Page 6 of Brood (After the End #5)

Upon brief reflection, it does make sense he would have asked about me.

After all, we never said a word to each other before our spousal ceremony.

I knew who he was because he’s a council chief, but he would have no reason to notice me.

He probably wanted to know what I was like before he agreed to marry me.

“What did they say about me?” I ask in a milder tone.

“They said you were compliant and hardworking and easy to get along with. They said you’ve never made any trouble. They said you’re good-natured and respect authority and would be an excellent spouse for a council chief.”

“Oh.” Everything he’s said is good—things I should like to hear about myself—but for some reason, it sounds like he’s describing a stranger. I don’t care for it.

“One person said you’re too emotional but that it doesn’t get in the way of your duties. Not a single person mentioned that you’re prickly.”

“I’m not prickly!” The brief interlude of understanding and curiosity vanishes in another surge of resentment. I drop my feet back to the floor since I feel strangely vulnerable reclining on the lounge. “Stop calling me that.”

“How would you suggest I describe this?” He waves his hand in my direction, the gesture clearly encompassing the way I’m behaving right now.

“I would describe it as a normal person who feels she’s doing her best in a situation she doesn’t want and has absolutely no control over.

I understand that you lost Vanessa and never expected to get stuck with me, and so you’re not happy about this marriage.

But it doesn’t seem to occur to you that I’m a person just like you and might feel similarly.

My entire life, I was supposed to marry Danny, and then suddenly everything changed for me.

I’m trying to make the best of the situation.

I’m not the one making this difficult. You’re the one who actually had some sort of choice about this marriage.

If you didn’t want me, you should have said so. ”

The words are pouring out after being stifled inside me ever since our ceremony yesterday. They’re rash. Unwise. I shouldn’t be saying them.

I swallow hard as Will stares at me, tense and glowering.

“You think I had a real choice in this matter?” he asks thickly.

“I don’t know. But I do know you had more choice than I had. It’s not my fault we’re married. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t take it out on me.”

“I’m not taking anything out on you. I’ve been basically polite this whole time. Yet again, you’re being defensive.” His mouth twists. There’s a glint in his eyes that proves he knows exactly what he’s doing when he adds, “Prickly.”

I’m so angry, I want to scream. Or, worse, burst into tears. I turn around, showing him my back as I contort my features in an effort to keep control.

Some people are good at that. Will clearly is.

I’m not.

It takes real effort.

I’m blowing out the anger and resentment when the surge of feeling finally settles.

I turn around to continue the conversation, but he’s already walking out the door.

* * *

I stew about the argument and his uncooperative attitude all afternoon. Anytime I’m not focused on work, I’m rehashing everything he said, how and why all of it was wrong and rude and unnecessary.

Dinner is the one meal at the Refuge that’s eaten communally. It’s the only time of day without work shifts or varying duties. I’ve always eaten at a table with Danny and Bella and others I know and like. Will eats at the table with some of the other council chiefs and a few of their spouses.

I thought he might expect me to move to his table, and earlier today I would have been willing to do so. He doesn’t say so, however. He makes no gestures toward me. He doesn’t even look at me. So I’m not about to volunteer to sit next to someone who doesn’t like me or want me in his life.

I pretend to be in my normal good mood with the others, since I’m not about to admit I’m already arguing with my new spouse.

After dinner, I stall going back to our quarters.

I chat with Bella and go with my friend Ferrell to see a new crop of tropical fruit they’ve managed to grow in the greenhouse this year.

It’s later than normal when I finally return to our quarters. Will is already there, sitting on his bed and reading something on his tablet. He slants me a cool look as I enter.

Well, that answers the question of whether he’ll want us to reconcile and start fresh.

I meet his look with a matching one of my own and head directly into the bathroom, where I wash up and brush my hair and teeth.

I leave my hair loose since he asked for that yesterday and walk out of the bathroom wearing nothing but my panties and camisole.

When I stand in between our beds, facing him, Will glances up from his tablet.

His shoulders tighten, and his eyes run up and down my body in an unexpectedly urgent way. He sets his tablet on his nightstand.

“I’m ready for sex whenever you are,” I tell him.

“Seriously?” His dark eyebrows lift.

I frown. “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

“You’re still angry with me.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

He stares.

It seems blatantly obvious to me, but maybe it doesn’t to him. “We’re in this situation to have babies. That’s the only reason we’re together. I’d like to get on with it, unless you’re too annoyed to have sex with me.”

He sucks in a deep breath through his nose. His eyes travel up and down my body again before they focus on my breasts.

I glance down to see that the shape of my nipples is visible through the thin fabric of my camisole.

“Okay,” he says with a lot of gravel in his voice. He opens the drawer in his nightstand to pull out the lubricant. “Take off your clothes.”

I do as he says, tugging down my underwear and stripping off my camisole. When I’m naked, I step forward so that I’m within arm’s reach of where he’s seated.

Like yesterday, he moves me into a better position and then squirts a lot of the thick, slippery liquid onto his hands before rubbing them together and then applying it all over my groin and into my vagina.

When he’s got the lubricant all over, he slides two fingers inside me, stretching my inner walls like he did yesterday.

“You need to relax,” he says. He’s been watching his hand moving between my legs, but now he lifts his eyes to my face. “We can’t do this if you’re so uptight.”

I don’t appreciate being called uptight, but I don’t object because I suspect he’s right. I’m still resentful, and it’s probably making me tense. I try to blow it out the way I did this afternoon.

“Good,” he murmurs, pumping his fingers in my vagina with the sound of wet suction. “That’s better.” He separates his fingers, stretching me even more. “Try to soften up your pussy, or it’s going to hurt.”

I don’t want it to hurt. Plus, getting pregnant is my primary responsibility now, and I want to do a good job. I keep breathing deeply, consciously relaxing my pelvis muscles.

“Better.” He slips his fingers out and rubs my clit.

I make a little squeak at the jolt of pleasure. Grab for one of his shoulders when my legs feel like they might buckle.

“Rub your nipples for me,” he says, penetrating me with his fingers again.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

I did hear him, but it’s a weird thing to do. I let go of his shoulder and straighten, using both hands to fondle my nipples. I don’t actually know how best to do it, so I rub in tight circles like he was doing to my clit.

The intense tugs of sensation surprise me. I gasp. Arch my back in a way that lifts my breasts.

He’s watching me touch myself. He’s still got his fingers inside me, but he stops moving them.

It feels good and torturous at the exact time—touching my breasts while his fingers are unmoving in my vagina. The sensations are somehow connected. It’s like they’re stretching me between them.

“Will,” I mumble, dropping my head and releasing a completely involuntary moan.

“Is it feeling good?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Okay, then. Don’t stop.”

It’s hard to focus on my nipples because he starts pumping his hand again. It’s really wet down there, and I don’t think it’s all the lubricant. Some of that wetness is me.

I hear myself let out a whimper that’s almost childish. I grab my breasts since I’m drowning in the rising sensations.

“No. Keep rubbing them.”

“But I…I need… I can’t…”

“Yes, you can.”

I groan again as I release the grip on my breasts and focus on fondling my nipples again.

“There you go,” he says in that low, slightly gruff murmur that’s so much better than his normal impatient tone. “You’re really softening up now.” He thrusts his hand faster. A little harder.

I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a soft sob as the pleasure peaks without warning. My body shakes through the orgasm, and I clamp down hard around his fingers.

He’s watching me. I know it, even though my eyes are closed.

It takes a minute or two for me to come back to my senses and catch my breath. As I do, he stands and strips off his clothes.

He’s fully aroused, his penis big and hard and bouncing slightly as he straightens.

“Climb on the bed whenever you’re ready,” he tells me.

My head is still spinning, but I don’t want him to think I need extra time or effort. I get on the bed, positioning myself on my hands and knees like yesterday.

He takes my hips and drags me closer to the edge of the bed. He’s standing beside it.

He rubs my back and the curve of my bottom, pushing down at my shoulder blades so my upper body is lower than my pelvis. I support myself on my forearms and rest my cheek against the thick white covers.

He’s feeling between my legs, spreading my cheeks and fingering my vagina again. “Okay. You’re all warm and wet and pliant. You should be ready.”

I don’t know why, but his words embarrass me. They make that defensive anger rear up again. I have to bite back a retort that would do nothing but disrupt our intercourse.

“I am ready,” I force out. I’m too vulnerable with my bottom in the air like this. It feels like he’s staring at it. I want him to put his penis inside me and get going.

When I hear a squishy sound, I glance over my shoulder to see him lubing up his erection. When he’s done, he steps closer, lifts my hips into position, and lines up at my entrance.

He pushes in, and it’s easier than yesterday. It’s still really tight, but it’s not as uncomfortable.

“Does it hurt?” he asks.

“No.” I really do try to keep the impatience out of my voice. “I’m fine.”

He must hear it anyway because he falls quiet. It feels like he’s tenser than before. His hard shaft is all the way inside me, but he’s not moving it.

When I check his expression, he’s frowning at me again. “Prickly.”

I suck in a sharp breath. Then another as he starts to thrust. The first is in indignation, and the second is in pleasure because his erection moving inside me feels good.

Weirdly, intensely, achingly good.

“I’m not prickly,” I rasp, since it needs to be said.

My cheeks are burning, and it feels like I’m sweating a little. I don’t know why, because he’s doing most of the moving. He’s pushing into me from behind, shaking my body on every thrust.

And I like how it feels. Way more than I ever would have expected.

After a couple of minutes, when he speeds up, I can’t help but make a helpless little sound after every thrust. The sensations aren’t rising and building the way they do when he rubs my clit, but they’re deep and consistent, and they radiate through my body.

“You’re liking this,” Will says in a breathless mutter.

It’s a statement, not a question, but I’m compelled to answer it anyway. “Yes, I like how it feels. It’s taking longer than yesterday. You’re going to finish, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna come.” He’s got a fistful of one of my bottom cheeks. He’s gripping it tightly, and even that kind of feels good. “Almost there.”

I whimper with another surge of pleasure because he’s about to ejaculate. Fill me with his semen. I’m holding my breath in expectation as he starts grunting. His hips work hard against my bottom, thrusting urgently until he finally freezes. Shudders. Then releases in several hard spurts.

I make a long, pleased sound as I feel each one.

He keeps his erection inside me longer than yesterday, gasping loudly and occasionally shifting his stance like he’s trying to grind out the very last of his seed.

I want all of it.

I need it if I’m ever going to get pregnant.

But it’s more than that. It just feels good.

So good that I’m slightly disappointed when he finally pulls out. Like yesterday, he uses his hand to make sure I don’t lose any of his semen.

“It feels like there was a lot,” I say.

“It was a lot.” He strokes the curve of my bottom, which is still poised in the air so nothing leaks out.

“Good.”

I feel better than I have all day. Not only physically but emotionally too.

Weirdly satisfied.

At least there’s a purpose to being stuck with this man.