Page 21
21
Prism
The drive back to the chalet.
A family meeting to go over details about tomorrow, which included setup for the wedding and the rehearsal dinner.
Dinner with Gram, Arsen’s parents, Kruger, and Jess.
All of that after a morning of snowmobiling and the airport meant I was straddling my limit.
No, scratch that. I was clinging to the limit with tired hands.
The ringing in my ears was loud, which might have been okay if it drowned out all the intrusive thoughts attacking me. Instead, it just made them like missiles. My brain was shouting, Incoming! There were indents in the pads of my fingers from how hard they’d been tangled in the bracelets around my wrist during dinner, and the weight sitting in the center of my chest made me shift uncomfortably every few minutes.
When Arsen let us into our bedroom at the chalet, I stepped in, and a shaky breath shuddered out of me. On wobbly knees, I went to the bed, lower half pressing against the tall, thick mattress and the oversized UGG blanket Arsen had brought from home and draped over the end. I stood there woodenly, fingers petting the soft pink fabric as I stared toward the dark windows, seeing nothing.
The door clicked, and it roused me enough to shrug off my coat and let it slip onto the floor. After that, I tugged at the sweater I’d worn to dinner, tossing that on the floor too.
“Shoes.” Arsen’s voice was close and soft. Even so, I jolted, surprised he was there. He didn’t react to the way I started, just knelt at my feet, patiently waiting.
I lifted my foot, and he tugged off the boot and then tapped my other foot so I would lift it too. When they were gone, he placed the UGG slippers he’d bought me close by so I could slide them on.
Avoiding his eyes, I turned my face, looking at the single strand of fairy lights he’d strung above the bed. I thought he was crazy when I saw him shoving string lights into a suitcase. But when I stepped out of the bathroom our first night here and all the overheads in the room were off with just those fairy lights twinkling above the bed and my pink blanket spread out, I understood. He’d taken the time to make this room feel like home. Familiar.
The soft lights, blanket, and even my slippers were pieces of a puzzle… a puzzle that made up me.
Staring at the lights now, having him slide my slippers close, and thinking about how much I needed him was the final straw. Almost as if the contrast between the chaotic day and this calm, peaceful, and familiar space was too jarring.
Listen, we already established I’m an odd fish. Hi.
Abruptly, I spun from the bed, one of the slippers flipping off, but I kept moving, one on and one off. The sensation built an odd sense of foreboding inside me, the pressure intense like an inbound hurricane. My breathing turned slightly labored, and the ringing in my ears was vicious.
Arsen called for me. Probably to get my lost slipper.
I wasn’t sure because I was well beyond hearing. Scrambling to the dresser, I yanked it open only to stare dumbly down at the empty drawer. My clothes aren’t in the dresser. Discombobulated, I spun again toward the large bathroom where we’d dropped our suitcases.
Ooomph . It was more of a grunt than the air rushing out of me because I didn’t have enough oxygen in my lungs to rush anywhere just then. Body rebounding, I stumbled backward from the hard collide.
“Hey,” Arsen’s voice was gentle, hands firm when they wrapped around my upper arms. “It’s all right. You’re okay.” He comforted me, pulling me in.
I fought him, squirming out of his hold and slipping away.
“Matthew.”
“I’m going to put my pajamas on,” I said, not really hearing myself speak.
Heart pounding, I shut myself in the ensuite and went right to Arsen’s suitcase to find something to put on. A broken sob escaped from the confines of my tight throat when I realized what I was doing.
Wear your own clothes, Matthew.
I did, but it made me feel sick and my knees even weaker than before. I found a T-shirt that used to be my favorite and a pair of loose sweatpants. After kicking off the one slipper, I tugged off the dress pants I’d worn to dinner and let them lie in a tangled heap. The sweats felt wrong, the T-shirt too tight.
The AirPods in my ear were silent, the music having gone silent sometime in the car. I wasn’t even sure where my phone was to play something else, and I had no bandwidth to try and look.
Instead, I tugged out the little white pods and dropped them in the mess of clothes falling out of my open suitcase. My skin was itchy, the cold weather making it dry. The blunt edges of my nails stung the inside of my elbow when I scratched, but I kept at it. The sharp pricks of pain were somehow satisfying.
Knock-knock.
The scratching intensified, this time across my chest, my fingers digging right into the too-tight, not-soft-enough shirt. I was a prisoner inside my own skin, an inmate of my own mind.
“Matthew.” A beat of silence. “I need to talk to you.”
This was it.
The end.
The I’m tired of you talk. The what kind of boyfriend can’t manage a vacation with his friends without panicking goodbye.
The handle on the bathroom door rattled. Then the door opened.
He filled the doorway just like he filled up my heart. So big and commanding , owning every inch of his space and then some. He was still wearing a pair of black tuxedo pants with black satin ribbon stripes down the outside of the legs. A double silver chain draped from the front of the waistband and around to the back, this one with silver music notes hanging from the length.
The long-sleeved white dress shirt he wore was untucked, unbuttoned, and open all the way down. The gap in the fabric showed his skin, and when he moved, one of his pierced nipples showed. The tattoo under his pec was dark against his skin, and the sleeves of the shirt were rolled up to his elbows, exposing the new tattoo circling his forearm just below his elbow. A wave.
Water because I love swimming.
Desire and panic jammed, clogging me up like a backed-up toilet. Adrenaline surged through my limbs, stirring up the urge to fight or flight, and I started to bolt.
I made it only to the bathroom door before Arsen caught me, using his body to keep me from fleeing. “ Whoa . You’re okay, baby. I got you.”
“No!” I protested, rearing back and pushing him away.
He retreated a few steps, thick black brows furrowing above equally black eyes. “All right, princess. I get it. I won’t touch you.” He held up his hands, the rings on his fingers snagging my attention. “Tell me what’s the worst thing right now.”
I said nothing, heart thundering as if I were taking part in a marathon. My eyes strayed to the door across the room. I didn’t know where I was going, but out seemed good.
“What are you wearing?” Arsen’s voice brought my attention back.
I stared at him.
A dark look crossed his face. The bottom of my stomach fell out.
“Matthew. What are you wearing?”
“Pajamas.”
“Those aren’t mine.”
“So?”
“So when’s the last time you wore clothes that aren’t mine?”
My jaw slid forward, then back. I averted my gaze.
“Why are you wearing clothes that aren’t mine?” he pressed.
I stepped out of the doorway, farther into the bedroom.
“ Matthew .” The hard tone made me falter. There was a forcefulness there that usually wasn’t. He was very unhappy with me.
Mad. Mad. Mad.
“I figured you didn’t want me to wear them anymore,” rushed out.
His reaction wasn’t verbal but physical, and even though I avoided looking at him, I still felt it. The way he reared back. The way he stiffened and drew to his entire six-three height. “Why would you think that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Mathew Miller, you answer me right now.” His tone was dark. Dangerous. But all I could think about was how he didn’t use my last name.
“Because you’re mad at me!” I shouted, the loudness battling back the ringing deep in my ears.
The outburst was a surprise. Usually, when I needed an outlet, it wasn’t yelling. But right now, it served its purpose, and that first little release of pressure was so good that I instantly wanted more.
“Because you had to buy new clothes because I took all of yours!” I continued yelling, a very small part of me worrying everyone else in the house would hear. “Because Kruger offered me his name and it’s a dealbreaker for you. I’m finally too much.”
The look on his face was indiscernible. It didn’t matter anyway because I had not one bit of ability to try and make out his reaction anyway.
“Is that what you think?” he asked, the tone of his voice also giving away nothing.
The urge to be loud was gone, and my shoulders slumped. “We’re alone now, Arsen. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
I expected some sort of agreement. Maybe for him to shout back.
I did not expect him to lunge, grab handfuls of my shirt, and drag me across the carpet until we shared the same air. His grip was so tight that the seams on the shirt strained against my back. The intensity of his glittering eyes robbed my breath the same way a fire consumed oxygen. If he was mad before, he was raging now, the hurricane building inside me somehow unleashing from him.
Riiiip. My shirt gave way to his aggression, ripping right down the middle and tearing along the neckline. Cold air slapped my newly bared skin, making me gasp, but his gaze was like a whip, silencing it.
He continued to tug, the veins in his forearms bulging as he ripped the shirt right off my torso and tossed it onto the floor. When it was gone, his eyes fired to my chest, and the look on his face made me glance down. Mottled purplish bruises dotted my pec, a cluster sort of like a rash but not. The force of my scratching caused bleeding beneath the skin.
“You do that to yourself?” he asked, voice calm.
I didn’t answer.
“Take those pants off.”
I didn’t move.
He wrenched them down my legs and stood, pushing his hands under my arms, and lifted me the rest of the way out of them. The part inside me that felt immeasurably small was suddenly in the spotlight, all my vulnerabilities on display.
“How dare you put on clothes that aren’t mine?” he practically growled. “You’re only allowed to wear clothes that have touched me first. You understand that?”
I avoided his gaze.
He caught my chin, and though I felt his ire, his touch was gentle. As he pulled my face around, his imposing stare beseeched mine. “I bought more clothes so you’d have more to wear. I like seeing you in my clothes. It’s satisfying when you walk around smelling like me and it’s my clothes covering you and keeping you warm. I like having pieces of myself on you when we’re apart.”
Oh . “You do?” I whispered.
“Oh yes, princess. And the next time I see you in clothes that aren’t mine, I’m going to rip them off you just like I did those.”
Goose bumps prickled my naked body, the air in the room chilly, and his words washed me in awareness.
“You walked around all day thinking I was mad at you. Even though I told you I wasn’t.” The disappointment in his voice was unmistakable.
My face lowered.
He pushed it back up.
“You are not too much.” His voice was firm. “You are enough. You are all I want .”
“But—”
“ Enough .”
My stomach was fluttery, slightly nauseated from all the turmoil. Everything inside me was scattered from shouting and adrenaline. I clung to his words like a lifeline, so desperate to believe him.
I shifted forward, and he moved with me. My breath hitched. The need for him was so urgent it warped into desperation. I reached out, but my hand stalled between us.
“You can do it, princess.” He encouraged me, waving his fingers in invitation.
I swallowed, shifting a little closer. He nodded, praise lighting his face, and my fingers made landfall on his skin, skirting beneath the open front of his shirt and gliding along his side.
I whimpered quietly, stomach full-on buzzing now and making my body tremble. Grazing across the rounded flesh of his defined pec, I went right for what I wanted and curled my fingers around the barbell in his nipple. The second I met the cool metal of the bar, I whimpered again, shuffling even closer, so close we were practically fused at the chest.
“See how good that feels,” he murmured, leaning in to nuzzle my cheek. My chest rose and fell as I twisted and tugged the piercing, loving the way his skin gave and rebounded beneath my touch.
His hand curled around my side, floating at the small of my back. I swayed, our chests meeting. His skin was warm where mine was cold.
Still holding his nipple, I slowly lowered until my forehead was pressed against his shoulder, and my eyes slid closed. “You don’t want to break up with me?”
His body tensed, and the fingers against my back tightened. “Break up with you?” he echoed. “Oh no, princess. I want to marry you.”
Shock had my eyes flying open and my head whipping up. “What?”
“Marry me.”
The unexpected words tilted my world on its axis, whipping up a cocktail of contradictory emotions. Did he really just say what I think he said?
Amusement and affection glimmered in his eyes. “You heard right, princess. I asked you to marry me.”
Overwhelmed, I stumbled back. He caught me. Kept me close. The hand not pressed into the small of my back curled around the back of my head, pulling it down so he could lean in and whisper.
“Marry me. Marry me. Marry me. Let me slip a ring on your finger, an ultimate promise that I won’t ever leave. No matter what changes in life, I’ll be your constant. Marry me. Marry me. Marry me, Matthew. Let me love you forever.”
My scalp tingled and my skin prickled even after his whisper went quiet. The parts of me that had been jittery were now pleasantly drowsy.
Oh , he was clever, asking me to marry him ASMR style. Only Arsen could manage to present such a life-changing offer to me but do so in a way that made my entire nervous system weep with relief.
The fingers gripping his nipple piercing flexed, my entire hand stretching out and then settling over his chest. The echo of his whisper still floated around my brain.
Marry me, Matthew. Three M’s. I like threes.
His palm rubbed against the small of my back, face still bowed beside my ear. “Questions require answers, baby.”
I lifted my head and met his gaze. “You really mean it?”
“I’ll get down on one knee right here and now,” he said.
When I didn’t smile, he bent, one knee hitting the carpet.
I grabbed his arm. “Get up, bear.”
He stood. “Is that a no?”
I chewed the inside of my lower lip. “Are you doing this because of the name thing?”
“The name thing?”
I gave him a look.
He sighed. “I won’t lie. Kruger trying to slap his name on you pissed me off.”
I drew back.
“Hey.” He pulled me in. “I’m not mad at you. I never was. I couldn’t even get mad at you if I tried.”
“So you’re mad at Kruger?”
“Yes and no,” Arsen said.
I scowled.
He smiled and kissed the end of my nose. It made me realize I was standing there naked. Frowning, I slid my hands under the open shirt at his chest and peeled it down his arms.
He smiled and watched in approval as I tugged it around me, shivering a little as his body heat enveloped me. Hastily, I buttoned just one button and then looked at him expectantly.
“It’s crooked,” he mused, reaching out to redo it.
“Bear,” I said, putting my hand over his.
“I think I’m more mad at myself because Kruger seemed to realize something I hadn’t.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What?” I asked, hand falling away from his.
He took that as an invitation to undo the wonky job I did with the button. “He offered you his name to make you feel more settled. Part of his family. So you would know nothing between you would change even after he marries Jess.”
“So?”
Arsen let go of the shirt. “So that’s my job.”
I shook my head. “I told him I didn’t want his name.”
“Do you want mine?”
Yes. My heart whispered the truth before my brain could even fabricate a denial.
“It’s too soon.”
He caught me around the waist, towed me close, and pushed his thigh between mine. “I think it’s the perfect time.” His voice was gravelly and low. Sexy. “The perfect time to put a ring on your finger, my name with yours. To make sure you know I’ll always be here loving you, wanting you.”
I wasn’t one for change. But this? This didn’t feel like a change. It felt like keeping things the same… forever.
He felt me wavering, knew I wanted to give in.
“Marry me, Matthew. Please, baby.”
“Three M’s,” I whispered.
“You like three.” He encouraged me.
The word was right there on the tip of my tongue. My tongue and brain seemed tangled, making it hard to answer.
I pulled away. He resisted, but when I looked back at him, his expression softened and he let me go. His shirt brushed against the tops of my thighs when I went over to my discarded coat lying on the floor by the forgotten slipper.
I reached into the pocket and felt around. When my hand brushed against my phone, my stomach somersaulted. Straightening, I lifted it free and sent him a text.
The chime of his phone receiving the message seemed loud in the suddenly quiet room. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he tugged it from his pants. He lit the screen but left his eyes on mine.
Electricity vibrated the room, my fingers tightening around the device in my palm.
And then he looked down.
A heartbeat passed. Then another.
My stomach floated somewhere near my heart.
He smiled. The most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.
He really meant it.
Holding up the screen, he pointed to the text.
Prism: *ring emoji*
“Is that a yes?” he asked, voice a little gruff.
I nodded.
He tossed his phone down and rushed me. The second he was close enough, my feet left the ground, winding around his bare waist, and our lips collided.
The kiss was greedy and demanding, his hands possessive. A silent message from his body that he would never give me up.
He carried me to the bed, laid me on my back, and blocked out the rest of the world with his frame. “God, I need you,” he murmured between kisses, dragging his lips across my jaw to my ear. “ I don’t even know how to exist without you anymore, Matthew .”
His whisper. Those words. This man. My everything.
“Bear,” I whimpered, his desperation matching my own and setting my body on fire.
He growled low in his throat, going at me with renewed abandon, the cool metal of his lip rings a delicious contrast to the searing way he kissed. The chains on his pants jingled when he reached down to open them. Our lips were like Velcro as I helped push the fabric down and wrapped my hand around his throbbing dick. He groaned, hands falling on either side of my body as I gave him a few strong tugs. The pad of my thumb caressed the small divot at the base of his head, rubbing into the sensitive spot and making him jolt.
Hissing, he reached between my legs, fingers tugging my sack before tracing along my taint and down to my hole. He paused for a second as if surprised, and our lips popped apart when I turned my face to the side.
He expected me to be prepped, for the glass plug he’d bought me to be nestled right there between my cheeks. It should have been. It was a routine of sorts. When we had dinner with his parents, I wore it because, the second we got home, I wanted him in me.
I couldn’t do it tonight, though. I’d looked at the pretty pink toy and then tucked it away, rejecting myself before he could reject me.
His hand left my body, making me feel deserted even though he was still on top of me. His fingers were gentle but firm when he pulled my face around. The high points of his cheeks were flushed, his lips shiny, and one of his lip rings was askew.
“You did well protecting yourself, baby,” he praised. “Can I prep you now?
Arsen slid off the bed, kicking his pants off the rest of the way, and went into the bathroom. Moments later, he returned with a bottle of lube and the pink plug. He tossed both on the bed and climbed between my legs.
I reached for him, but he shook his head. “Just lie there on the pillow, princess. Right now, this is all about you.”
He stretched out over me, skin to skin, slotting our cocks together and thrusting. His tongue flicked over my nipple, dampening the pebbled flesh and then sucking deep as his hips ground against mine. I arched up, gasping at the sensation as he rutted against me while working my nipple until my pec ached. Once it was swollen and hard, he moved to the other, reaching between us to take both our dicks in his hands, jerking them together as he feasted on my other pec.
I was squirming and breathing heavy when he pulled back, dragging his tongue over my sternum, the center of my abs, and then licking into my belly button. I arched into it, every nerve in my body on fire, nerve endings lighting up like fireworks.
There was a low sound, and I glanced down in time to see him fill the indent with his spit and then shove his tongue in to smear it around. I groaned, not realizing something so filthy could turn me on so bad, but here I was, writhing under him while he spit on my belly, back arching up and asking for more.
Using both fists, he pinned my lower body to the mattress and slid over my dick, going so deep my tip brushed the back of his throat. I moaned long and deep as he held me there, his throat squeezing around my head. He pulled back long enough to take a breath and then did it again, this time massaging my balls as he choked himself.
My eyes rolled back, and his lips dragged up my shaft, latching on to my swollen head and sucking. I strained, trying to push deeper, back into his throat, but he held me down and lifted his onyx eyes, staring up my body and piercing me in place.
I collapsed against the mattress, weak and already wrung out.
“ Arsen ,” I begged. “I need you.”
“You have me, baby,” he said, releasing my cock and pushing my thighs apart. “You have me forever.”
I gasped when he licked a stripe up my crack, slipping his arms under my thighs and lifting my lower body off the bed. He went at me like a starved man, licking until I was pliant and then sucking the ring of muscle until I was quivering. Only then did he let me have his tongue, spearing the already relaxed area and slipping inside.
I moaned, the sound so lustful and loud it startled me. I slapped my hand over my mouth and moaned again, muffled this time.
Arsen lifted his head, looking at me with incredulity. “Do not hide those sounds from me, Matthew. They’re mine.”
I nodded but clamped my lips shut as I pulled my hand away. He went back to eating me like he was starved, and I started to whimper.
“Moan for me, Matthew. Moan for your husband,” Arsen demanded, tugging my rim wider with the tips of his fingers and then plunging his tongue inside.
I groaned long and loud, the orgasm hitting like a crack of lightning as I choked on pleasure from the burning stretch of his fingers accompanied by the velvet push of his tongue. My dick pulsed and spurted as I came, completely untouched. All the tension coiled in me from the day released all over my stomach and spattered my chest.
Arsen pulled his tongue away and replaced it with a finger, crooking it in the exact way I liked to prolong my orgasm by massaging my prostate.
I moaned again, another intense wave of ecstasy rolling over me and dripping over my tip.
“Good boy,” Arsen praised, gently withdrawing from my body and pressing a kiss to the inside of my thigh before pulling away.
“Shit,” I swore. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
His smile was swift and wolflike. “You were too wound up. You needed it.”
“I need you.”
“And you’re getting me,” he said, reaching for the lube to coat his stiff dick. “I’m gonna bury myself deep in your belly.” He went on, adding some of the lube to me. “Breed this perfect hole.”
I whimpered, and his eyes flashed. “You like that, princess? You want me to breed you?”
“God yes, bear,” I begged, widening my legs and putting my feet flat on the bed.
He didn’t make me wait but lined himself up and claimed me with a single thrust. My mouth fell open, but no sound came out. He pulled out and plunged back in again, the drag of his rigid cock through my channel making me moan.
Dropping his hands on either side of my body, he changed position and began fucking into me with a near-perfect rhythm. My hands slapped onto his biceps, the muscles bulging against my palms as he hammered into my prostate until my eyes rolled back in my head.
Between us, my dick was rock hard again, proving I was definitely wound up and needed the release only he could give. I moved with each thrust, pushing down on him, trying to give as good as I got.
“Oh no,” he rumbled, grabbing my hip to still my movements. “Not tonight, you don’t,” he ordered. “Your job is to lie there and take everything I give you. Can you do that for me?” he asked, wrapping his fist around my cock.
I nodded, letting him take over, and my world condensed to only the place where his body and mine connected and how he plunged deeper inside me with every thrust.
I whined and whimpered, my body quivering at the precipice, ready to fall headfirst into blind pleasure.
Above me, Arsen groaned and panted, thrusting so deep I could feel his lower body straining with effort. “That’s it,” he ground out, “right there.” His thrusts turned sloppy, and his palm pressed down on my belly like he was feeling for his dick. His lower body arched into mine, and his head tipped back, a long, low moan filling the room.
The second I felt his hot seed splash my insides, my body spasmed around his, clenching tight as another orgasm rippled through me.
When both of us came down, we were breathing heavy, and I was pinned beneath Arsen’s boneless form. I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him close and looping my ankle around his.
He stirred, lifting his face to kiss my shoulder and then my neck.
“I love you,” he whispered against my ear.
“I love you,” I whispered back.
“Who needs a rehearsal dinner or a bachelor party when you can just have that?” he mused.
I laughed low. “That’s definitely better than anything else we did today.”
Arsen pulled back, caging me with his arms and body. “I’m sorry I let it get that bad. I should have pulled you into a room, made time to?—”
I put my hands over his lips. “It’s not all on you. I should have spoken up.”
He kissed my fingers, and my smile turned into a grimace as he pulled out of my body. He stayed between my legs, though, leaning over to grab the pink plug.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him add some lube to the glass.
“I want you full of my cum when I marry you, baby. And after, I want right back inside you.”
I blinked. “Wh— ungh .” The question turned into a low grunt when he pushed the end of the plug into me.
Concerned, he looked up. “Are you sore? You want me to take it out?”
“It’s cold,” I complained.
He smiled and twirled it around a little. “It’ll warm up.”
Once it was nestled between my cheeks, he sat back to admire it. “Fucking beautiful.”
“You said you want me full when we get married.” I started, trying to catch up to what he said before.
He nodded and slid off the bed, disappearing into the bathroom before I could say anything else. He came back moments later with a warm cloth to clean me up. After wiping up my thighs and cock, he handed me the cloth so I could do my stomach.
“I’ll go wake everyone. Put on some pajamas, baby. But they better be mine.”
“What?”
“Good thing Dad brought extra paperwork and a marriage license. I’ll have him bring it in here.”
Wait . My eyes nearly fell out of my head. “You want to get married now ?”
He looked at me like it was obvious. “Hell yes, now.”
I sputtered. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Exactly. It’s quiet. The fam is here, and your twinkle lights are lit. Seems perfect to me.”
My heart stumbled. He’s right .
It was perfect. And I wouldn’t have to plan a thing. Or stress about it. I could just marry him. Start forever right now.
“Okay.”
He rushed back, grabbed my ankle, and towed me to the end of the bed. His hands hit the mattress on either side of my head. “You make me so happy, Matthew. I love you so much.” He kissed me quick. “I’ll be right back. And when I am, we’re getting married.”
He rushed from the room, and I yelled his name.
He cursed and rushed back in, grabbing a pair of sweats off the floor and nearly falling over trying to put them on.
Once his dick was covered, he ran out again, banging on doors as he went down the hall.
“Everybody up! I’m getting married!”