Chapter 12: Dead of Wynter: Chapter 11

Having Everett so close is like sitting on top of a furnace. The heat his body emits is bordering on painful, and with each moment he hovers over my body, the more overheated I become. I’m trying to process what he’s saying, but none of it makes any sense.

Part of me wonders if he’s lying to me, and that would make the most sense, because nothing else he’s saying makes any, but despite all he’s done to me, despite how heartbroken I was when he left, I can’t think that he would do that to me.

“You are not controlling my orgasms,” I whisper.

I wish I was more sure of my voice, that I could trust it to be as strong as the words felt in my throat, but I know better. When Everett left, he wrecked me for all men. I didn’t trust them as far as I could kick them, so I rarely got close to them, rarely allowed them close enough to kiss me, let alone much of anything else, and every single man I did let close, that I liked and thought might like me back, ghosted me after a date or two. For a long time, I’ve wondered if I’m defective, if there’s something wrong with me that makes men run as fast as they can in the opposite direction. And that’s why I can’t trust Everett, and I certainly can’t trust myself around him.

“Oh, but I am, Wynter.” He smirks from above me.

“No, you’re not,” I hiss, bringing both hands to his chest and shoving as hard as I can manage, but he doesn’t budge. He just chuckles quietly.

“You will do what you’re told when you’re told, or you’ll be sitting on a very fucking red ass and being denied for weeks at a time.”

My mouth drops open as I stare at him incredulously. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, but I can, dove. You’ve been warned, and if you choose to disobey me, you will suffer the consequences.”

I half laugh, panic rising in my chest. Logically, I know Everett would never hurt me, that he would never put me in any harm or give me more than I can handle, but there’s a voice in the back of my mind telling me to run. Everett doesn’t know me anymore, he doesn’t know what I’ve been through since he left, and I don’t think he would want to know the woman I’ve become.

“I can see the wheels turning in your pretty little head, dove. If you’re a good girl, all you’ll get are rewards.” His head dips and he presses a gentle kiss to my cheek, the contact setting a fire in my body I don’t know how to tamp down. How is it after all these years, he still has the power to set me alight? “Do you want to be a good girl for me, Wynter?” His voice is deep honey and promises, and I find myself nodding before I can stop myself. He’s tempting me like the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say no to the apple he’s offering me.

A grin breaks out across his face, and my core tightens at the sight. Everett’s smile has always been my favorite sight, ever since the first time I saw it when I was twelve. “I’m not going to touch you until you know everything. I don’t want to take advantage of your grief, and I want to make sure that when I take you, you understand exactly why I had to leave,” he tells me and I deflate slightly. His words sounded like a promise of what was to come, and yet he’s telling me he’s not going to touch me? “Don’t look at me like that, dove. You know I’ll always take care of you.”

His hand moves from where it was planted beside me to my face, his thumb brushing along my bottom lip. His eyes lock on the soft pillow of flesh, and my tongue darts out and brushes against his thumb. Everett groans. The sound rumbles through the room causing my legs to press together in need.

“You’re temptation personified, dove.”

I almost laugh at his words, because that’s simply not true. But I don’t want to admit he’s the only man I’ve ever been with. That after he left, I tried to find my way into others’ beds, but they always left before that could happen. That the only time I got close enough I was left hurt so badly I spent a week in bed recovering. He can never know how stupid I was.

“I want you to strip for me, I want to see the body that belongs to me.” I open my mouth to argue, but he continues. “Save your breath, Wynter. You know just as well as I do that you’ve always belonged to me, so there’s no sense denying it.”

“I’m not stripping for you, Everett,” I say quietly. There are a hundred reasons he can never see me naked again, but at the very top of that list is that I can’t be vulnerable with him like that again, because if he decides to tear the rug out from under me, I have so much farther to fall.

Something primal crosses his face right before the fingers that brushed along my cheeks and lips move to my throat, placing the slightest amount of pressure on where my pulse beats heavily against his hand. “You have two options here, little dove. You can either strip for me, or I will do it myself, and believe me when I say you won’t like it when I tear that pretty nightgown from your body,” he growls.

My legs clamp together as a rush of need floods my core. His words should scare me, but they don’t. I know in my mind, body, and soul that Everett would never hurt me, not physically at least. I take a deep, unsteady breath and lift my body from the bed enough to draw the nightgown over my head before immediately lying back to put some distance between our bare chests.

Everett’s eyes hungrily feast on my tits like a starved man staring at the first meal he’s eaten in weeks. “Fuck, Wynter. You’re perfect,” he breathes as his eyes roam over my bare skin. “Your panties too. Let me see my pussy.”

I should protest. I shouldn’t like his words like I do, but regardless I carefully lift my hips just enough to shove the cotton fabric down my legs without lifting them into his where he’s straddling me.

He groans above me as his eyes drag over every inch of exposed skin. “Fuck, Wynter. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

A heavy blush brushes across my cheeks at his words. He’s always had this effect on me, always been able to turn me into a blushing idiot with only a few words, but now it seems so much more significant than it did when we were kids.

A smirk tugs at his lips as his fingers trail across the warmth of my skin. “Watching you from afar was never enough for me,” he murmurs.

“What?”

Everett stares into my eyes for a moment, the deep blue pools full of emotion. “It doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to follow every single one of my instructions, and I promise you’ll get what you need at the end.”

I barely stop myself from telling him all I need is him. Barely. The words catch in my throat and burn me from the inside out. No matter how true they are, the words can never be said aloud. I nod once, unable to form words past the ones lodged in my throat.

“Words, little dove.”

“I understand,” I whisper.

I’m rewarded with one of Everett’s blinding smiles, and I find myself wanting to jump at every command just so he’ll look at me like that again. “Good girl. Now, I want you to rub your clit for me, nice and slow.”

I sink my teeth into my lower lip before trailing my hand down my stomach until my fingers collide with my soaking wet pussy.

“Are you wet for me, Wynter?”

“Yes,” I reply quietly, my fingers starting a gentle circle around the bundle of nerves still sensitive from my earlier orgasm.

“Let me taste,” he orders, and I find myself obeying immediately.

I drag my fingers through my sensitive folds before bringing my wet fingers to his lips. He sinks them into his mouth, his tongue darting around them as a guttural groan fills the room.

“Fuck, your pussy is just as sweet as I remember.” The sight only makes a wave of heat slam through me, and by the time my fingers resume their gentle rhythm, I’m wetter than I can ever remember being.

Everett moves until he’s sitting back on his heels, watching every move I make intently. His eyes burn into me with such fervor I’m sure I’m about to self-combust. No one but him has ever looked at me like this, like I’m the most magical creature in the universe to him. It’s an intoxicating feeling when a man as powerful as Everett Masters looks at you like you’re the entire world, like you hung the moon and all the stars, and it’s a feeling I never want to give up again.