Reckoning (Sacrifical Duet Book 1)

by Riley Ashby

  “Corn is a whole grain,” she said with a shrug.

  “Well, you’re not making it right now.” I hugged her against me, pushing our bodies together as tight as I could without crushing her. “I’m not done with you.”

  “Never be done with me,” she pleaded and kissed my lips.

  I hadn’t kissed many women in my life. My sexual history comprised of a few one-night stands, mostly in college. There was never anyone to bring home and introduce to my family. I would never let someone I cared about see me vulnerable in front of my father, so I didn’t care about anyone besides myself. Except Maddie. I let myself obsess over her because I knew she’d have no other choice once we made our move. She became a part of me long before she knew who I was, but I never expected that I’d hand over a part of myself to her as well.

  Maddie had already seen the truth. She had known parts of it long before now, even if she didn’t have the whole story. And maybe that was why kissing her felt like the first kiss I’d ever had. There was no façade to uphold. She didn’t care that I was heir to one of the most profitable and controversial businesses in the country. She saw the truth of my family life and stood defiant in the face of it instead of running away. She held me in the palm of her hand and cared for me instead of crushing me. That was why it was different. She just liked me for me.

  There hadn’t been a day since I was eighteen when I hadn’t thought of some way to kill myself. And three times, I’d nearly succeeded. But since Madeline came into my home, my brain had felt … quiet. Not completely silent or free from the urge to harm myself, but calmer. Less restive. When I came home from the office and found her waiting for me, it made the bad things in my life seem a little less crushing even though she was there against her will.

  “Why?”

  She knew what I was asking.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  It felt like a gunshot. But there was no recoil because she still held me, still pulled my face down to hers as if I was the air she needed to breathe.

  With her lips on mine, she pushed me onto my back and sat astride my hips, the blanket falling away. I had slipped away from our sanctuary earlier just long enough to close the window and muffle the rising sounds of the outside world. The room was warm again, but I didn’t feel stifled.

  I couldn’t do anything but marvel at the perfect woman above me. The flawless curve of her hips and the way my fingers sank into the flesh of her thighs. The dark circles of her nipples against her pale skin. The way her hair was so sex tousled and unbrushed but still hung around her head like a halo.

  I could stare at her forever.

  “I don’t know why I love you.” She ground her hips against mine, eliciting the reaction she was hoping for with no effort at all. “Only that denying it feels worse than drowning.”

  I frowned at the memory still all too fresh in my mind. The night I really almost lost her. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  She leaned over me, lips on my neck, pointed nipples grazing my skin. I shifted my hips, rubbing my aching erection against her leg. She was slick—I could feel that already—my cum falling out of her and mixing with more of her arousal to ready herself to take me again.

  “I had the chance to run, but when I thought of leaving you even for a moment, my heart stopped beating.” She closed her mouth over one of my nipples, running her tongue over my skin. I groaned. “Despite everything, I wanted to stay. Because you were there.”

  With one arm wrapped around her waist, I flipped her to her back. She kept her legs locked around my hips. I rubbed my length up and down her slit, coating myself in her smooth arousal. She sighed as her eyes fluttered closed.

  “I don’t want to scare you anymore,” I swore. My voice was hoarse. It was the best promise I could make. “But I don’t know if …”

  “You can,” she assured me, cutting off the words trapped in my throat. “It’s okay for now. I’ll tell you myself until you can say it out loud.”

  I slipped a hand between us, shaking my hips so that her legs dropped to the floor and granted me access to her. I ran my fingers over the soft folds and the fine, curly hairs that made up the most intimate part of this beautiful woman. She sighed as I ran my fingers over her, feeling between the pliant skin until I found the source of her pleasure, and her sighs turned to gasps.

  “Say it again,” I whispered, pressing against her clit with increasing pressure. I moved my hand back and forth gently, feeling her simultaneously relax and tense.

  “I love you, Meyer.” Her voice was a whisper, laced with barbed wire as I held her captive in my palm.

  “Again.” I slid one finger inside, then two. Fuck, she was so tight. I massaged her clit with my thumb and twisted my fingers against her walls. Her hips lifted, breasts thrusting forward, and my dick jumped in anticipation.

  “I love you.” It was a battle cry. I hooked my fingers, prodding her G-spot and pushing on her clit at the same time.

  “One more time.” She was so close; I could feel it.

  “I love you!”

  “Now come.”

  She did.

  Her pussy clenched so hard around my fingers that I thought she would take them off, and her cries echoed off the walls of the apartment. Somehow, I pulled out my hand and filled that empty space with my cock. She welcomed me in, muscles pulling me deeper as she continued to spasm. Her fingers dug into my shoulders, and I didn’t even care that she was pressing into fresh bruises.

  She moved to sit up, trying to take the power position, though I doubted she realized it. I kept her crushed against the floor with my torso. She had told me to own her, and this was how I would do it. I smothered her with my body even though we became one at our hips, hoping to imbue her into my very DNA.

  I didn’t slam into her this time. That violent need hadn’t exactly subsided, but it had taken a different form. I had to have her just as badly, but not in the same way. I pulled her fingers out of my shoulder and held her wrists above her head with one hand, the broken one caressing her face.

  I slid in and out so slowly it nearly killed me.

  Every withdrawal was death, every insertion a rebirth. The walls of her pussy clung to me, trying to draw me back in, and I had no choice but to obey. Again and again.

  “Fuck me, Meyer.” Her whole body was trembling.

  “I thought that’s what I was doing.”

  “Well, keep doing it.”

  She fought halfheartedly where I held her wrists, and I felt my heart rate quicken. The struggle turned me on. The way she fought, knowing she didn’t really want to escape me. Knowing that if I tried to let her go, she would pull me back inside her and command me to finish the job. But fuck, the way her tiny body squirmed beneath mine made me hot.

  I began to pump harder without understanding when or why, my fury to have her suddenly increasing. She raised her hips to meet me, our bodies thrusting in time with each other with an unspoken accord.

  “I own you,” I growled, licking her cheek. She mewled helplessly.

  “Yes.”

  I bulged at the words, feeling my balls contract and grow hard with the need to release.

  “You belong to me. Swear it.”

  “I do, Meyer. I belong to you.”

  “Swear it.”

  “I swear.”

  What we were doing was madness but turning back was unacceptable. More than that, it wasn’t even possible. There would be no existence for either of us without the other. Whether we ended in heaven or hell, we were going there together.

  I barely noticed when she put her teeth against my uninjured shoulder, sinking her bite into my skin once more as she began to shudder around me yet again. All I could feel was the pull of her core, dragging me deeper, demanding my release in time with hers.

  How could I do anything but oblige?

  I held her chin too tight, kissed her too hard, and rammed her too deep, but her moans were those of ecstasy, not pain. Or maybe both.


  I lost control. I sat up, never pulling out, and flipped her to her stomach. There was some awkward tangling of legs, but I was so focused I barely noticed. When she lay on her stomach beneath me, still impaled on my cock, I grabbed her hips and wrenched them toward me while pressing one hand on her back to keep her bowed before me. She let out a guttural moan as I drove even deeper than before.

  “Christ, Madeline. You’re perfect. This is perfect.”

  She couldn’t respond—the expression on her face told me she was lost—but her moans grew louder and louder until, finally, she screamed.

  The sound undid me, and I came with her. Her fluids squirted against me as I unloaded inside her, my cum filling her womb as we came together.

  Someday, maybe, I told myself as we came down.

  I pulled out but kept my body on top of hers. We were once again damp with sweat, and I breathed in the musky athletic smell of her as we panted together on the ground.

  “I don’t deserve you,” I whispered, kissing the soft hairs at the back of her neck. Whatever gods had conspired that she should love me despite what I’d done to her would be thanked for the rest of my days. Though I still needed their help to keep her.

  She rolled around to face me, burying her face in my neck.

  “Of course you do. We deserve each other.”

  *

  When we opened the door hours later, expecting the food delivery, we found Shawn holding our food instead of an anonymous delivery boy. Maddie ushered him in, and I thanked the stars for having the good sense to tidy up before we could be discovered. Shawn’s eyes raked Maddie’s body, and I tensed.

  “Relax, Meyer.” She slid her hand into mine and pulled me against her. I shook off her hand only to wrap my arm all the way around her waist and pull her against me.

  Shawn scowled but put down the food. “I assure you my interest is strictly medicinal.”

  “She’s fine.” I stepped between them and stole the food, sorting out Maddie’s tofu curry and my own chicken pad thai before shoving half the plate into my face at once.

  I glanced at Maddie as she swallowed a smile at my sudden change in demeanor, stepping up into this protective alpha male shield that I was wearing so differently now that things had changed between us. Where beforehand my anger and protectiveness had been centered on punishing her, I was now looking to protect her from everything that came her way. I figured she’d get sick of it at some point but too bad. She’d get used to it.

  Sufficiently satisfied that she was relatively healthy, Shawn settled into a chair across from me and tented his fingers underneath his chin. “We need to talk.”

  “So talk.” I was about two words from throwing him out of his own condo, gracious as he’d been. I didn’t know what we needed to do next, but it wasn’t talk to him.

  “Do you want to give us some privacy?” He directed the question at Maddie, but I spoke before she could.

  “She does not. What’s going on?”

  Shawn hesitated, but I kept on eating like nothing was wrong. Maddie sat next to me and began to eat her own meal, taking a tentative bite at first and then shoveling the food faster as her hunger reared its head. I shot her a knowing look and wiggled my eyebrows before returning to my food.

  Shawn cleared his throat. “I spoke with Anita.”

  Maddie tapped her fork against the foam cup anxiously. I put a hand on her knee.

  “What did she have to say for herself?”

  “Nothing at all. She’s completely unapologetic. And Conrad won’t let her take responsibility, either.” He picked at his nail beds incessantly. I wrinkled my nose as dead skin flaked onto the tabletop.

  Pushing away my empty plate, I leaned back in my chair and rubbed the space between my eyebrows with the fingers of my damaged hand. Shawn’s eyebrows rose, then furrowed, as he took in the bandaging. He looked at Maddie, and she smiled sadly.

  “Does that happen often?” Shawn gestured to my bandages. Maddie grabbed my other arm and lifted it to the countertop, running her fingers along the scar on my forearm. She didn’t say a word. Shawn sighed heavily. “Shit, man, I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” I snatched my arm back and folded it beneath the other. I didn’t appreciate being talked about like this. “Did Conrad come up with some way to fix the problem?”

  “He’s called a meeting with some senators, actually, trying to get ahead of the damage. He’s promising full cooperation into a federal investigation.”

  “That’s helpful,” I muttered. Damn if the man didn’t have a mind for business. The company wasn’t successful due to ruthlessness alone; he knew how to make the best out of every bad situation that arose.

  “But we’re bleeding shareholders. Customers are canceling their contracts left and right. We’ll be dead in the water soon if we can’t regain the public’s trust.”

  I snuck a glance at Maddie, who was biting her lip and staring at her feet as if she’d been caught misbehaving. “Will the company go under? Or will someone try to buy it?”

  There was no missing the undercurrent of excitement in her voice. I leaned back a little as I looked at her, contemplating while Shawn answered.

  “It would take a real daredevil to buy the company now, even assuming Conrad would sell. Not that I think he would. He’d probably let the company go under before he handed over control.”

  She pursed her lips to hide her smile. I clenched the edge of the counter.

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

  She jerked her head up and looked between Shawn and me with wide eyes. “What? No, Meyer, I don’t want to see you fail. I know how hard you’ve worked to get to where you—”

  “But it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we went under, would it? One less villain for you to fight.” I stood so quickly the chair flew out behind me and toppled to the ground. Shawn and Maddie both remained seated, though Shawn put his hands on the table as if to push himself up at a moment’s notice. Maddie twisted in her chair to face me, her hands folded carefully in her lap.

  “Meyer, I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” I stomped to the bedroom and opened Shawn’s closet. I needed a change of clothes if I was going to get downtown and fix this. Fuck whatever Maddie thought; I had a lifestyle to protect. I knew she hated what we did, but did she need to be so cavalier about it? About me losing the job I’d worked for my entire life? About an event that would blacklist me forever?

  I was done letting people who were supposed to care about me try to destroy my life.

  The door closed softly as I jerked a pale blue polo over my head, but the person who spoke wasn’t who I expected.

  “You didn’t need to go off on her like that.”

  “Don’t fucking tell me how to live my life, Shawn. I’ve had enough of it over the past three decades.” I sat on the bed to pull on a pair of socks. “Did you drive here? We need to get back downtown.”

  “And what do you want to do with Maddie?”

  Fuck her. Marry her. Let her go. “I don’t really care. She can stay here, I guess. I don’t need her fucking judging me all day while I try to fix this mess.”

  Shawn leaned against the doorframe. “She wasn’t judging you yesterday, was she?”

  Or this morning. “You saw her. She’s so excited about this that she could barely even look at me.” My heart felt like it was falling out of my chest.

  “I don’t think that’s why she was smiling.”

  “It doesn’t really matter. We come from different ways of life. I can play house as much as I want, but it doesn’t change our natures.”

  “Who says our natures are so different?” I snapped my head to see her standing just a step behind Shawn. Her eyes glistened even in the dark. “I’m not judging you, Meyer. I don’t understand why you’re lashing out at me like this.”

  I brushed past them both to the living room and grabbed my coat and keys, forgetting for a second that two of the fingers on
my right hand couldn’t bend. Maddie was by my side as I sucked in a breath, but I shook off her hand and started for the door. “Let’s go, Shawn. We’ve got a shitstorm to clean up.”

  “Meyer, please,” Maddie begged at the same time Shawn replied, “Maybe we need to talk a little longer about—”

  “I don’t need to talk!” I threw my keys on the floor, sending them sliding across the hard floor to stop at Shawn’s feet. “I need to go save the one thing I’ve worked hardest for throughout my entire life. I’m not letting this go to ashes over a stupid mistake.” I glared at them both in turn. Let them decide who they thought I was talking about. “Give me the fucking keys.”

  The three of us stared at each other for too long. No one seemed capable of movement. Finally, Shawn crouched and picked up the keys, stepping forward and extending his arm toward me.

  “Let me get my shoes on,” Maddie croaked, “and I’ll just be—”

  “Stay here,” I barked. “We don’t need another interruption.”

  “You can’t leave me alone!” Her face went white as her eyes grew wide. “What if Conrad—”

  “What if Conrad what, Maddie?” I stared at her over my shoulder, one hand on the doorknob. “There’s nothing either of us can do to stop him if he tries, and we both know that. So what’s the use in trying?” As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Joshua had been right about that. It was only a matter of time. He’d let us run off too easily yesterday, which meant he had something else planned. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.

  “Is that what this is? You’re giving up?” She folded her arms, protecting herself as she stepped across the foyer to me. “After …” She glanced at Shawn, then back at me. “After what I said?”

  My heart had completely collapsed. I’d been so fucking foolish to ever think I could find happiness for more than a few hours, a few minutes, at a time. Even if what she’d said was true, and I couldn’t believe it was, it didn’t matter. Conrad had his own plans; I’d known that all along even as I pretended not to. It was better to cauterize this wound now before my whole body became infected.

  “It doesn’t matter, Madeline. Stick around or don’t; I’m sure one of us will find you.” Ignoring the tears on her face, I turned to my best friend and jerked my head toward the door. “Let’s go.” Without waiting for him, I turned the handle and stepped outside.