I know I didn't publish the whole week as I promised. I've been traveling and it has been super busy and super depressing a couple of days. I'm over it.

Here's updating a huge ass chapter of your favorite man! Enjoy!

oh, and thanks a lot for all the responses you gave on my previous update.

💗💗💗

Red.

I have always harbored a weird fascination with the color.

Red was the color of the dress my wife wore when we were kids and she made me watch Beauty and the Beast movie on a summer morning. The day I decided she was my Belle—my rose I'll keep protected in a glass dome just like the Beast did.

Those cherries we plucked together one summer in Puglia on her family estate when we were six were red. She didn't know how to pluck those so she used to end up crushing them, the red juices staining her small hands. Her giggles would fill the air as she would wipe her stained fingers on my white t-shirt and I would let her because the smears of red spoiling my favorite item of clothing didn't bother me as long as she was touching me.

The first ever item she baked in her easy bake oven—a red velvet cupcake—was red.

The tiny cardinal that had landed on my window one winter when I was 14 was red. The bright red feathers against the white snow had caught my attention. I wanted to cage it, keep it close so it would never leave my sight, just like I wanted to keep Belle caged so she would never go away from me.

As we grew older, red transformed into the color of the blinding fury that started brewing inside me at the thought of losing her to someone else. I couldn't stand the thought. While I didn't want to have her to myself, worried I might fuck it up as I was used to do to all things because nothing kept my attention once I claimed and marked it mine, I didn't want anyone else to have her either—to steal her attention that always held me at its center—to steal her away from me.

Red was the color of the blood I was prepared to spill without remorse to keep her mine. It was the color of raw power that would surge through me whenever I imagined the lengths I'd go to if anyone tried to take her away from me. Red became pulsing behind my eyes constantly. It consumed my thoughts, seeping into every damned corner of my head, further deepening my obsession and fixation for her that was already rooted deep within me.

Red was the color of her beautiful lips whether they were bare. Or when she started painting them with Chanel ruby woo lipstick at the age of 13. The color that promised equal measure of damnation and salvation. It drove me crazy, tempting me to claim it like an animal I'd understood by then I was. It used to fill me with a thirst I couldn't quench. A yearning I couldn't escape.

Red was the shade of the chaotic madness that consumed me when she left me. The color of the pain that twisted in my gut. The color of the blood I would spill in the underground street fights that had become my means to purge all the violence that had always lurked inside me but I had kept them suppressed– for her. Because she wanted Prince Charming. Not a monster who got high on watching people bleed, writhe from pain, and beg to be spared.

Red was the color of my obsession with my rose when I saw her again that night on the street, drenched and struggling while looking like a siren in that red dress. A red haze had clouded my entire sanity and had turned every thought of mine into twisted and dark.

Red is the color I was supposed to see today when I saw the woman who made me live a lie for nineteen years.

Red, seething rage is the color I had expected to splash in front of my eyes whenever I'd come face-to-face with her again.

For the third time in my life, my prediction was wrong.

The first time was when I had predicted Belle would return to me following her London stint. The second time was eleven years later when I had predicted I wouldn't feel a thing when I would treat her like a toy for those two weeks in Greece and Sardinia and discard her from my life like she meant nothing to me. When I saw Althea at the restaurant, I didn't feel anything at all.

It's true that I am incapable of feeling any emotion except for when my wife is involved—she's the only person who has the power to make an apathetic person like me—that has been diagnosed to have diminished capacity for empathy or any emotional recognition since a young age—feel every fucking emotion in glorious technicolor.

However, given the equation I shared with Althea while growing up and the fierce protectiveness I'd felt for her, I'd expected I'd feel something when we crossed paths again. Even if it were the plain rage that I might have deep down anticipated. However, I couldn't have been more wrong.

As she stood there with naked shock plastered on her face, searching my eyes for any sign of recognition, probably anticipating a reaction out of me, I felt nothing at all. Just a void. Her presence felt as inconsequential as components floating in the air that are invisible to the naked eye.

From the time I was a kid who failed to grasp the understanding of emotions, who felt absolutely zero regards for anything or anyone except his best friend—his Belle—he was so smitten with, Althea was the only thread except her that tied me to something that had a semblance of warmth and could stir something within my void self.

She murdered all of it with her lies.

She took what was never hers, driven by a petty grudge towards her sister, and in doing so, she let me be the collateral damage.

My wife is an eternal optimist who sees her as some kind of a necessary evil—her crime a piece of a grander scheme of events designed to ultimately lead us to each other.

While it's undeniable, I do not share her gratitude towards that woman.

I see Althea for who she is—a venomous creature who has lived life without a flicker of remorse from the repercussions of her deception left in its wake.

Whatever I'd felt for her once had shriveled up and ceased to exist a long time back. Tonight was just a confirmation for a fact I'd long known.

My wife had a belief that there's a way to mend my relationship with that woman. But today, she realized that those were one of her many sparkling delusions that can never come true.

She saw it right through me, and for the first time, I let her willingly.

I let her see that I've hollowed out the woman who I once considered my mother, drained her of importance, and a remnant of my past I've already extirpated.

She thought I was searching for Althea because there was a part of me that still cared. So did Zayd and Horace and August.

They thought I needed healing to move on.

Wrong.

Healing is a thing for the weak. It's for those who need to tape the loose ends together to feel whole. I don't need that. My darkness makes me whole.

Closure is the reason I needed to see her one more time. To feel what I felt today—nothing.

"Any more pressure and you're going to crush that steering wheel, your highness." My wife's soft rasp from the passenger seat interrupts my reverie.

My usually heavily talkative wife who hates silence has been surprisingly accommodating since we left the restaurant. It has been more than forty minutes, which in my little dynamo's dictionary is at least equivalent to a day or two.

"Will you talk to me now?" Her hand crawls on top of mine and curls around it in a silent gesture to give me comfort. Her skin feels like luxurious silk against mine. "I miss you."

I pull over in front of the lighthouse located underneath the George Washington Bridge along the section of the Hudson River and lift our entwined hand to kiss it. "I am right here."

"Not in the way I want my husband, baby." Her beautiful face lights up as her mouth lifts in her classic demure smile that makes her look like some shy virgin, and yet it always travels straight to my cock. A crimson blush creeps up her pale skin, flaring it, starting from her slender neck to her cheeks.

Transferring her hand in my other one and holding it over my chest, I use my free hand to wrap it on the side of her neck right above her pulse point, which is my lifeline because I know I'll continue to breathe as long as that continues pulsating and it's also one of my secret getaways to configure her wide range of emotions. I gently brush my thumb over the side of her face and yet it manages to heat up her skin more, transforming the porcelain canvas to a shade of red that invigorates the devil that permanently resides in me.

My eyes travel to the mark I've left on her skin. She did a decent job at hiding with her makeup artist's help, but I ruined it with my absolute zero regards to how her foundation tastes like a chemical when I licked it off her skin and wiped it off. I love claiming her every way I can, even though she's mine in every sense. I have zero fucks to give about what others think about it. I feel she loves it too despite all her whining about the marks ruining her demure public persona. She tempts the raging beast in me without even trying.

"What are all the ways my little ogre will have me?" I ask, my eyes still trained on her mark. I'm tempted to sink my teeth into the same place until it looks fresh.

I'm a fucking animal who gets off on bruising her skin.

"Don't think of biting me again, Ares! It's still tingling from earlier," she warns in a knowing tone, her eyes narrowing playfully before she gets distracted with the structure in front of us. "What place is this?"

I get rid of my seat belt and climb out before helping her get rid of hers and sliding her out of her seat.

"The little red lighthouse," I answer, unfastening my seat belt and climbing out. I open her side of the door to reach over to unfasten hers and guide her out of the seat.

Before she can even process the scene, I swoop her into my arms and walk towards the tall structure, carrying her inside the door and climbing up the iron stairs.

"How's this place in New York and I have never known about it before today? I feel like a fraudulent New Yorker," she complains until I lower her to the ground on top of the lighthouse

Her attention diverts to the mattress, throw pillows lined up, and a blanket waiting for us in a cozy setting.

"Oh, my goodness! Did you arrange this for me?" She squeals in delight and throws herself at me. I catch her, lifting her until she's off the ground.

"You wanted a date at the lighthouse."

"When did I say that?"

"You wrote it to your pen pal a while back."

She grins, cupping my face and lowering my head to kiss me. "You make all my dreams come true."

"I take my vows quite seriously, wife." I capture her mouth ruthlessly and ravish her until she's breathless and bend my mark to do exactly what I wanted to do earlier in the car before she warned me against doing and got distracted.

She giggles in response. "Stop, you'll tear off my skin, you caveman."

"That's the intention," I murmur, flicking my tongue over the mark after biting her... hard. "Let's get you comfortable, tesoro."

I crouch in front of her to help her out of her heels and she lets out a relaxed sigh. My rose loves these pointy things to death regardless of the pain they cause her.

I blame her mother for buying her her first pair when she was too young to wear such stuff.

I'd have happily killed Jennifer Rothschild and wouldn't have felt an ounce of remorse had she encouraged her to pursue ballet. My innocent angel hated it but would've happily tortured her feet for her mother who at one point of time wanted her daughter to train to be a ballerina even though that's not a path she wanted for her to pursue professionally. It's good that Elizabeth talked her out of it.

"How do you know about this place?" She asks with her eyes on the river and the distant city skyline twinkling in the dark on the other side of it. Under the starry night sky, she's snuggled in my arms with her one arm around my chest and one leg thrown over my thighs.

"Althea started coming here to seek solace every time that bastard David would beat her up over some trivial matters." My own gaze is trained at the distance, my fingers stroking the creamy satin skin of her arm back and forth. "She'll get drunk and call me crying to apologize for having lashed out at me for intervening. I'd come and let her cry until she'd fall asleep. Her chauffeur and I would carry her home."

"You never told me. How old were you when it happened?" Her curious gaze, like a doe, lifts up.

They're the most exquisite shade of green I've ever seen. Somehow out of nowhere a thought occurs to me.

Calliope does a resemblance with my wife's eye color. There's no denying that. However, my rose's are still a universe apart, something still unique and deeply sensual that calls out to me. And although it's a sheer coincidence of the nature, it might shock her when she finds out the relationship she shares with Calliope. I have no plans to tell her the truth. I'll let Jennifer and Ramon take care of their truth the way they want and if they want. All I know is that if my wife gets hurt, I'll get an opportunity to push Jennifer away from her daughter's life as furthest as I possibly could. Although I know it's far from reality because as much as I hate to admit it, no matter what happens, my wife would always need her mother as much as she needs me and she'll forgive her in any case. But a man can hope. I don't care if it makes me heartless and self-centered. That's who I am.

"Around the time we were 13. Between your academic and extra-curricular schedule, you barely carved time for me. I didn't want the bare minimum you spent on me to be about her or any one else, but us," I kiss the tip of her nose as I speak.

She nods before returning her gaze to the river. I don't miss the sad expression that glazes her face that makes something twist deeper in me painfully. I hate it.

I tuck my two fingers beneath her chin and tilt it up so she's facing me again. I kiss her, softly this time

Leaning in, I press my mouth to hers, my lips catching hers in a gentle brush that shoots a shiver across her petite frame, the heat of her breath blending with mine. Her body arches into me as she melts and clings to me.

"Stop regretting the past. I have you now, tesoro. That's all that matters to me," I say, parting away, but my lips remain merely a breath away from her.

"How do you feel?"

I run my fingers through her silky mane. I miss her natural blonde. "Fucking furious to see you not smiling."

She sighs and rolls on top of me. "About what happened at the restaurant. I tried hard to restrain myself from asking you about it, but you know your wife is nosey. Yet you married her so it's your fault really."

I brush my thumb over her lower lip, my mouth twitching into a smile only she can draw out of me. And Kryslian for obvious reasons. "My fault really. I agree."

"Jerk." Her smile widens. She slips her arms around my neck and pulls herself forward. I rest my hands over her hips possessively. "Tell me. How do you feel?"

"You know how I feel, Belle."

"I know. I just want to hear you say it."

"I don't feel anything at all. She doesn't exist for me."

She rolls her lower lip between her teeth as a pained expression appears on her angelic face again that's glistening under the moonlight even though she barely has no makeup on. It's all her natural beauty.

"Nothing at all?" She asks inquisitively, her voice so soft and submissive that it makes me want to strip her naked right now and tear through her cunt, making her scream.

"Nothing at all." I free her lip from being tortured by her teeth with my thumb.

"She's... she raised you, you know? Not justifying what she did. Just saying. Adrianna did say her sister was suffering from severe depression and was not in a good mental condition when she planned the entire thing, baby."

This sheer naivety of her... it always infuriates me. How has she become such a fierce businesswoman and how have people not taken advantage of her forgiving and easily trustful nature is beyond me. One might think that she'd be extra vigilant of trusting people considering what she went through at the rehab, but my angel is always so unpredictable. No bad experience can override the sense of fucking empathy she feels towards every goddamn thing be it living or non living. We're polar opposites and perhaps that's why we are compatible. While I was born apathetic, she's a born empath.

"She was suffering from no depression and was in an excellent mental shape for the 19 years she raised me. Not once did she take account of her sister's suffering. It's not like I suddenly empathize with Adrianna, you and I both know I am incapable of that. However, I do see all things in red, which means I recognize violent obsession, hatred, rage, and thirst for power," I say, finger-combing her hair.

She stares at me in surprise with mouth agape and an absolute wildfire spreading in her emerald gaze as she measures and absorbs my words.

"Althea is not the saint you project her to be, tesoro. Not only did she project me as hers for 19 goddamn years, she kept me away from her sister's family so they wouldn't end up suspecting that I was their own son, and she would've kept it that way had it not been for that motherfucker David backstabbing her. She is a woman who couldn't measure up to her younger sister and felt so envious of her that she wanted to steal her husband by seducing him. When she couldn't succeed in doing so, she schemed and succeeded in stealing her unborn child. She had almost two decades to fix her mistake. She chose not to. And even for the last decade, she chose to hide like a coward instead of begging to be forgiving. I have zero fucks to give to a woman like that."

Her eyes part wide, her pupils dilating from clear shock. It's no exaggeration on my part when I say that I can actually see the gears start rotating behind her stunned gaze as she tries to process what she has just heard. Of course her face is covered with sheer disbelief. She was not expecting me to know this.

"How...? Did Giovanni tell you about Althea having tried to seduce him?" She almost struggles to find words to compile her question. Her fingers around my shirt have tightened into fists.

"He's too loyal to his wife to breach her trust and share that piece of information with me. I suspected something like that since the garden party when Adrianna and I had a word for the first time."

"How did you confirm?"

"Gravity was there all the time. Listening to your conversation."

"Eavesdropping you mean," she gasps dramatically.

"Not my fault. Dad was the one who was eager to see it after the way you boasted about your dreamy wedding proposal," I shrug. "I was working on it later that night after you'd gone to sleep and heard the recording."

I was so furious that my wife chose to keep their conversation a secret from me even though she pushed my father to reveal it to me without delaying anymore. For the first time, I decided not to pursue her about it. She was already too shaken from events that had taken place back then.

"You mean you deliberately played that sequence because you don't understand the meaning of privacy and wanted to pry on my conversation with your father." Her emerald gaze narrow, a flicker of mischief bouncing in their depths as my rose levels me with a playful glare, her fingers weaving small, soothing circles in the back of my head. "I am surprised you didn't torture me with your extreme seduction routine just to break me and hear it all from my mouth."

"I do love the process of breaking you, tesoro," I smile. She accepts me as I am—in my absolute raw and real form. She has no misconceptions or delusions about that part. She knows my reality, how my mind works, and she has accepted it without labeling it black or white. Or red like I do.

"Don't I know it?" She smiles wider. "Can I ask you something?"

"Will it stop you if I said no?"

"No," she laughs softly and places her head on my chest. Her arms crawl around my back and she hugs me tight as if she's afraid I'd vanish if she lets go of me. She often keeps doing that as if to remind herself that we're a reality, not just one of the dreams she mentioned to me about. When she would dream of us together and then wake up to find it wasn't real, which would make her stay in bed and cry. "I understand your reasons for never forgiving Althea. To an extent, I can see it makes sense. I won't expect you to reconcile or anything anymore. However, it'll never wipe away the gratitude I feel towards her for bringing you into my life. People worship Satan for all the wrong reasons if he's doing their job. Althea, whatever she may be, will always remain an angel to me. Only for the reason that she gave me you and for the kind of support she always gave me."

"You were always meant to be mine, Belle. I would've found you and made you mine even if she wasn't involved." I affirm, burying my face in her hair and inhaling her scent. A rich, sensual balance of warm florals, sandalwood, and slightly powdery accords. Warm vanilla from her own perfume making skills and the natural scent of her own is blended with it.

I am not saying it for the sake of it. I would have found my wife. She is my better half. A significant part of me that I was always meant to find.

"You'll always find me?"

Her question, although playful, burns me. "I'll have to let you disappear first. That's never going to happen. So there's no question of finding you, wife."

I am expecting her to provoke me but what she said next catches me by surprise.

"I am planning to meet papa one of these days and confront him. I was jealous of the way Giovanni dotted over you regardless of your lack of emotion towards him or reciprocation. I've always been afraid of confrontations, but since I discussed things for the first time so openly with mama and her perspective of things... I just want to give him a chance to fix our relationship. I know I have a huge heart that would forgive him and never hold a grudge for the way he has treated me over the past 30 years. One may think I am being greedy and I suddenly want all of it, but I deserve it. It's not wrong to want it all. Is it?"

I did not mistreat her. I just made a mistake. It's a regret I'd take to my grave. When Jennifer decided to live separate lives, I didn't want to support her, but I did. However, I ended up becoming envious of my daughter. Jennifer loved her more than she loved me right from the time she found out she'd conceived her and the knowledge didn't go well with me. I felt she drove a wedge between us as she became the center of Jennifer's universe. Juliette was her mother's replica and she reminded me what I'd lost. I did not like it. That's why I maintained my distance. It's not that I didn't love my child. It's just that my love for my wife overwhelmed my love for my daughter. When I realized I'd fucked up, it was too late. My daughter was in the hospital, struggling for her life. She had suffered so much that she not only chose to keep it within herself so we wouldn't be bothered, she decided to end her life so that she would no longer remain a liability. I couldn't bring myself to look her in the eye. I had not only failed as a parent, but also as a person. Jennifer feels guilty because she did nothing to mend the wedge between us.

"No, it's not. You should talk to him," I answer in a tone more encouraging than I expect it to be as I recall Ramon's words from the other day.

As much as the insatiable, raging beast in me wants all her affection, her time, and everything belonging to her to just exist for me, I cannot deny her what she so desperately wants.

I used to watch her escape to the grand ballroom after the indifference her father would exhibit towards her. There she'd huddle herself in a corner and cry so no one else could see her crying.

Rothschild women never cry in public. Her mother had taught her.

However, the moment she'd see me taking a seat by her side, she'd jump on me, straddling my lap, hug me and cry her heart out. It's something she has done since we were almost six.

Her hopeful eyes lift up. "You think so?"

"Yeah," I nod. The natural submissiveness of her voice and body makes my cock twitch.

She blushes as she feels it. "You're a fiend."

"A fiend you love when he claims your tight little cunt, stretches it apart, and fucks you mercilessly hard and raw until you shatter all over his cock." I grab her ass with one hand, squeezing it.

A soft whimper escapes her that turns into a moan as I shove my other hand in her hair roughly, my fingers fisting into them, and tug her down for a kiss.

"I believe you owe me a good fuck for fulfilling your dream date scenario." I say, kissing her throat and sinking my teeth into it, barely resisting the urge to tear off her soft porcelain skin.

"Fuck me," she gasps against my mouth. Her emerald eyes are dark, almost deadly, incandescent with lust and raw need. It travels straight to my cock. She knows just how to please me, my little temptress. "I know you've had a lot of cockblocking today."

"Damn right I have." Fisting her hair roughly, I yank her head down, making her choke on her breath before I crash my lips against hers. My hand on her ass travels to her slender throat I'm so fucking obsessed with and I strangle just enough to have the blood draining from her pale skin while continuing to ravish her mouth. The kiss is messy, raw, hungry, and feral, my tongue sliding deep and claiming hers.

She doesn't hold back. My rose grinds her hips down on me as she kisses me back with the same ravenous appetite, tongues entwining and teeth clashing. The way she groans into my mouth and tightens her hands around me, pulling me closer, makes my cock throb painfully. Her candy inspired nails—which she went into a great deal of explaining to me that it's Kawaii—digs deeper in my shirt. Although, my wife is not a fan of big nails and keeps hers trimmed, she is psychotic kind of devotee to themed manicures she gets done every two weeks, wasting an hour unnecessarily on it—the hour she could've spent with me instead—and then complains about me ruining them because I make her lose herself and disregard them. Thank fuck for the disregard. I'd gladly shut down every damn manicurist in the city if my wife were to prioritize those fucking nail arts of hers over me.

Without warning, I roll over without breaking the kiss, and pin her beneath me, her small figure crushing under me. Her breath catches as I settle between her legs, my cock pressing hard against her, my body holding her down while I deepen the kissing, unwilling to give her even a second to relax. I suck at her luscious mouth, nibbling at her lower lip while she groans as I rip her panties with one tug. She's where I always want her to be—pinned underneath me, vulnerable, helpless, and so ready for me to claim her.

She feels so fucking incredible right here. She belongs here.

"You're going to be my perfect little wife and make up for it, won't you?" I unzip my pants, raining kisses down her jaw while my thumb of the hand wrapped around her throat brushes over her mouth. "You'll start by letting me use this delicious mouth of mine."

"Yes." She gasps softly but a soft needy moan helplessly escapes out of her.

"Fuck, baby. I love these sounds that come out of your mouth. You're my slutty little heiress," I mutter under my breath, catching her lips in a savage kiss. I am fucking starving for her. "You're such an obedient wife when you greedy for my cock." I spring my cock free. It's painfully hard and throbbing to go inside her mouth.

My own breath is ragged just like hers as my tongue teases her mouth, licking her lower lip, moving down the slender column of throat above where my hand is strangling her and stays there. My cock twitches against hers, the need to feel her mouth swallowing drives me insane. A primal need starts clawing at me—the need to watch her eyes red and tears dripping down it as she chokes on my cock and has several gag reflexes. I need her, and I need her right now.

"You're going to wrap these lips around my cock," I murmur, digging my thumb in her lower lip. "You're going to take every inch of it till it's choking your throat from the inside while my hand chokes it from the outside. Got it? There shall be no stopping until I allow you to."

She nods.

I shove my pants lower and shift forward, positioning myself to hover over her face. My body is looming above her as I extend my legs, lowering my hips towards her mouth, and aligning myself so that my knees are beside her shoulders. I balance myself, pressing my palms against the mattress a little above her head, my arms supporting my entire weight as I lean forward so that my cock is kissing her lips.

"Open up, tesoro," I growl against her lips in a rough command, gazing into her eyes that are a sight to marvel at as they stare at me with anticipation.

My wife doesn't need more coaxing—she parts her lips. Her fingers wrap around me, stroking me lightly, and I grunt, my control slipping. "Yeah, baby. Just like that."

I guide myself into her waiting mouth and nothing about it is gentle, I go straight for her throat, causing her to choke on it.

"Fuck, Belle. Swallow me just like that," I grit out, my voice a deep, guttural sound.

The wet heat of my wife's mouth is the fucking most fabulous thing in the whole damn world after her existence and her cunt. The way she sucks me deep, her moans and gags vibrating against my length it's breathtaking.

"Look at you, tesoro. Taking me so well," I start moving inside her at a slow pace. The way her lips stretch around me, tears start running dripping down the corner of her eyes, only makes me harder. "You love when I use you like this. Don't you?"

She moans in response, getting another gag reflex, her hand stroking and playing with my balls as she continues taking me as deeper as I push into her, making her throat constrict around me as my length slides past it. Her moans vibrate against me. The way she is responding, begging for more, squeezing my balls for more, makes my control snap.

"You look so good with my cock in your mouth. You're working me so good, wife." I thrust harder, forcing myself deeper into her throat.

She's gagging again, and again, and again, her face is red and in tears, but she isn't asking me to stop. She's mine, and she's taking everything I have to give her. Even if it's her ruin. I hiss through my teeth, the pleasure shooting up my back, my muscles tightening as my control begins to snap.

"I am going to cum, tesoro. And you're going to swallow every fucking drop. Understand?"

Her gaze, watery and hungry and wide, meets mine. I can see the desperation glazing them as she nods.

"Good girl," I rasp, and with one final, rough thrust, I let go, emptying myself down her throat.

She chokes around me. Her throat contracts as she struggles to swallow. Balancing my body with one hand, I yank her head forward with a rough tug of her hair so she can swallow it all with ease. My cock is pulsing between her lips, every spurt of my cum is making her choke as I keep moving my hips, slowly pounding her mouth while emptying myself inside her. She takes it all, just like I demanded her to.

When I pull out, her mouth is wet and swollen, cum still sliding from the corner of her lips. Her lips are glistening with saliva as she gasps for air, her pupils dilated and blown wide.

I smear my fingers over it and force it back into her mouth. "Every last drop is the deal, baby."

She swallows with a soft whimper, her eager tongue flicking around my fingers and sucking them as she was doing to my cock. Those teary, green eyes glint like poison, hunger burning in them along with a twisted cocktail of submission and desire flickering in their depths. There's nothing innocent about my innocent little rose right now, it's gone, replaced by something that's not even remotely sweet. It's something wicked. The way she's looking at me right now with pure, unapologetic greed—she's begging for me to ruin her. There's something dark and untamed about her.

"I am not done yet baby." I move myself lower and grab her legs, I force them up, pushing them toward either side of her head.

"I'd be disappointed if you were," she grins, her bare cunt gleaming in the moonlight, it's slick from anticipation.

"My dirty little heiress gets off on sucking my cock." Leaning over her, I spit directly onto her tight little asshole and rub my thumb over it to lubricate it properly.

I could have gotten a lubrication but I am an animal who wants to be in the most primal form with her, and it means, no items to make anything easier for her. She gets as painful as it can get and being the perfect little submissive, she'll accept it. Besides, I have her consent. She has often insisted on not using lubrication. She craves the pain my cock gives her.

"Ah, fuck. Ares!" She whimpers, her entire body shuddering as I massage her hole, pressing my thumb into it. Fuck, I love how she trembles and squirms. How her breath hitches when I dig my thumb harder in her.

"Hold still. I am going to replace it with my cock," I command, positioning myself at her ass and working the tip inside her ass.

"Yes—"

She gasps, her head falling backwards as I ram into her, her tight hole squeezing the life out of me.

"Fuck. So fucking tight." I capture her breast into my mouth and bite her nipple hard, all over it, making sure it bruises and leaves marks.

"Ares! Ah. So good. Please..." She begs, my little masochist, her fingers digging into my biceps as I push myself deeper in her, inch by inch, and her walls milk me. The way I'm stretching her makes her cry from pain and pleasure both, but her hips buck up to meet me, wanting more.

"God, you're so beautiful," I whisper, stifling her moans with kiss while my hands grip her tights tight as I start pounding into her, hard, my balls slapping against her skin as I fuck her with raw, savage ferocity. Her cries echo around us. "You feel so fragile I could break you."

"Break me," she breathes, sinking her teeth into my lower lip. "Do whatever you want, your highness."

My mouth finds hers again, our lips melding together in a hungry, messy kiss. I can feel her body shivering beneath me. Her growing moans get swallowed by my mouth as I fuck her harder and faster with every stroke. Filling her with me over and over again—every thrust deeper, ferocious, and claiming. Her every gasp, every moan, every shudder only pushes me close to the edge again.

"Tell me you love me," I demand, sinking my teeth in her throat as my hips thrust in her relentlessly, my cock stretching her tight little hole with each brutal movement.

"You make the pain feel beautiful, your highness, and the darkness feel like a comfort zone," she gasps, her voice shuddering with the intensity of thrusts. "I love you. So much."

That travels to the fucked up place that beats only for her.

"Thank you for what you did tonight at the restaurant," I breathe, and before her mouth can open because her eyes definitely fly wide at the unexpected gesture from me, I slam my mouth over her, my hands sliding from her thighs to her ankles and keeping them bent and pinned above her head as I claim her ruthlessly, my cock ramming her ass mercilessly.

💗💗💗

I study my rose as she sleeps snuggled against me, her breath steady, her petite frame crushed into my arms.

Your arms are the only place I feel safe at. She always says.

Her face is serene, she's so innocent, so naive. Those are loathsome qualities in humans, but that makes her who she is and I love her and those faults of her just like she loves all of mine that are a million times more in comparison. I can't help but feel a sense of pride at what she did this evening at dinner.

She surprised me yet again tonight.

I don't let her peek inside me, not willingly at least, and yet, somehow she always finds ways to move past all the layers I've built that are too formidable to be pierced by anyone. But that's the thing. She's not anyone. She's my wife—she's my existence.

She sees past me, past everything and makes room for all the worst side of me, accommodates them like she's accommodated all of me.

She looked at me tonight once—just once—and she figured out what I wanted. Without me having to even give her a hint. The cold truth of what I feel towards Althea should have made her feel disgusted, considering she's heavy on family values and hasn't even badmouthed her own despite the hell she has been put through because of her. But it didn't even make her so much as flinch. She understood me like no one has ever done.

She's a billion times more than what a monster like me ever deserves. But I'm all she'll ever get because I am a selfish man who'll never let go of her.

I get distracted by the vibration of my phone. It's a text from Calliope. As usual, it's bursting with a nauseating amount of emojis. I know I should have gotten used to them by now considering the amount of those emojis my wife loves using even in a single text, let alone the threads she shares with me. But I am still not used to it. Never would be. I barely tolerate for her sake, and now Calliope's.

Calliope: I am sorry. 😖I didn't know you'd be at the same restaurant. 🙁 I know you hate texting. Juliette told me the other day in a cafe. You can just see this and ignore it. 😞

Me: Don't be. You couldn't have known. Happy Birthday.

Calliope: OMG YOU REPLIED. 😍

Me: Did you get the present?

Calliope: This reply is the biggest one. 😊 And if you're talking about the huge animal shelter you've gifted me then yes. 😘It was quite generous of you. All stray pets and I thank you. So, how are you? I know it mustn't have been a good thing seeing her.

Me: She's just another human. It really doesn't matter whether I see her or not.

Calliope: Can I ask you for another birthday gift?🥹

Me: Anything except forgiveness for her or my free time. It's reserved for my wife.

Calliope: Dang! I wouldn't have asked for later because I know. Witnessed it and read about it in gossiping ladyship. 🙃 How could you tell about the first one?

Me: You asked for that before when I invited you to my office. You already know what my answer is. It's never going to change.

Calliope: She's your mother too you know?🥺

Me: She's no one. 

Calliope: Can you at least try? 😓

Me: I would if I gave a damn. I don't.

Calliope: Well, at least I tried. It doesn't matter. You're my brother and your equation with her doesn't change a thing. 

Me: I am your brother now?

Calliope: You have been. Since the day mom adopted me. 🤷🏻‍♀️It's weird, right? I share the same relationship with you and Juliette both?

Me: More with her than me.

Calliope: RUDE. 😡 But I forgive you. I am starting to understand you're as blunt as they say. There's no exaggeration. And true. You and I are somehow related the way she and I are. 🥰 But in my eyes, you're still my brother and that's who you'll be. Whether you accept Althea or not, whether you accept her as your mother or aunt... none of it matters. 😎

Calliope: I'll send you some of the leftovers of my birthday cake in the morning. 🩷 Eat them. Oh? And I may have a wish for one more present.

Me: Shoot.

Calliope: Ask that hot friend of yours to date me. 🤭😁👅🤌🏼🥵🔥

Me: No.

Calliope: C'mon! 😣

Me: No. Isn't Zayd technically your boss?

Calliope: Boss's boss's boss's boss perhaps, but that should be okay. 🫢 I only have three more months under his company's contract and then I won't be represented by his agency. I'll be starting on my own. 💪🏻

Me: No. Good night.

Calliope: 😫 You are an ass. 😤

Me: So I have been told by my wife.

Calliope: I love Juliette for showing you the mirror. Good night, dear brother. 🥰 Thanks for the presents. I won't stop trying on the forgiveness part, but you know that already. 😁

How was the chapter?

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Are you in line with Ares's perspective on Althea?