Chapter 20: Marking His Claim
The silence in the car after leaving Anderson’s office was a physical thing, thick and heavy. Julian’s hand hadn’t left your thigh the entire drive, his grip tightening at every stoplight. The ultrasound image, a grainy, grey-and-white oblong with a flickering speck, was face-up on the console between you like a holy relic.
A single, viable intrauterine pregnancy. Measuring exactly on schedule. Strong fetal cardiac activity.
He had stared at the screen in Dr. Anderson’s office with a terrifying intensity, his professional mask flawless as he asked about yolk sac dimensions and crown-rump length. But his knuckles had been white where he’d gripped the edge of the examination table.
Now, in the penthouse elevator, he finally spoke. His voice was rough, stripped raw. “I heard it. The heartbeat.” He wasn’t looking at you; he was staring at his own reflection in the bronze doors. “One hundred and sixty-four beats per minute. Perfect.”
The doors opened directly into the living room. He didn’t turn on the main lights. The city’s glow, a mosaic of white and gold, spilled through the windows, painting the room in monochrome. He walked to the bedroom, still holding the ultrasound photo. You followed.
He placed the image carefully on his nightstand, aligning it perfectly with the lamp’s base. Then he turned to you. The dim light carved harsh planes into his face. The calm, assessing doctor was gone. In his eyes was a wild, unraveling fervor.
“Take off the dress.” It wasn’t a request.
You obeyed, the soft wool puddling at your feet. You stood in just your underwear, the cool air raising goosebumps on your skin. He approached, a slow predator’s stalk. His fingertips, cool and clinical, skated over your abdomen, just below your navel.
“Right here,” he whispered. “That’s where he is. My child. My blood.” His touch was mapping, claiming. He knelt suddenly, his hands on your hips, and pressed his lips to the same spot. It was a kiss, but it felt like a brand. He inhaled deeply, his nose against your skin. “You smell different. Even more than before. Deeper.”
He looked up at you, his green eyes glittering in the low light. “On the bed. On your back.”
You settled onto the duvet. He didn’t join you. He went to his wardrobe, selecting a tie from a row of them—a dark silk, the color of midnight. He came to the bedside, his movements deliberate.
“Give me your hands.”
You raised your wrists. He looped the tie around them, not tight enough to hurt, but with a firm, unyielding knot. He drew the loose end up and secured it to the wrought-iron scroll of the headboard. You were tethered, exposed. A specimen. His specimen.
“I need to see,” he breathed, his voice thick. “All of you. Every change.”
His hands went to your breasts, cupping them, weighing them. His thumbs brushed over the nipples, which hardened instantly under his touch. “Fuller. Heavier. The venous patterning is more pronounced.” He bent his head and took one into his mouth, not to suckle gently, but to lave it with broad, wet strokes of his tongue, then to nip the peak with his teeth. You arched off the bed, a gasp caught in your throat. The silk tie bit lightly into your wrists.
“Sensitive,” he observed, pulling back to watch the flesh peak and redden. “Good.”
He moved down your body, his hands smoothing over your ribs, your hips. He paused again at your belly, laying his palm flat over it. He closed his eyes, as if listening for the heartbeat through his skin. When he opened them, the look was one of pure, unadulterated hunger.
“Now let’s see what they’ve done to my favorite part of you.”
He hooked his fingers in the waistband of your underwear and peeled them down your legs, discarding them. He pushed your knees apart, his hands firm on your inner thighs. The cool air hit your core. You were utterly open to him.
He stared. The intensity of his gaze was more invasive than any touch.
“Swollen,” he murmured, almost in awe. “Labia are engorged. A deeper hue. Hypervascularity from the increased blood flow.” He reached out a single finger and traced the outer lips, a feather-light touch that made you jerk against your restraints. “Beautiful. It’s ripening. For me. For the baby.
He lowered his head between your thighs. You expected the same clinical tasting, the pH assessment. You were wrong.
This was pure, unadulterated gluttony.
He didn’t just taste you. He devoured you. A low, animal groan vibrated from his chest into your flesh as his tongue speared deep inside you, lapping at the gathering wetness. He fucked you with his tongue, hard and fast, his nose pressed against your clit. The sounds were obscene—wet, sloppy, desperate.
“Fuck,” he grunted, coming up for air, his chin glistening. “So fucking sweet. So much wetter. This pregnant cunt is dripping for me.” He dove back in, his hands sliding under your ass to lift you higher onto his mouth. His tongue zeroed in on your clit, circling it with ruthless, focused pressure.
You were whimpering, tugging uselessly at the tie, your back off the mattress. The pleasure was a storm surge, obliterating thought.
“That’s it,” he snarled, his words muffled by your flesh. “Come on Daddy’s tongue. Let me drink it. Let me taste what my baby’s making you feel.” He added a finger, then two, plunging them into you, crooking them against a spot that made you see stars. His mouth sucked your clit relentlessly.
It shattered you. The orgasm crashed through you with a violence that bordered on pain, a white-hot detonation that tore a ragged scream from your throat. He rode it out, drinking every pulse, his fingers pumping until you were sobbing, oversensitive and shaking.
Only then did he release you, lowering your hips gently back to the bed. He was breathing hard, his lips swollen and wet. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes never leaving the glistening, swollen proof of your climax.
He unknotted the tie from the headboard, freeing your wrists. He brought one to his mouth, kissing the faint red mark. Then he unzipped his pants, freeing his erection, which was thick and ruddy with need. He was sheathed in latex again—the rule held, even now.
He climbed over you, bracing his weight on his forearms, his cock nudging at your entrance. His face was inches from yours.
“You are the most perfect thing I have ever seen,” he said, the words fervent, religious. “This body. This life. Mine.”
He pushed in, a slow, inexorable invasion that filled the aching, empty space his mouth had left. You were so sensitive that every ridge of him was a lightning strike. You cried out, wrapping your legs around his waist.
“Shh,” he soothed, but his rhythm was anything but gentle. He set a deep, pounding pace, each thrust a brutal claim. “Take it. Take all of me. I need to be as deep as he is. I need to touch where he’s growing.”
His words were a dark, erotic chant. He fucked you with a desperate, driving need, as if he could merge with you, reach through your flesh and lay his own hands on that flickering heartbeat. The headboard tapped a steady, muffled rhythm against the wall. Sweat dripped from his temple onto your collarbone.
“Tell me,” he grunted, his pace faltering, his control slipping. “Tell me who you belong to.”
“You,” you gasped. “Julian, you—”
“Who owns this pussy? Who owns this womb?”
“You do! Daddy, please—”
It was the ‘please’ that broke him. With a raw, torn shout, he buried himself to the hilt and came, his body shuddering violently above you. He collapsed, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his breath searing hot against your skin.
For a long time, he didn’t move. His weight was crushing, anchoring. You could feel his heart hammering against your chest. Finally, he rolled off. He returned with a warm cloth, cleaning you with hands that now trembled slightly. He untied the silk from your wrist and rubbed the skin.
He gathered you against him, your back to his front, his hand returning to its permanent station on your lower belly. His lips brushed your shoulder.
“Anderson wants another scan in two weeks,” he whispered into the dark. “Just routine.”
But his hand tightened imperceptibly on your skin. Routine. The word hung in the air, a fragile shield against the vast, terrifying future. The single flickering light on the nightstand seemed to pulse in the dark, a tiny, nascent star in the ecosystem of his obsession. He held you, and you both watched it, prisoners and creators of the same hungry gravity.