body crushed me against the wall. My arms bellowed as my bound hands crashed against the tiles. Q ripped my legs from the pool bottom holding my weight as he wrapped my thighs around his hips.

His hand fumbled between us as he angled his cock and shoved deep inside me.

He hadn’t touched me there yet. It made the invasion all that more intense.

His face contorted with furious etches. “I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of fighting how much I want this. I’m tired of pretending I don’t need this from you.” His mouth claimed mine, kissing me hungrily as our bodies connected with no barriers. “I’m giving up. I’m going to do whatever it takes. I’m going to fuck you, love you, win you. And when you’re so fucking tired of me taking you, I’m going to do it all over again. You’re going to give me what I want. Aren’t you, wife?”

His thick cock stole all coherency.

I nodded.

That was all I was capable of. My mouth stretched wide, focusing on the slip and slide of him. The pinch and pain as he fucked me hard. And the glorious pleasure he invoked.

I’d never felt more alive than when we came together. Sex wasn’t just for us. It was about making something
from
us. Combining our souls to create another.

It added a terrifying dimension to our sexual fight.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Q gritted his teeth, visibly shuddering. He kissed me again. Hard. Fast. Lethal. His hands landed on the edge of the pool, blocking me in the cage of his body while his hips thrust into mine.

I couldn’t move. My hands remained locked together, and my neck protested as his kiss turned vicious. He took and gave and took some more. Every twist of his tongue demanded I do what I promised and find a way to become pregnant for him.

Spearing my tongue with his, we battled until we were heaving and insane. Nothing existed but our kiss and being inside each other. The stinging cuts on my breast and stomach only anchored me more to him, and my pussy fired with the need to release, building and building with a demand I couldn’t ignore.

“Q…please…I’m going to—”

Instantly, he stopped. Pulling out of me, he ended both the kiss and our connection.

No!

My eyes shot wide with frustration. “Why—why did you stop?”

“Because I don’t want you coming without doing something.”

Uh-oh.

“Doing what?”

His grin was pure animal. “This.”

Taking a deep breath, he vanished beneath the water.

I gasped as his hands pinned my hips against the side of the pool. I teetered with imbalance, unable to hold onto anything with my wrists tied.

What the hell is he doing?

His reply came a second later in the form of teeth.

The wet room ricocheted with my breathless scream as Q’s tongue replaced the silk of seawater with sensual saliva. I turned legless and inhuman as he shot his tongue inside me, fucking me just as roughly as he did before.

His fingers replaced his tongue, three stretching me, heralding my begging orgasm.

I gave into him. I didn’t have a choice.

My head lolled as his fingers drove in and out and his mouth suckled on my clit. I didn’t know how long he could hold his breath, but my shoulders ached and the mental tally it took to stand up while all I wanted to do was melt battled with the spooling sensation in my womb.

And then pain.

My release switched from building to detonating as Q’s teeth sank hard and unforgiving into my clit.

He bit me!

My vision blurred on the dark shadow of him beneath the water between my legs. My thighs fought to come together as the most shattering orgasm ripped through me.

His fingers worked me in time, and the softest trickle of blood once again plaited with the pool.

The first, second, third band of my orgasm wrenched me dry, but Q didn’t stop tormenting me. He licked and bit until he wrung every shudder from me.

Only then did he push off the bottom and join me on the surface.

He smiled, water rushing off his dark hair and over his sinfully handsome features. “Did you enjoy your release,
esclave
?” His teeth flashed with the barest hint of my blood.

My cheeks blushed and my nipples tingled, calling for the same rough treatment. For Q to say I permitted him to hurt me only because
he
wanted it was absolute filth. I got off on him biting me. I got off on being hurt. It killed me to think of him taking that away from me.

Please, don’t ever change.

“Don’t ever stop, Q.”

He swallowed hard, staring unrepentant. “Don’t talk about that now.”

My thoughts raced. Even though Q had evolved in our years together, he still needed the primal depth of pain and scars. What would it do to him if he prevented that desire?

My legs trembled with the awful thought of growing apart. He said I was enough. But now he wanted more. What if that more was what broke us?

Q didn’t give my worry time to consume me. Grabbing my nape, he yanked me forward to kiss. The faint taste of copper tainted our embrace as he once again hoisted my legs around his waist and slid deep inside me. My back connected with the wall as oxygen fled my lungs.

He never broke the kiss, but I kept my eyes wide open. Focusing on his sculptured cheekbones and how achingly desperate his gaze appeared. We never looked away as his lips worked mine, soft but demanding. His hips rocked with perfect discipline. I moaned as he pressed his muscular body harder against me. The pool heated as our naked skin flushed hotter and hotter.

He withdrew, his cock only an inch inside me.

We stayed like that for a second. Just living in a perfect heartbeat.

Then violence reentered our lovemaking, and my spine arched as he plunged inside me.

Deep.

Hard.

Excruciatingly blissful.

The way he took me held no remnants of our argument or uncertainty. There was no fear or questions. Only the knowledge we belonged to each other forever.

Every time he thrust, I pushed back to meet him. Water splashed all around us, licking up the sides of the pool and echoing in the space. My lungs strained as Q grunted and rutted, taking me deep and thorough.

My hands ached to touch him. To dig my fingernails into his ass and scratch long bloody trails down his spine. I wanted to make him bleed. I wanted to love and adore him, autograph and implore him.

My pussy swelled for another release, heating and begging as a swirling orgasm started in my heart, working its way through my nerve endings.

“Take me, Tess. Every last inch of me.” Q bit my ear, losing finesse as he chased what we both needed. His hands roamed every inch—squeezing my thighs, my hips, my breasts. When he rolled my nipples, the percolation inside turned into a nucleus inside my core, just waiting for the final spark to unleash.

My heart rate ratcheted as I fought for pleasure.

“Christ, you look stunning like this. Wet and panting. Bare and begging.”

My legs wrapped tighter around his waist as he increased his speed. His hand dove between us, rubbing my tender, bitten clit. “I want to come,
esclave
. I want to fucking come so bad inside you.”

I flinched as intensity became my enemy.

Discomfort flared in my shoulders as my back arched for more.

Words were forgotten as Q lost himself in me. I willingly threw away any decorum or rules and chased him into the darkness.

He pinched my pussy, sending me up the final rungs of my release.

“Fuck. Fuck, yes.” His lips pulled back as he jerked into me with short, savage thrusts. His body went taut as he stopped fighting and let go.

The splash of his pleasure inside was the last element I needed to come a second time.

I combusted.

The orgasm thundered into being, webbing on the knife edge of pain, then crescendoing in a shower of sparks. My entire body contracted as I writhed on Q, milking him of everything he had left.

We didn’t speak as we stood there, twitching as the final ripples of our bliss faded. The pool slowly calmed from the tidal splashes we’d created and the little pieces of my soul collided with his, acknowledging that this was the start of something bigger than us.

Q chuckled, still rock hard inside. “If you keep clenching around me, Tess, I might have to fuck you again.”

My smile was lazy and sated. “I wouldn’t say no.”

Shadows entered his gaze as he kissed me softly. “The next time, I won’t hurt you. I won’t bind you, cut you—do anything to make you fear me.”

Before I could tell him I had no intention of letting him do such a thing, he pulled out and spun me around. With the scissors he’d nicked me with, he sliced my yoga band and freed me.

As I rubbed circulation back into my wrists, he kissed my throat. His face etched with confliction and heavy self-loathing. “I love you, Tess. And because of that, I won’t touch you that way again.”

Instead of being content and in love after a soul-deep connection, I felt stranded and alone.

Couldn’t he see I didn’t want him to pull away?

Couldn’t he see he hurt me more saying such things than he ever could with his scissors?

Not giving me a chance to argue, Q swam to the side and climbed out.

He didn’t look back.

LAST NIGHT.

Fuck, I shouldn’t have gotten that drunk. I shouldn’t have come home with frustration in my heart. I had no control over the bastard inside when I did.

I rolled over in bed, drinking in Tess’s sleepy form. Her skin glowed with a mixture of marks and bruises, but as she roused beneath my gaze, her smile was sleepy and sexy as she stretched like a well-petted cat. The two small cuts on her breast and belly mocked me.

I daren’t look between her legs where I’d bitten her hard enough to break her delicate skin.

“Morning.”

I grunted in response, nursing a headache and the awful taste of regret. Swinging my legs out of bed, I massaged my temples. “If I hurt you in the pool, I’m sorry.”

Sheets rustled as she crawled toward me. Her warm nakedness draped over my back as she looped her arms around my chest. Her lips landed on my cheek. “Q…I thought we’d discussed this way before we got married. You can’t hurt me. I have a safe word if it ever gets too much and I trust you to stop if I ever say it.” Her arms banded tighter. “Nothing you did last night was too much. I loved every second of it.”

I did my best to shrug her off, standing naked over her. “And what of the other thing we discussed.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, doing my best to get my wayward emotions under control. “What of that?”

Tess stood on her knees, proudly displaying the body that I’d coveted, claimed, and ultimately couldn’t get pregnant.

Two months.

That was my dirty fucking secret. For two months, I’d slept with my wife, all the while knowing she wasn’t on contraception.

Every time I came inside her, I thought she’d come to me with the shy but happy news.

I begged for that day.

I dreamed of her telling me she carried my baby.

But her period kept fucking coming, renouncing me as a man, proving I didn’t have what it took to knock her up.

She sighed. “I want a child, too. And I’m willing to do what it takes to make that happen.”

A huge gust of relief filled me. Relief that was so fucking opposite to my normal opinion of families and offspring. But with her…everything about me had changed. She’d tamed me but unleashed me. She’d cured me but ruined me. How could I compete with a woman who had the power to kill me if anything ever happened to her?

I paced away, digging at my pounding head. “That’s the fucking thing. I want you pregnant, Tess. I want a child with you. But I hate the thought of you in pain. I already want to slaughter the kid for hurting you in childbirth. If I can’t handle that shit now, how the fuck will I handle it when it happens?”

If it ever happens.

Tess gathered the sheet and scrambled off the bed. The white simplicity looked like a shroud around her delicious shoulders. “Tell me what you want, Q. You can’t have it both ways. You want me pregnant…fine. We’ll work together to make it happen. You don’t want me pregnant? Also, fine. We can adopt or do any other number of things. You just need to be honest about what you need.”

What did I need?

I didn’t fucking know.

But I knew what I needed to do. “I want your child.
Our
child. I do enough for orphans and survivors of the world. I’ve dedicated my life to supporting those in need and abandoned. Is it so wrong of me to want something of my own?” Rage howled in my chest. I had everything I could ever want. I was being so damn selfish. But the beast inside craved ownership on this one thing. I didn’t want to settle. If that made me an asshole, then so be it.

I already knew I was one.

My hands shook as I muttered, “I don’t want to adopt. That isn’t what this is about.”

Tess nodded. “Okay, I get that.” She looked at the carpet, hugging the sheet tighter. “In that case, we should go and get checked out. Make sure we’re both fit and able to get preg—”

I sliced my hand through the air. “No. No doctors or tests. Not until we have to. We give it a little longer before we consider that.”

I couldn’t stomach her being touched by a stranger or me being told I wasn’t able to do this. If I was the problem…then it was my issue, and I would bear it on my own.

Tess scowled. “But you said I’ve been off contraception for two months. Perhaps it’s a good time to see—”

“Two months is nothing. That damn chemical you injected yourself with should be almost gone.”

“That damn chemical was what I thought we needed to have a happy marriage.”

I snarled. “That was before, all right?”

Pinpricks of anger painted her cheeks. “I know, and I accept that. This is as scary for you as it is for me. We’ve gone from never discussing this to fighting about making it happen tomorrow.” She sighed, doing her best to rid her frustration. “Q, these things take time. You just—you can’t get stressed about it. And you can’t impose stupid conditions on our sex life just because you think it makes you unworthy of becoming a father.”

I laughed coldly. “That condition is non-negotiable.” Moving toward her, I seethed. “I’m not going to touch you like I did last night. Got it? Not because it makes me unworthy. But because you ought to be fucking adored rather than cut by some sick fuck with issues. ”

Her eyebrow rose. “Take that back. You aren’t that at all.”

“You don’t know what goes on inside my head, Tess.”

“So you said last night. But I don’t need to. I know you, Q. And I love you.” She grabbed my balled fist, holding on as I tried to shake her off. “Besides, I think you’re misunderstanding how making a baby works.” She giggled softly, doing her best to rid the argument brewing. “You have to do a lot more of what we did last night to make that happen.”

I paced away, cursing the heat in my skin from her touch and the beg in my cock to do exactly what I just vowed I wouldn’t. I wanted to hurt her constantly. My thoughts were dripping with black. But there was also light in there, too. A light that hadn’t existed until Tess.

I would do everything in my power to make that light win over the blackness inside. If I couldn’t keep her safe from me now, how the hell would I be able to keep any child of ours protected?

Tess chased me, wrapping her arms around me again and kissing my sparrow tattoo. “Promise me you’ll keep doing what we have since we met. It’s us. Ours. You can’t stop it.”

“Wrong.” I stepped back again, breaking her hold. I couldn’t have her touch me while we fought. I didn’t trust myself not to lash out in anger or grab her to make violent love to her. “What we did—what we do—it’s the reason you can’t get pregnant.”

“Not this again.” She moaned. “Q…it’s not. Don’t torture yourself—”

“I’m not torturing myself. Or you for the considerable future. From now on…we’re strictly vanilla.”

“Vanilla?”
Her eyes popped wide. “Oh, no. No way. Don’t you
dare
do that to me, Q.”

“Do you think I want that, either?” The idea was abhorrent to the madness living inside me. The thought of chaste kisses and no passion. The idea of simple positions with no toys. It well and truly muzzled me. But it was what had to happen. I wasn’t worthy of getting her pregnant. But if I treated her better, perhaps I would be. “I won’t change my mind, Tess.”

Challenge fired in her gaze. “You want to bet?”

“I want you to obey.” Wrapping dangerous arms around her, I forced myself for the first time to touch her as if she’d break. I hugged her gently rather than fiercely. I kissed her sweetly rather than viciously, and I made a vow to keep myself caged until she was pregnant.

And then…once she was? Once she swelled with my unborn baby, would I be allowed to ruin her again?

Fuck, no.

Fear cloaked me. This was it. I’d had her to myself for so many precious years. I’d done everything I wanted, all that I pleased. If only that had remained enough for me. Because now I would turn my
esclave
from my naughty, kinky wife into the mother of my child.

I could never touch her the way I wanted again.

Is it worth destroying what you have?

I had no answer to that.

I had no idea what I needed or wanted anymore, and it pissed me off.

I supposed I’d have to remain chained to keep her safe because no way in fucking hell would I hurt her while she carried our unborn son or daughter.

I shivered at those two titles.

Me.

With a son or daughter.

It was laughable. Suicidal.

But it was also what I wanted most in the motherfucking world.

Moving with her in my embrace, I murmured, “Let’s go for a shower together. A nice vanilla shower.”

Tess frowned. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m deadly serious. And nothing you can say will tempt me otherwise.”

She grumbled but obeyed as I pulled her gently toward the bathroom. “We’ll see about that,
maître
. I give you a day before you snap.”

I hated her pessimism and my internal agreement.

Not taking her the way I needed would be the hardest damn thing I’d ever done.

But I was committed.

And I wouldn’t falter.

“I love you, Tess. And that is why I’m doing this.”

As I stripped her of the bed sheet and turned on the shower where I’d broken her awful memories of rape and kidnapping, I refused to think about what my self-imposed damnation would do to her. She was as twisted as me. Sex had always been our safe place. Now, it was unknown. Forbidden.

But for this to work, we would have to give up a piece of ourselves.

For however long we needed.