Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller
Chapter 20
I feel full.
It’s the only thought flourishing in my brain as Kal impales me on his cock, the tip practically tickling my womb as he pushes into the hilt. Arousal clogs in my throat, blossoming in my chest like a flower after an arduous night; one by one, each petal unfolds, until the bud stretches fully, ready to soak in the sunlight.
He moves slowly, achingly so, our mouths tangling in a kiss I feel in my toes. Bracing me with the tops of his thighs, Kal claws at my butt cheeks, using them to pull me up and down, as if trying to ease me into the motion.
Sure, it’s been weeks since I last had him inside me, but I don’t need a warm up. Don’t want one; my pussy convulses with each thrust in, trying to clamp down and keep him in place, my body racing toward another release when he hits that sweet spot.
But then he’s retreating, pulling out just to shove back in, and the lack of immediate fulfillment has me digging my fingernails into his neck, trying to get closer.
Extracting his mouth from mine, he huffs out a shaky breath, glancing between us, watching with glazed eyes where he disappears into me.
Droplets from the shower rain down his skin, clinging to the wet strands of his inky hair, and soaking his clothes. Though, he doesn’t seem to mind the latter, focusing instead on the nakedness in front of him.
The lust flushing his face makes my stomach twist deliciously, but it still isn’t quite enough.
“Kallum,” I cry, losing track of the number of times I’ve said his name at this point. He cants his hips forward, sealing our skin together, and I flutter around him, distraught.
His eyes flash with something sinister as he looks up at me, cocking a brow.
“Something the matter?” he asks, continuing his sensual assault.
There’s still a bead of my blood collected at the corner of his mouth, and I lean up, licking it off with the tip of my tongue, reveling in the metallic flavor, my body lighting up like the Fourth of July when I recall the way it felt to have him draw it from me.
The slight of pain, drowned out by the crazed glint in his dark gaze as he sucked and laved, as if it was the juice of a pomegranate and he was starved in the Underworld.
Capturing his bottom lip between my teeth, I tug sharply, loving how the gesture causes him to ram harder into me. I gasp, trying to memorize the feeling of having him fully seated inside me, and then he pulls back, tsking.
“What is it? Is my cock not enough for my slutty little wife?” He punctuates each word with a sharp jab of his hips, his tip stabbing against my G-spot, making me dizzy.
“More,” I croak, shifting my hips, trying to guide the movements myself.
He pinches my ass, landing the flat of one palm against one cheek. “I’m trying to go slow.”
“I don’t need slow,” I say.
Chuckling darkly, he pulls out until he’s just barely inside me, my pussy clenching around air. “I wasn’t doing it for you, little one.”
Kal pistons his hips, fucking me so hard all of a sudden that the glass door rattles on its hinges. My palms slap against the material, slipping with the force of each brutal thrust, tension coiling tight in my stomach, threatening to unravel at any moment.
“Good little wives need good fuckings,” Kal says, pressing his lips to my temple. “And I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I?”
“God, yes,” I squeal, my voice low and raspy like it’s been raked over coals and burned to a crisp. My head knocks against the door as he fucks me, and I wrap my arms around his neck to keep from falling. “Yes, Jesus, please. Right there.”
“No saviors here,” he says, teeth grazing my forehead. “Just me, your husband, dragging you to Hell with him.”
If this is Hell, lock me up and throw away the key.
The tension in my core begins to expand, like a fireball being blown outward, incinerating everything in its path. I pulse around him, clutching the start of an orgasm, trying to pull it over me but unable to make it work.
“I’m... almost there,” I whimper, not even caring about how desperate I sound at this point.
I am desperate. Miserable, anguished, and wretched for every second not spent with this man inside of me, filling me with his darkness, not even stopping to ask questions about my own.
“Fuck, me too,” he says, increasing the strength of each thrust, like he’s trying to break me wide open. “You feel fucking incredible.”
His hand comes up, collaring my throat with his long fingers, and then he’s squeezing, stealing the air from my lungs the way he has before.
Only, the squeezing doesn’t stop where it once did; pressure bears down on the sides of my neck, my pulse skittering as it becomes almost impossible to breathe. My eyes meet his, wide and uncertain, but the satisfaction ripe in his makes my blood sing.
It’s a strange sensation, willingly having your oxygen taken away, but the suffocating feeling seems to culminate to something bigger, something better, pleasure mixing with fear.
“That’s it,” he croons, making me quiver with delight, “take my cock, little one. Just like that.” When he pushes his hips flush with mine, a low groan ripping from his throat, my vision darkens at the corners and I come undone, my chest tight as my brain floats on.
I spasm around him, screaming as release floods through me, my inner walls coaxing and milking him dry. A satisfied grunt huffs out as he plasters us against the glass door, his hand falling from my throat to bracket my ribcage.
“Jesus Christ.” His breaths are harsh against my wet hair, and with his free hand he reaches behind him, shutting off the faucet.
For several minutes, neither one of us moves. We don’t speak, cocooned in the safety of silence, unwilling to be the first to shatter it.
A chill snakes up my arms, making me shiver, and he smirks, finally pulling out of me. I wince at the sudden loss, trying not to pay much attention to the chasm his absence leaves inside me, wondering how similar this will be to the last time we had sex.
“Are you okay?” he asks, setting me on my feet and taking a step back. His gaze sweeps over me, doctor mode in full effect as he assesses my body for signs of distress. A finger brushes the scar on my thigh, and he frowns, a dark look clouding his features. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
I blink, glancing down at where he touches me, wiping some of the smeared blood from my skin. “I liked it.”
One brow arches, and he swallows. “Yeah?”
It’s a single syllable, spoken on the tail end of an exhale, loaded with insecurity. I can feel it, the uncertainty, and it catches me off guard for a moment to think a man as deadly and powerful as Kal might ever feel vulnerable.
Nodding, I cover his hand with my own, bringing it up to where I can feel him leaking from between my thighs. “I like anything you do to me,” I whisper, trying to level the playing field with my admission, even though it’s physically painful for me to indulge.
Still, if Kal Anderson asked me to tear my bleeding heart out of my chest and serve it to him on a silver platter, I’d do it, no questions asked. I’d probably ask him to oversee the operation, to make sure I was doing it correctly.
I just don’t think he returns the sentiment.
“You’re not on birth control,” he deadpans. It’s not a question, but a statement, and the authority with which he says it gives me pause.
“No,” I say, pushing a strand of hair from my shoulder. “Papá never even let me think about sex, let alone explore methods of preventing complications from it.”
He doesn’t say anything for several beats, during which my heart rate kicks up, pounding in my ears. I feel faint, exhausted, and, for some reason, scorned.
“I’ll set up an appointment with a friend of mine, and we’ll get you on it.”
He steps past me, pushing open the door and walking across the room to the sinks, pulling a white towel from a wall-mounted hook. His clothes drip onto the floor as he returns, holding the towel out for me, and I step into it slowly, processing his words.
“Do I get a say in whether or not I go on it?”
Wrapping the towel around me, he tucks the corner beneath my armpit, turning me to face him. “I’m not so old that I can’t recognize bodily autonomy,” he says, reaching up to cup my jaw. “I just thought it would be easier.”
I glance at the dip in his throat, studying it as I mull his words over in my brain. “If I asked you to wear condoms, you would?”
Kal’s face screws up. “Of course. I’d be missing out on the glorious sight of my cum dripping from your sweet little pussy, but I’m not a monster. As legitimate as this marriage is, I’d be insane to bring children into the mix.”
Something pinches in my chest, but I ignore it, nodding instead. “Okay. I’d... be willing to try, I think.”
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out.” He cradles both my cheeks in his hands, bending down to press a featherlight kiss on my lips; the act is far more gentle than I’d ever have imagined him capable of being, and it stirs something wanton in my belly.
Guiding me over to the sink, we quickly brush our teeth, and I can’t keep from staring at him in the mirror, knowing the domesticity I’m being granted is only the result of my attack, and nothing more.
It doesn’t mean anything, Elena.
Still, when I climb into bed moments later, exhaustion finally settling over me, I pull the blankets to my chin and roll on my side, watching as he grabs pajamas from his dresser and takes them back into the bathroom, returning minutes later completely changed.
He towel dries his hair, then tosses the terry cloth into a nearby hamper, walking to my side of the bed with a plastic first aid kit in hand. Flipping the top open, he carefully plucks out a packet of antibacterial ointment and a wide Band-Aid.
“Ooh,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows as my body fights sleep. “Are we going to play doctor?”
Ignoring me, he slips his hand beneath the covers, finding the wound on my thigh and tearing the ointment packet open with his teeth. Squirting a pea-sized amount onto his fingertip, he joins the other hand, slathering the cool gel over the cut.
I suck in a breath through my teeth and watch his jaw clench tight.
Silently, he peels the plastic apart, pulling the Band-Aid free, then secures it over the cut, his thumb tracing the outline of the K.
Setting the first aid kit on the nightstand, Kal pushes to his feet and rounds the bed, pulling back the covers so he can clamber beneath them.
My breathing hitches, the intimacy of his proximity making me shiver, heart pounding like a siren in my chest.
He doesn’t say anything else, though, just picks up a leather-bound copy of Witter Bynner’s complete works and settles in.
I roll over again, propping my cheek on my pillow, studying him as he slides on a pair of black-framed glasses and begins to read, eyes scanning the page in a slow, hypnotic fashion.
Absorbing the clean slope of his sharp jaw and the tiny dimple in his cheek that clefts when he’s deep in concentration, I do my best to commit it all to memory, in case this has been a fluke, and I wake up tomorrow with him ignoring me all over again.
The dread swirling around in my stomach promises it is.
Nothing good can last.
For some reason, that’s the fear that keeps me from falling into an immediate slumber. Not the fact that someone is clearly coming after me, just like Kal said they would, or that my world back in Boston is probably crumbling to the ground.
But the notion that whatever stone was turned tonight, be it through trauma or the natural progression of surrender, is fleeting.
That I’m stuck in a loveless marriage, a prison, like I always feared I would be.
“How come I haven’t seen you naked?” I blurt, trying to erase the anxiety with conversation.
Kal’s eyebrows raise above his glasses, and he glances at me. “I can assure you, it’s just as big when you see the full picture.”
Heat flares in my cheeks as I think about the size of his dick, and I shift my thighs absently, scooting closer without fully meaning to. “No, I just… you’ve seen me naked. I’m naked now, in fact.”
“No complaints here.”
One of his hands comes down, sliding over my waist, and when I open my mouth to say more, he yanks me toward him, pulling me flush with his side.
My clit throbs where it touches him, already jonesing for another hit, but it’s clear Kal’s using the premise of sex to distract me, and so I give up asking, trying to find contentment in what I do know about him.
Right now, I know he’s willing to do anything it takes to protect me, and despite our situation and everything that complicates it, that feels like a major feat.
It takes the sting out of the knowledge that he has more blood on his hands than just my own.
I lay against him for a while, staring at the wall across from me, listening while he occasionally turns a page, the even rhythm of his breathing lulling me into slumber.
“You were spring, and I the edge of a cliff, and a shining waterfall rushed over me,” he recites softly, the line barely registering in my brain before sleep welcomes me once again.
