Текст книги "Hero"
Автор книги: Leighton Del Mia
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17
Cataline
“Do you know how much I love you?”
“More than the sun?”
“No . . .”
“More than the moon?”
“No . . .”
“More than the stars?”
“No . . .”
I frown. “How much, Mommy?”
“I love my little Cataline more than the sun, the moon, and the stars combined.”
I squeal and jump into my mother’s embrace, throwing my arms around her neck. “I love you that much too, Mommy.” When her skin under mine turns icy, I draw back to find her eyes are closed. “Mommy?”
Her blue-tinted face is slack, her body unnaturally still. My once-white nightgown is soaked red and clinging to my body. I swipe at my mother’s blood as I scream, but when I reach for her again, she’s gone. It’s my own blood sticking to my hands.
A man’s far-off voice says, “Oh, dear.” I cry out to him for help, but he just continues to repeat the words.
Darkness is splintered by harsh, yellow light, and I have to shield my eyes with my elbow. “Turn it off,” I say. I’ve been in shadows for days, even during my meals, and the light’s assault is painful.
I recognize the voice as Norman’s when he yells for Rosa. Peeking from under my arm, I see the stain has spread on the mattress. I can’t help staring at it until Rosa appears, one long string of Spanish words flying out of her mouth. She coaxes me from the mattress and urges me up stairs upon stairs until we’re in my room.
The space is blindingly bright, but not so much that I don’t notice it right away. “Rosa,” I say, pointing. “My window. Why’s it closed?”
She pushes me until we’re in the bathroom, where she helps me strip off my clothing.
The shower steams over quickly. In the foggy, distorted mist of heat, I pretend I’m in my apartment bathroom. I wipe my hand between my legs, scrubbing at dried blood as I think about what I’d normally be doing. I don’t know what day it is, so I pretend it’s Friday. I’d work and then go home either alone or with Frida, depending on her plans. It makes me regretful of all the times I declined her invitations to spend time with her work friends. I don’t fit in with them, though. Or anyone, really. But if it somehow meant I’d be somewhere else in this moment, I wish I’d done it.
After, Rosa thrusts a box of tampons at me, forcing my hands around it as though I might throw it down. I promise myself I’ll never take the little things for granted again. Or the robe she wraps me in, or the way she lovingly combs back my wet hair.
A half hour later, cleaned and fed, I sit in the main dining room awaiting instruction. When nobody comes to get me, I decide to search the mansion for Norman. Eventually I give up and go to the library, where I find him in an overstuffed chair by the window.
“Come in,” he says when he notices me, gesturing to the chair across from him.
I sit hesitantly and pull my robe tighter.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“I’m not hurt, Norman. I just got my period.”
“I know,” he says, and we both look at our hands. “I’m sorry. I’ve been taking care of people for a long time, Cal—Master Parish included. I’ve never been so careless in my life.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “I didn’t know how to ask . . . I was ashamed.”
He touches the corner of one eye and nods. “I’m in a difficult position, Cataline. I’ve served the Parish family for many years. Calvin was still a boy when his parents passed—well, he was a teenager, but he wasn’t yet a man.”
My fingers run along the hem of my robe. “I didn’t know that.”
“He never discusses it. He feels a . . . responsibility to them and to this city.”
“A responsibility?”
“He’s not a bad person.”
“I disagree.”
“And he would say you’re right. He’s his own worst critic. Imagine a life where you never allow yourself a single mistake. That’s him. This has been difficult for him because you bring a sense of disorder to the mansion. He isn’t used to that. He likes things a certain way, and . . . you don’t always follow the rules.”
“I don’t understand any of that. If he hates having me here so much, why doesn’t he let me go home?”
Norman sighs, and his eyes scan the room quickly. “I’ve said quite enough. Just try not to upset him. I know you find it hard to believe, but he is a good man.”
I want to believe it. At least I did once, but now I know the truth. It seems Calvin has everyone fooled but me.
“I . . .” It’s silent while I determine how to respond. “I think you’re a good man, Norman.”
He swallows audibly as his eyes take their time meeting mine. When they do, I attempt a smile.
“Even after all this?” he asks.
“Yes. I’m sorry for being difficult. It’s just that I’m scared. That’s the only reason.”
“I know you are,” he says, turning his gaze back out the window. I’m not sure if I imagine it when he whispers, “I am too.”
“Will Calvin be mad you let me out?”
“Let me deal with him.”
My fingers in my lap are speckled with red, and I wonder how long I’ve been wringing my hands. The words I say to him, someone who hurts me even without laying a hand on me, are sweet, soft, and feathered. Someone else speaks them from my mouth. “Put me back in,” I tell him.
It takes a moment before he turns to me. “Pardon?”
“Up here, I don’t know what I am. The basement is the truth. My reality is dirty captive, not this.” I gesture around my shining, gilded library. “This is nothing but a lie.”
18
Even without windows or clocks, there’s no mistaking the dead of night, the perfect stillness. My breath seems to catch with every noise as I wait for sleep. I listen for Calvin’s footsteps on the basement stairs. I’m staring into such blackness that neon pricks the space in front of me as though I’m squeezing my lids shut. Maybe I am.
Eventually my chest deflates, and my fingers unfurl from my palms. I peer toward the stairs. Whenever the door opens, light slices through the darkness. The cell has been unlocked since Calvin broke the gate almost a week ago, but Norman has been sneaking me upstairs for meals and showers. I don’t ask how he gets away with it.
I frown. Will Calvin still be angry with me? Or has he forgiven the way I shunned his help? Norman’s statement continues to ring in my ears, though I don’t know why. There’s no truth to it.
“. . . he is a good man.”
A good man. What would that look like?
If I peeled away the ugly Calvin, would I uncover goodness? I let the fantasy play out. It doesn’t make me cringe. He’s not angry with me but regretful. He tells me what’s broken in him, and why he lives within walls. He explains why he’s doing this to me. I relish the feeling of his hair between my fingers as I comfort and kiss him. We slowly learn the insides of each other through our mouths, our eyes, our fingertips, our words.
“You’re awake.”
I gasp inelegantly and vault upright. My heartbeat reverberates through my entire body as I shift my back against the wall. Calvin’s silhouette sharpens, and I hear the squawk of the gate. “How long have you been there?”
“No more than a minute. I thought you’d be asleep.”
I’m trying to decipher the tone of his voice as I sniff for displeasure. “I don’t . . .”
“What?” he prompts.
“I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“No? Come on. Back to your bed. You’re free.”
My laugh is unnatural and base, something I’ve never heard from my mouth. “Free?” I ask. “I don’t think you know the meaning of the word.”
“I’m trying, Cataline.”
The sincerity in his voice that halts another snippy response. “I know,” I say. “It’s just that down here or up there, it’s all the same.”
“Why am I not surprised,” he mumbles to himself, “that after all this, you’re still fighting me?” His voice rises, an indication he’s now speaking to me. “I’m beginning to wonder if you even want me to be nice. Tell me, do you prefer me cross?”
“Nice,” I say. “I want you to be nice.”
“So then come to bed.”
My face flushes hotly; it sounds like an invitation, and I immediately picture the one time I’ve seen his bed. A woman on her hands and knees for him. There’s a pang low in my belly, something sharp and electric.
“Christ, it’s not like I’m inviting you into the pits of hell. You’ve been down here a sufficient amount of time to reflect on your behavior. Now it’s time to go back to your room.”
The heat recedes just as quickly as it flooded. For a moment I was there, at his mercy, just like her, scared but excited, pushing and pulling against him.
Hands under my knees bring me back to the moment. He pulls me from the wall and lifts me against his solid chest. His nose touches my temple as he inhales. “You smell awfully nice for being locked up over a week.” My shiver is a result of his breath near my ear and the insinuation that he knows of Norman’s and my indiscretions.
He carries me as though I weigh nothing at all. When we’re out of the basement and crossing the foyer to the staircase, my gaze shifts imperceptibly. Light hurts my dark-soaked eyes, but I can’t resist following the line of his strong jaw. I inspect the stubble shadowing his olive skin and the dimple in his chin before drifting to the hollow of his cheek. He’s always been incredibly handsome, but this close I can see the art in his beauty. We stop on the third floor landing.
He looks down, and cautiously, uncertainly, I reach up to pinch his glasses by their frame. They slide off into my hands in slow motion. Brightness still floods my vision, but now my world is an unearthly shade of green. His eyes are looking at my mouth, his own mouth slightly parted. I’m not only curious about how he tastes, but I want to know, and that thought catapults me back to reality.
“Put me down,” I demand in a hoarse whisper.
“We’re almost there.”
I’m upset, with whom I’m not sure. I push against his wall of a body. “I can walk.”
“Relax.”
My momentarily forgotten anger crashes over me all at once like a set of mad ocean waves. “Go to hell, Calvin. I mean it. I don’t want your hands on me.”
“Struggle all you like. It just turns me on.”
“You’re sick,” I say, stabbing my elbow into his chest.
“Sick?” he echoes, and his body vibrates against mine. “You’re the one who wants to sleep locked up in the basement by yourself.”
“Because in the basement I’m a prisoner,” I say. “Up here, I don’t know what I am. Am I your whore, your hostage, your toy?” My body pulsates from the tears I’m trying to keep inside. “I can’t live like this,” I continue, “not knowing my fate.”
“Do you want to be my whore?” he asks as he shoulders my bedroom door open.
“I just want to know what I am, whatever it is.” My voice breaks as heat pools at the edges of my eyes. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”
He stops mid-step when I break into tears, clutching his t-shirt to my face. His arms squeeze me even closer. “Cataline . . .” he says softly into my hair. “Don’t cry. I—”
“Stop,” I scream so loudly that he jerks back. I push against him with the entirety of my strength, and his immobility only infuriates me more. “I can’t take this back and forth. I don’t know who you are. Put me down. Now!”
“You want down?” His snarl stills my body. “I’ll put you down,” he says, “and that’s where you’ll stay until I’m finished with you.”
“Finished?”
With a stride forward, he tosses me so I bounce on the mattress. My pearl nightie bunches around my waist, and he’s staring between my legs, eyes riveted as his hands rip impatiently at his belt.
I gasp and slide off the bed, darting to his right. His arm shoots out to catch me, yanking me so my back is pressed against his front. He walks us to the bed until my thighs are flush against it.
“Get off me,” I screech. His hand pushes my upper back so my breasts mash against the mattress. His calm, controlled movements serve to remind me how easy it is for him to manipulate my body. He lifts my nightgown, exposing me as the sound of ripping fabric ricochets through me.
“What are you doing?” I reach up and claw at the sheets, trying to escape by pulling myself out, but he grabs my arms and forces them behind me. He secures my wrists at the base of my spine, and coarse lace digs into my skin as he winds my thong around them. He gives the fabric a hard tug and lets go, leaving me fighting against it, wiggling underneath him like a fish on land.
His hands slide between the mattress and my body, where they grasp my breasts roughly through the satin. He pulls me upright until I’m flattened against his body. “Relax,” he commands.
“No,” I say through gritted teeth.
He grips my hair in a ponytail and guides my head to the side. “Turn around.” When I don’t respond, he tugs so I have to swivel and face him. “Lie down,” he says.
“Calvin, please,” I say.
“Down,” he barks, and I flinch. I sit tentatively, pressing my thighs together so hard that they begin to perspire. I ease back onto the bed, my hair spreading everywhere, my eyes searching the ceiling. His hands push up the fabric of my nightie until it circles my waist. Firm fingers trail down my belly before parting my legs with little effort. The slide of his skin against mine pulls so deeply inside me that when it leaves, there’s a void, some dull, endless ache.
“It gets me so hard just thinking about touching you.”
My nightgown rides up underneath my breasts when he pulls me to the edge of the bed by my upper thighs. His hips find their place against me, and I feel the assault of his coarse pants between my legs.
“That feels amazing,” he says. “Don’t stop squirming.”
His words only bring my attention to the fact that my body is out of my control. The more I try to still myself, the harder my hips protest against his firm hold.
His eyes remain fastened to me as he removes his belt all the way. Metal clinks on the hardwood floor with finality. He leisurely continues undoing his pants while I snake myself backward against the mattress. I’m almost out of reach before he grabs one ankle and pulls me back. “I suggest you calm down, and try to enjoy this,” he says. “It will suit you best to relax.”
His pants drop, and with one hand holding my hips, he takes himself in the other. My whimpering is drowned by his long groan as he skims his crown slowly up my opening to brush my clit and then slides it back down. He squeezes himself between my ass cheeks and the bed, the length of his shaft rubbing my anus. After a split second of nothing, there’s considerable pressure between my legs.
“Spread wider.”
My legs shake in the air, unmoving. He grips my knees and forces them apart. He retreats with a large stride backward. “You should see yourself now.” His voice drips with amusement. “Hair all over the place, hands locked behind your back, tits in the air. Legs wide open for me.” He pauses to lick his upper lip. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sweet, pink pussy, Sparrow.”
My mouth dries with mortification, and just as I try to close my legs, he catches them.
“Do not, under any circumstances, close your legs unless I tell you to do so.” He lets go, and they hang there, trembling. “Very good,” he murmurs and crouches down. I feel his fingers pulling at my folds, opening me. He pushes one inside, pulls it out and when he inserts it again, it slides in more easily. “Getting nice and wet for me.”
He stands again and without warning, the pressure is back but it’s harder now as he pushes into me. He exhales, waiting there.
I take my bottom lip between my teeth, and my eyes squeeze shut. My legs are still suspended; they’re beginning to shake harder, but I barely notice because it’s taking all my concentration not to give in to the beg of my hips. My insides want this, to pull him deep and keep him there. But I don’t. “Please don’t,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything. I’ll be better.”
He anchors my hips to the mattress and thrusts hard, burying himself in me. I cry out just as suddenly, wiggling into the mattress, straining against my restraints.
“Oh, God,” I bawl. “My virginity.”
“Mine.” He stares down at my face as his chest heaves with deep breaths. My body adjusts to this thick piece of him that feels both foreign and familiar. When the pain lessens, I yearn for a soothing touch to replace it; hands on my face, a kiss, anything. He’s watching me so intensely that I think he might give me what I want, but his hips drag back instead and when he slides back into me, his abs flex.
“I’ve never had such a tight pussy.” He draws back again and thrusts harder. I squeal with each pinch of pain. As his rhythm increases, he falls forward onto extended arms. “I’m going to ruin you for every other man,” he says with gritted teeth. “You hear me?” His eyes fix on my chest, watching my breasts bounce with each contact of our hips. “Lock your ankles behind me.” It’s with relief that I rest my legs at the base of his back. “That’s it,” he groans. “God, I want this. To fuck you so bad.”
I’m overwhelmed with it all, the profound fullness of me, the rawness of his skin on mine, the shackle that keeps me from touching him. “But you are,” I say.
“This isn’t fucking,” he says. I gasp with a deep plunge, my head falling to the side. My cheek presses into the comforter to see his hand fisting it.
“What?” I ask, only half-aware.
“When I fuck you, you’ll know it.” One hand moves to my breast, and I yelp as he pinches and pulls my nipple. “You’re melting like butter.”
I am. I’m dissolving into the bed beneath me as a fierce and unrelenting force builds inside me. Each echo of a spasm draws me deeper into the recesses of pleasure.
“What is this?” I ask just above a whisper. “I need it.”
“Need what?”
“Fucking.”
He already fills me so hard and so deep that I can’t believe what I’m asking for. I brace myself for something that doesn’t come. Instead, he’s withdrawing, and I’m grasping desperately, my body and my mind, for what I’m losing. He steps back, his hardness glistening and bobbing between us.
“Why?” I ask. “Why are you stopping?”
He raises a menacing eyebrow at me. “Don’t forget who’s in charge here, Cataline. Get off the bed. I want you on your knees.”
It takes a moment for his command to reach me. I wriggle to the edge of the bed, but it’s so high that my feet don’t reach the floor. While he stands still as a statue, I slide over the edge and fall onto the ground.
“Faster,” he says. “Come here so I can stuff that smart mouth.”
At the hardness in his voice, I begin to tremble. My body contorts, and my ass juts into the air. I get on my knees as quickly as possible. I’m tempted to retreat under the bed and hide there until he leaves, but he looks just angry enough to snap if I disobey. I crawl to him. One hand finds the back of my head, and he presses his smooth head to my lips with the other. “Wider,” he says when they part.
He slides in, coaxing me open all the way, groaning as his shaft forces down my tongue and coats my mouth with my own sharp, metallic flavor. “I’m saving your pussy for last,” he says. “I bet you taste like goddamn cotton candy. Tell me how sweet you are.”
I flinch as I choke a response, my eyes watering. My wrists burn from fighting to get free. He uses my mouth faster, rumbling his approval. His eyes don’t leave me until he shuts them briefly and bites his lip.
He pulls out suddenly with an audible pop and grabs himself, pumping furiously. I wrench and twist my face, but he jerks my head back into place by my hair and comes on my mouth and chin. I try again to duck, but I’m immobile as he spurts all over my neck and collarbone, his cum dripping down my breasts. My cheeks flame, but the low, unearthly noise he makes almost sounds like a laugh.
19
Calvin
Below me, Cataline sits back on her calves. Her hair seems midnight blue in the semi-dark as it falls messily over her shoulders. In a raw moment like this, it’s easy to read the fear in her eyes.
Her body is sticky with me. Soon enough I’ll regret what I’ve done and what I’m going to do, but now, she is my wet dream come to life. And I’m hardening into steel again just from looking at her.
“Fucking.”
That word from her mouth will haunt me in the best and worst ways. I want to. I want to tie her to the bed and fuck the piss out of her until she begs me to stop. Then I want to flip her over and claim her tight ass like I did her pussy and her mouth until she milks me dry. I step away from her. Norman was right. I will destroy this girl.
“Stand up,” I tell her.
She looks at the floor a moment, thinking. Without her hands to balance, getting to her feet is a struggle.
“Earlier you asked me to fuck you.”
“I didn’t ask—”
“Do you still want me to?”
Her eyes dart from side to side as she chews on her lip. She blinks to my already stiff cock and away just as fast. I’m sick for the way I love watching her fight herself. Her thighs squeeze together discreetly. “No.”
“No? You look like you want to come.”
She shakes her head.
“You don’t want to come?”
“If I did, I would do it myself.”
My eyes roll back into my head, and I have to touch my dick to ease the ache. I recognize the grit in my voice for what it is when I respond, “I’d love to see that, Sparrow.”
She frowns. “What?”
I swipe my jeans from where they’re heaped on the floor.
“Can you untie me before you go?” she asks quickly, as though she isn’t sure she’s allowed. I watch her as I step into my pants unhurriedly and pull them up around my hips. “Please?” she adds. I zip them but leave the button undone.
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” I say and back up with my eyes locked on her.
She blinks at me adorably as she shifts on her feet, and her shoulders twist, trying to free her hands. I turn to grab the desk chair and set it a few feet from the bed. I fall back in it with an ankle over one knee and sweep my hand out in front of me. “By all means. Do it yourself.”
Tears instantly leak from the corners of her widened eyes. She shakes her head hard, her hair cascading like a chocolate waterfall. I let myself have this moment. Stripped in front of me, I can’t help, don’t want to help, my gaze from scanning every inch of her. She’s leaner than I imagined, or, I wonder, has that happened since she’s come here? Her hair falls long past her shoulders, grazing over the mounds of her breasts so just her pink nipples push through. Her breasts—she’s hidden them well over the years. I’ve fantasized about them beneath the unflattering button-downs she wore in the office. They’re bigger, fleshier than the blouses let on. Her waist sucks in, her hips flare, her tummy is flat and taut. She has a small bush, and I wonder if she’s always kept it that way or just since she’s been here. I wish I’d checked the moment she arrived. I want to know what that pussy looks like completely bared for my mouth. I want to lick her and show her how good it can be, but first I want to shave her.
She’s crying without modesty now, unable to hide her face since her hands are still perfectly secure behind her back. She’s fucking beautiful, especially in her pain, and I want to bury myself in her. My cock up to the hilt, my mouth between her breasts, my hands wound through that mess of overflowing, disobedient hair.
“Dance.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t fight me,” I advise her. “You’ll never win, and you’ll only anger me. Dance for me.”
Her shoulders tremble with silent sobs, but her hips begin to sway. Her hair swishes around her shoulders and teases her nipples. She’s fluid, even when she doesn’t know it, even when she’s not. Her upper torso is stiff, but her hips call to me like a goddamn siren song. My hand is down my pants before I even realize it, my cock in a death grip as I watch. I relax my fist and begin to stroke. “Good, Sparrow. Turn around. Slowly.”
She rocks between both feet as she spins for my viewing pleasure. Her backside is full, maybe even plump compared to her lithe body.
I rub the scruff on my chin as I restrain from going to her. “How many men have you had in your ass?” I ask.
She gasps. “None.”
“Yeah, right,” I tease her. “I don’t believe that.”
“I swear.”
“None of your boyfriends ever tried?”
Her voice drops. “I never had any.”
My heart hammers, my thoughts blurring. “You’re lying.”
“I haven’t,” she insists quietly.
“Keep dancing.”
My command jumpstarts the swing of her hips again. She’s afraid of me. I haven’t truly hurt her, not the way I’m capable of, but she’s afraid. I like her this way, unsure and obedient. Everyone should be afraid of me, and she’s no exception.
Mesmerized, I say, “Now, make yourself come.”
Her movements falter, but she doesn’t stop. “Here?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t,” she says. “My hands . . .”
“If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way.”
Her head bows toward the floor. “I can’t. Not when you’re watching.”
“I have all night,” I say. “The quicker you do it, the better you’ll feel.”
I half expect her to come sit on my lap, but what she does instead is even sexier. She trudges to one of the four posts of the bed and presses herself against it. She looks at me from the corner of her eye and hesitates. “Don’t make me.”
My pants grow tighter in the crotch with every second she’s up against that pole. “Disobeying me is what got you here in the first place. From now on, you do as I say. No backtalk. If I want you kissing my feet as I finger-fuck your asshole, you’ll do it. If I want to feed you nothing but my cock for a week, you’ll do that too.”
I can almost hear her objection, but she just pulls her quivering lip between her teeth. Finally, her hips roll forward, and she drops her head against the post with a sigh.
When she repeats the motion, I ask, “Does it feel good?”
Her response is the mere utter of an exhale.
“I asked you a question.”
“Yes,” she snaps. She rises onto the balls of her feet. Her knees bend for a better angle, and I watch her calves shake as she humps the post. Her head falls back so her hair cascades down her back. She turns her neck and gives me a look I’ve never seen. “But you feel better,” she says.
My jaw clenches at the unexpected invitation. She might as well have licked my cock, that’s how hard her words make me. Cataline is sexy without trying, and it occurs to me for the first time that if she tried, she could possibly unravel me. This thought keeps me glued to my seat.
She’s moaning now, but there’s a stilted frustration in the noises she’s making. She steps away from the bed, flushed with desire, all traces of modesty stripped away. Her breasts rise and fall as she struggles onto the mattress. With her teeth, she drags a pillow to the center and lies down on top of it. It’s too much for me, and everything from my torso down tightens as she positions her hips over the pillow. With her first undulation, I know I’m about to come in my pants. Her toes curl, and her pace increases. I’m stroking myself fast, helpless to her show. Her guttural groan, her face shoved into the mattress, her ass flexing with each ripple—it’s my undoing, and I’m spilling shamelessly all over myself, reduced to a teenage boy by this girl without even touching her.
Even after I finish, as my throbbing mellows, my eyes remain riveted on her. When she sits up, frustrated tears spill down her cheeks. “I can’t do it,” she cries. “I’m so close. Please, Calvin. Do it for me.”
Her angelic voice is the devil’s words in my ears. I’d die happy if that were the last thing I ever heard. I could put my hand between her legs and have her coming all over my fingers in seconds. She needs me, and the feeling goes straight to my head. But no matter how many times I remind her, she still thinks she’s in charge. I stand up and swing the chair back into its place.
“I’ll be back to fuck you in the morning,” I say as I leave the room.
She cries out for me, but I just lock the door and head back to my room. I’m asleep in a matter of minutes.
