His words echoed in her skull like a dark mantra she couldn't shake.
"When i say take my cock, Little moonlight, i don't mean fifty percent..."
How his fingers flexed against her lips.
"I mean take all of it. Fucking take it all, Drench me. Milk my cock with your saliva until I'm dripping down your throat and you're choking on every last drop".
A beat of silence.
His thumb dragged slow and deliberate along the seam of her mouth, possessive, claiming the soft flesh as his.
"Understand?"
Her wide, glassy eyes, still wet from earlier tears, stayed glued to his.
She gave one small, trembling nod. Obedient. Burning.
He smiled then, slow, vicious, the kind of smile that promised ruin wrapped in velvet.
"Good girl."
He withdrew his hand from her lips like he was reluctantly relinquishing a favorite toy.
He stood up.
Scooping her up from the cold attic floor in one fluid, effortless motion, one arm hooked beneath her knees, the other wrapped firmly around her throat. Not strangling. Just holding. A reminder. A leash made of skin and heat.
He carried her down the shadowed stairs, through dim corridors, straight to the dining room.
When they reached the long, polished table, he lowered her into the chair opposite his usual seat, gentle but unyielding, then circled around and reclaimed his own throne.
He sat.
Stared.
Calm. Intense. As though the raw, filthy violation in the attic had been nothing more than foreplay.
She shifted nervously under that unrelenting gaze, thighs still slick, pulse hammering between her legs.
The memory of his tongue, his fingers, his cock, all of it still throbbed inside her.
But he looked at her like none of it had happened. Like she was simply dinner.
Slowly, the hard edge in his eyes softened, just enough.
She exhaled shakily.
He reached forward without a word. Lifted the glass cloche.
Picked up the fork.
Speared a perfect slice of seared filet mignon, crust caramelized, center blushing pink and weeping juices, and brought it to her lips.
"Eat, Ivy."
She parted her lips in the tiniest fraction.
His brow arched, sharp, impatient.
She opened wider.
He slid the bite inside.
Dropped the fork.
Watched her like a predator tracking prey.
The flavor detonated on her tongue—butter-rich, salt-kissed, melt-in-your-mouth tender. Heaven. Filthy, decadent heaven.
"Fuck… ummm… ahhhh…"
She moaned shamelessly, eyes fluttering shut as she savored it.
"This is obscene… why aren't you famous for this? You deserve a goddamn medal. You're unreal."
She leaned forward, greedy.
"More."
He fed her again, this time a forkful twirled with creamy fettuccine Alfredo, thick parmesan sauce clinging like sin.
"Mmmmmm… the garlic, the cream, the cheese… fuck, baby, you're not just good. You're elite. One in a million. I'm serious."
He didn't respond.
Didn't smile.
Just fed her, methodical, possessive, until the plate was scraped clean.
She moaned with every bite, sweet, obscene little sounds, babbling between mouthfuls about how criminally talented he was.
Still no reply. Just those steady blue eyes drinking her in.
"I need water…"
She protested sharply when he reached for the spoon of molten chocolate lava cake and shoved his hand away with a soft hiss.
He rose without comment.
Fetched a crystal glass of ice water.
Handed it over.
She drank too fast, greedy gulps, water spilling from the corners of her mouth, trailing glistening paths down her chin, her throat, dripping onto the flushed, bite marked crimson swell of her breasts.
His gaze followed every drop.
Hungry.
Feral.
Then he forced his eyes away, jaw tight, control visibly fraying.
She snatched the spoon herself.
Dug into the warm, dark center of the lava cake.
Moaned long and low as rich chocolate coated her tongue.
"Mmmmm… so warm… so fucking dark… this is pure sin. Baby, you need a crown. Or a throne. Or me on my knees thanking you."
She winked. Giving him thumbs up.
Still nothing.
She scoffed. Pouted.
Fine. Staring contest it was.
Minutes dragged.
Tension coiled tighter.
Finally he broke first.
She huffed in quiet triumph, lips still pursed.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
She snapped, voice rising.
"I've been sitting here practically worshipping your food, giving you a thousand out of ten, calling you a genius, and you're just…um... staring like I'm invisible. Like I'm losing my mind talking to myself. Well, fuck y..."
His low, mocking chuckle sliced through her tirade.
Her nose flared red.
Her emerald eyes darkened, edged with anger.
She lunged for the untouched glass of juice, ready to upend it over his smug, perfect head.
His hand snapped out faster, gripping her wrist, stopping the glass midair, settling it down with deliberate calm and then releasing her.
Then that smirk—the slow, filthy, panty melting one, curved his lips.
"Why so angry, Ivy?"
His voice was calm silk over razor blades.
"Do you finally understand how it feels when you ignore me for weeks? Tell me, if I hadn't tracked you down today, would those weeks have stretched into months before you bothered to acknowledge me again?"
He was right.
Fucking right.
She hated how the truth landed like a slap.
Hated how he always saw straight through her bullshit.
"Um… was I?"
She played dumb, rolling her eyes and flashed a stupid, exaggerated smile.
He shrugged, small, visibly frustrated.
"That answer…..which of my questions was that reply meant for little moonlight?"
The endearment hit her like dark honey poured straight down her spine, soft, dangerous, devastating.
Her whole body turned liquid, melting like chocolate all over again. She swallowed hard.
Shit.
This was only going to get worse.
"Are we really doing this right now?"
She purred, the words dripping with frustration, half plea, half defiance.
She didn't want this conversation. Not tonight. Not ever. Couldn't he just pretend the weeks of silence never happened? Couldn't he let her ghosting dissolve into nothing, like smoke?
His jaw tightened. Hurt and annoyance bled through the calm he usually wore like armor.
"Then when, Ivy? Tell me. One month? Five years? Or when you finally decide to walk away for good? Give me the exact fucking date so I can mark my calendar."
The raw edge in his voice made her stomach twist.
Guilt slammed into her like a fist.
She dropped her gaze to the floor, unable to meet those piercing blue eyes.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, so quiet it barely reached the air between them.
His hand shot out.
Gripped the back of her chair with bruising force.
Dragged it across the polished floor until her thighs nearly brushed his.
She gasped, sharp, startled.
He caught her chin between thumb and forefinger, hard enough to sting, not enough to bruise, and tilted her face up. Forcing her eyes to his.
"When I'm talking to you, Ivy,"
He whispered, voice velvet seduction wrapped around steel.
"Don't look away. Look at me. Say what's really in that beautiful maddening head of yours. And we're having this conversation. Right. Fucking. Now."
The calm was lethal. Final.
She obeyed instantly, eyes snapping to his, wide and pleading.
"I don't know why I ignored you, Kacy,"
She breathed, lips trembling.
"I swear I don't. I did it, and I still don't fucking understand why. Even though I was the one who shut you out, I still don't know. So please, don't push this. Don't make me explain something I can't even explain to myself."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
"Please…"
His fingers loosened.
Fell away.
He stared at her, speechless, stunned.
How could she not know?
How could she vanish from him like a plague, treat him like something contagious, and still claim ignorance?
His wife was a riddle wrapped in silk and secrets. Every time he thought he'd cracked one layer, she revealed two more, each more elusive than the last.
He wanted to demand answers. To shake them out of her.
But he knew her too well. Push too hard and she'd shut down completely, walls up, lights out, gone again.
Instead he exhaled slowly.
Changed course.
"Do you know why the chocolate lava cake I made for you is so dark?"
He asked, voice dropping back to that lethal, honeyed calm.
The kind of tone that could unravel panties and resolve in the same breath.
She blinked, caught off guard. Innocent. Soft.
"No… why?"
He leaned closer, close enough she could feel the heat radiating off him.
"Because that's how dark my hunger and desire for you runs."
Her breath hitched.
A fresh rush of slick heat bloomed between her thighs, sudden, shameless, soaking through what little fabric still clung to her.
"You're kidding,"
She laughed, nervous, shaky, tapping his shoulder lightly, arching a brow like she could tease the truth away.
"I kid you not."
His voice was pure sin now, dripping, deliberate.
A slow, devastating smirk curled his lips as he watched her hand fall away from his shoulder in sudden shyness.
"You have no idea what you do to me, Ivy. If you did, you wouldn't have treated me like a disease. Like something to be avoided at all costs."
He sighed, long, ragged, and shut his eyes for one heartbeat, then opened them again. Darker. Hungrier.
"You're the last piece of heaven left inside all this darkness."
The chair scraped violently backward as he surged to his feet.
In two strides he was beside her, kneeling between her parted thighs before she could blink.
Strong hands gripped her smaller ones, gentle now, reverent.
He lifted them to his lips. Pressed feather light kisses to each delicate pink nail, still faintly bruised from her earlier failed escape at the attic.
"I couldn't breathe right,"
He confessed against her skin.
"All I wanted was your laugh. Your smile. Any scrap of feeling. But you gave me nothing. You were a blank page I couldn't read no matter how hard I stared. No matter how many times I tried to turn the page… nothing."
Silence stretched, thick, aching.
Then he continued, voice raw.
"I love you, little moonlight. To the moon and back. To infinity and beyond anything I've ever known how to measure. I love you more than I've ever loved anything or anyone. I love you even in the darkest parts of me. I'm no saint, Ivy. I'm sin wearing skin. But you, you're the only truth I've ever had. The only purity. The only light that still flickers in this fucked up life of mine."
He lifted his gaze, eyes burning.
"You don't have to understand it. You don't have to love me back the same way. You don't even have to try. Just exist. Smile. Let me see those fragile emotions you hide so well. Let me carry the weight of loving you. Let me bear it all. Because if I don't love you, completely, obsessively, ruinously, I don't think I can keep breathing on this earth. I'll be six feet under or worse."
His thumbs stroked the insides of her wrists, slow, possessive circles.
"You don't know how long I've loved you. Longer than you've ever loved me. Longer than you'll ever believe. You don't need to know the timeline. You don't need to know the depth. Just… don't leave me, little moonlight. Stay. Let me love you until it consumes me. Let me drown in you. Let me worship you the way only a man half mad with obsession can."
He leaned in, forehead resting against hers, breath mingling.
"Because without you… there's only darkness."
She gasped, sharp, broken, words dying on her tongue before they could form.
Tears slipped free without warning, hot tracks carving down her cheeks until his thumb caught them, gentle as sin, brushing them away only to replace the touch with his mouth.
Soft, reverent kisses pressed to the salt slick skin beneath her eyes, tasting her sorrow like it was wine.
"Wh… what do you mean… you've loved me… longer than I've…"
Her voice fractured, small, cracked, barely audible over the quiet sobs shaking her frame.
He gave her only a sad, devastating smile.
Leaned in closer.
Whispered against her trembling lips between each slow, worshipful kiss to her tears.
"Loving you, little moonlight… it's heroin. Pure, uncut addiction."
Kiss.
"I crave you like oxygen. Like blood in my veins."
Kiss.
"You're the only drug that quiets the noise in my skull."
Kiss.
"Your rose scent, Fuck, it's the only thing that ever gave me peace. My goddamn fucking sanctuary wrapped in silk and thorns."
Then the final words, soft, shattering:
"And I'll love our child the same way. To infinity. Beyond reason. Just… let me love you. Don't leave me, Ivy. Please."
His own tears fell then, silent, raw, unstoppable.
He pulled back from her mouth and buried his face against the soft swell of her belly, his safe harbor, his confession booth.
His shoulders shaking. Breath ragged.
The untouchable Kacy Lillard, the man who wore calm like Kevlar, who never cracked, never bled emotion in front of anyone, was unraveling.
For her.
The sight sent a dark, twisted thrill arrowing straight between her thighs.
Power.
Possession.
A psychotic, wet heat blooming low in her belly at the knowledge that she could reduce this dangerous, calculating god to tears.
Real ones.
Messy ones.
She cried harder too, guilt and grief and something uglier twisting behind her eyes.
A secret.
A betrayal already decided.
Soon to be revealed.
Soon to ruin everything.
If he hadn't been so lost in his own terror of losing her, he might have seen it, the flicker of guilt beneath the tears, the shadow behind the surrender.
But he was drowning in fear.
In love.
In her.
He couldn't see.
Silence wrapped them like smoke.
He pressed one last kiss to her navel, soft, reverent, then lifted his head.
By then she'd masked the betrayal behind a fresh wave of tears, wiping at her cheeks like a petulant child denied her favorite toy.
"As much as I love watching you cry, how fucking gorgeous you look with those lashes clumped and your lips swollen and red, I can't promise I'll stay sane if you keep going."
His voice dropped to velvet sin.
"Shhh… hush, little moonlight. No more tears. Please."
He wiped her cheeks again, thumbs slow, possessive, then leaned in.
The kiss was salvation and damnation fused.
Hot.
Desperate.
Tongues clashing like dueling blades, neither winning, both starving.
Her sobs melted into moans against his mouth.
Tears and spit and need mingling until they broke apart gasping, chests heaving.
He studied her face, red rimmed eyes, puffy lids, emerald irises clouded grey with emotion.
"Look at you,"
He teased, low laugh rumbling.
"All puffy and wrecked. Those pretty eyes, red and grey and ruined. Fucking beautiful."
She pouted instantly, childish, petulant, smacking the side of his head.
"Not funny… ugh… go away."
He only grinned wider.
He slid his face back down to rest fully against her belly again, his arms caging her thighs.
"I'm not going anywhere, baby. I'll die right here. Till death do us part, remember?"
His laughter rolled through her skin, dark, velvet, soul shredding.
"Oh really?"
She scoffed, sarcasm sharp as glass.
"So we're renewing vows now? Should I dig out my wedding gown? You put on a suit? Make it official and formal?"
He lifted his head just enough, eyes glittering with filthy promise.
"Does that include repeating our wedding night?"
His voice dipped lower.
"Me fucking you raw until you can't see the ceiling, let alone the stars? Because when I'm done with you, sweetheart, you won't even remember what clouds or stars look like."
She gasped, half outrage, half traitorous heat flooding her core.
Fuck.
Her husband's mind was a sewer of depravity.
She should book him a therapist tomorrow.
Or a lobotomy.
"You're psychotic,"
She hissed, teeth clacking, tongue flicking against her lip in irritation, nose scrunching.
"And deranged,"
He added smoothly, smirking.
"You forgot that part, baby."
She stuck her tongue out, full childish rebellion, rolled her eyes dramatically, then snapped her lips shut.
"Careful rolling those eyes, Ivy,"
He drawled, his tone dark and teasing
"They're already swollen from crying. Don't make me add to the damage."
She stamped her foot, petulant, shoving at his head again.
He let himself fall halfway, legs still wedged between hers, face now inches from hers, arms braced on the floor beside her hips.
"Careful, darling,"
She shot back, voice dripping mock sweetness.
"One of these days I might just sell you to the highest bidder."
His grin turned feral.
"And I wouldn't mind being sold by you, little moonlight… as long as you let me fuck that perfect cunt one last time before I go. Fuck it until it bleeds, until it's swollen and raw and dripping my cum down your thighs. One final claim before you hand me over."
Her nose wrinkled, face flaming, annoyance warring with the fresh gush of slick between her legs.
She huffed. Long. Dramatic.
"That's it. First thing tomorrow I'm dragging you to a surgeon. We're carving out every filthy, depraved, kinky, spoiled thought in that deviant brain of yours."
He laughed, low, mocking, then sobered just enough to lean in closer, voice dropping to pure, dripping seduction.
"Does that therapy session include me bending you over the couch afterward?"
His lips brushed her ear.
"Fucking you from behind while the shrink watches? Because if it does… sign me the fuck up, little moonlight."
He lingered on the endearment, drawing it out slow, hot, devastating, each syllable stroking down her spine like sin made sound.
She could only stare, lips sealed tight, cheeks blooming bloody rose and soft pink, eyes wide and glassy with a cocktail of outrage, arousal, and something dangerously close to surrender.
He smirked, slow, ruinous, victorious.
And in that suspended heartbeat, with his body caging hers and his filthy promises hanging between them like smoke, she knew.
This man would be the death of her.
And she was already halfway to begging for it.