Chapter 6.

Chase.

Sunday, 7th February. Next day. Morning.

Lucy sleeps on the bed, and I sit here watching her, memorizing every breath she takes. The slow rise and fall of her chest. The way her body sprawls across the sheets, boneless with exhaustion.

Daylight streams in through the naked floor-to-ceiling windows, the skyline framed behind her frail form like a painting meant only for me.

She’s tired. Of course she is. Especially after the night we had.

Memory flashes after we returned from the party, when I took her again and again until she finally went limp in my arms. Resting her head on my chest and falling asleep. We couldn’t talk. She didn’t want to talk yet. She said morning.

And now it’s morning. And I want to hear everything she meant to say last night about everything she wishes to forget.

My phone rings on the nightstand. I lazily rise from the sofa and grab it. My eyes fall on the screen and my lips tighten.

Tamara.

“Hi,” I reply lazily, just as a knock sounds at the door.

“Just hi?” She asks.

I cross the room and unlock the door. A maid rolls in a food trolley. I gesture for her to set it beside the side table.

“What else can I say, Tam?” I murmur, as the maid gives a polite curtsy and leaves.

When she’s gone, I lock the door again and stroll to the window, absently gazing outside.

“Chase, I bet you worked out this morning. But you didn’t remember to call me for days.” Accusation coats her voice.

I frown.

Tamara is the woman my father wishes me to marry because of her father’s political reach. He wants me in power someday. So he keeps pushing me, his thirty-year-old son, toward Tamara and the favors her father can grant.

“Fuck the girl and get Dilman Dale’s favors, Chase.” Father ordered two months ago.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You’re not just ordering me to fuck her. You’re ordering me to keep her pussy on my leash while she drags me closer to her father.”

He raised a brow.

“I don’t see you having problems with that all this time.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I drew closer to Tamara. I had been reluctant at first, not because he said so, but because I needed him to think I wasn’t as ambitious as he expected.

I’m far worse than he knows.

“Your father is one of our customers at the bank. You’re our customer too,” I tell Tamara Dale now. “People will read meanings if they see us together. If they see us too close.”

“And God forbid they do, right, Chase?” Sarcasm drips from her voice.

“Tamara, let’s have lunch later today.” I sidestep her jab. “I need to discuss something my man brought up about your accounts.”

I turn from the window and my gaze lands on Lucy.

She sits upright on the bed, watching me through unreadable eyes.

“Alright. At my place? Or…”

“No. Our usual restaurant,” I say quietly, ending the call before Tamara can finish.

Talking to Tamara suddenly feels wrong in Lucy’s presence.

“Hi,” I mutter.

She lowers her gaze.

“Hi.”

I roll the trolley closer to the bed and open the dishes. The smell fills the air. Scrambled eggs, toast, coffee. Bowls of cornflakes and fresh milk and sugar on the lower rack.

“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I asked them to arrange everything.”

I pour cornflakes into a bowl, add macadamia nuts and almonds, milk, sugar, and hand it to her. She murmurs thanks and takes only a single spoonful.

“You don’t like cornflakes?” I ask, worried, sitting beside her.

She lifts her eyes to me.

“I love it very much. It’s just…” She pauses, gaze dropping again. “You were talking to a lady. And I know you said no man is ever to touch me. But am I to just look on while another woman touches you? It doesn’t seem fair, now does it?”

The bowl rests in her hands. The spoon sits unmoving.

I still.

Is my Kitten being possessive over me?

“You wouldn’t want other women around me?” My voice is firm, though something electric trembles inside my chest.

Why does it excite me, this idea that she’s jealous of other women?

I’ve never cared what women felt about me having others, until now.

“No… no… that wasn’t what I meant. I just…” She looks up, face pinched with embarrassment.

I take the bowl from her and set it aside. Then I pull her into my lap.

She’s naked. Beautifully naked. Straddling me.

I lower my suit pants, the only thing I’ve worn since morning and take my cock out, stroking her entrance with the tip.

She shifts. Recoils. Tries to avoid me.

But my hand on her waist stills her.

Her hands land on my shoulders as my tip slowly strokes her, reminding her who owns her. Her face tightens with pleasure as I rub against her slick heat.

Defeated, she exhales heavily, burying her face against my neck, her body soft as I caress her bare back.

“Kitten… do you feel jealous when other women want me? Did you feel jealous when Tamara wanted me?” I ask, pointedly.

She freezes. Not moving. Not answering.

Her fingers tighten on my shoulders, but it’s not desire this time.

“You just snatched my world from underneath me, Chase and called it salvation… Then I had to watch my friend die last night… And yet you get to walk free… Go where you want…” Her voice cracks, barely there. “And I just stay here as your prisoner.”

Her body trembles under my hands. Not from need. From memory. From anger. From defiance.

For a second, just a second, I stop. I consider her words. Something raw twisting inside me when I remember the way her friend was killed last night.

But when I look at her again, her lips, her eyes, I’m intoxicated by her again.

I choose. I claim her.

My grunt tangles with her moan as I shove deep inside her.

“Ah… Chase…!” She gasps at the wild intrusion.

Her pussy is already wet. Already soaking me.

She starts moving. Grinding slowly, then faster as I grip her ass and press her down.

I reach for her thong lying beside the pillow, take her wrists, and bind them behind her back. I pull her arms so her breasts thrust forward perfect and aching for me.

I take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, then the other, alternating while my free hand slips between us to tease her clit. Coaxing. Circling. Opening her until her slickness coats my fingers.

“Chase… Chase… please…” She cries.

I pull out, lift her, flip her onto the bed. Pillow under her belly. Ass high. Presented just for me.

I drag a lazy finger through her parted folds. She shudders, face buried in the sheets. She’s dripping, cum shining on her skin.

I lean in and lick.

Her clit first. Then deeper, tongue sliding inside her, tasting, devouring, until she’s crying, begging.

“You’re so delicious, Kitten… so delicious only for me…” I murmur against her.

She floods my mouth. Her moans muffled in fabric.

I rise and push into her again, pulling her hair so her back arches. She lifts her ass, and I plunge deep, gliding in and out, thrusting as she meets me.

“Chase… Chase… I want only you… I want to be yours alone… I don’t… I don’t want you with other women… aahh…!”

I still.

Her words shoot through me harder than pleasure. Her tightness clamps around me.

I let her words sink in.

She wants to be mine alone.

Does she understand what that means?

Lucy gives me her autonomy. Her time. Her body. Her life. Everything.

And if I discard the others for her, then I lose something too.

Which means she plays by my rules.

For one, no pregnancy. Ever. Not even by a slip.

Because I can’t bring a child into this. Into who I am. Into who I was raised to be.

Memory surges.

Dad. Slapping me hard when I was little. I fell. Mum screamed.

“Leave him, you monster!” She cried, rushing to me. But he yanked her back.

Lucy moves again, and my cock surges back to life. Back to the present.

I bury that ugly memory.

I thrust harder. Deeper.

Our cries fill the room, tearing through me from soul to skull. Her pussy tightens, squeezes, threatens to end it too soon and I don’t want it to end.

I pinch her nipples. She screams her release.

I follow with a groan ripped from my chest.

We collapse. Breathless. Slick. When I can speak, I turn to her.

“If you’re going to be mine and I’m not to touch any other woman, then we’re adding a few more rules.”

She watches me. Worried and silent.

“I spoil you as I want. No protests.”

She hesitates. Then nods slowly.

“And no man is ever with you again. I possess all of you.”

Lucy tilts her head.

“You already established that fact when you reminded me I didn’t belong to your father anymore,” she says shyly.

I spank her. She yelps, then giggles.

“And Luce?” I say.

Horror flashes in her eyes.

“I don’t like Luce.” She blurts.

I study her. There’s something under that. Something she needs to say later.

“Noted, Lucy.” I correct.

Surprise and apology flicker across her face. I lean in and kiss her.

“Lastly… no pregnancy. Ever.”

She stiffens.

“But what if I already got pregnant from last night and this morning?”

I hold her gaze.

“You can’t. While you slept, I injected you with medication recommended for you until you see a doctor for contraceptives.”

Silence.

Then she recoils.

“That’s cruel, Chase. You have that little regard for me? I’m a human being first before I became a fucking whore!” She snaps, scrambling away across the bed.

My face stays neutral.

“It’s not you I have no regard for. It’s children. I don’t want them. Ever.”

Something dark tries to twist open inside me. I shove it back down.

Silence stretches.

“Well, if you’d asked beforehand, you’d know Davenport makes us all use contraceptives. Mine is in my arm,” she says fiercely.

Then she storms away into the bathroom. The door slams.

I flinch.

I grab my phone, tempted to call the doctor to ask if mixing methods could harm her.

I stop. She’ll be fine.

Women deal with contraceptive clashes all the time.

Right?

But the worry doesn’t leave.

What if the shot clashes with her system?

What if pregnancy?

My eyes darken.

That’s not possible.

Because rather than bring a child into the Olympus lineage, my father’s lineage, I wouldn’t mind ripping it out of Lucy myself.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hello, my darlings. Thank you for reading this far. So… is Chase hurting deeper than we thought...or becoming someone we should fear? Please save Salt and Steel, so you won’t miss a single unraveling.)