Page 34 of Vow of Vengeance
"We've done everything we can."
"No." She shuts me down immediately. "No, we aren't giving up. We haven't done everything. I haven't been out there—"
"I've got her face on every third billboard, in every metro stop. I had missing person's posters put up at the bus station, on every lamp post. I've been to her job, her apartment... I'm trying, Ren. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, but it's time to face the fact that we may never find her."
"No." Soren says it so simply that I want to laugh.
I sigh, staring at the ceiling above me. I don't want to see the disappointment in her eyes, knowing that I put it there. I don't want to face the fact that I haven't done enough, that no matter how hard I try, I can't undo the past. I can't unwrite the code that made it so easy for people to be erased from public record. I don't want to face the fact that I was a naive fucking child who wanted to be a hero like his dead daddy, but that I turned into the villain.
The very project I spent my college years designing is the thing that was used to destroy the one thing I care about. The irony is palpable.
Her fingers brush against my jaw, twirling over the stubble that's grown out a bit this last week. It's such an innocent touch, but I groan at having her hands on me again in any way. It's such a simple pleasure to be denied for so long, but it's been excruciating. I don't think I even realized how much until she did that. I close my eyes, relishing the feel, and then open them to find her watching me. There's no expectancy, no waiting for me to relent and say that I'll keep trying. Whatever it is in her gaze, it's untainted... pure.
"I never want to disappoint you, Ren." I tell her truthfully. "But I—"
"Shh." She shakes her head, cutting me off. "No. Listen, okay?"
I do, listening to her take a shaky breath. When she swings her leg over me, I stiffen, confused by the sudden motion.
And then my cock stiffens, too, as her creamy thighs straddle my bare chest and I look up at her from this angle.
Seeing her like this is like seeing her in a whole new light...
Despite not having left this room in over a week, she has more color to her, as if the glow of the sun through the windows has tanned her somehow. Her hair is a mess of soft curls, and her collarbone doesn't look as sharp beneath the straps of her tank top. She's a fucking goddess, divine perfection, and I am her most devout disciple.
"We aren't giving up on her." She runs her fingers down my chest, her lips hovering above mine as she attempts to seduce me into continuing the search. I won't tell her it's working. "You want to know why?"
"Why?" I ask, playing right into her game.
She smiles coyly, flicking her tongue over her lips.
"Because I can't imagine telling our child that they'll never meet their aunt."
Everything freezes as I contemplate her words and their meaning. "Our... child?"
She nods slowly. "That's what you want, right?"
I sure fucking do. I've always wanted a family. But more than that, I wantherfamily. I want her stuffed full of my cum, I want her body softening with my child, I want her to be bound to me forever by the only thing more effective than a chain.
"Are you pregnant?"
"Not yet." She laughs. "But if it's what we want, we'd better get busy."
My cock jumps at the allure of her words-- both the current situation and the future she suggested. I want this unlike anything I've ever wanted, but I need to know she's okay first.
"A baby won't fix everything." I tell her softly. It won't fix her. It could actually make things worse.
I looked it up one night when I couldn't sleep, checking the bottle of pills for any potential side effects. It took me down a rabbit hole of women's hormones, mental health, and things about pregnancy I'm not sure I needed to know.
If we do this and something goes wrong, if she suffers another loss, I could lose her entirely to the grief. I'm not opposed to the idea of having to tie her up again at any point in the future, but there's only so much heartache one person can take.
"A baby won't fix me." She nods. "It won't undo the fact that my husband was a monster. It won't replace the memory of the child I lost. It won't make all of my problems disappear. And it won't make this thing between us any less real or any more legitimate. But this is what I want."
I think before I speak, trying to decide which of those things to respond to first.
"This is what I want, too. But what do you mean, it won't make it any more legitimate?"
She laughs, and the sound is beautiful. It may be the most unhindered sound I've ever heard from her, something effortless but more valuable than every submission I've had to fight for.
