Chapter 9: Morning Devotion
The villa slept, but Clara was awake. She’d been awake for hours, listening to the silence that wasn’t silent at all—the whisper of the sea, the creak of the timbers, the hollow space in the bed beside her. Dom had been distant since they’d arrived, a fact she’d blamed on the stress of the transatlantic flight, on the elusive “business” that flickered across his phone screen. She told herself it was nothing. She was good at that.
Dawn painted the sky in watercolor streaks of peach and mauve. Clara slipped from the sheets, wrapping a light shawl around her silk chemise, and padded out to the terrace. The air was cool and carried the dense, green scent of night-blooming jasmine and wet earth from the automatic irrigation. She settled on the wide wicker chaise, pulling her knees up, a silent spectator to the day’s birth.
She didn’t hear him approach. His shadow fell over her first, long and familiar.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Dom’s voice was gravelly with sleep, softer than it had been in days.
She looked up, offering a small smile. “The time change, I think. You’re up early.”
“Missed you.” He said it simply, and for a moment, the man she’d married was there again—the one who’d bring her coffee in bed, whose hands were gentle. He lowered himself onto the chaise beside her, the wicker groaning under his weight. His hand found her bare ankle beneath the shawl, his thumb stroking her bone. “You’re cold.”
“A little.”
He drew her legs across his lap, his hands warming her calves through the thin silk. The gesture was so intimate, so spousal, that her eyes pricked with unexpected tears. She’d been lonely. So profoundly lonely amid all this luxury.
“Is everything okay, Dom? Really?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
He looked out at the sea, his profile stern in the nascent light. “Work is a beast. My mind won’t shut off.” His gaze swung back to her, and he softened it by force. “But I’m here now. With you.”
He leaned in and kissed her. It was slow, deep, a reclaiming. A part of her unraveled at the touch, a tight coil of anxiety loosening. He still wanted her. This was what they needed, what she needed. Connection.
His hands moved up her legs, pushing the hem of her chemise to her hips. The cool dawn air kissed her skin, followed immediately by the heat of his palms. “Let me take care of you,” he murmured against her lips. It wasn’t a question.
He guided her onto her back, arranging her on the cushions. He knelt on the tiled floor between her legs, pushing them apart with an insistent pressure. The wrought-iron frame was firm against her back. She felt exposed, there on the open terrace where the sky was lightening from moment to moment, but a reckless thrill cut through her embarrassment. He hooked his fingers in the sides of her panties, a delicate peach lace, and pulled them down her legs. He discarded them over the railing, a silent, flagrant act that made her breath catch.
He looked at her, his eyes dark pools in the low light. Then he lowered his head.
The first touch of his tongue was a flat, slow stroke from her opening to her clit. Clara gasped, her fingers tangling in his thick hair. He worked her with a focused, almost clinical precision, licking into her, circling her swollen sensitive nub, then dipping back down to taste her deeply. It was methodical. Devastating.
“Dom…” she whimpered.
“Shhh.” He slid two fingers inside her, curling them, stroking a spot that made her hips jump. His mouth returned to her clit, sucking it gently, then with more pressure as her breathing hitched. The dual sensations—the deep, filling stretch of his fingers and the relentless, rhythmic pull of his mouth—built a swift, dizzying pressure. She was embarrassingly wet, the slick sounds mixing with the distant fountain.
“You taste so good,” he groaned, his voice vibrating against her. “So fucking good.” He added a third finger, stretching her wider. The stretch was delicious, a bright thread of almost-pain in the tapestry of pleasure. He fucked her with his hand, his pace steady and deep, his tongue now focused on tight, rapid circles around her clit.
“I’m close… oh, God, I’m so close,” she choked out, her back arching.
He lifted his head, his chin glistening. “Not yet.” His voice was a command. He removed his fingers, leaving her empty and throbbing. Before she could protest, he replaced them with his tongue, thrusting it deep inside her in a mimicry of sex. The intimacy of it was shocking, lewd. She cried out, a short, sharp sound swallowed by the dawn.
He sat back on his heels, looking up her body, his own breathing labored. “I want you to come in my mouth,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “But you’re going to work for it. Fuck my face, Clara. Fuck my mouth like you own it.”
The vulgarity, the command, sent a jolt straight to her core. Timidity evaporated, replaced by a raw, desperate hunger. She planted her feet on the chaise, gripped the wicker sides, and lifted her hips. She drove herself against his waiting mouth, riding his tongue and lips with a frantic, sloppy rhythm. He held still, letting her use him, his hands gripping her thighs to steady her as she ground herself against his face.
“Yes, just like that,” he growled, the sound muffled by her flesh. “Use me. Come all over my fucking tongue.”
His permission, his encouragement, broke the last restraint. She fucked his mouth with abandon, her moans loud and shameless in the quiet morning. The orgasm built like a tsunami, vast and unavoidable. It crashed over her with a violence that blinded her, a wave of pure, convulsing sensation that tore a scream from her throat. She rode it out, pulsing against his mouth until she was spent, collapsing back onto the cushions, boneless and gasping.
Dom rose, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked down at her, his expression unreadable in the full morning light. He was hard, the bulge in his linen trousers unmistakable.
From somewhere inside the villa, a door clicked shut.
The sound was soft, but it echoed in the sudden quiet. Clara’s eyes fluttered open, her post-coital haze pierced by a needle of reality. Dom’s head turned sharply toward the sound, his body tensing.
A shadow moved in the doorway to the terrace.
It was Amy. She stood frozen, one hand on the frame, her face a pale mask of shock. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, were fixed on Clara’s naked hips, on Dom’s kneeling form, on the devastatingly intimate scene she had just witnessed. The understanding in her gaze was instant and complete.
Clara scrambled to pull her chemise down, a hot flush of shame scalding her skin. “Amy… sweetheart, we didn’t hear…”
Amy took a step back. The look she shot Dom wasn’t one of daughterly horror. It was something else entirely—a searing, possessive fury that crackled in the space between them. Then, without a word, she turned and disappeared into the dark interior of the house.
The chirping birds felt like a mockery. Clara clutched the silk of her chemise, knuckles white, her body still humming from the climax now curdling into shame. She stared at the empty doorway where her daughter had just stood.
“God, Dom…” Her voice was a thin, shattered thing.
“God, Dom…” Her voice was a thin, shattered thing.
He didn’t look toward the doorway. His focus was entirely on her, a laser point that burned away the world beyond her face. He saw the shame flooding her features, the way she tried to shrink into the wicker. He cupped her cheek, his thumb rough against her skin. “Look at me.”
She tried to turn away, her eyes darting toward the villa’s interior. “She saw. Our daughter just saw…”
“She saw her mother,” Dom said, his voice low and absolute. “She saw a woman being loved by her husband. There is no crime in that.” He held her face, forcing her gaze back to his. The vulnerability in her eyes, the raw humiliation, ignited a fierce protectiveness in him. This was his wife. The woman he’d built a life with. He would not let her poison this moment with shame.
He stood suddenly, the movement fluid. Before she could process it, he had scooped her up from the chaise. Her chemise tangled around her thighs as he carried her, not to the bedroom, but to a secluded corner of the terrace shrouded by a curtain of blooming bougainvillea. He set her on her feet against the warm stone wall.
Then he sank to his knees on the sun-warmed tiles.
He put his hands on her hips, his head level with her stomach. He looked up the line of her body. “Tell me,” he said.
Clara shook her head, a frantic little motion. Her hands fluttered to cover herself. “Dom, please, not now. After what just…”
“Tell me how you felt,” he insisted, his grip firming, anchoring her. “When you were coming on my tongue. When you were fucking my face. Tell me the words.”
“I can’t.” It was a whisper choked with mortification.
“You can.” He leaned forward, pressing his mouth against the trembling skin of her lower belly. He inhaled her scent, still musky with her release and his saliva. “You were glorious. You were loud. You were greedy. Tell me.”
He unbuttoned his trousers, freeing his erection. It was thick and angry-looking, jutting from his body. He didn’t guide himself into her. Not yet. He used the head, slick with his own pre-come, to stroke her through her damp curls, painting wet lines on her sensitive skin. She whimpered.
“Tell me, Clara,” he growled, applying more pressure. “Or I stay right here. We stay right here until you remember who you are with. You are with me.”
The blunt pressure against her clit was unbearable. A fresh wave of want, stupid and insistent, washed through the shame. “It felt… primal,” she gasped.
“More.”
“It felt dirty.” The admission was torn from her.
“Good.” He pushed the broad head against her entrance, not entering, just claiming the space. “And?”
“And I didn’t care.” The words rushed out. “I felt powerful. I felt… owned. In the best way. Like I could just… take. And you’d let me.”
A satisfied, dark smile touched his lips. He drove up into her in one relentless thrust, burying himself to the hilt inside her still-fluttering channel. She cried out, her head thumping back against the stone. He filled her completely, the stretch a breathtaking reminder.
“That’s my girl,” he groaned, his own composure fraying. He pulled out almost all the way, then slammed back in. The slap of skin was obscenely loud in their floral hideaway. “Never be embarrassed for wanting me. Never.”
He set a brutal, possessive rhythm, each deep drive punctuating his words. “This is mine. You are mine. This cunt is mine.” His hands slid down to grip the backs of her thighs, hiking her legs wider around his waist, opening her impossibly further. The angle changed, and he hit a spot that made her see bursts of light.
“Dom! Right there, oh fuck, right there!” The filth spilled from her now, all embarrassment incinerated by the sheer physical conquest of his body. She clawed at his shoulders.
“Come for me again,” he commanded, his breath hot against her neck. “Scream it. Let the whole fucking island know who makes you feel this way.”
He fucked her with short, punishing strokes aimed directly at that perfect, deep spot. The climax ripped through her with no warning, a seismic detonation that locked her muscles around him. She screamed, a raw, ragged sound that was pure feeling. He growled, a feral sound of triumph, and followed her over the edge, pumping his own release deep inside her in hot, pulsing jets.
They stayed locked together, panting, slick with sweat. He leaned his forehead against the wall beside her head, his body shuddering through the last waves.
Slowly, he softened and slipped from her. He stayed on his knees, his arms wrapping around her waist, holding her upright as her legs trembled. He pressed his face against her stomach. The tenderness in the gesture now was staggering.
In the quiet, the reality seeped back. The look on Amy’s face. It hadn’t been just shock. It had been recognition. And betrayal.
Clara’s fingers traced through his hair. “She knows,” Clara whispered, the post-sex clarity cold and sharp.
Dom lifted his head. His eyes, meeting hers, held no trace of uncertainty. He had seen it too. “Let her know,” he said, his voice quiet but impregnable. He stood, pulling her gently into an embrace, tucking her head under his chin. He stared over her shoulder, back toward the silent villa, toward the room where Amy had retreated.
His hand stroked her back, a comforting, loving rhythm. But his gaze was fixed on the shadows within the house, ready for the storm he had deliberately summoned.