Keep Me: A HERO Novella (7 page)

“Shh,” he hushes when I writhe under his probing. His leg hooks over mine, stilling it with powerful muscle. He pushes his crown inside before reaching around to rub my clit. “I’ll fuck you good if you let me,” he says, “but your squirming is testing my control.”

My chest stutters with a deep inhalation, and I try to relax against his body.

“That’s it,” he says, his fingers moving in quiet circles. He kisses my cheek. “When you submit, when you give in, it makes me so hard.”

“Slow,” I breathe. His thrusts begin gently, but it’s not long before they’re searching faster, deeper. His arm tightens around me as he exhales in my hair. “
Christ
. Tell me how my dick feels up your ass.”

“No,” I squeak. His hand slaps my backside. “I feel full . . . of you.”

“Does it make you want to come?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure I should let you.”

“Please,” I say. “Please, Calvin.”

Another smack stings me before he rolls onto my body. His arm remains secure around my shoulders as he thrusts, knocking my hipbones into the floor. He’s so hot as he pumps cum into my ass, his grunts muted from his mouth in my hair.

My body is shaking when he pulls out with a hiss. My exposed ass is hot where he slapped me and cold where he didn’t, and breath won’t come fast enough.

He gets to his feet, and I wince as I flip over. I move to pull up my tights or take them off, but I just look up at Calvin instead. He is, through and through, my master. He owns me so completely, and the thought is terrifying. His jeans are undone just enough that he hangs out, and there’s a glisten of sweat on his neck and forehead. His sweater is still casually pushed up around his elbows, remarkably unperturbed.

“Calvin?”

He jerks into motion, doing up his pants. “Stay.”

“Where are you going?”

“Outside. Put your palms on the floor and bend your knees.”

“But I’m—sticky. I need to clean up.”

“I guess you liked that spanking more than you let on.”

I purse my lips into a line. “Okay,” I say softly. I flatten my hands against the floor and assume the position.

“Don’t move.”

He leaves through the front door, and the room becomes colder. As confusion settles, the orgasm I almost caught fades away. Thoughts race through my mind, and I’m the same girl back in the mansion. His plaything. But after all this time without it, I’m now able to admit that it gets me off like nothing else. It’s being left alone on the hard floor that I don’t like. I raise my head, peering around as if there might be some clue as to where he’s gone. I’m not even close to the bedroom, since we only made it steps from the front door. I lower my head again and wait. Cum leaks out of my ass, making a wet spot on the floor.

The moon is howling. Blood billows to the bathwater’s surface in soft plumes. The burn is meaningful. I sift my fingers up out of the water, and my palms fill with tiny rosebuds.

I open my eyes to hot breath on my neck.

“Cataline, wake up.”

I groan with an achy body and look around in the dark. There’s a massive body on top of me, strength pinning my arms to my sides, and I stiffen as hardness presses between my legs.

“I hate that you could almost sleep through this,” Calvin whispers in my ear. He shifts, stretching my tights aside so he can get closer. I’m dry and sore as he pushes into me. “I could be anyone right now,” he continues against my skin. My pussy warms to him quickly, accepting his length and slickening. “Any sick fuck could break in and find you half naked on the floor. Lie on top of you, rape you.” I moan as his hips pull back and push back in. He lifts his head to look at me. “I hate that, Sparrow.”

I want to break free and touch him; he sounds almost sad. I settle for raising my head to kiss him. He won’t open his mouth for me, so I just whisper against them, “Nobody else can have me. I belong to you. I know you’ll kill anyone who tries to touch me.”

He makes hot noises into my ear, and my back arches off the floor. We come around the same time, rolling climaxes with no exact start or finish. When he’s done, I’m shaking from the intensity and from being in the same position for so long. He kisses over my dress until he reaches my lower tummy. He pulls the tights over my knees and removes them from my feet. I glance down, watching him kiss the red indents just below my tattoos. His hands massage me firmly. Even better than the relief is the feeling of being taken care of by him.

“Where did you go?” I ask, my voice sickly timid and meek.

“I had to think. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says against my leg.

With my hands free, I can touch his hair, a gesture that always brings me back to him.

“This is wrong,” he says.

“No, it isn’t,” I respond immediately.

“I love having you that way, completely helpless and reduced to nothing. You should see the way you look at me when you’re like that. Like I’m all you see.”

“You
are
all I see,” I say. “Underneath you, I’m godless.”

He glances up from between my legs, his hands still kneading the redness. “That’s wrong. And it’s addicting.”

“I asked for it,” I remind him.

“No. You asked for roleplaying. That wasn’t roleplaying. That was real. I get off on seeing you broken. This is me, and . . . I don’t know how else to be. Is this what you want?”

“I just want you as you are. I love when you’re tender, but I want all pieces of you.”

“Tender,” he says with a scoff.

“Yes. You are many different things in the same man.”

“I will disappoint you. I will hurt you. If I could be different, I would. But I don’t think I can.”

I sit up and take his jaw in my hands. I kiss and kiss and kiss until I think I’ve covered his entire face. “I told you once, break me. Hurt me. Just don’t leave.” My arms wrap tightly around his neck, and I press my cheek to his. “Promise me you won’t leave. You’re scaring me.”

He sighs. “You’d have to pry me off with a crowbar.”

I smile. “I love that you marked me so thoroughly tonight, but can I shower now?”

His chest vibrates with a laugh. “Yeah, if you don’t mind sharing.” He stands, helping me up after him. He spins me by my shoulders to unzip my dress so it drops at my feet, then hugs me from behind and kisses my cheek. “You go ahead. I’ll be a minute.”

I’m glad, because it gives me a chance to use the bathroom. I clean myself as best I can before starting the shower and stepping underneath the warm stream. Calvin comes in soon after, stripped to nothing. His eyes never leave mine as he enters the shower and kneels at my feet. “I’ve never wanted to both destroy and worship something the way I do you,” he says, kissing my stomach. His chin jabs into me as he looks up. “If you could only see how beautiful and sexy you are right now.”

I don’t feel beautiful; I feel like a wet dog. But I smile down at him and lace my fingers in his hair.

“You’ve always been the only girl in my eyes.”

“I’m not a girl, anymore,” I say, my voice unintentionally husky.

He kisses me again, and his lips travel lower. “I know. Believe me, I know.”

“Where do we go from here, Cal?”

He gets to his feet. “Banks Street.”

I cock my head at his quick and casual answer.

“I found us a place.”

“On Banks Street?”

“It’s a safer neighborhood and still close enough to the gallery.”

“It’s expensive.”

“I’ll worry about that.”

“I’m not letting you pay my rent.”

He looks at me like I’m a ridiculous child. “I’m not. I’m getting us an apartment. A nice, upscale place in a neighborhood where I don’t have to worry about you so much. This place is a shithole.”

“Hey,” I object, shoving his shoulder. “I’ve lived here for more than two years, and I love it.”

He looks around the bathroom. “I can’t live like this. This place is the size of my closet. My legs hang off your bed.”

I jut my lower lip. “It’s cozy and comfortable and the neighborhood has character. Banks Street, on the other hand, is dull. It’s for families and old, rich, white men.”

I try to pull away, but his strong arms have other ideas.

“I am a rich, white man, and you are my family,” he says.

“You forgot old.”

“I’m not old.”

“To me you are.” I kiss his chest. “My old, rich, white boyfriend. How old are you now anyway?”

“Thirty-six.”

I giggle. “Yep. You’re getting up there.”

“Could an old man do this?” he asks as he hoists me up over his shoulder.

“Calvin,” I exclaim. He steps out, shuts off the water, and exits the bathroom. “I didn’t even start my shower.”

“Too bad.” He flops me down on the bed and crawls in next to me, pulling the covers over us. His body curls around mine as he sticks his nose in my neck and inhales. “You and your tiny bed,” he says into my hair. “You didn’t eat dinner. Are you hungry?”

I sigh contentedly. “No. Are you?”

“I ate.”

I wriggle in his grasp. “Without me?”

He laughs in a gush of hot air against my skin. “No. You were there.”

I smack his arm around my waist. “Calvin.”

“You were fucking delicious.”

My face heats as I blush. I sink deeper against his body, and he responds by tightening his arms around me.

“Tell me about the past few years,” I say.

“What do you want to know?”

“Was it hard knowing people were suddenly more afraid of you than anything?” I wait silently, stroking his forearm.

“The only hard part was keeping my promise not to watch over you. Especially in the beginning and after Norman died.”

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” I exhale. “I was sure I’d never see you again.”

“I didn’t want you to love me because you were afraid or because I made you. I wanted it to be real.”

“It is real. Oh, Calvin, it’s so real.”

“I want it to be real, but bastard that I am, I’ll accept it either way. If it means you stay here.” He shakes me lightly. “Right here.”

“Were there other women?”

“It was years, Sparrow.”

I nod, swallowing down a sharp pang in my throat.

“But I’ll tell you a secret. None of
them
were real.”

I know the feeling. Sometimes with Grant, there was a valley between us that I didn’t know how to cross. I’d go through the motions, wishing he were someone else, wondering how damaged I must be to wish that someone were Calvin.

“We’re on the same side,” I whisper.

He combs hair from my face. “What?”

“There’s no space between us. For me, being away from you was being away from myself. I became disconnected. Or maybe I was never connected at all, just a bunch of parts working. You know me to my core, and you’ve taught me things about myself.”

“That you’re also a depraved pervert?”

I elbow him gently in his ribs, and he huffs. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” he says.

I suppress a smile. “Maybe.”

“Maybe what? I’d like to hear you say it.”

“Maybe I’m a depraved pervert.”

He chuckles deeply, but then says softly into my ear, “You said earlier you want all pieces of me. But you didn’t say you liked what I did to you tonight.”

Did I? Could I admit it if I did? I don’t dare compare Calvin to Grant aloud, but he’s my only other sexual experience. I only orgasmed with him sometimes, and the sex was almost formulaic for me. I didn’t get the impression it was for him, which makes me think that normal people have sex that way. It was nice, and he was attentive, but I never felt . . . consumed.

I’m afraid of admitting that I like what he did because of what it could do to us. I’m equally afraid of what denying it could do. I remain quiet, happy in Calvin’s protective embrace.

I drift in and out of sleep, dreaming about taking photographs of my photographs and hanging them in a new bedroom around a new bed. I stir somewhere in the middle of the night. Calvin is still pressed up against me, but his arm is gone. I slip easily from the covers and sneak into the kitchen. I sit at the table, draw my knees to my naked chest, and light a joint. Grant’s cherry blossom painting is within reach, so I pull it close and study it. With my other hand, I flick my lighter on and off mindlessly, staring so hard at the paint that I see brushstrokes. I flip it over and find words I didn’t see before.

“caresses of pink, petal by petal,

one drops, two floats, all settle,

at my feet, what once was alive,

browns at the edges, struggles to survive

alone, delicate, womanly pink,

together, riotous, blooming, lips synch,

for a ghost of a kiss

you are my bliss

beautiful suffering to stay what cannot,

ripped, stolen, a wretched lot,

you came into my life, flooding and thick,

an explosion of pink that left just as quick.”

I read it over and over, trying to make sense of each word, understand its meaning. I lean in closer to inspect the faint scrawling. Did Grant see this when he bought it? Is that why it reminded him of me?

Calvin shuffles into the kitchen in his underwear, hair adorably mussed and eyes barely open. “What’s up, beautiful?”

I can’t help smiling at the new endearment. I slide the painting away and lift my joint. “Can’t sleep.”

He rubs his ridged stomach and yawns. “What can I do to get you to quit that?”

“I cut back a lot,” I say, “since you got here.”

“Will you come back to bed? And let me hold you until the sun comes up and I have to let you go?”

I like sleepy, romantic Calvin, especially because his slumbery voice is even deeper and raspier than normal. It’s as if his opposites are the only parts operating tonight. I take his extended hand and let him lift me out of the chair. I follow him to the bed, and we’re both asleep within minutes.