“Shut. Up. Do you hear me?”
She nods, whimpers. Drops her hold on my forearm. That may not be a conscious choice, though. She needs air.
I let go of her nose, loosen my hand over her mouth. She sucks a breath in, and I lift her off her feet to walk her to the door. There, I let her down and push her against it. I make a fist in her hair and turn her face, pressing her cheek to the wood.
“You make a sound, a single fucking sound, and you’ll be sorry. You get me?”
She doesn’t open her mouth. Just nods frantically, eyes all wide horror.
I draw her back by her hair, open the door and march her to the stairs and down. She’s got hold of my hand and is quiet as she can be although she’s a sniffling, crying mess. I’m sure my hand pulling her hair hurts as I navigate her by that fistful to the bottom of the stairs where remarkably she doesn’t fall. I walk her toward the kitchen, through it and out the door I’d left open in my hurry. I make sure to close it now.
The night is damp, as usual, but it isn’t raining. All I hear are the sounds of insects and night creatures and Isabelle’s labored breathing as I shift my grip to her arm, walking her to the cemetery. She’s muttering something, maybe begging me to slow down. I don’t know. I can’t hear her. Blood rings in my ears and the closer we get the angrier I become.
How dare she?
How dare she betray me in my own house?
She knows where we’re going. She knows what this is about and when we get to that flowerbed over the Bishop grave, I drop her to her knees.
She lands on all fours and takes a minute to sit on her heels. She looks around her then up at me. She’s shivering. Wearing that goddamn T-shirt again.
But it’s not the shirt that ignites the anger inside me into a red-hot flame. It’s the look in her eyes. Her resistance.
“What. Did. You. Do?” I demand.
She gets up, feet sinking into the muddy mess, yellow petals and blades of green grass she’d torn our earlier sticking to her feet, shins and knees.
“I cleaned up Nellie Bishop’s grave. It was long overdue, don’t you think, you piece of shit?”
She shoves at me. I don’t know if she really thinks she’ll budge me. When I don’t move, she does it again.
“Me, a piece of shit?” I ask her, walking her backwards until her ass hits the grave marker. I lean into her forcing her to bend backwards as her hands come to my chest. “What are you then, Bishop?”
“You’re drunk, Jericho. I can smell it on you. Get the hell away from me.” She shoves again.
Jericho. It’s the first time she’s used my name without me having told her to say it and for some reason it makes me stop. I look down at her, blue eyes almost black in this night. Cheeks flushed. I glance farther down to the part of her chest exposed by the too-wide neck of the worn shirt. It must be years old. I look at her thighs, her bare feet. I wrap an arm around her and with the other reach under her shirt to take hold of her panties and pull them down her legs.
“What are you doing?” she cries out.
I ignore her, step on the white silk that slips off her feet when I lift her to sit on the top of the wide stone marker.
“I’m teaching you what a Bishop means in this house,” I tell her as I unbuckle my belt, undo the button of my pants, the zipper. “I’m teaching you what you’re good for,” I say as I keep one hand around her back and use the other to lift her thigh. I bend my knees just a little, just enough, and wedge myself between her legs. She gasps when I push into her and I swear that first moment, that warm, tight passage is like a fucking homecoming when it should be anything but.
She’s just a vessel. A Bishop. Something to fuck. To use. A means to an end.
But those aren’t the thoughts I’m thinking as I hold her tight and thrust into her.
“What… I…” she stutters.
My next thrust cuts off her words and her hands come to my shoulders, gripping tight to me.
“You’re getting wet, Isabelle,” I tell her with a smirk and another hard thrust that makes her head bounce on her neck. “Don’t tell me you like my dick inside you.” Another thrust, and her breath catches. I lean her back, using the stone to hold her upright and fist a handful of hair with my free hand. I tug her head back and watch as I fuck her. I listen to her pants as her eyes go darker and her cheeks flush with blood. Her mouth is open, lips glistening as her pussy tightens around my cock, gripping it, dripping around it.
“You have to… Stop…” she gasps, words cut off as she takes my thrusts.
“Say my name. Say it when you come.”
“I hate you,” she tries as her eyes close, and I feel her squeeze around me.
“Say it!”
Her eyelids fly open. She’s coming and fuck, I’m getting harder watching her.
“I hate you, Jericho St. James,” she tells me as her head drops back into my hand which isn’t a fist anymore. When her pussy next squeezes my dick and she cries out, I come. I come so fucking hard that for a minute all I see are her eyes, her open mouth, her face. The rest of the world is a blur as I release, empty inside her, an ecstasy I can’t remember ever feeling before this. Before her.
And when it’s done, when it’s over, her legs dangle, arms barely holding on to me as I step back, carrying her with me. When I pull out of her, I feel the gush of come spill down her thighs. Her feet touch the ground, but her knees buckle, and I have to hold her up.
We stay like this for a minute just looking at each other. Each watching the other.
Enemies.
Lovers.
But that word, it draws my rage to a sharp, dangerous point.
No. Not lovers. Never lovers. It is a betrayal to my own name to ever think of her as lover.
I push her to her knees. She drops easily enough. I grip a handful of hair and she whines but hasn’t the strength to pull me off.
“Clean me,” I tell her.
She just looks up at me and I tighten my hold on her.
“With your mouth. Clean my dick while my come runs out of your pussy and onto your ancestors grave.”
She closes her mouth, pushes against my thighs.
I bend closer to her, force her head back. “Do it or I’ll bend you over and show you what a lashing from my belt feels like. It’s what I should have done the other night. Clearly I’ve been too easy on you.”
She blinks, wipes the back of her hand across her eyes.
“Do it, Isabelle.”
“I hate you.”
“I could give a fuck.” I grin as I straighten. “You bite and I’ll whip your ass. Am I clear?”
“Fuck you.”
“Am I fucking clear?”
“Yes!”
I draw her mouth to my dick which is still not quite soft after that rutting, still covered in our combined come. Her lips part and fuck. Fuck me when that warm, wet tongue licks the length of my shaft. Fuck me if I’m not going to get hard again at the feel of her on me, at the look of her kneeling before me, licking me clean. I watch her as I move her over my dick and she watches me, eyes huge, wet, growing wetter when I push into her. She chokes before I let her draw breath.
She’s clearly inexperienced but I’ll manage. I move her over me and I’m hard again. I guide her, going deeper, feeling her throat constrict, and in no time, I’m coming. My dick throbs inside her mouth as I hold her steady and watch her take me. Watch her swallow.