Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 127933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Wrapped in his arms, I felt safe. Content. As if nothing could touch me as long as I was here, held close to him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It had been a week since the night I slipped that ring onto Lolita's finger, and every day since I felt her slipping deeper into my grasp. Every touch, every word, had been calculated to pull her closer, to make her need me just a little more.
It was working.
She might not have realized it yet, but she was becoming more dependent on me with every passing day. There was a particular satisfaction in watching her change.
The torment in her eyes whenever she found herself craving my touch, even after everything I’d done to her, was fading away.
There was something endearing in her reactions she tried to hide but couldn’t. I knew her better than she knew herself and I was certain of one thing, —my sweet Lolita had a cousin kink. It wasn’t something she would ever admit. I’d clocked it the night she had our relation to each other confirmed, how wet she got as I spoke to her. I saw it in the way she reacted to the family history, to the idea of our connection. Every time we were together, the knowledge of it lingered, igniting something darker in her.
We’d been intimate before, but now she wanted me as much as I did her. We’d fucked in every room of the estate at this point—multiple times. Fucking her against the wall where my Rite portrait hung was a memory I often replayed. With Acolyte Selena undergoing her punishment for disrespecting my Lolita, I had taken to having Esther and Verity educate her at home with the other Electi, indefinitely.
I often filled in the blanks they either couldn’t or wouldn’t, which is how we wound up in front of the portrait to begin with. I never imagined it would be like this. When I first set out to claim her, I thought it would be about control, about fulfilling my role as Diabolus and righting a wrong. It had quickly become more than that. The way she looked at me, like I was the only thing that kept her grounded, was the highlight of my day. I was just as enthralled by her as she was with me, but I had never been afraid to admit that. Not to myself, and certainly not to anyone else.
Those closest to me, the ones who knew me inside and out, all saw it. I cared for her happiness as much as I longed to own her mind, body, and soul. The two weren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they were intertwined—her happiness and her absolute submission. I would see to it that she had both.
My mother had pulled me aside the morning after I had slipped the ring onto Lolita’s finger.
We were in the kitchen, preparing breakfast together, something we hadn’t done in years. As we worked, she expressed how relieved she was that Lolita had wound up with me and that she didn’t have to worry anymore. Her words were full of love and pride, though I could sense the unspoken relief behind them.
I did what came naturally—I reassured her. I didn’t mention that both my father and I knew she’d tried to warn Lolita away that first night. Shana hadn’t mentioned it either, which was why she was being quietly replaced with someone more competent, who could do a simple fucking job that only required using their eyes and ears. My mother’s heart had been in the right place, but her actions, well, they weren’t something I could allow to go unchecked.
My father would be handling that.
As I turned onto the long road leading to Carcerem, the sun filtering through the trees, I checked how I was on time. I had driven myself, leaving at sunrise and making my usual early-morning rounds, starting with the Chapel. I handled what I needed to there, ensuring things were running smoothly on site, before heading toward out here—my next stop. The prison was a place of quiet power, a reminder of control and loyalty to the Isle.
While I needed to handle some business there, my mind kept circling back to Lolita. She would be out and about sometime today, going into town. I hoped we would end up home around the same time. It was getting to the point that I didn’t like being at the estate without her. The place felt wrong without her presence.
At her last class, before I pulled her from them entirely, I had shown up and kicked out every other woman, just to fuck her on the Matron’s desk. I couldn’t help myself.
The way she looked at me, the way she surrendered, it drove me mad in the best way.
I’d taken her home after that and had come up with some excuse to make her read in my office while I finished working just so that she was close. Bishop hadn’t stopped joking about it since. He’d get it someday and I would pay him back tenfold. Phoenix and Osiris both understood. Keres was one of the very rare exceptions of women brought to the Isle as an Electi with a low-level family.