Melodic Madness Page 9

  “How does this feel?”

  “Good,” I moaned. My thighs clenched together, a pleasure unlike any I’d ever had before began to build up. This pressure was deep.

  “More,” I plead, desperate for whatever this feeling was to take full effect.

  “You’re always so greedy for this dick,” he laughed, tightening the grip he had on the back of my neck. “You feel so good, Cat.”

  His moan sent a pulse right to my pussy. I dug my fingers into the stone rim of the lip of the tub.

  Water was everywhere now, the sound of it reminded me of a high-powered washing machine.

  The pleasurable pressure I was feeling continued to build, the incessant moans I was releasing were getting louder and louder with it. Alaric brought his body closer, shoving his cock deeper into my ass, more than I thought it could go. His abdominal muscles were pressing against my back.

  The hand he had braced himself with snaked down and began assaulting my pussy, going from the clit to penetration.

  It was too much.

  Something unintelligible was said before the most intense orgasm I’d ever had spiraled through me. The pleasure was so intense that it segued into contraction-like waves. It lasted longer than the ones I had when Alaric fucked me regularly. This was a primal feeling.

  As he rolled my clit and kept fucking me, I was immediately thrown into another small orbit of body tensing pleasure. I shut my eyes and whimpered. Come sprayed from my pussy and dripped down my legs, coating Alaric’s fingers.

  “Fuck, Catalina,” he growled, bottoming out inside me as his climax was reached. I could feel his come being pumped into me with each twitch of his cock.

  He stilled for a minute or two, placing another kiss on the back of my head before gently pulling out. I winced, feeling the immediate effects of what we just did. It took me another few seconds to move from the way I was bent over the tub.

  Alaric took hold of my face once I was facing him again. He brushed kisses across my brow and down to my lips, teasing me with his tongue. I leaned into him, breathing heavily as I kissed him back.

  “Are you alright?” He asked after we broke apart to catch our breath. He searched my eyes with more of his touching softness reflected in his. It was terrifying, but also completely tantalizing how sinister, but also attentive he was.

  I nodded, not able to string together a coherent sentence. He grinned and gave me another kiss, this one chaste and fleeting. “Good. Let’s wash up and go to bed. I’m not done with you yet.”

  I listened to the waves rolling in.

  The sound of them mixed with the soft breathing from the man holding me were oddly comforting to me right now.

  “Are you still awake?”

  I smiled at his sleepy tone.

  “I’ve been off and on.”

  He tightened his hold on me and kissed my shoulder blade. I snuggled deeper beneath the duvet, bringing myself closer to his warm, naked body. I liked this. I liked being held by him and no longer sleeping alone.

  “Content?” he teased as if reading my mind.

  “Yeah…I like doing this.”

  “You should. You’ll be doing it every night unless I’m called in. Even then, I promise to hold you for at least some of the night or early morning.”

  I sighed, tracing an invisible pattern into the wrist wrapped around me. That sounded nice, but was it realistic? This whole situation, our entire relationship was toxic and unorthodox.

  It worked right now because I was clearly not one hundred percent right in the head and neither was, he.

  Would it work later down the line?

  How about when more of the truth came out?

  “Cat,” Alaric groaned. “I can hear your thoughts filling the room.” He removed his arms from around me and hoisted himself up, rolling me onto my back. “What is it?”

  “It’s freakishly scary how well you know me.”

  “I’m supposed to know you. I’m going to marry you one day.”

  I raised my brows and laughed “Are you?”

  “I wouldn’t joke about that. I want you to be tied to me in every way possible.”

  “That sounds a lot different than--.”

  “I love you?” he smiled at me. “I thought I was going to prove that to you.”

  “Why say the words when I can you show you better? If you need them, I can do that too. Will you?”

  My smile fizzled away. “I…I don’t know what that feels like. I’ve never had an experience beyond you I can compare it to. Not one that would count.”

  His smile grew wider. The nightlight illuminated his adorable face and cute little dimple. He looked playful and carefree.

  It was an effective hit to my heart.

  “I love that in itself. That means it's up to me to make sure you never know what heartbreak is. I’ll be your firsts of many, but never of that.”

  I smothered a laugh and ended up releasing a snort.

  “Was that funny?” He searched my face through narrowed eyes.

  “No. That was sweet. I just didn’t know you could be so cheesy. Keep going.”

  “Cheesy?” he questioned with mock disbelief. “How about this then?” he nudged my legs apart and settled between them, his playful expression replaced with something darker and intensive.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sometimes I felt like I was living in a world of make-believe. In this bubble-like realm that would vanish as soon as it popped. Three weeks had gone by and that hadn’t been the case. Alaric was…himself. He was perceptive and equally as attentive. To the point, if I so much as breathed in frustration or sadness and he heard it he was right there trying to make the issue better or go away altogether.

  Some things he couldn’t help with.

  Like Chloe…or my mom who might as well have abandoned me for the second time in my life. We still hadn’t openly discussed the dream-like sequences. I hadn’t had anymore since he’d kept his word like I was keeping mine. At least, none that I could remember.

  I was growing used to this.

  Alaric didn’t discuss anything until he wanted to or felt I was ready to handle the discussion. This relationship thing was complex, more so for people like us. I had no idea what I was doing and was happy to let him lead.

  We had amazing days I never wanted to forget, and then days I did my best to give a wide berth because someone had pissed him off. It usually ended up being futile. Alaric kept me close to him unless he was working or down in the basement doing who knows what, regardless of his mood.

  I at the very least could say he never took his anger out on me until he was fucking me that night. Or that morning. In the afternoon. He worked a lot, but he never missed an opportunity to fill me with his cock and come.

  This big house was always instantaneously different when he was gone. I was contemplating asking for a dog. I’d always wanted one. Demitri was coming around me more and more, but I only had it in me to play so many rounds of cards. He could be just as terrifying as Alaric in his own way.

  It made me feel safer knowing he was always lurking somewhere on the property grounds. Alaric said he lived here in a guest house. Where that was, I hadn’t figured out yet.

  I flipped our bedroom light off on my way out of the room.

  I’d caught on quickly that he did not like anything being left on or out of place. He hadn’t even needed to say it. It was something you could sense.

  Voices carried from below. It was a man that sounded much older than Alaric. If this were another surprise meeting with his dad, I would kill him later. One dinner with that man and you knew where Alaric and Niklaus got all of their looks and personality. Their sweet mom did nothing but carry these babies for nine months, just to get carbon copies of her husband.

  Not to say I disliked him.

  He was oddly kind and insistent on referring to me as his daughter. No one in Alaric’s life gave any indication he had been married to someone else not too long ago. I know he said it wasn’t that
kind of situation, but it was still strange. Had Meg been that unlikeable or insignificant?

  As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I realized whoever was speaking wasn’t his dad.

  “One moment,” Alaric told them. He appeared in the doorway a second later. “Good morning,” he greeted me with a smile and kiss to the top of my head, enveloping me in a hug.

  This too, was something he did every single time he saw me if he was still here when I woke up. I’d thought he would grow tired of it doing so at day three. He hadn’t.

  “Do you like them?”

  I looked towards the round table in his foyer. A large vase full of deep-colored roses sat in the center of it. The flowers. Another one of his persistent habits. Every other week they were swapped out for something different he personally chose. I’d made a passing comment about never having gotten them once and this was the result.

  “I always like them. Thank you.”

  He grabbed my chin and tilted my head back so that I was looking up. I lifted slightly on my tiptoes to meet his mouth as it came down.

  “Someone is joining us before breakfast, come meet them.”

  “Okay…”

  A few things rang oddly about this straight away. Alaric always made enough breakfast for anyone who may have shown up before we sat down to eat. Another was that we weren’t eating but this person would be joining us. For what?

  We entered the great room with Alaric’s arm still wrapped around me. I confirmed right away that the man was older. He had graying hair and age marks on his hands. His attention was trained on the ocean outside. Hearing us come in he turned with a smile already on his face.

  His brown eyes went wide when they landed on me. If they got any larger, I’m sure they’d pop out of his head.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Taken aback by his hostile tone, I subconsciously leaned closer to Alaric.

  “First, watch your mouth and tone in front of her. Second, what does it look like, John?”

  John? I faltered and studied the man through a clinical eye. Surely, he wasn’t…

  “It looks like your f—moving on with Meagan’s sister.”

  “Moved on,” Alaric corrected coldly.

  He guided me over to the piano and gestured to the bench. “Sit here.”

  I didn’t know what the hell was happening right now. I sat and focused my gaze on the black and white keys.

  “Why with her?”

  The her was practically spat out of his mouth. I didn’t know anything about this man other than he was an asshole.

  “I have my reasons. Drastically different than yours. You’ve been continuing to fuck her mother behind your wife’s back all these years.”

  I could have choked on my saliva. My mom was still sleeping with this man after he’d kicked her out onto the streets while pregnant with me? She talked so much shit about him. She said she hated him for never being in my life.

  “No! I would never--.”

  “Give it up Johnathon. She’s had a PI on you for the last year. We’ve spoken a few times this last month.”

  I struggled to follow their exchange. These two were not on good terms so why had he invited him? I didn’t feel any happiness at seeing this deadbeat. He was a stranger to me, a carrier of donor sperm.

  “What am I doing here, Alaric?” Johnathon asked with a sigh.

  “You’re here to listen to her play.”

  “What?” he voiced my own confusion.

  “Exactly as I said,” he replied to him. Then leaning down, he took hold of my hands and placed them on the piano. “Play something nice. Don’t stop until I say so,” he murmured in my ear.

  I had no idea what was going on right now. At a loss, I eyed the sheet music still on display from a few weeks ago and began to re-create the melody. The haunting tune-filled every corner of the house, drowning out what began to occur in the other half of the room.

  There wasn’t anything else to focus on or think about when I played other than the music and all the things you could learn from it, often about yourself. It was an expressive form of therapy I often took advantage of these days.

  Just me and this big, beautiful machine.

  When Alaric placed his hands on my shoulders to stop, I jumped at his touch, too caught up in what I was doing to have realized he was behind me. The notes ran together in a cringe-jarring sound as my fingers slipped.

  “You play so beautifully. You lose yourself in it as I do. I love watching you purge your soul.”

  I swallowed the emotion that had crept up my throat while I was playing and looked over to where Johnathon had been sitting.

  “Did he leave?”

  “He’ll be joining the others soon.”

  I turned that over in my head twice before understanding his meaning. I spun towards him, bringing my legs out from beneath the piano.

  “Alaric--.”

  “You don’t have to participate in this right now.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say anything about. Johnathon Penn isn’t some random man off the streets. How are you going to hide his disappearance?”

  “Cat.” He thumbed my chin and peered down at me with a warm smile, his blue eyes full of an emotion I couldn’t place. “Are you worried about me?”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I. I never do things irrationally or spur of the moment. This has been a long time coming. I have a few helping hands.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how many times he’d done something like this. It was probably better that I let him keep that to himself for now.

  “Is this because of Meg?”

  He ran a thumb over my cheek, shaking his head from side to side. “I wish we could stop talking about her. I only agreed to marry her so that I could keep tabs on John.”

  “Tabs?” I placed my hand over his and held it to my face.

  “My father made the mistake of giving him shares in DG. We have a certain…side business that John began funneling funds from. He tried to use DG as a cover but for…reasons, we keep our books and records immaculate. It was time for him to go.”

  “But…what does that have to do with me.”

  He pulled away and crouched so that he was nearly level with my knees, placing his hands beneath the hem of my maxi dress to rest on my thighs.

  “Who do you think talks more than two bitter fuck buddies? Your mother knows him very well. She was the one who first reached out to me, she wanted money.”

  That sadly sounded just like her. My mother was ravenous for a lifestyle never offered to her.

  “I made her give me something invaluable before she got a dime.”

  Me.

  He was talking about me.

  “I’m collateral?”

  “No.” He rose back up and took hold of my face. “You are mine.”

  I blinked to halt a wave of tears threatening to break free from a damn. I shouldn’t have been hurt by this. My mother was going to get what she wanted one way or another, I just hated I had to be the steppingstone.

  “You really are all I have.”

  “I’ll always be yours, Cat.” He took hold of my hands and gently pulled me to my feet. “If it makes you feel any better you have an extended family through me. Your friend too…she’s safe.”

  I followed him into the kitchen.

  “Chloe?”

  “She’s staying with my brother right now.”

  I stared at the back of his dark-colored head. “Why did you pretend like you never knew she existed?”

  “I didn’t do anything of the sort. I said I had no idea who she was because you never mentioned her. That’s not a lie. I don’t know her.”

  “You could’ve told me where she was.”

  “You never asked,” he retorted.

  He stepped through the basement doorway and tightened his grip on my hand. “Shut the door behind you.”

  I did as he said, glaring at his back and following him down the step
s without really thinking about what I was doing until I had to step over the unconscious body of Johnathon Penn. There was a gash on the left side of his head and a syringe sticking out of his neck.

  The bookshelves were slid back already, revealing the OR room. I wanted to ask how this worked, but first I needed to know what he was doing.

  “What are you going to do to him?”

  He reached down and lifted the man like he was a log of rolled carpet. “I don’t have any use for him he just needs to disappear.”

  “Okay…how?”

  “Now you’re asking the important questions.”

  A loud echo reverberated through the room when he dropped John onto one of the metal operating tables.

  “We can let him deteriorate alive. Or you can grab a smock and a scalpel to take him apart.”

  Taking someone apart…

  I had a memory of doing that, only it was with a woman.

  “You should practice both. Your mother will be coming for dinner eventually,” he added as almost an afterthought.

  I stared at him with wide eyes.

  He all but just told me he was intending to kill her.

  “You can’t get rid of my mom.”

  “Why? Is she doing anything to add value to your life? Has she ever? From what I’ve seen, heard, and know, she’s a money-hungry bitch who used her pussy to try and secure it. Failed, of course, because pussy doesn’t keep a man. You were her bank balance baby, correct?”

  He put the truth so bluntly out in the open. Not in a malicious way, but more of a matter-of-fact. Nothing he’d just said was wrong. I stood a little way back watching him strap Jonathan’s body down with three restraints. Unlike this total stranger on the table, I did care about my mother.

  “If you get rid of my mom…”

  “If I get rid of your mother all her assets will go to me, which in turn, go to you. No one will ever interfere in your life again or put you down for being who you are. We don’t need people like that around.”

  She gave him her assets and not me? Just how desperate was she to secure temporary happiness?

  “When is she coming?”

  He finished buckling his last strap and regarded me with a studious expression, sweeping his eyes up and down my body.