Page 28 of Savage Love

I do my best to hide it, keeping my face as carefully blank as I can as I roll to one side. Elena starts to move towards me, as if to cuddle up against my chest, and then she freezes, looking at me.

“I’m not supposed to do that, am I?” she asks in a small voice. “We’re not going to—”

I let out a sharp breath. In truth, I know it would be better if we didn’t. No good will come of holding her afterward, of cradling her against me and letting her feel what it would be like if I could give her everything, if I could love her the way she deserves. But tonight, of all nights, I can’t bear to break her heart all over again by telling her that.

So I don’t say anything at all. I reach for her, pulling her against me as I roll onto my back, my arm circled around her as she hesitates, and then lays her head against my chest.

“I missed that,” she whispers, her voice cracking a little around the edges. “That was—”

“It was,” I agree, and I force the guilt out of my voice, force the memory of a different wedding night back, because that’s all gone now. There’s nothing that can possibly be gained by letting those ghosts join Elena and me in our wedding bed.

I smooth my hand over her hair, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and I feel her relax against me. I wait until I can feel the gentle rise and fall of her breathing that tells me that she’s asleep, and then I slowly slip out of her embrace, taking the cashmere throw blanket from the end of the bed and laying it over her so she doesn’t get chilled.

My pants are hanging off the foot of the bed, and I slip them back on, going to pour another glass of vodka before I quietly walk out onto the balcony, closing the doors behind me. Beyond the railing, the city is lit up, still alive at this hour, with people out drinking and dancing and enjoying the last bit of their night. I let out a heavy sigh as I take a deep gulp of my vodka.

Fear and guilt, and shame fill me all at once, in the hollow space left behind by the absence of my now-satisfied desire. I think of Elena lying in the middle of that enormous bed, delicate and beautiful, and now all mine whether she should be or not, and all I can think of is the possibility that I’ll fail to protect her, too. That one day I’ll come home, and I’ll find her dead in blood-soaked sheets, and the past that I’ve fought so hard to keep at bay will have repeated herself.

And it’s my fault.All my fault.If I’d been stronger, more resilient, if I’d resisted her no matter how much I wanted her, we wouldn’t be here now. It’s my fault we’re at this point, that Elena is in that bed with my ring on her finger and my child in her belly, and there’s no argument against that. She can tell me all she wants that she seduced me, too, that she wouldn’t leave me alone, that she battered down my defenses—but I was the one responsible for her. It was my job to keep her safe. And now, not only has her life changed forever because of me—she’s still in danger, too.

There’s the shame too, hot and thick, burning through me along with all the rest—because a part of me, one that I can’t bury, ishappy.I’ve felt it all day, from the moment the church doors opened and I saw her standing at the end of that aisle in the most beautiful wedding dress I’d ever seen. I saw her, and I felt a burst of happiness. I watched her walk towards me, and had a vision of her months from now, pregnant with our child, and felt excitement. I thought of having a family, of the thing that I’ve spent nearly forty years of my life believing I would never have and didn’t deserve, and I felt joy.

With that joy comes the shame, because I still don’t deserve it. How can I? Lidiya and our child are dead, and I don’t deserve to move on. I don’t deserve the happiness they were denied, because of my failures. And what’s worse, because I don’t deserve it, Elena will be denied it, too.

I know she won’t ever be truly happy unless I can love her, unless I can move on with her and be utterly devoted to her and our family. I want so much to make her happy, and as she’s pointed out again and again—I can’t.

I stand out on the balcony for a long time, finishing my vodka, until it’s gone, and I walk quietly back into the room to set my glass down. Elena is still sleeping, curled on her side facing where I was before I left, and when I undress again and join her in the bed as carefully as I can, her eyes flutter open anyway, just a bit.

A small smile curves her lips, and my heart aches all over again seeing it, because I know she’s still half asleep, only awake enough to know I’m there, and not enough to remember all the reasons why that shouldn’t make her happy.

Her hand reaches up, brushing over my chest, and before I can catch it, it drags lower, down my abs, as she squirms closer to me. Her body presses against the side of mine, from breasts to calves, every inch of her warm and soft against me. As her fingers slide down the ridges of my abs, my cock jumps, instantly hard from the feeling of her touch and her so close to me. It bumps against her hand, and her eyes flicker open, her fingers immediately wrapping around me, her thumb brushing underneath the tip and sending a hot burst of pleasure through me.

“Elena—”

“It’s still our wedding night.” She leans in, pressing a kiss to my shoulder, and her hand slides downwards, tightening around my cock.

I feel myself pulse in her grasp, pre-cum already pearling at the tip as she starts to move down my body, fluttering kisses across my chest as she moves between my legs. She looks so beautiful, her perfect naked body kneeling over me, her waves of inky dark hair spilling over my thighs as she leans down, and her tongue flicks out, licking up that drop of pre-cum before it can slide down my shaft. It feels like electricity through my veins when I watch her drag her tongue over my cockhead.

I can’t speak. All I can do is groan as she smiles, wrapping her lips around my swollen flesh, hand stroking downwards as her fist presses down into the base, her lips traveling down to meet it, and it’s an entirely different kind of ecstasy.

She moans around my cock, and I bury my hands in her soft hair, not to hold her down onto me, but just to feel it sliding through my fingers. Her tongue slides up the underside of my length, teasing the swollen veins, pressing just beneath the head and sliding down again as she tightens the suction around my cock, her other hand pressed against my thigh as if to hold me there so she can pleasure me with her mouth.

“God, you look so fucking beautiful with my cock between your lips.” The words spill out before I can stop them. I reach out as she slides up, letting go of me for just a moment to catch her breath, my fingers under her chin as I press my thumb into her swollen, reddened lower lip. Her eyes are glistening from the effort of taking me all the way to the back of her throat, her lips puffy, and she looks so fucking gorgeous it hurts.

“Do you want more?” She flicks her tongue out, the words soft and husky as she licks up another droplet of pre-cum from my tip, and my cock jerks, slapping lightly against her lips and making her laugh. “I think that’s a yes.”

This time, she doesn’t go slowly. She wraps her lips around my tip and sucks, hard, sliding down so that I’m in her throat before I realize it, her head bobbing as she fucks me with her mouth, her hand sliding under my balls to cup them gently while the fingers of her other hand press into my thigh. I feel dizzy from pleasure by the time her nose presses against my abdomen, my cock swallowed up almost entirely between her soft, plush lips.

“I’m–oh god, Elena, I’m going to come in your mouth if you keep that up–”

She slides up again, my cock slipping out of her lips with a faintpopas she watches me, her gaze hazy with desire. “Is that what you want?” she asks softly. “Or do you want to come inside of me again?”

Fuck.I know what she’s doing. She wants to hear me say that I want her,whatI want from her. And I can’t blame her for it. It’s her wedding night, and what bride doesn’t want to hear her new husband say how much he wants her and whisper his fantasies to her?

I push the guilt aside, and I give her that, at least. Becausegod, I fucking know what I want.

“I want you on top of me.Fuck—” I groan as she circles her tongue around my cockhead again, licking up the steady drip of pre-cum leaking from me now. “I want you to ride my cock while I play with your clit, and I want to feel you come on top of me while I fill you up again–oh god–I want to fuck you while you’re still full of my cum from before, and—”

I lose track of my thoughts entirely as Elena leans up, her hand wrapping tightly around my shaft as she straddles me, her legs on either side of my hips as she drags my cockhead along her entrance. I feel how wet she is, a mixture of her arousal and my cum dripping out of her from earlier, and the thought makes me throb in her grasp as she leans back a little, sliding the tip of my cock against her clit.

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