Chapter 5

ChapterFive

Edison

Ben arriveswith twenty grocery bags full of takeout containers from the local delicatessen and I’ve never seen people eat so fast in my life. The children shove fistfuls of French fries into their mouths and chomp on burgers, not bothering to wipe their mouths. Of course, my future wife doesn’t sit down and eat, she flits around the tiny dining table making sure the children get enough down their gullets.

That is, until I hook an arm around her waist, pull her down onto my lap and hold a grilled cheese sandwich to her lips. “Eat.”

“I just want to make sure—”

“No.”

“Eat, Blessing!” one of the young boys yells from the other end of the table.

I’m going to give him a hundred dollars. Maybe a thousand.

Blessing is still trying to wiggle off my lap. “I just want to make sure Paul doesn’t choke—he eats too fast—”

“Angel,” I beg into her hair, the clawing misery becoming too much to bear. “Please.”

She blinks at me, surprised by my agonized tone. Doesn’t she realize it’s killing me slowly the longer she goes without food in her stomach? I’ve been living a mile away from her all this time. I could have been caring for her, but I didn’t even know she existed. Knowing I laid my head down on the pillow every night and slept while she suffered is going to haunt me for the rest of me life. “Very well,” she murmurs, still looking at me curiously. She sinks her teeth into the grilled cheese and moans, her eyes glazing over. Taking it out of my hands, she eats the half of a sandwich in five bites, covering her mouth as she chews.

My gratification knows no bounds.

Taking care of her is more intoxicating than I could have imagined.

She doesn’t even need my coat anymore, because my body heat is sustaining her.

This sense of responsibility forces me to recall the prior evening when I fantasized about her, calling myself Daddy. I am fulfilling that role now, petting her hair and wiping crumbs from her mouth with a napkin. Holding a milkshake to her lips to drink, my pulse speeding up when bliss crosses her masterpiece of a face. Her head tilts back and I zero in on the tiny pulse at the base of her neck, wishing we were alone so I could lick it.

So I could care for her in other ways.

Is it our age difference—twelve years—that makes me feel this way? Like her protector, her provider, her…Daddy? No, I don’t think it’s our ages. This privilege that throbs inside of me is only for her. It would be for her, no matter her age. It simply is. As soon as I saw her pass my house, I became the man who makes her whole. And she became the girl who makes me whole.

Now I just have to convince her of that.

Good thing I’m an expert at making deals.

“Hey kids.” I gesture at my assistant. “As soon as you’re done eating, Ben is going to bring you outside to play soccer for a while. While I speak to Blessing.”

“I am?” Ben squawks, mid chew.

In lieu of responding, I give him a hard look. He still has a long way to go before I forgive him for last night. Feeding me unverified information about Blessing. It’s my fault for listening, sure, but I’m not reasonable when it comes to her. At all. Therefore, he’s still in the dog house.

“We don’t have anything to talk about privately,” Blessing informs me.

“I beg to differ,” I say, standing up with her cradled in my arms. “Kids, which way is Blessing’s bedroom?”

“She sleeps in the attic,” they call back to me.

Anger wraps its hands around my throat. “In the fucking what?”

“Language!” Blessing gasps.

I grind my teeth together and storm toward the staircase leading upstairs, daring her to struggle with a sharp glance. We haven’t even gotten to the attic yet, and my chest already wants to explode. “No,” I say adamantly. “Please tell me you haven’t been living in the attic space. I won’t survive that knowledge.”

“It’s really not so bad.”

There’s no way to hide my skepticism. Three narrow, treacherous staircases later, we reach a ladder. Mentally preparing myself for what I’m going to see in the attic, I settle Blessing onto her feet. “After you.”

“You go first.” She crosses her dainty arms. “I don’t want you to look up my night shirt.”

“I am absolutely going to look up your night shirt.”

I’m sure she believes her frown is terrifying, but it’s adorable. And a relief. The meal has brought the color back to her cheeks and she no longer seems listless and weak.

It’s only the beginning.

This time next week, she’ll be rosy, warm and well fucked in my bed, her belly full of the finest food I can find. I’m going to bathe her in exotic oils and spoil her with obscene jewelry and make her need me. I won’t fool myself into thinking she’ll ever love me. But I can make her crave me. At least, I can do that.

With an indignant huff of breath, Blessing climbs the ladder and I stand below, watching her lush buns flex with every step, her too-small panties riding up the crack of her ass. My cock grows behind the zipper of my dress pants, hardening, lengthening, eager as hell to experience that mercifully tight pussy that only my middle finger has had the pleasure of breaching.

Christ, my need to rut her is overpowering.

I’m actually jealous of my goddamn middle finger.

As much as I want to climb this ladder, lay her down and fuck her heat until my balls are no longer in horrific pain, I’m a smarter man than that. If I’m going to convince her to be my wife, then I’ll need to control myself and employ a strategy.

With that in mind, I follow Blessing up the ladder, my distended cock dragging against every rung, the friction making me hornier. When I reach the top, I barely stop myself from lunging for her. But I do. I do, because she’s wringing her hands in front of a makeshift bedroom. I’m relieved to see there is sunlight coming in through a small, round window. She has arranged a privacy screen around a twin-sized cot, which rests on the floor, covered in tidy pink sheets. A neat pile of clothes and a single pair of worn-out shoes sits nearby, along with a short stack of books.

“My angel has lived a hard life,” I say around the pang in my throat.

She lifts her chin. “I’m not your angel.”

“Aren’t you?” Slowly, I eliminate the distance between us, one measured step at a time. “If I put my arms around you right now, you won’t melt against me like we’re two halves of the same mold?”

Uncertainty dances across her features. “N-no.”

“Oh?”

Briefly, her gaze ticks downward and a flush spreads across her cheeks. “That part of you is hard again. The part I felt last night.”

Good girl. Look at my cock. “You felt it between your legs.”

“Yes,” she whispers, her brow quirking. “Sometimes it’s hard and other times…it’s not?”

“That’s right.” I reach down and massage the steel ridge jutting out from my lap. “Although I doubt it’ll ever be completely soft around you.”

“Why?”

“My cock gets hard when it needs to fuck. I will never not need to fuck you.”

That statement flusters her. “We shouldn’t be speaking like this.”

When she tries to escape around me, I sidestep and yank her up against me, onto her tiptoes—and by God, does she melt. Like butter in a hot pan, her muscles lose tension and her head falls back, her petite body conforming to mine. “That’s right. Go soft for me.” I easily lift her up and urge her thighs around my waist, groaning when her pussy meets my erection and presses down deliciously. “Go soft everywhere.”

“Edison…”

Does she realize she’s pouting and talking like a baby? I don’t think so. I think this twisted hunger inside of me is alive and well inside of her, too.

Daddy and little girl.

“Edison, what?” I prompt, sliding a hand into the back of her panties, molding her supple right cheek in my grip, purposefully jostling her pussy against my dick. “Tell me what’s on your mind, angel.”

She takes several shallow breaths. “Um. Why were there so many women at your house last night?”

“What women?” My mind has been wiped clean of any female but her, so it takes me a beat to understand the question. “Oh.” I shake my head. “That’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. As soon as you walked past my window, there was no one but you.”

“But what if I hadn’t walked past your window?”

“But you did. Thank fuck.”

God, her little pout is making my balls hang heavier. “Why were they there?”

“Blessing. What is this? You can’t possibly…be jealous?”

A groove forms between her brows. “I don’t know what I am!” she cries.

Urgency runs wild inside of me and I take two big steps, laying her down on the cot and coming down on top of her, pressing her down with my body and looking her hard in the eye, so there is no way for her to escape me. I need her to acknowledge what I’m going to say and believe it as fact. “Listen, angel. I fucked your blood stain last night like some kind of sick animal. I paced until the sun came up so I could track you down and make you my wife. This earth might as well be empty of any other woman but you. For eternity. Is that clear?”

Two seconds tick by. “But why were they there?”

“Jesus.” This is really going to hurt my chances of bringing her home today and marrying her tomorrow. “Fine, angel. I am required to marry so I can receive my inheritance.”

Her lips part slightly. “Is that why you want to marry me?”

“No. I want to marry you so I can spend my life worshipping at your fucking feet.”

A minor head tilt from Blessing. “Seems pretty convenient that we met on the exact night you were shopping for a wife.”

“You say convenient. I say maybe God doesn’t hate me after all.”

She sucks in a breath. “God doesn’t hate anyone.”

“Oh yeah? My dick has its doubts. Stop squirming, baby.” Groaning, I let the weight of my hips drop, pinning her to the mattress. “Better yet, keep it up.”

“What will happen if I do?” she whispers, still shifting her lower body slowly.

Torturously.

Fuck.

“All right, Blessing.” I drop my face into her neck and moan my misery. “I see no one has talked to you about the birds and the bees, but I can’t do it right now, baby. I can’t talk about my cock cramming into your pussy without physically doing it.”

“C-cramming?”

“Yes, cramming. Jesus, a gallon of lube won’t get me in there without a serious effort.” I lick a path from her shoulder, up the side of her neck, savoring her decadent flavor. “Fact is, you’re tight as fuck. And I’ve got a monster between my legs for you, Blessing. He missed out on the blood, but he’s going to satisfy himself with your wall-to-wall orgasms.”

Her pussy flexes against my cock and I make a strangled sound.

“You liked hearing that.”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“Yes. Which part?” I pin down her lower body hard. “Orgasms?”

No flex. Of course not. She has no idea the pleasure in store.

“Monster?” I whisper against her mouth. The tiny muscles of her cunt squeeze noticeably and dear God, it’s everything I can do not to rip her panties off and fuck her to high heaven. “You like knowing my dick is big?”

Visibly embarrassed, she starts to writhe around in a breathless struggle. “S-stop.”

“I’m never going to stop.” I reach up beneath her nightshirt and drag the panties down her thighs, tossing them over my shoulder. “I’m going to ride you on my monster morning noon and night. I’m going to put it in your mouth, between your tits and up your asshole.”

She’s gasping by the time I slide off the edge of the bed and kneel between her gorgeous thighs, her body trembling. From need this time, not the cold, thank God.

“But I’m not going to fuck you until there’s a ring on your finger. I want to plant myself deep and drill you backwards and sideways knowing I’m your husband.” Seeing her pussy again is like ingesting drugs that hit me right away, make me salivate, my cock straining painfully. “Sweet Jesus, how can something so perfect be real?” I pry her thighs open wider and spit on that hot little slit. “Mine.”

“N-no, it’s…it’s not…”

“Tell me that again in a minute.”

I kiss the wet valley of her flesh from top to bottom, then I use my tongue to part it gently, her sugary sweet fragrance causing semen to bubble from the tip of my shaft. I lap at her smoothness, licking the entirety of her pussy with the surface of my tongue. Pausing only for a second to savor the way her tummy hollows in anticipation of the unknown, I twist the tip of my tongue against her clit, her shocked whimpers music to my ears.

I go rough on that little nub, pursing my lips against it, rubbing slowly side to side, before bearing down on it with the flat of my tongue. My fingers move of their own accord, that lucky bastard middle finger slipping into her ultra-snug hole, burrowing inside up to my knuckle, then further, until she’s clamped down around the whole thing, like a good girl.

Looking her in the eye, I flicker my tongue against her clit.

“What do you say, Blessing. Is your pussy mine now?”

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“Yes!”

“Good girl. Now I’m going to make it come on my fucking face.”

I eat her like she’s my last meal. She is. The only sustenance I’ll ever need. I take her thighs and drape them over my shoulders, attending to her clit relentlessly, adding a second finger inside of her and pumping rhythmically, milking her soaked cunt with my digits while she whines above me, her hips unable to keep still.

“Edison!” she cries out, twisting my hair in her fingers. “I don’t understand.”

No way I’m stopping to explain to her what an orgasm is. She’s just going to have to feel it, because it would take an army to drag me off this delicious thing. She’s so creamy and sweet, I could feast off her for the rest of my life. I’m dribbling come everywhere inside of my pants, making a nasty mess, but I don’t care. I care only about the way she’s beginning to clench around my fingers, her breath coming in confused bursts.

“Do it,” I growl against her flesh. “Come on Daddy’s face.”

Her hips twist and she screams, moisture leaving her and turning my jaw to glistening. I hold her bucking lower body down with a forearm and grind my tongue on her clit while she comes, my fingers fucking her like a cock now, deep and thorough, heightening her pleasure, making it last and last until she finally collapses onto the cot, staring blindly at the ceiling.

I fit my body onto the bed as much as possible, gathering her into my arms while ordering myself not to roll her over face down and fuck her, finally finish myself. I’m so hard, it’s complete agony. But there is a deal to make first—and it takes precedent over anything else.

“When you become my wife, Blessing, I’ll never stop making you feel like this.”

She blinks up at me dazedly. “Can’t we be boyfriend and girlfriend or something? I just met you.” She snuggles into me, her face molding to my neck. “I’m too young to get married.”

“It’s the inheritance, angel. If I don’t marry by Christmas, it goes to the bank.” Talking to her about money feels like a violation of the moment. Who cares about money when there’s her skin against mine? Her breath in my neck. Still… “All that hard work of my father, grandfather and great-grandfather will be gone…”

The solution hits me at once.

The answer that has been eluding me because I’ve been so starved for her. Still am.

And now I know the path to take to lock her down forever.

“Blessing, if you agree to marry me, I will give the entirety of the inheritance to the children. I’ll have it split evenly among them and they will have a secure future, a more comfortable present. Never want for anything—”

“You would do that?” she breathes, going up onto her elbow to stare at me in disbelief. “In order to marry me?”

I take her face in my hands, guiding our foreheads together and writhing them side to side. “Angel, I would gift wrap my soul for the devil to marry you.”

She takes several bracing breaths before nodding, and whispers, “Then I will marry you, Edison Scrooge.”