Divided Souls (Captured Miracle #3) (12 page)

By the time we arrived back to the island and the house came into my view, I was feeling exhausted. The day had been busier than I had grown used to in the last couple weeks. All I really wanted to do for the remainder of the night was laze around like a lump on a log next to my husband.

As Calix pulled me into his arms, lifting me from the boat onto the dock, I sighed. His arm remained protectively around my waist as he turned to Neil. “Thank you, Neil.”

Both Neil and I startled at Calix’s appreciation. He’d never really been a man to voice his appreciation, no matter how appreciative he may be. As Neil’s eyes flickered to me, and a small grim played at the line of his lips, I knew he was thinking it was all owed to me. Somehow, someway, I had changed the man Calix had always been.

Neil focused on Calix, nodding. “Goodnight, sir.”

Calix nudged me gently forward, “Come, love.”

I didn’t resist the pull of his arm around my waist as he guided me toward the house. Even though my craving for pop and chips had been strong, I no longer felt the desire for the bitter deliciousness that was the crunch of the chips. Instead, I moved immediately to the kitchen upon entering into the house, where I poured two glasses of pop. Then, I joined Calix on the couch.

“Want to pick a movie?”

“You don’t want to go to bed?”

I glanced at the clock on the stove and cringed. “It’s only 4:00 p.m.”

He shrugged. “If you’re tired, you should sleep.”

“I think I’d like to watch a movie.”

His eyes narrowed on me as he waded through my eyes trying to find a lie. I knew he found it when he sighed. Surprising me, he nodded. “I’ll pick a movie if you go change into something a bit more comfortable.”

“Okay.” I didn’t argue, because the fact of the matter was that my jeans were beginning to severely irritate me, and all I could think about was the soft warmth that were my cotton pajama pants.

By the time I came back downstairs, I’d brushed through my hair and dressed in a pair of light pink pajama pants as well as a pink tank top. I’d trudged a big blanket and pillow from the linen closet upstairs behind me as I padded to the couch where Calix waited.

When he glanced up at me, a grin ignited his expression and I felt my cheeks sting in a blush.

Patting the couch beside him, he spoke. “Come sit, love.”

“I was thinking we could - uh - cuddle?”

He raised a brow, “We can always cuddle.”

Tossing the pillow onto he arm of the couch, I pointed to it. “Lay down.”

His eyes were fire inside ice as he moved to obey my command. When he was finally settled into the couch, I moved to snuggle into the front of his long warm body, before I settled the blanket into place over us. As I wiggled my back into his chest, his hand moved to enclose protectively around the small bump in my belly - and then he sighed. The sound was a sweet sound of relief and contentment that I found pride in giving to him. The longer I was pregnant, the more I believed, that although Calix had ensured it wrongly, he would be an amazing father. This baby was the best thing that could happen to us, and I fully believed, with the entirety of my heart, that this was right and we were standing exactly where we were always meant to be.

As the movie played and my lids grew heavy, I couldn’t help but think that in spite of how we’d started out - anything but mundane - Calix and I had finally fallen into the bliss that was a life of normalcy. Here in Alaska, I cooked and cleaned while he worked in the office, and together we talked about sweet nothings. There were no greater things like bodyguards sharing our dinner table, locks on the doors, or threats to lives. Everything I had hated about my life with Calix had fallen away until it was only the two of us. Only good.

Most people wish for the extravagant and wild, but for those who have lived a life without normalcy - the cold hard truth is that in mundane tasks, there is a beauty unlike any other. There is an innocently laced contentment within habitual acts that offers security and bliss. If I could choose extravagance or ordinariness with Calix, I would choose ordinary, because all the extraordinary I need is in the man I love - and that is enough for me.

In the distant recesses of my barely lucid mind, I heard the end credits playing. Calix shifted behind my body, and when he spoke, his voice was deep. “Nova, it’s time for bed.”

I peeled my eyes open as I worked my tired body into a sitting position. Calix fixed himself beside me as his eyes swept over my face. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” I replied honestly. “I think I needed that catnap.”

His lips curled into a soft smile. “I figured. You were out not five minutes into the movie.”

“Hmm.” I grunted, because movie or not, my mind had been working. I honestly think that was just part of life with an X chromosome. The female brain is incapable of settling into a peaceful, entirely quiet, state of sleep.

Calix stood. “I can help you get settled into bed, if you’d like.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m alright now.”

His jaw tightened. “Would you like to take a bubble bath?”

I fluttered my lashes flirtatiously. “With you?”

Calix glanced down into his lap for a moment and I felt my heart begin an unsteady fluttering as I pondered his lack of response to my reckless flirting. When he finally spoke, his words were like a dagger to my chest. “Not this time, love.”

“What?” I breathed, watching him stand.

“I need to put a couple hours of work in before bed. I’m going to head into the office.”

“Oh,” I jumped to attention. “Well, I’ll just read in there with you.”

Again, he shook his head. He was already moving away as he spoke. “Not tonight.”

“Why?” I demanded, following him.

“Because I need to concentrate.” He stepped forward, his hands tight on my upper arms as he rested his forehead against mine. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

He pulled back, pressed a fleeting kiss to my forehead, and then he walked into his office before closing the door behind him.

I watched - stunned, as he disappeared to leave me standing in the center of the living room. After such a wonderful evening, I couldn’t believe that this was how it was ending. I couldn’t believe he refused to allow me to come with him into his office. Never before had he had trouble concentrating with me in his office while he worked. That made me wonder,
what the hell was my husband hiding?

***

I listened to the sound of Calix walking closer to the bedroom door and I waited, with my heart thumping erratically in my chest. I’d been unable to fall into sleep as I waited, the three and a half hours for him to join me. The sky was black and the curtains had been pulled closed. The room was flooded in darkness save for the lamp I’d left plugged in on his side of the bed. I was facing away from the door, laying on my side with the blankets pulled right up to my chin. Beneath the blankets, I wore one of his t-shirts.

This was the first time since I’d been here with Calix, that I’d deliberately disobeyed his wishes and come to bed clothed.

I listened to his movements as he rummaged about the bedroom quietly, assuming I was asleep. He brushed his teeth and washed his face, before removing his clothing in the closet. When he came toward me, he was unclothed. I knew, without having to look behind me, that Calix would be stark naked. That was how he liked to sleep. Looking back to when he’d first taken me, he’d given me so many courtesies that he hadn’t had to offer, but I was so thankful he had.

I felt the bed shift as he slid in beside me, and then the light flicked off and his body moved toward mine. I felt his hand come into contact with the material of his shirt, as he fisted it. And then I was on my back and he was hovering above me, nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness - but it didn’t mater, because I could literally feel his anger radiating from his body.

“Why are you wearing this?” He growled low in his throat.

I tilted my shin in testy defiance before replying. “You weren’t here and I didn’t want to sleep naked.”

“Take it off.”

“No.”

“Nova,”

“I’m comfortable, and I’d like to sleep for one night without you distracting me.” I tossed his words back at him, and as his hand fisted tighter in the fabric of the t-shirt, I knew he’d connected the dots from my actions to his words earlier in the night.

There was no warning for what happened next. He was laying between my legs one moment, crushing his body to mine as though reminding me of where I belonged - beneath him - before he’d pushed back on his haunches. His hands gripped the hem of he shirt, and pulled it over my head quick and rough. I’d been clothed one second, and stripped almost naked the next. With nothing but my panties on, I dug my heels into the bed, daring him to strip me of my panties.

To my surprise, he didn’t pull my lacy panties down my legs. Instead, he fingered the fabric almost gently as he spoke gravelly into the dark breathy silence. “You are naked in my bed, Nova, always.” The sound of my panties ripping startled me and shivers broke out over my skin at his primal, overbearing display of dominance. “Do you understand me?”

“I don’t want to fuck you tonight.” My words trembled as they fell from my lips, and I didn’t know if it was from anger, fear, or desire. In all reality, it could be a mixture of all three. I was so terribly angry with this man for pushing me away when he saw fit, and then expecting me to lay waiting for him when he decided to accompany me to our bed. And I was afraid, because since returning to him, he hadn’t once taken me with the familiar dominance I had come to know from the man who’d taken me. Yet, through it all, there was no denying the desire pooling within my body for his angry dominance. Calix had created me. He’d taken a girl who knew nothing of her desires and he’d crafted a woman who longed for the dominance this man provided. He knew his actions would make me wet with need for him, there was no doubt in my mind - because he’d conditioned me this way.

“Nova,” he tisked in disapproval and I remembered my language, grinning internally at the ease with which I goaded him - even unintentionally. “There is nothing sexy about a woman who uses that language.”

Oh hell, and he could goad me right back around and around until my freaking head spun. “Screw you.” I kicked my leg out at him, suddenly more angry than fearful - and all my desire had practically been snuffed out at his admission of finding me no longer sexy.

His hand caught my ankle with no trouble at all as I kicked out at him, slamming it into the cushion of the mattress. “Enough.”

I felt tears sting my eyes as I replayed his words over and over again.
There’s nothing sexy about...there’s nothing sexy about...there’s nothing sexy about.
My mind couldn’t stop the sound of his very sexy words telling me I was anything but sexy - as I lay here beneath him - open for his viewing and taking - that I wasn’t sexy.

“I don’t want you tonight.” I whispered, as my first tear slid from my eye to fall into my hair by my temple.

“Don’t lie to me, love.” He growled in low, threatening tones. “I can fucking smell your want for me.”

I tried in vain to press my legs closed, but his body was there - stopping my movement. “Calix,” I half moaned and half cried his name. “Please just - not tonight.”

“Every night, Nova.” He argued. “You are mine. You are mine, love - you won’t deny me if you first have to deny yourself.”

“I’m not denying myself anything!”

There was no warning for his next actions. Maybe if I’d seen the challenging light in his eyes, I’d have had the time to try and stop him - but I didn’t. His hands moved to my inner thighs, spreading my legs wide, as he lowered his face in one quick motion to my very warm, very wet, very delicate place. And then I felt his very warm, very wet, very wonderful mouth on me.

An inaudible moan of denial - or maybe it was urging - sounded into the darkness pulsing around us. His mouth was hot and sweeping against my very sensitive flesh as he pressed his lips around my clit, sucking the swollen bundle of nerves into the searing heat of his mouth. I felt his every fingertip pressing against the tender flesh of my inner thighs as he fought my futile resistance to the pleasure he was determined to provide.

As he continued to suck me, swirling his tongue in erratic circular motions of teasing sensation, pleasure built within my body so hot and heavy, I felt I was mere moments from exploding. He worked me with his tongue, stroking my clit with the tip of his tongue before pulling it between his lips and trailing his teeth gently down the very sensitive flesh before starting all over again in the dance of his wicked decadency.

I felt his hand move between my legs to the open aching of my core, and as he sucked me relentlessly, the tip of his thick finger moved slowly, teasingly, around my opening. I wanted him so deeply, so desperately, to enter me - that I was in physical pain. Stabbing pulses throbbed inside of me, that I ached for him to sate, but he didn’t. I knew he was waiting for me to take back my words of denial against him. I knew that he wanted me to plead for him, to cry that I wanted him - needed him - ached for him - but I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words. Tears of frustration-coated desire flowed freely from my eyes to slide into my temples as I sobbed and moaned all at the same time, while he denied me bodily satisfaction that would first require injuring my pride.

As though on queue, he murmured against me. “Do you want me to stop?”

No, God, no I did not want him to stop. But my pride was still rearing her dominant head. “Yes.”

Accepting the challenge I presented, he lowered his head once more between my legs, but this time, he placed two fingers just inside of me while holding my hips down with his other hand to keep me from finding my own pleasure with his fingers. The prelude to fireworks roared behind my ears as my blood rushed inside of me and my breathing shortened.

I don’t know if it was simply weakness, or oxygen deprivation, but I moaned. “Please. I need you.”

My brain didn’t register his actions in response to my plea as he moved away from my aching core to climb quickly up my body. His mouth slammed against mine as his cock, hard and swollen, sunk deep inside of me with only one thrust.