I would force her down but I want something else. “Get on your hands and knees.”
She does it, lowering her head to the floor by my feet. My heart runs so fast it’s painful, but I take slow steps around behind her. She’s presented her cunt to me, her ass, and I want all of her. Now.
I get to my knees behind her, line myself up, and thrust into her pussy. She’s soaked, ready, but it still stretches her. Ashley’s body tries to get away but her cunt wants it. It clenches around me, pulling me in. I give her more of what her pussy needs with my hands on her hips, holding her in place.
Fucking her like this chases away the memories. It hunts them down and shoots them one by one until they’re dead, until they cannot reach for me anymore, until there’s no guilt left, no shame, no pain. I work Ashley’s clit with my fingertips and wrestle an orgasm out of her. At the last second I thrust in deep so I can feel her muscles work and work and work.
It rips a groan right out of my mouth. “Fuck, princess, fuck. Fuck. I have to hurt you. I need it.”
“I know,” she mouths, her face pressed against the new wood floor, and her pussy clenches.
I reach around to the front of her and pinch one nipple hard enough to make her cry out, then do the same to the other. Both times, her pussy responds. But it’s not enough. I want the sound of her to decimate the past. To remake me into someone whole. It’s too much to want. I’m going to take it anyway. I’m going to try.
A drawer set into the bedframe has what I need. I pull out, my cock glistening with her, and Ashley makes a hopeless sound.
“Offer it to me.”
I’ve done it before. Fucked her this way with her hands tied down between her legs. I love fucking Ashley when she’s bound, but I almost come early at the sight of her reaching back to spread her cheeks for me. Her chest heaves. I’m not careful with the lube, and not careful when I push three fingers into her at once. The storm is coming, it’s on top of me, it is me. If we’re going to make it to France, I have to let it out. I have to have this. She clenches again and again on my fingers, trying to push them out, and I reach between her legs and stroke her clit until she relaxes.
“I need to hurt you,” I tell her again. All the warning I can give. All the time I can give. “Will you cry for me, princess?”
She nods, wordless, and I notch my cock to her tensed hole and push in.
I’m going too fast. I know it. Ashley gasps at the first few inches, and then a sob bursts out of her that’s so hot it makes my cock twitch. Tears run down to the paneling. She keeps her head turned so I can see them. She keeps her head turned so I can see the way her mouth drops open with the pain and the struggle and the stretch.
I sink into her another few inches and she whimpers, her body shaking.
“Look at you,” I murmur, all my energy focused on the hot squeeze of her around me. “You poor thing. Taking a thick cock in your ass for me. You’re stretched so wide, princess. It feels so fucking good.” I run a finger over the place where she’s at her limit and push myself in farther. I’m almost there. “How much does it hurt?”
“It burns.” Her words are buried in tears. Soaked in them. “You’re stretching me so far. I can feel everything. I can feel your piercing.” She clenches, muscles rippling. Her cheeks redden. “It really hurts.” Another muffled sob. “And I want it.”
I bend over her to speak into her ear, shoving all the way into her in the process. She takes me with a mortified moan. “It’s working,” I admit to her, in the filthy privacy of the moment. “It’s making me—”
“Yourself,” she says, voice shaken and scared. Not of who I am right now. Of who I was becoming. Of who I could have been. She is so beautiful like this, with her dark hair spilled over her shoulders and every muscle trembling for me. “Please,” she says. “Come back.”
I get my fingertips to her clit again. She’s going to need them there. “Spread your legs a little wider. There. Now be a good princess for me. Relax...” I trace a circle around her bundle of nerves until I feel her calm. Her hands steady themselves on the floor. I tense my muscles to pull out, and Ashley takes a breath. Works her hardest to stay relaxed, just like I told her.
“Good.” The praise makes her shiver. I pull my cock out in one movement, leaving only the tip inside her. “Now cry,” I order, and thrust home.
21
Poseidon
We arrive at sunrise.
I’m numb to it, despite the way I’ve been using Ashley. Using her the way she wants, the way she begs for. Hades and Zeus have not left the ship, though they could. We haven’t spoken about it. The closer we got to Lancieux, the less I was able to speak at all outside of giving orders.
My skin is pulled too close to the bone. Too tight for my body. The warm breeze tries to help, and it fails, because I’m not ready for this.
I will never be ready for this.
Nicholas won’t let me help with docking the ship, so I go down to the dock with Ashley. She left Buddy sleeping in my quarters. We’re not three steps away when Hades and Zeus come out behind us, Conor with Hades like always.
Neither of them makes any comment. I wish they would, because then I could call them assholes and lose myself in the back-and-forth that’s somehow become familiar. But all of that is shoved down deep, with miles of dirt shoveled on top.
I can feel my emotions trying to get in, the way the sea tries to get to me. The ocean taps at the dock posts in a subtle reminder that it’s there. I know it is. I can’t forget. Because the dock and the shore haven’t changed. The stretch where I walked with my mother is visible from here, and it’s been left untouched. No hotel development, no tacky resort, no sleek restaurant at oceanside.
Ashley slips her hand into mine and holds tight, as if she can feel how my heart is trying to make the jump down to the pavement. I have the same tingling sensation I always do when something is coming. Hope comes in, and dread rushes out. This tide will be the death of me. It comes as often as I breathe.
She’s still alive.
She’s dead.
She’s still alive.
She’s dead.
I look for my mother in everyone who passes by on the street, which isn’t many people at this hour of the morning. The old landmarks jump out at me. Not all of them are here anymore, but there are enough familiar street signs and shops that my feet find the way. Or they still knew the way, even after all this time.
My gut freezes for the last few blocks. It’s solid ice. This is where I’ll find her. This is where I’ll know. This churchyard has the answers. This church—
She could still be attending this church. I don’t know. I won’t know until I find her, and then I can lay the quest down at the altar.
At the steps of the church, the four of us pause. Conor sits, silent and watchful. It’s a stone church with a high steeple. The cross at its peak glints in the rising sun. It flies in front of a pink sky dotted with white clouds. Dark wooden doors, massive and study, are flanked with stained glass windows. It looks as large as it did when I was six. That’s the only thing that keeps me from throwing up on the sidewalk. My memory was accurate. I didn’t paint over it with some idealized version of what this place was. It was huge, and it was beautiful. It still is.