by Dani Stowe
We don’t hurt the ones we love.
“Fine.” I sigh. “We won’t destroy what’s left of the Bang but I do want all of the drug’s documentation sealed and locked up.”
“We can do that,” replies Jaxon.
“Good,” I slip the container back in my pocket. “Well, if you dorks have nothing else to discuss?”
They each look at one another blankly and shake their heads.
I shrug my shoulders. “Then, this meeting is adjourned.” I tip my chin up to Don, “G’day, Mr. Nine.”
Don also tips his chin and smiles as he turns away. “Mr. Nine.”
“Mr. Nine,” stands Jaxon, making eye contact with a tightening on the knot of his tie.
“Mr. Nine,” I tip my chin to Jaxon as well.
I look to Elliot, who is the last to stroll smoothly towards the exit and he pauses with a tilt back of his head and a fix of his glasses to check my hand in my pocket.
I stand to wiggle the Bang to assure him that I’ll be keeping the pill. It makes a tic-tac sound.
Elliot grins. “Please tell Loulah I said congratulations.”
“You already congratulated her, Elliot. You were at our wedding.”
“Not about your marriage. Loulah took a test with me this morning. A chemistry test. She scored a 99.9%, which is fairly positive. She asked me not to tell you, but I figure you’re the boss and you might also want a heads up before you decide to take that pill in your pocket and whip her, even though I know Loulah likes that shit.”
I slide my thumb down my jaw. “Okay,” I smirk, “but Lou is the one who gets upset when she doesn’t get a hundred on everything. Not me. If she wants me to whip her she’ll have to beg me.”
Elliot laughs, scratching his head, then puts his hands in his pockets. “Right. Well, G’day, Mr. Nine.”
“You, too, Mr. Ni—”
Pause.
Did Elliot just say Lou tested 99.9% positive? On a chemistry test? Did he mean a preg—
“You look like you’ve just had an epiphany or a breakthrough of some type,” blushes Elliot. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I glare up at him. I’m speechless. I don’t know what to think or say. I only know how I feel.
Scared. And the only times I’ve ever been scared was in the presence of my father or any time I thought I’d lose Taloulah.
I’m trying not to show my fear and force a few words out of my mouth. “Huh? What’s beautiful?”
“To know the real power you have. Everything that has ever worked for or against you has led you to this fixed point in space and time and soon, you’ll be able to hold all the inner workings of the universe in the very palms of your hands.”
“I’m going to be a father,” I choke.
Pulling my hands out of my pockets, I look at my palms and my fingers. They seem so weak. The only time they’ve felt strong is when they were hurting someone, but they’re shaking now. My eyes are hot and my chest is warm. I rub my shaking hands across my front to ease my beating heart.
“I can’t be a father, Elliot. I’m a beast. A savage. I’ve hurt people. I’m too much like my own father. I’m exactly what everyone says I am, a sick fuck and a Dark Lord.”
“No, Nick,” Elliot laughs. “You’re a nerd and the biggest nerd of us all. Trust me, my friend. You’re going to be brilliant.”
Brilliant. The word feels familiar, which eases my soul.
The corners of my mouth reach for my ears and the cocky bastard, Elliot, shows off his own toothy display, a bedeviling smile that says he could foretell what my reaction would be. He’s studied everything, including me. He knew I’d be scared initially and need a pep talk. I hate that Elliot knows me so well.
I open my top drawer, pull out a pencil, and throw it at him but Elliot ducks, managing to catch the pencil and placing it behind his ear. I shake my head. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?”
He laughs. It sounds as sinister as my own laugh when I’m amused with those geeks.
I scoot back in my chair and wave my hand at him. I think I’m going to cry and I don’t care how close Elliot thinks we are or how well he thinks he knows me, I still do not want one—not one—of those geeks seeing me in tears, not even if they are tears of joy. I swallow. “Get back to work.”
Elliot nods, still smiling, but it’s a genuine smile. “Let me know if you need anything. We are all here for you, Nick, and Loulah as well.”
“Oh, I know. I always knew you geeks were something special. Lou and I are going to be all right. Just fine. Swell. Who wouldn’t be swell in the company of NIM?”
Elliot laughs as he steps through the door, “Alrighty then, Mr. Nine.”
“Mr. Nine.”
The Dark Lord
Bonus Chapter
You are about to head back into the fire...
Taloulah
Flames. Flames are creeping in from every corner and I shudder.
I hear Nick calling me but I still can’t see him through the smoke and my eyes are finding it difficult to focus, as they are crisping—my irises cooking like crusts of pie being baked with the rest of my body in a huge oven.
“Nick?” I call back, waving my hands through the smoke. “Nick?”
A belt falls across my face, dangling in front of me. I’m tempted to latch onto the leather, but my hands won’t agree to grasp the thing. This isn’t Nick’s belt, it’s his father’s.
Fire rises through the door before me and the flames become alive, like a living animal, the fire breathes. I’m trying to breathe myself, but as the fire inhales allowing its arms to grow, the surrounding oxygen becomes stolen.
“Nick!” I shout with my last breath. “Nick!”
“Take the belt,” he cries back.
I can’t. I don’t want to touch it.
“Lou!” he yells. “Take the belt or I’ll have to hurt you with it.”
Hurt me? My hands grasp the cold black leather as the fire spreads, its arms ready to envelope me, scorch me, and burn me alive with monstrous hands ablaze.
Nick pulls and I lift my chin up. I cannot wait to see his beautiful face. I’m so eager—desperate—to bury my face in his chest. The belt snaps. Instantly, I’m falling. The pull of my body, gripped by gravity, plunges into a freefall. I want to scream, but I can’t. As I open my mouth a stick lands straight across my lips, silencing me and I peep down to see the fire below. The fire monster—he’s smiling—his mouth spreads wider than the size of my body. The single tear that falls from my eye is quickly steamed away. I reach upward again looking for any sign of Nick or his belt, even his father’s belt, I will take it. I’m going to die. I’m going to get burned alive. Oh God, please! Where’s the belt? Any belt, even his father’s belt, because this time I will take it!
A rope of gold falls instead and my arms extend, fighting to reach.
“My love.”
I gasp, landing in familiar arms as the name is whispered in my ear. I open my eyes to see Nick, looking forlorn, lying next to me in the dark.
He swipes his fingers across my sweaty hairline, moving my hair out of my face. “Baby, you were dreaming again.”
We’ve been married for over a year now. We’ve even had a baby, but I’m still embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That fire monster is never going to take you from me. I slayed him. Remember?”
“Yes. Yes, you did.”
“Then, why are you still dreaming about him?”
“It’s not him. He’s just there. It’s you that draws me in.”
“Are you ever going to make an appointment with Don?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I like dreaming about you rescuing me—again.” I can’t keep my lashes from fluttering bashfully.
Nick swallows and pulls the covers from me, looking me over. I’ve soaked our silk sheets with sweat. “I’ll get a bath started for you,” he says, kissing my forehead.
/> The kiss sends a tingle through my body and as I watch Nick roll out of bed—naked—I remember everything we did earlier after we put our baby, our daughter we named Deja, to bed.
Nick fucked me like the Dark Lord he is. He bent me over his knee and spanked me before he tossed me on the bed face first, gripping my hips to pull my ass up against his crotch where he spanked me again—with a paddle. As I yelped into the mattress, he entered me and then spit on my ass, allowing his fingers to pump me as well.
I loved it. I loved every bump, grind, and grunt he could give me, until the beast came out and then I was tied up. One tie to each wrist on opposite sides of the headboard and a ball gag in my mouth, which is always necessary since I’ve learned to let go, to scream. And although muffled screams are enough to awaken Nick’s animal, I don’t wear the ball gag because I fear the beast. I fear waking up our baby.
Once my arms were spread open and bound, I was positioned to cradle face down in a fetal position, my head turned sideways, my ass poking way up, so I could not only take his cock but also repetitive thwacks of Nick’s well-practiced, underhanded flicks of the wrist, allowing the tip of a short crop to slap repeatedly right in the sweet groove where my thigh meets the under hang of my ass.
When we were both near coming, Nick deprived me of an orgasm, taking his time to move me from the bed to stand then bending me at the waist forward, tying my hands together to the bed post. He pulled on my hair to grind himself deeper into me. His beast was hungry at that point, but I could tell it was taking everything within him to keep from letting himself go completely free.
He spread his legs farther out than my own and flogged us both, reaching behind his back to whack with precise underhanded whips of a flogger, which slapped not only against my pussy but also his tightened scrotum, as his shaft went balls deep in and out of me.
When I came, he told me he loved me, repeatedly, and I believed him. With one tight squeeze, I caught his cock at its fullest entry and he unloaded himself inside me, after which he bent over my back to kiss me, saying the same words over and over again. Between each wet press of his lips and swipe of his tongue, he said, “I love you. I love you, Lou. Fuck baby, I love you.”
I hear the water cease to run as Nick turns the tub’s faucet off. My heart skips a beat when I see Nick return, strutting towards me from the bathroom. The dangling beast at rest between his legs flops soft but still long and heavily as he marches towards me. Below square bare shoulders, however, his arms swing smoothly until he pauses at my bedside, hovering, allowing his eyes to glaze me over.
His brow raises.
My breath hitches.
He’s thinking.
The space between us begins to charge as static slowly grows—surging through the air molecules between our bodies.
The brilliant man with a savage heart, a heart eager to pierce me with its thickest vein, questions me. “Are you still sore from earlier?”
“No.” I’m raw. Fuck, I’m so raw, but if Nick makes me come again, which I know he will stop at nothing to do, my climax will be so intense I’ll be forced to take another sick day from work tomorrow aaand because I’ll be exhausted.
Gently, Nick tugs my sweat-soaked nightgown up and I help him by lifting my hips and wriggling my shoulders so he can pull my nighty over my head to scrunch up and cram into my mouth. I don’t look as the drawer of my bedside table is opened and closed. He walks away. I did not hear the clink or clamor or brush of any device being pulled from the drawer so I can only assume Nick’s going after his most favorite toy. Sure enough, he returns with a stick in hand. Nick climbs up the bed and I start to roll over to my stomach.
“No, no baby.” He leans over, hooking his arm behind my waist, centering my body in the middle of the bed. He spreads my arms open along with my legs so I am in an X as he squats between my thighs, but he doesn’t tie me up this time. “I want to watch you from the front,” he says and whacks my tit.
“Uh,” I grunt through the fabric salted of my own sweat and stuffed in my mouth.
Another whack hits my other breast, which stings a little, quickening my pulse. The tip of the stick strokes up my inner thigh until it is caught at the apex of my crease, where the stick circles around my clit right before the tip is lifted to land with a swift whack!
“Hnn,” I moan through the gag in my mouth, trying to maintain my position, although I’m not sure I can. I’m eager to wrap my arms and legs around this man and fuck him. But instead, he fucks me with his tongue and then a plunge of his fingers.
My eyes close as more whacks come. They move swift, hard, and fast. But not that hard. And not that fast. Whack, whack, whack—they hit repeatedly across my hips, my thighs, my knees. Nick even twists his body to turn around, whacking the tip tops of my feet and the inner and outer bones of my ankles before moving onto my toes, where it hurts the most.
Nick unsheathes his fingers from pussy to take the stick with his dominant hand. The whacks come harder now. Oh my, these sting. My body twitches in reaction but I do not move. I maintain control of my every extremity—poised in the position he wants me to be in.
I sense Nick come up on his knees. The end of the stick moves up the full length of my body—whacking from left to right and up the middle of my body until the stick finds my hands.
“Mmph,” I whimper with each quick painful thwack of the stick against my fingers. Up my arms to my shoulders and even my neck, he whacks! The stick lands hard right under my jaw. Not one inch of my body seems to have been spared and I fear he is going to whack me in the face! This, I fear, I cannot contain myself against. My eyes clench closed even tighter when I sense the stick is lifted higher and I squeal through the fabric in my mouth, which is quickly removed and replaced with a steamy hot kiss.
Relief.
Nick thrusts powerfully through my slick folds. His hips roll like mighty waves left over from a storm. His dewy body covers me, cooling my sizzling skin. I wrap my limbs around him, entangling my fingers in his hair. He deepens his kiss and I know what’s coming...
“Ugh,” I grunt into his mouth as he reaches into me, into my heart, piercing my core with his spear where he carves out a space for his cum to pool as my climax spirals to ease every inch and ounce I want to take of him.
My limbs wilt, falling flat with the rest of my body. I’m thinking I need to rest but instead I’m carried to the tub where my toes find some relief as I’m dipped into the warm bath. When my bottom hits the tub floor, I lean back to watch Nick step in with me but to the opposite side.
He rubs his hands over my shins. I don’t mean to break this blissful moment, but, I need to ask, “Why are you afraid of me?”
“What?” Nick pauses his hands and raises his brow. I raise my own and he resigns to lean back.
“I ran your profile through the program to find out what your worst fear is and it’s me. Why are you afraid of me?”
Nick sighs, placing his arms over the tub sides and rolling his head back. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
I pause to think. The program cannot be wrong though Nick’s denial is worth some merit since he’s extremely smart. I’ve always thought he was smarter than me, although he persistently suggests the opposite. It reminds me of his father, who joked that he was just as smart as me...
Hmm. My last thought repeats itself, he’s just as smart as me.
“You’re not afraid of me, but you’re afraid I’m you’re equal.”
“Please,” he chortles. “There’s no fucking way you could ever be my equal.”
That hurt. My head falls sideways as I look him in the eye.
He leans forward, clasping my legs. “In my heart, I always knew you were the stronger of us. You could take a hit without whining. You could feel shame without hiding. You have always been smarter and better than me. You are beyond my equal, Taloulah. You are the food of my soul and my goddess above all religion. You are the moon and sun of
my skies and the center of my universe. You are the most precious and most sacred thing in my entire world.” He grabs my hands, pulling them to his mouth as he leans forward to kiss the back my fingers. “You are the mother of my child and I—”
“Stop.”
He lets go of my hands, leaning to rest against the opposite side of the tub.
I splash him. “Is that why you hold back?”
He waves his hands to and fro beneath the water’s surface. “What do you mean, hold back?”
“From hurting me. For years, I watched you swing all types of tortuous things across another woman’s ass, but you still hold back when you fuck me.”
Nick splashes his face, washing it, before he rakes his short wavy hair at the top of his head back with wet fingers and palms. His jaw tightens but he says nothing, just stares up at the ceiling.
“Why do you hold back?” I repeat. “You could’ve really hurt me with that stick. I know you wanted to.”
“Because I love you!” he shouts. “It should be my job to protect you—worship you—not hurt you. Not every time.”
“Go get my work tote.”
Nick rubs his index finger across his bottom lip, eyeing me with suspicion. “What have you been up to, my Lou?”
“Just go get my bag.”
Water pools across the white marble tiles as Nick gets out. His ass and back muscles are so ripped and taut that I wonder if it’s the result of the amount of fucking we do at home and in the office. But I’d be lying to myself if I did not wish we could just make love like normal people because that’s all Nick’s ever really wanted, besides a life with me—to be normal.
Nick brings my giant work tote back, planting it to the tub beside me. Leaning over the edge of the tub to dig into the bag, I feel the water displace as Nick crawls back in. Once he’s seated I turn to him with my palm laid flat and a little pill container propped in the center.
“What’s that?” he asks with a rub of his jaw.
I pop the top as I slide my ass forward, reaching for his hand where I plant the pill container in his palm. “It’s the project I’ve been working on. Just take it.”
