Chapter 131: Darkest Humour

Astrid’s POV

I resumed work with ease and received a warm welcome, but I was no longer gullible enough to believe that everyone had my best interests at heart. Even in the company where I worked, there were still people who wanted to see me fall ... and that was the honest truth. I had come to terms with it.

The only people I could trust were those who had nothing to gain from my downfall, and Ivy.

As the secretary to the Minister of Finance, I was held in high prestige, and even after everything I had been through, I planned to keep the image they once had of me perfectly intact.

I had started looking up Thalia ... where she was and where she had run to ... because she ran away like a coward. She had taken my money and my husband’s money without delivering a single result, then disappeared. If there was no other reason to hunt her down, the debt she owed me was reason enough.

I used the tracker on my laptop to try to pinpoint her location, but it was as if she had thrown away the number she used to call me.

Damn.

She wouldn’t have had to start running like this if she had left me and my husband alone. Now I was going to catch her. She could run, but she couldn’t hide.

First, though, I had something to take care of with my husband.

Since we had gotten back together, we hadn’t had makeup sex.

---

"Ethan, I need your hands all over my body," I said to him in our room after we had both showered.

"Hmm ... are you really ready for me?" he murmured.

I didn’t give him the luxury of thinking about it. I walked straight to him and placed his hand on my breasts.

"You managed to keep yourself this sexy," he said, his voice dropping low. "God, I love you." His hands moved with purpose, pressing and massaging until I arched into him.

I had every reason to be turned on. I pulled off my nightgown and stood before him completely bare, then laid back on the bed and pointed to my chest ... because I needed his attention there more than I needed air. Ethan lowered his head and sucked like he owned every inch of me, because he really did. His fingers stroked between my thighs at the same time.

"Ahh ... Ethan ... uhh ... we haven’t fucked like this in a long time. Hit it, baby."

He went lower, his mouth finding its way to my pussy, drawing everything out of me with intention. He gave me head and he meant it ... I felt every emotion, every nerve ending firing at once.

"My turn," I told him, looking down at his cock, already hard and thick with want.

I took him into my mouth and worked him so thoroughly that his length hit the back of my throat. I used my hands to stroke him while my mouth moved to his balls, and I kept my eyes locked on his the entire time ... I wanted to watch every wave of ecstasy cross his face.

"Ahh ... uhh..." He groaned and his fingers curled into my hair, gripping the back of my head.

I pulled my mouth free and pressed his cock between my breasts, massaging him there as a little foreplay. His eyes rolled and I saw it ... that look that told me I had him completely undone.

Makeup sex felt good.

He was more than ready to fuck me, so I told him exactly what I needed.

"Fuck me until I pass out."

It was an exaggeration, but barely. I needed to feel every single second of it.

He raised both my legs and spread them wide, opening me up to him completely. When he pushed inside, it was like breaking through a wall ... deliberate, consuming ... and he whispered against my skin, "You’re still so tight."

That alone sent a shiver straight through me.

He kept fucking me deep and steady, and I kept moaning, feeling every thrust, watching my own breasts bounce with the rhythm he set.

"I want your cum all over me," I breathed.

He pushed harder. Faster. He bent my legs back further and pounded into me like he had a point to prove, and I cried out each time because I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

I came first ... and he followed right behind me. He pulled out quickly and brought himself to my mouth. I opened wide and took him, swallowing what I could while the rest spilled warm across my body.

We were both spent. That had to be the longest we had ever gone.

I was pleased. So was he.

"I could fuck you every single day," Ethan said softly, pressing his lips to mine.

We curled up together, naked and tangled in each other, and drifted off to sleep just like that.

The next morning hit differently. I felt energised ... electrified, even ... and so did Ethan. But I had other plans in motion that only I could follow through on.

I picked up the special tracker and continued hunting Thalia.

I worked off her IP address from the number she had used to contact me. Even if she swapped SIM cards, the IP address remained the same. She was a fool, and her IT wolf was dead ... thanks to my husband ... which meant she had no one left who could tell her otherwise.

Jace’s body had been thrown deep into a river. They wouldn’t find him. By now, there wasn’t much left to find.

I had quietly packed a few supplies from home before leaving that morning. Ethan didn’t know.

The tracker placed Thalia completely off the grid, though still somewhere in Bloodmoon. She had clearly burned or destroyed every device that could be easily traced ... her phone, her credit cards, her laptop. She thought she was invisible.

She wasn’t.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I had come prepared.

I told my boss I needed to step out briefly, then I drove to where the tracker pointed me ... a hotel, tucked away and quiet, exactly the kind of place someone hiding would choose.

I composed myself, walked in, paid for a room, and used the access to move through the building. I already knew her room number.

I knocked.

"Who is there?" she called from inside.

"It’s the plumber, ma’am," I said, pitching my voice completely differently. "I was asked to come check on some irregularities with the pipes in your room."

The door opened.

The moment she saw my face, the colour drained from hers. She lunged to slam the door shut, but I was faster ... I shoved my hand and foot into the gap and pushed with everything I had. She stumbled backwards and fell hard.

She scrambled to her feet and bolted for the bathroom, but fear and adrenaline made her clumsy. I caught her by the back of her collar just as she reached the doorframe and drove my head into hers. She dropped flat onto her stomach.

I turned her over.

The kitchen knives I had tucked inside my jacket were already in my hand ... the same ones I used to cut carrots back home.

"This is for every betrayal," I said, my voice completely calm. "For every ounce of suffering you put me through, bitch."

"Ahh..." she screamed.

I drove the knife into her chest before she could finish it. I stabbed her more times than I counted.

When I finally stood up, I caught my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Blood was splashed across my face in thin, scattered lines.

This was my darkest hour.

Thalia had dragged it out of me herself.