by Ella Miles
“Don’t worry, Millie. When I fuck you, there won’t be anything gentlemanly about it.” He grins, and if my panties weren’t already soaked, they are now.
And then he’s undoing his pants and pulling them down until he’s naked and glistening from the rain still against his skin. I try to keep my eyes from descending down his body, but I can’t help it. And when I see his cock, I panic.
He’s impressive. He’s a sex god. He’s charming, and I’m—
Sebastian leans down and kisses me, stopping me from finishing my thoughts. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, claiming me as his, causing my tongue to swell and my lips to tingle from his touch.
“Don’t think about anything except that kiss.”
My brain floods with images of that kiss. I burn the image, the taste, the touch, the feeling into my head. There is no way I’ll forget this night.
I regret drinking those glasses of champagne during dinner. I don’t want anything to impede my ability to remember.
“Strip,” Sebastian says as he sits on the edge of the bed.
I sit up as his appreciative eyes travel down my body. I unhook my bra, immediately, letting the wet material fall to the floor. I know my boobs look good, but the rest of me has more curves than most men accept as beautiful. I let my dress and panties fall next, and then I hear Sebastian gasp.
“Come here.” Sebastian hooks his finger at me as he lays back. I walk over to him, he grabs my hips, and then I’m straddling his face.
“I’ve wanted to eat you out since you strutted around naked after leaving the hot tub. I’ve been dying to know what you taste like.”
I’ve never had a man eat me out before. I’ve never had a man go down on me. I’ve never had a man make me come from his tongue.
I should tell him. I tense. My thighs straighten, keeping his tongue from diving into my body.
His eyes flicker to mine—he realizes the truth.
“Tell me,” he commands.
“What?”
“Tell me. Once you do, you’ll be free of it. It will be just words. I’m about to devour you, and I sure as hell won’t stop until you come. I don’t care about the failure of men before me. I don’t care if they were too dumb to taste you here. Too inexperienced to make you come. Say it so that you can be free.”
“I’ve never had a man go down on me before.”
“Good girl.”
And then his tongue sweeps over my clit. It’s like a shot of lightning through my entire body. I jolt at the explosive touch.
Sebastian grabs my thighs, keeping my body against his mouth as he hums lightly, adding vibration as he licks me.
I grab his hair, holding on as the pleasure intensifies. I never realized that having a man lick me like this could be so good. I lose my mind as he continues torturing me with his tongue.
My body tightens more and more with each lick, until my thighs are clenched around his head. I’m not sure he can breathe with me over him like this, but he doesn’t seem to care. And I—I can barely think.
Please, remember this.
He changes everything when he pushes two fingers into my slit. I gasp as he fills me with his fingers. His tongue dances over my clit as he moans over it like it’s the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted.
“Sebastian,” I whisper, suddenly going quiet. Everything stills for a moment, even the rain and thunder stops cracking.
I swear I can hear my own heartbeat. I can feel the blood flowing between my legs in gentle pulses. It’s the quiet before the storm.
And then, the storm lets loose.
I arch my back, and my body convulses, rattling as an orgasm rolls through me like thunder. I yell out Sebastian’s name as my body shudders.
“I’ve never felt…” I pant.
Sebastian smirks beneath me. “There is a reason they call me the king.”
I laugh and blush before rolling off him. But he grabs my hip, stopping me from rolling all the way away from him.
“I’m not done with you yet, wifey.”
My heart races when he calls me wifey, but I quickly shut it down. This is just about sex, remember heart? Just sex. No feelings. Feelings lead us to get hurt.
He rolls me onto my back as he grabs a condom and sheaths himself before settling between my legs.
“No man has ever made me come before—thank you.” I like sex. I like it because it makes me feel powerful. It makes men weak. It makes men want me. But that’s the only reason, not because it’s ever felt this good for me.
He smiles at me with his crooked grin that makes him look like a boy instead of a man. “You’re about to come twice in one night.”
“Sebastian, I can’t.”
He growls at me. “You can—trust me.”
I nod. I do trust him, and that’s beginning to become a problem.
His thumb presses over my sensitive clit. There is no way I’m ready to come again. But Jesus, my body responds to that one touch. And then he’s pushing inside of me.
“Holy fucking Sebastian,” I say as he fills me to the brim.
He chuckles—it’s deep and masculine and relaxes me. He pushes further in, stuffing me completely, and that’s when I realize he’s not all the way inside me.
“Kiss me,” he moans as he lowers himself over me.
I kiss him. I focus on the kiss, letting it consume me. That is until he thrusts, and my body soars.
“You’re mine, Mrs. King,” he growls against my ear.
I’ve never liked being claimed. I’m an independent, modern woman. But when he goes all caveman like this, I want him to do it again.
“Say it.”
“I’m yours, Mr. King.”
“And?”
“You’re mine.” At least for tonight.
And then everything changes. He’s no longer the gentleman; he’s the king. He pounds into me like he owns my body. His thumb plays my clit like it belongs to him. His tongue dips into my mouth like it’s our millionth kiss instead of our tenth.
Our bodies are like magnets, pushing and pulling together as Sebastian thrusts harder and faster. He demands everything from my body, not letting this be anything but incredible. My body is going to remember every thrust, every look, every moan. I’ll remember it all because he burned it into my memory.
My body is sizzling with need, but I’m still greedy for more. I grab his ass, sinking him deeper inside me. He responds by pushing my legs back until there is no way he can thrust any deeper, until we feel completely connected to each other.
I feel the undeniable need to speak—to explain to him what he’s doing to my body. To tell him how appreciative I am. But I can’t form words. All I can give him is breathy cries and moans of pleasure.
“I know,” he whispers over my lips before pulling them roughly into his mouth.
And then it happens. Sebastian’s body goes rigid, my body explodes, gripping him harder than a vice grip, my orgasm pulses around his cock. It’s an experience I’ve never had before. Sebastian gave me two unforgettable experiences in one night. How will my heart survive letting him go?
Sebastian resumes his rocking into my body. His growl is penetrating my broken heart and fills a spot in my soul as he releases his own orgasm.
I’m used to men who pull out immediately feeding me some garbage about how good it was and then falling asleep snoring moments later. Those men meant something to me. I expect even less from Sebastian, my fake husband.
What I don’t expect is for him to stay inside me far longer than necessary, like he can’t bear to pull out and end the intimate side of our relationship.
“Do you remember?” he asks, referring to the first time we must have done this.
I shake my head with heavy breaths.
“Me neither,” he says, stroking my face. “Which is a damn shame, if it was anything like this.”
I feel the same way. I’m sure our first round of sex was good, but I didn’t realize until now exactly what I was missing out by not r
emembering. Now I do, and it feels like an enormous loss.
Sebastian pulls out, and as he does, a loud, ominous crack of thunder booms through us like Mother Nature isn’t happy with our separation either.
Join the club, I think to myself.
Sebastian gets up and goes to use the bathroom, and I wait for my turn in it. There are two bathrooms in the suite, but all my stuff is in this one. I don’t want to have to walk down the hall to the other one.
Sebastian stands over me just as I’m about to roll off the bed for my turn in the bathroom.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“Bathroom.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not escaping that easily.”
He grabs me by the midriff and pulls me back into bed with him. He has a washcloth, and he takes his time cleaning between my legs. Then he pulls my back to his front before draping us with the covers.
He’s spooning me. This was the last thing I expected him to do.
My heart hammers as he holds me—somehow, this feels more intimate than the actual sex.
“Tell me about your darkness,” he says into my hair.
And for the first time in forever, I want to.
25
Sebastian
I feel Millie’s heart racing against my chest as I hold her. Her breathing hasn’t slowed, and she’s still hot. It does nothing to help me regain my composure. Even after going to the bathroom and coming back, I still haven’t returned to my normal in control state.
I’ve never felt anything like I did when I entered Millie. It was like I was coming home, becoming grounded in a way I didn’t know was possible to feel with another person. She filled some part of me that I didn’t know was empty.
And now I’m spooning and snuggling with her in bed—something I never do. I’m not doing it out of obligation. I want to hold her—all night or maybe even longer than that…
I want her to talk to me. I want to know what she’s thinking. What she’s feeling. What she desires. What she needs.
However, I know the most important place to start is her darkest secret, the man or men who hurt her. We are in our thirties. She should have had dozens of orgasms by dozens of men by now. She should have experienced a whole world of men. Instead, she found the assholes. No wonder she calls me that—it’s her defense mechanism.
“Tell me about your darkness.” I choose my words carefully. She can tell me anything. My words make no assumptions that her darkness is another man, but if I had to guess, it is.
A man she dated treated her wrong.
Her father abused her.
An uncle touched her.
Something happened that caused her to not be able to experience an orgasm with a man—until now.
I feel a strange, wicked pride knowing I was the man to end her dry spell, to conquer the darkness that she has yet to share with me. But I don’t focus on that. I want to hear her. I want the truth.
This is completely out of character for me. Usually, I just bang women and send them on the way, usually the same night, definitely before breakfast.
But I crave every word Millie is going to say. I want her to want me, to need me, to let me help her. I shouldn’t want to. It feels too much like therapy, like work. I’m not a therapist, but I might as well be because the work I do is therapy. But I never bring my work home. Until now.
I’m not sure I’ve earned her words yet, so it doesn’t surprise me that she doesn’t immediately spill all of the dark things that have happened to her. A real husband would already know, but I’m just the fake stand-in helping her escape her past.
I hold her in my arms, hoping it brings her enough comfort to talk. I’ve heard enough people spill their guts to know that the most important part is just being patient, just being there for her to open up when she’s ready.
My fingers wander to her spine, and I trace down it, watching as chills roll through her body with a shudder, bringing life back into her.
“I’m here. I’ll wait all night. And if that isn’t long enough, I’ll wait as long as it takes. Even if we aren’t together anymore.”
She sucks in a breath, like she’s sucking in all my words and using them for strength.
I suck in a breath too because if she’s about to tell me what happened, then I need to be prepared for the monster she is about to call out. And I’m going to want to kill that monster.
Millie is the most confident person I’ve ever met. At least, that’s what she exudes. She’s confident and adventurous and fun, but it’s all an act. It may be who she wants to be, but it’s hiding the truth. It’s hiding the lack of confidence, the pain that someone caused her.
Maybe she’s able to play so confidently because her darkness isn’t that vast. Or maybe she’s an actress in real life. Tomorrow when we head home, I’ll learn who she really is—her job title, where she lives, what she does in the real world. But I don’t care about any of that, because what we experienced here was the real us. The parts of us that matter, that we hide from the world. Hopefully, we can take more of these parts back to the real world instead of just having to pretend.
“I don’t know if I could pin it on one moment or a series of moments,” she starts.
And suddenly, I can’t breathe. My mind goes to all of the darkest of places—she was raped, abused, tortured. I’m not going to survive her words.
“I’ve never had a particularly bad experience with men. Never had a man take things too far. Never been hurt by a man. Never been abused—nothing like that.”
I exhale a breath and grip her tighter, like that will somehow protect her from ever being hurt.
I want to talk, to tell her to continue, but the silence is easier for her to fill if I don’t. So I wait for her to continue. I’m patient, and eventually, she does.
“But I’ve never found a relationship that was particularly amazing either. Never found that once in a lifetime kind of love that people talk about.”
I hang onto her every word, wanting to know more. I’m an excellent listener. I have all the patience in the world, but I’ve never struggled so hard to keep my mouth shut as I am right now.
“I thought I had found it. Numerous times, with numerous men. But each time, I was wrong.”
I kiss her shoulder, rewarding her for talking, but she still hasn’t told me anything specific. I need details, Mills! I need to know whose ass to kick.
“Every time I thought I’d found my happily ever after, something happened—a car accident killed the first man I thought I loved.”
My heart breaks for her.
“I guess I became broken, numb to the world after that. With each man I was with after, I tried so hard to be perfect. I tried to have the perfect relationship, afraid that if I wasn’t enough, it would be taken from me.”
She cries, I feel her warm tears falling onto my arm wrapped around her front. Still, I don’t let myself comfort her beyond holding her.
“I thought I was enough to keep them. I tried to be the perfect partner. I lost weight or gained weight to be beautiful in their eyes. I learned to cook fabulous meals and would be exactly what they wanted in bed. Sometimes I was wild; other times, I was innocent, adventurous, whatever it was they craved. But it was never enough to keep them. Eventually, they all left.”
She sucks back a sob. I squeeze her as tight as I can.
Just get it all out, baby. Get it all out.
“I know I’m not good enough to be in a relationship. To get married. I would never make a good wife. And I can’t handle any more heartbreak. But thank you for giving me a night where, for once, I felt worthy.”
I can’t take it anymore. She may not feel she was abused. But whatever these men did to her, it was borderline abuse. They wrecked her confidence. Destroyed her hope for a real relationship. And I won’t have it.
I turn her toward me until we are lying on the pillow eye to eye. What I have to say is important, and I need her to start believing my words. It’s the first s
tep toward healing. I take her hands in mine.
“Millie, you weren’t the one who failed in your relationships—they were. Those guys weren’t worthy of you. Even the guy who died, he never even gave you an orgasm. That’s not love. That’s not romance. That’s a man who doesn’t realize your worth. Millie, you are incredible, and you would make an incredible wife someday if that’s what you want. Don’t let any man or any past relationship tell you differently.”
My heart throbs as I speak. I could be that man. I could be the man who shows her her worth. Who values her above everything else. Who loves her.
Now that’s just crazy, my mind reminds me. You’re a bachelor for life. Millie might make a great wife, but you would make a terrible real husband.
“Do you hear me?”
She nods.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
I kiss her sweetly on the forehead, but it’s as much for me as it is to comfort her.
“Now, tell me about the man who keeps texting and calling you, the man you are afraid of. What of him?”
Her eyes flick to the phone on the nightstand like she just now thought of him, and I curse myself for bringing him up and ruining this moment, but I need to know. I need to know who she’s running from.
“He’s an ex.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She shakes her head. “Trust me, it was me—not him that broke us up.”
I frown. I know deep into my heart that it wasn’t Millie who messed up the relationship. She’s not capable of doing anything wrong, anything to make a man leave. But I know now isn’t the time to argue.
“It’s him you’re running from, right? He’s the reason we are going to be fake married for six months? So you can show him that you’ve moved on, and he’ll leave you alone?”
“Yes,” she breathes. “Will you help me?”
I pull her to my chest. “I’ll do anything for you. If it means staying married for longer than six months, I’ll do that too.”
She shakes her head, but this time, I don’t let her speak. I might just need this relationship to last longer than six months myself. Already, I can’t imagine the pain at her leaving.
