I take a step away from her, the back of my thighs bumping against my wooden chair. I stare at the apple and then back into LuAnn’s blue eyes. Common sense tells me I need to fight, punch her in the goddamn face, run for my life! But for some reason I don’t feel like I’m about to die. I just want to understand. I need to understand.
“How could you?” I say to her, shaking her head slowly. “How could you even . . .”
“Oh, grow up,” LuAnn says, snorting at me and shaking her head. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“Selling girls to the highest bidder? Our girls?!”
LuAnn shakes her head again and sighs like I’m some idealistic moron. “Every girl is for sale, Astrid. That’s how it’s always been. If our parents don’t sell us off, then we sell ourselves to the guy who gives us what we want.” She pauses as I stare at her like she’s insane—which, by the way, she is. “And for the record, I don’t sell to the highest bidder. I vet all my buyers carefully. I send my girls to good homes. To good men.”
My mouth hangs open. “A good man doesn’t buy little girls from insane cunts like you.”
“Whoa! Language!” says LuAnn, raising her arms in mock horror. “Your precious little girls will be rolling in at any minute.” She pauses and looks back at the apple in her hand. “Every little girl except for Paulina. She gave you this apple, didn’t she? A goodbye gift, right?”
A chill rushes through me as I stare at the apple. LuAnn is right. Paulina gave me the apple two days ago. She told me her family was moving out of state and this Friday would be her last day.
“You’re lying,” I whisper as that chill rises to the point where I can barely stand. I feel my fists clenching, my blood heating up. Now I think that hell yeah, I could kill! What’s more, I don’t need some space-age poison. I’ll just straight-up strangle the bitch!
“Am I? Here,” LuAnn says, pulling out her phone and tapping on it. “Talk to Paulina’s parents. Ask to speak to Paulina. See what they say.”
I blink as I stare at the phone, my mind swirling with everything LuAnn just told me. Vetted buyers. And vetted sellers too?! Of course! That’s how LuAnn managed to do this under the radar! She wasn’t having little girls kidnapped and shipped off to sex dungeons or whorehouses! She was working with consenting parents, matching sellers with buyers like an evil broker in a human marketplace! If parents sold their children willingly, then took the money and moved away from friends and family, no one would ever know the kid was gone, would they? Sure, the government could audit them or the freakin’ census bureau could look into it, but why would they unless there was a red flag or someone complained?!
“I only accept parents who don’t have extended families,” LuAnn says as if she’s describing a goddamn insurance policy. “Nobody who’s going to raise the alarm that this family had a kid a week ago and now the kid is gone. They move a few states away, start a new life.” She shrugs and chuckles. “Maybe even have a new kid. I’ve had a couple of repeat customers over the years, actually.”
“You’re insane,” I stammer, looking at the phone and knowing I don’t need to call Paulina’s parents to know that they’ll make up some excuse why Paulina can’t come to the phone.
“I’m providing a service,” says LuAnn, shaking her head. “My customers are rich, powerful men from all over the world. You think they can’t find other ways to get what they want? At least this way I’m making it easier for the girls. Would you rather they get kidnapped, brutalized, broken in before getting shipped to their new masters in a cage?”
“You need to be in a cage!” I scream, but the moment I take a step towards her, LuAnn reaches beneath her jacket and pulls out a small gun, stopping me dead in my tracks.
I’m about to say to hell with it and go for her anyway, go out fighting, maybe even get a good punch in before I’m shot down. No way LuAnn is letting me walk away after everything she’s told me. This is the end of the game. The end of my story.
My eyes tear up as I think about the past week with Armand. Even with the madness of what was happening, we’d found time to be with each other. We’d taken walks by the lake. We’d eaten at sidewalk cafes. Visited the aquarium. Strolled arm in arm through a sea of roses at the botanical gardens. And we’d made love. God, we’d made love!
It’s like my whole life is flashing before my eyes as I prepare to launch myself at LuAnn, and even when I see Armand’s massive body come crashing through the classroom window like a wrecking ball, it feels like everything’s happening in slow motion.
LuAnn whips around, squeezing the trigger furiously as Armand roars and leaps at her. I scream as I see the bullets rip through the skin on his massive arms, but he’s on her before she scores a mortal shot. With one swipe of his hand he knocks her gun across the room, and when I get to him he’s got her pinned between his strong thighs, his gun pressed against her forehead.
“Look away, Astrid,” he says without turning to me. I can see that his expression is cold, that he’s flipped that switch that allowed him to do what he did for so long and still keep that other side of him alive, that side that came out for me, the part of him that’s tender, the part of him that’s loving, the part of him that’s mine.
“No,” I say, completing my train of thought out loud. “This part of you is mine too, Armand. I love all of you. And I want to understand all of you.” I swallow hard as I try to fight back the words I feel coming. This man is about to cross a line he’s never crossed. Cross it for me. Shouldn’t I be willing to do the same for him?
“No,” I say again, this time with more confidence. I go to Armand and put my hand on his shoulder. “Give me the gun.”
“She needs to die, Astrid,” Armand says through gritted teeth. “And I don’t even give a shit what she’s done to those girls. She needs to die just for threatening you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not having you spend your life in prison for this bitch,” I say to him even as a strange thrill rises up in me from what Armand just said. And he was totally serious, wasn’t he? Just pointing a gun at his woman pretty much drew a death sentence from my hitman! Now that’s romance!
Armand blinks, the rage slowly leaving him as if he’d only just realized that it’d be pretty tough to explain blowing the school principal’s brains out in a fourth-grade classroom, no matter what the circumstances might be.
“Besides,” I say, caressing his shoulders as I see I’m getting through to him, stopping my killer of a fiancé from losing himself to his killer instinct. “She’s got a list of men who are in the market for buying young girls. Maybe records of all the girls she’s sold. Those names need to get to the FBI. To Interpol. To the goddamn New York Times!”
Armand breaks a grin and nods. Then he sighs and pulls the gun away from LuAnn’s head before sitting back on her legs so she still can’t move. He looks at me, and I stare dreamily into his eyes like this is a totally romantic moment, something we’ll tell our grandkids during Thanksgiving.
I want to kiss my man, but I’m distracted by movement. Quickly I turn to LuAnn, afraid she’s reached for her gun.
Then I gasp when I see she’s reached for the other weapon in the room.
The apple.
The apple that I laced with poison.
Armand is still looking at me, and then I realize he must not have seen what I did with to the apple! He must have been following LuAnn all this while, splitting time between watching me and her!
“Armand, stop her!” I shriek.
Armand frowns, his head turning towards LuAnn’s gun, which is still safely across the room. Then he stares back at LuAnn, who’s holding the apple up to her mouth.
“What the fuck?” he says, totally confused. “Are you—”
“I’m not spending my life in a jail cell, getting raped by some prison guard or a gang of butch lesbians,” she whispers to me as she takes a crisp bite and swallows
just as Armand knocks the apple away.
“Why not? You were doing the same for those girls, weren’t you?” I snap back, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction go through me when I realize that this is justice, this is what needs to happen—not just for her, but for me. I need to understand what it feels like to take a life. It’s the only way I’ll be fully bonded to the man that fate has linked me with. The only way I’ll fully accept even the darkness in him:
By realizing that I’m capable of that same darkness.
By showing him that I’m his equal, that I’m his woman, that I’m his.
I’m his, I think as I look into Armand’s eyes while LuAnn dies quietly in the background, like she’s meaningless.
I’m his, I think again as I realize that this wasn’t about LuAnn, it wasn’t about justice, it wasn’t about anything but me and him, two people coming together, two people dealing with whatever was thrown at them, two people fighting for their happily ever after.
This was my story, I think as Armand stands and rushes over to me.
This was our story, I decide as I feel his warm kisses smother me.
This is our happy ending, I realize as I glance down at his wounds even as he carries me out of the room.
Our happy ending.
Always and forever.
∞
EPILOGUE 1
ONE MONTH LATER
ASTRID
Mrs. Astrid’s getting married! Mrs. Astrid’s getting married! Mrs. Astrid’s getting married!
I glance over at the small gathering of teachers, parents, and pretty much all my girls, even those I taught years ago. I’m blushing bright red in my white wedding gown, and my heart is so full I wonder if I’m going to pass out before I walk down the aisle.
Gustav is walking me down the aisle, and I look over at the old mafia mob boss who’s dressed in a shining suit that looks expensive. He’s holding a box, and I know it’s my ring. After all, Gustav is also playing the role of Armand’s best man!
I look down the aisle and see Armand. He looks tall and broad in his groom’s suit, his hair freshly cropped, stubble carefully manicured. I still can’t believe everything that’s happened over the past month, but I tell myself it doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not.
Because it’s happened.
Holy shit, this is happening!
The opening chords of Here Comes the Bride rings out through the hall, and I look back to my one flower-girl. It’s Paulina, bright-eyed and cherub faced, saved from her “buyer” by the FBI before the sick asshole had a chance to destroy her innocence. In that moment I know I’ve made a difference in a way I wouldn’t have if not for Armand, if not for that choice I’d made to cross the street and walk through his door, if not for the choice he’d made to take me as his woman at first sight, to claim me with the confidence of a man who knows what he wants, to claim me curves and all, curvy and all.
Armand looks back at me, his gaze moving up along my curves as I swing my hips like it’s nobody’s business. This is my wedding, I think as I look into Armand’s eyes and put one foot in front of the other, walking confidently towards my waiting husband, the man who’ll always wait for me, always protect me, always love me just as I am, perfect as I am, curvy as I am.
Just as I’ll always be there for him.
Curvy for him.
EPILOGUE 2
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
ARMAND
I glance at my curvy wife’s pregnant belly, and then up at the calendar on the wall. It’s got tomorrow’s date circled on it. Tomorrow we see our twins in the flesh.
Yeah, it’s twins. A boy and a girl. We don’t have names for them yet. We decided we’re going to see them before naming them.
“They published the names this morning,” Astrid says, looking up from the small laptop she’s got perched on her beautiful belly. “Almost a hundred names, Armand! Billionaires and politicians from around the world! Even the ones that the FBI can’t charge with a crime will have their lives destroyed!”
I nod. Three months ago the FBI’s technicians cracked the encryption on LuAnn’s computers and found her secret lists. They were able to track down all the girls LuAnn had sold over the years, ranging from kids all the way to some who were grown women with children of their own! I can’t even think about that shit without feeling sick to my stomach, especially as I’m about to become a dad myself!
“I don’t want you reading that stuff right now,” I say, taking the laptop away from her. “That part of our lives is over and done with. I don’t want you getting stressed out in this state. It could impact our unborn children, you know.”
Astrid snorts, shaking her head and smiling. Her pretty round cheeks are glowing from her imminent entry into motherhood, and she looks divine. I let my gaze drift down to her boobs, which are swollen with her milk. I’ve seen her oozing through the thick cotton of her maternity bras, and it’s embarrassed me to find that I get hard like a perverted beast as I fantasize about suckling on her while I fuck her with everything I’ve got. Of course, I don’t dare put my cock inside her when she’s in this fragile state. She’s been satisfying me with her warm mouth and her soft hands the best she can, but there’s nothing like the feeling of her warm pussy around my cock.
“Um, I think you’re the only that’s stressed,” she says, teasing me with her eyes. “Come here. Bring it here. I’ll help you relax.”
She wriggles upright, leaning against the backboard of our king-sized bed. She licks her lips, and I groan as she unclasps her bra from the front, letting her swollen boobs hang out in a way that almost makes me come in my pants.
“Twist my arm,” I grunt as I unbuckle and unzip, tossing away my pants and straddling her. My cock throbs against her breasts, and I groan as she squeezes my shaft with her heavy boobs. “Oh, fuck, babe. Your boobs . . . oh, hell, babe.”
“You want a taste?” she whispers, looking up at me.
“What? No! That’s sick,” I say, even though the way my cock hardens between her tits tells her I’m lying.
She giggles. “I’ve seen how hard you get when I’m milking myself to release the pressure,” she says, looking at me knowingly. She frowns and looks down at herself, pinching her big red nipples until her cream starts to flow. “Come to think of it, I’m feeling some pressure right now.”
I can’t hold myself back any longer, not with Astrid looking so goddamn hot from this angle, her big boobs hanging off to the sides, her round belly swollen with my babies, her thick thighs splayed out on our bed. So with a groan I descend on her, taking her left nipple into my mouth and sucking so hard I get a hot jet of her sweet milk right down my gullet!
She shrieks as I drink from her, suckling from one boob and then the other until she’s moaning and writhing. I finger her cunt as I bite and suck her boobs, feeling her divine wetness flow down my hand, past my goddamn wrist! I want to fuck her so bad it hurts, but it’s too far along in the pregnancy. I’ll just have to wait. I’ll just have to make do with another handjob or my wife’s perfect lips. Wow, life is hard, ain’t it?!
But then Astrid slides down flat on the bed and turns, rising up on her knees and sticking her ass up in the air. I stare in shock as she spread her big bottom for me, exposes her shining rear pucker, clean and dark. I’m fucking drooling her milk, my cock throbbing as I wonder if this is really happening. Over the past nine months I’ve teased her there, fingered her rim until she moaned, even made her come once just from that. But we never went further. I could tell she was hesitant, wasn’t sure if she could take me.
“Babe, do you know what you’re doing?” I mutter as my tongue hangs out from the sight of her round asscheeks spread like that, her thighs rippled with the little bit of extra weight she’s put on during the pregnancy.
“In a day we’re going to be parents,” she whispers, turning her head to the side so I can s
ee the arousal twisting her face. “Then we’re going to have to be responsible members of society. Buckle down. Straighten up. Fly right.”
I’m already rubbing her ass as she teases me with her voice, egging me on about how it’s our last chance before we become responsible parents. Then I raise my right hand and bring it down hard on her asscheek, making her squeal and shut the hell up. No more talk. This train is leaving the station.
I spank her twice more, panting as I see her buttocks shudder with each smack. Then I’ve got my face pushed in there, right between those divine globes, my tongue sliding in and out of her clean hole until she’s wet and dripping.
I rub her mound carefully as I lick her asshole, and the moment I feel her come I rise up, coat my cock with her juices, and press my cockhead to her glistening pucker.
Then, as my beautiful pregnant wife howls through her climax, I push my cock into her rear, push it deep, deep, all the way deep, all the goddamn way.
EPILOGUE 3
ASTRID
Armand explodes in me before I even come to terms with the sensation of being stretched like that from behind, entered like that from behind, taken like that from behind. My asshole feels so distended I wonder if that’s even possible, but though I feel pressure and tightness that makes me choke, there’s no pain. It’s like I was built for him.
“Oh, God, Armand!” I howl, lowering my head and staring at the sight of my boobs oozing milk as my husband fucks me in the ass with everything he’s got, his big balls slapping wildly behind me like he’s a goddamn feral beast in season. My pregnant belly is shuddering from his thrusts, and although it should feel sick and wrong, everything feels perfect, just perfect.
I smile wide as Armand unloads into me, and I tighten my asshole and milk his cock just like he milked me. I know he needed this, needed to push himself into me, take me like a man takes a woman, dominate me like an alpha dominates everything in his domain. I feel no shame in it, no shame in spreading my big curvy pregnant-ass body wide for my man, giving him the pleasure he wants, when he wants, how he wants, where he wants!
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