Devil's Pawn (Devil's Pawn Duet 1)

I draw her mouth to my dick which is still not quite soft after that rutting, still covered in our combined come. Her lips part and fuck. Fuck me when that warm, wet tongue licks the length of my shaft. Fuck me if I’m not going to get hard again at the feel of her on me, at the look of her kneeling before me, licking me clean. I watch her as I move her over my dick and she watches me, eyes huge, wet, growing wetter when I push into her. She chokes before I let her draw breath.

She’s clearly inexperienced but I’ll manage. I move her over me and I’m hard again. I guide her, going deeper, feeling her throat constrict, and in no time, I’m coming. My dick throbs inside her mouth as I hold her steady and watch her take me. Watch her swallow.

When it’s over, I release her and she drops to her hands, panting, spitting.

I crouch down and grip her jaw to close her mouth and make her look at me.

“Don’t waste that, Isabelle. Swallow it down. All of it.”

I hold onto her as she does, tears streaming down her cheeks. She wipes at her face with muddy hands when I release her and I look down at her as I straighten to tuck my dick into my pants. She looks so small. So fucking small and vulnerable as she hugs herself, searching behind her for her ruined panties. And something about the sight of her like this, here and now, sniffling, more than a little lost, it sobers me. Or maybe it was the fucking that sobered me. Whatever it is, I don’t like it. Because it also softens something inside me.

And that is a weakness.

But when she turns huge, wet eyes up to me, I’m undone.

“Can I go now? Are you finished humiliating me for the night?” she asks, trying to sound indignant but only sounding hurt.

Fuck.

I don’t answer. I don’t know how. Don’t have a clue what to say.

I take a step back and find the bottle I’d dropped here earlier. It’s on its side and I pick it up, drink the last of what’s left, a dirty mouthful. I turn away from the girl on her knees in the middle of a fucking cemetery. The girl I’m breaking inch by inch.

“Get out of here,” I tell her hoarsely and walk toward the chapel. I can’t look at her.

“She waited for you, you know that?” she calls out as I get to the stairs.

I pause.

“All afternoon. Did you know? Did you even think about her?”

I turn to see her. She steps toward me but hesitates, stops.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, going to her as she scrambles backward.

“Angelique. She put on her favorite bathing suit and gathered up her toys and waited for you. She fell asleep on the floor behind the front door, you jerk. You fucking selfish jerk.”

Fuck.

“You promised you’d teach her how to swim. Or did you forget while you were drinking yourself into oblivion?” she asks, gesturing to the bottle, her voice surer as she takes strength from my silence. “I get it that you hate me. No, I actually don’t. You hate my brother and I’m a means to an end in your twisted mind, but your own daughter? You’re damaging her. Have you even thought about that? Thought about her rather than yourself? I doubt you have!” she turns to walk away, stops and steps toward me. “You know what? She’d be better off without you.”

The words hit me like a fist, and my brain rattles in my head. I stumble backward, drop down onto the step, let the empty bottle fall to the ground.

I expect Isabelle to go on. Tell me all the ways I’m failing my daughter. Because she’s right. I am. And she’s right that Angelique would be better off without me. Hell, I know that myself. Always have.

But she doesn’t go on. She stops. Pivots. Rubs her face with both hands.

“Shit,” she mutters into her hands. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean that.”

I don’t reply. I’m still stuck on one of the words she used. Damage. Stuck on the fact that my daughter would be better off without me. It’s true. But no one’s ever been brave enough to say it to my face. Even when Kimberly was pregnant, I just thought she’d be a good enough mom to make up for my lack. But now? All these years with only me as a parent? My daughter deserves better.

“Jericho?”

She deserves so much better than me.

“Jericho, I’m really cold,” Isabelle says. She has her arms wrapped around herself and is shivering hard.

I look at her. “Go.”