Lies & Lullabies (20 page)

A stream of desire rolled through my body and lingered between my thighs, and I was as wet as his body. He was a cock with a pretty package. My need for him manifested into explanations to keep my fight down where it remained. The reason he kept me was personal, and I couldn’t deny my interest in discovering exactly what it was that tied us together and left him, if I believed him, unable to allow me to leave.

“Seemed you’ve lost your way and wandered into my private time and didn’t know when to leave.” His deep voice rumbled throughout the space.

Catch retracted the shower door and fastened a towel around his waist to stand in front of me. “You’re so close”—he pinched his fingers together, leaving a breath of space between his thumb and index finger—“to where I want you to be.”

His moisture-slicked body, adorned in the heavy black ink of the barren forest kept my attention hostage. The impressive imprint of his cock protruded underneath the terry cloth towel. If I wasn’t drooling before, I was now.

 
He drew his gaze down my body and made me cognizant of the fact I was only wearing a white, too-tight T-shirt that barely covered my panty-less crotch.
 

When he eyed the area between my legs, he grinned. “Almost.” Catch dropped his towel and stepped forward. His long and thick cock was covered in a few thin inked branches.
 

Grasping my hand, he ran it down the drops of moisture coating his body, accentuating the cuts in his form. “How badly do you want to fuck me, Simone?” We stood toe to toe, the back of his other hand grazed against the back of mine as it trembled at my side. His head inclined, and his lips flirted with kissing me.

My pride, and all but erased anger, no longer existed in the room. I wasn’t clear when it had left. In the moment it didn’t matter. “I don’t.” I could scarcely believe myself as the word was professed in such a delicate tone. “Is the show over?”

“Your mouth lies to me constantly, sweetheart.” He grabbed my shoulders, guiding me to the bedroom, pressing his body against my back to direct me.
 

He spun me and pushed me down to sit on the edge of the bed. “The show hasn’t started yet.” The corner of his mouth twisted into an expression staked in the center of deviance and sex. His hand wrapped around his cock, barely. He stroked up and down, pumping the thickness with a delayed speed. “Keep your legs spread and your eyes on me, or I’ll tie you down.” He continued to pump his cock, throbbing and hardening, with one hand.
 

Out of habit and the burning desire eliciting between my thighs, I pulled my knees together. The ache turned into a scorching heat. Enraptured, I was torn to shreds by the look in his eyes, the sight of his cock, his body, and his face. I didn’t want him—I
needed
him.
 

I slowly spread my legs and tucked my hands behind my back, showing him the glistening lips of my pussy. Hypnotized by him, a raspy “fuck me,” slipped from my lips.

His teeth attacked his bottom lip as he bowed forward. Pumping the thick head of his erection a few more times. White streams of cum squirted from his erection and decorated my leg with an odd pattern. He leaned forward and grabbed my hand, forcing my fingers through the viscous liquid and brought it to my mouth. Sweet tang coated my tongue and scratched at my throat as I swallowed it down.
 

He ducked down to bring his face to mine. “How do you want it? Do you want me to fuck you so hard you forget how to function?” Teasing me, he clenched my bottom lip between his teeth and purred questions meant to seduce. A hand was shoved in my hair, upturning my face. The damp tip of his erection rubbed against the thin material of my shirt and throbbed against my torso. “Can you feel that? I’m still so hard for you, Simone. I need inside that sweet wet spot between your thighs.” He exhaled against my lips. “And I need it now.”

My lips parted and I reached out to stroke him.

He immediately stepped back. The mask had returned and stolen everything he’d given me only seconds earlier. “Sleep in another room tonight.”

It took a minute before what happened registered in my mind.
 

“Fuck your games, Catch.” I stormed up, torn between hurting him or screaming at him. “Where am I supposed to go?”

He obviously took a major portion of pleasure from watching me react. “There are eight bedrooms. Find one.”

I muttered underneath my breath and swirled around to crawl into bed. The heat was uncomfortable and unbearable. I flipped around in bed with such violence the springs protested.
 

I threw off the covers, my bare feet slapping across the floor. I moved on a mission toward the bathroom to rub myself in the shower. I cared very little if Catch got a show. I wanted him to know he didn’t get to rule every part of me; conversely, it was a lie.

I only made it to the sink. I cleaned off my leg, splashing water onto my thigh, rinsing and repeating to wash his cum away. With my thighs dripping in water, I jammed my hand between my legs and braced myself against the bowl with the other.

Catch cleared his throat, announcing his presence. His cotton lounge pants were back on his body and obscenely revealed the imprint of dick. He glanced from my hand to my face and slid an odd looking black glove on his hand. “Don’t let me stop you. Go ahead, sweetheart, try to make that pussy come to the thought of me.”

“I won’t be able to come now.” I began to move my hand again. “Maybe I can if I imagine someone else is here…maybe I’ll think of that hot drunken one-night stand I had once.” I closed my eyes and sank my teeth into my lip. My eyelids became heavy, showing him how close I was to the verge. “Oh,” I moaned through quivering lips.

“I’m not sorry to disappoint you, Simone. That’s not the way you’re going to come tonight.” My hair was in his hands, tugging me out of the bathroom and into the bed. He bent me over the bed to face the window serving as a slightly reflective mirror on the other end of the room.
 

He pushed me down across the soft surface and lifted my head by my hair, making sure I could see him in the glass. He yanked my shirt up to my waist, and touched my bare ass with his gloved hand. A million tiny little pricks licked my skin. It was better than incredible and exacerbated my need to climax.

He drew back his hand and held it within my view of his reflection. His hand came down hard, attacking my sensitive skin with a hard thump. The burn made me whimper as it increased the panicked screams of my pain sensors.

He ran the glove down my ass again, lightly, in a way that should’ve tickled. The pricks no longer felt good. Tiny little burn points indicated he might’ve made me bleed.
 

He did it again, eliciting only a muffled, “Oomph,” from me.
 

 
Harder, faster, violently, he punished my ass with the glove. I clutched the silky sheets, my nails digging into the material. My strength was siphoned from my posture and the sheets were clenched between my teeth. With every hit, a ball of fire rose in my chest, threatening to dissolve me.
 

At a count of ten, he stopped and turned me around to lie flat on my back.

I sucked my teeth and angled my hips to keep my ass from hitting the sheets.
 

I panted, my mouth agape expelling heated breaths. The adrenaline rush surprised me with the way it made my skin tingle. My heart beat rapidly, the rushing sound of my blood pumping filled my ears with white noise. The feeling I longed for when I stepped into the arena consumed me. It used to be the only thing that made me feel alive when Michael made me feel like I was dead inside and outside.

I tried to catch my breath; I couldn’t.
 

A smile spread across his face indicating he knew all of my secrets. “Why do you fight?”

My hard swallow resounded in a loud clicking noise. I couldn’t comprehend his questions before, but now I did. The man was showing me he knew me more than I was willing to show. “I-I…Darren’s mother was stabbed to death on her way to the arena. I picked up her phone and took her place. I wanted to make sure the girl—Temple’s girl—paid for it. I-I was never given a chance to do it. She was the woman…in the hotel with him the night we…”

“Why did you continue?”

“For Darren.”

“And?”

“The ring was the only place I didn’t feel like I was dead inside.”

“Was it the hurt you inflicted, or the hurt inflicted onto you?”

“Both,” I said, my voice barely audible.

He removed the glove, dropping it to the floor. He tugged my legs down and hovered over me, slanting down until we met together in the middle. He kissed me gently, attentively. I threw my arms around him in reaction. His soft lips raked down my throat.
 

My fingers brushed through the soft strands of glistening and damp dark hair as he held me. His forearm dug into my lower back, drawing me closer to him. The rise and fall of his chest pressed against my breasts. His steady and lukewarm breaths swirled around my ear.
 

“Why bother asking me questions you already know the answer to?” I choked on my words.

“Ask the right question.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. “When are you going to fuck me?”

He laughed softly as he settled next to me, his breathing pattern changed as though he’d begun to relax.

“Catch?”

“When you love me,” he whispered against my hair, fanning out beneath me.
 

The thought swallowed me up into a place so deep, I couldn’t be unearthed. “I’ll never do that.”

“You already do; you haven’t given in and realized it yet. You will.” He brushed his hands down my eyelids forcing them to close. “Goodnight, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.”

-15-

S
WEET
L
ULLABY

An alarm shocked me out of my sleep—a night’s rest felt more like an hour long nap. Instinctively, I reached out for Catch. My fingertips touched a cold, empty bedside.

Feeling the frigidness dig deep into my bones, I sat up in bed and hugged my knees. Across the room, a dress hung on the back of the door with a note. I slid out of bed and approached it.
 

The note contained an invitation to dinner for two with dessert to follow. The dress was more formal than anything in the closet.
 

Fraying knots tied my stomach and heart, making them act erratically.
 

I turned back to the bed, staring at the place where Catch would usually sleep.
 

“Get a grip, Simone,” I said to the reflection of myself in the mirror situated in the corner of the room.
 

I tried to remember why I hated Catch. I questioned if I had ever hated him. All I could recall was what pulled me toward him: The way he saved me at the hotel, and continued to save me from Michael’s crushing grip on me and my life. The lessons he taught me when I wasn’t ready to learn, even if it meant hurting me. The way he held me at night. He penned everything that made up pieces of me when I wasn’t ready to read the writing staring me down daily.
 

There had to be a hidden reason and a purpose behind all that Catch had done; it was one of many things keeping me on the side of caution. His murdering tendencies and penchant for playing games were the other.

My stomach was no longer in knots but on a rollercoaster my body couldn’t follow. Memories of Catch’s touch, smile, and his ways with me melted away the last piece of ice, opening me for what I knew would be my destruction.

“I’ve fallen for a fucking psycho. I’m a self-fulfilling fucking prophecy. Just like my mother. Shit.” I slumped on the floor with the silk dress bundled in my arms. Remembering myself, I shot a look at the camera, hoping he hadn’t seen or heard my entire reaction. I quickly shuffled the dress into the bathroom to get ready. An arsenal of supplies were set up on the vanity with makeup, hair supplies, and hair appliances to make sure I looked like the ideal vision of myself.

I stared in the mirror, sliding my hands over the silky material as it hugged my curves. Turning around, I eyed the deep plunging backline, thinking I’d never looked this way before—feminine.
 

Soft music played out of nowhere. As I listened to the slow melody, the man methodically crooning about love, I couldn’t help but smile. Catch said he only had sex to R&B music, and if it was true, he was telling me tonight it would finally happen between us.
 

My nervousness suddenly went into overdrive.

As I descended the stairs, black petals led toward an area I’d never ventured to before. Down the wide hall, the door opened to a terrace; the length was the width of the house.
 

The front door caught my eye for a passing second. Maybe I was fooling myself.

On the terrace, a portable fireplace emitted an orange glow over a fully set table on heating plates. Catch appeared in a crisp black dress shirt and black slacks, appearing as good as he did the first day I met him. All the things I felt in the bedroom were stronger, and I couldn’t suppress any of the spellbinding feelings he brought out of me.

“You’re shivering. Is the fire enough?” He picked up a stole and wrapped it around my shoulders, kissing my forehead. “You look incredible.” He took my hand, linking his fingers with mine and led me to the table, pulling out a seat for me.