Chapter 23
23
W hen it finally felt safe to leave the cocoon of his body, I tilted my head up and kissed him lightly, feeling the soft brush of his lip ring. “Thank you.”
His lips quirked, and he kissed the tip of my nose before letting me slide down to the bed next to him.
He traced his fingers along my arm like he couldn’t stop touching me. “Are you okay?”
I rolled onto my stomach so I could see him, wondering how to explain what I was feeling. I’d gone from that’s it? to that’s the point of existing . “Kevin supposedly ‘ took my virginity ’…” I put air quotes around the phrase. “But this felt like my first time. It’s the first time I’ve understood why sex inspires art and poetry and wars.”
He gave me one of his smiles I’d never seen before, a soft lift of his lips that was almost shy. “That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, darling.”
Kevin hadn’t taken anything from me when we had sex.
Reaper had.
He’d taken the part of me that could live without him and ground it to dust.
It wasn’t just the sex.
He was patient and giving and called me on every ounce of my bullshit. All I wanted was to stay right here and figure out how to make him feel half as good as he’d made me feel.
“Are you normally into…kinkier sex than that?” I asked, pushing past my embarrassment.
“What do you mean?”
“I guess after all that ”—I gestured vaguely in the direction of the ballroom party—“I expected to be tied up or spanked or something at the very least. You know, if that’s what you’re into, it’s okay if we…” I trailed off, feeling foolish.
“If you want to be tied up, I’ll gladly introduce you to bondage. And goddess knows you could use a good spanking sometimes.” His big hand squeezed my ass gently. “But if you’re asking what I’m into—what my kink is? It’s pleasure. It’s being the one to make you lose control more times than you thought was possible. It’s making someone squirt after they didn’t think they were capable of it or helping someone to discover that an anal orgasm is a whole different beast from a regular one.” My cheeks heated at the casual way he was able to talk about things I’d never even considered. He kissed my glowing cheeks like he could soak in the novelty of my inexperience. “I get off on finding every single way I can wring pleasure from my partner and then reveling in their experience like a goddamn emotional vampire.”
“So that wasn’t…boring for you?”
He huffed a laugh. “Juliet, I almost came in my kilt when you came on my fingers. For the rest of my life, I’ll be beating off thinking about the sound you made when I first got three in there.” He tilted his head back like he was savoring the memory. “I can’t wait for you to attend another one of my parties.”
I looked away. “That might be…challenging.” If I’d gotten away with it tonight, maybe I could pull it off again with better planning. But was it worth the risk to everyone here?
He laced his fingers into mine like he could feel I was worried. “From what I’m told, you’ll be at the Black Rose Auction this year. I host a play party on the third night. You’ll come to me then.”
I wasn’t surprised he’d be attending the secretive auction. I’d only learned about it in recent months, when Kevin informed me I’d be accompanying him—our first major outing after the wedding and honeymoon. Everyone would be staying on the property together.
I bit my tongue, knowing that arguing with him right now was pointless. “Kevin will kill you.”
He blew out a breath. “If he tries anything at the auction, he dies and no one ever finds the body. It’s neutral ground on pain of death.”
“And fucking someone’s wife isn’t viewed as violating that neutrality?”
He caught his lip ring between his teeth and released it. “So long as the lady consents, not in the least. He’s too smart to try any kind of violence there, but it won’t matter because I’ll see to it that he doesn’t find out.”
He brushed his fingers down my spine, and it made me want to purr with contentment.
The sensation unlocked a memory from my childhood. “Have you ever played the game where you draw pictures on each other’s backs and guess what the other person drew? We used to do it in boarding school.”
“You father should really get a refund for princess school. They taught you all manner of nonsense.”
I shoved his shoulder to roll him over. “Shut up. You just know I’m going to win.”
He huffed but groaned with pleasure when I lightly traced a giant circle with rays coming out of it onto the skin of his back.
“It’s a sun,” he mumbled against the pillow.
“Your turn!” I said excitedly.
He rubbed his hands together like he was thinking. Then he drew a tiny circular sort of shape in the center of my back. “This is your clitoris,” he said, kissing the spot he’d drawn before tracing more lines in a crescent. “And these are the perfect plump lips of your tight little cunt.”
I gasped when he traced his drawing with his tongue. I felt every lick between my thighs even though it was my back he was touching. I fisted my hands, already aroused again. “Mmm…you’re not very good at this game. You’re not supposed to tell me what it is.”
He finished adding some anatomical details that made me blush. “Maybe I just like making you feel good.” He kneaded his fingertips into my lower back, eliciting a low moan from my lips.
“Why does every way you touch me feel so damned good? I hope you charge an absolute fortune for your professional services because good god …”
He hesitated, then continued giving me the best massage of my life like it was nothing. “Does it bother you? That I fuck people for money.”
He sounded so serious that I had to think about whether I was missing something. “No. I don’t have any right to tell you who you should sleep with or why.”
His hands worked up the sides of my spine, melting all the tension of the night away. “What if you did? What if you were mine and Kevin had gone to hell? Would it bother you then?”
I reached back to put a hand on his hip, needing to touch him. “A few years ago, I would’ve thought it would bother me. But that was before I’d had to find the place in my head where I can shut off my feelings and have sex with someone out of obligation. I’m guessing your work isn’t always as…tedious as my marital duties can be. But it’s shown me that not all sex is significant to the person having it.”
It was odd to be having this conversation while I was still facing away from him, but in some ways it felt safer.
“What about outside work?” He pressed his thumbs into my lower back, and I made a groaning noise in my throat. “Not all sex is significant to the person having it, but it can be in significant in the best possible way. The guy you were dancing with tonight? Javier’s primary partner will always have his heart. But in other circumstances, I might’ve liked to watch where things could’ve gone if I hadn’t stopped you.”
I bit my lip, so turned on that I was squirming against him now. “Are we negotiating the terms of a hypothetical relationship here?”
“Answer the question.”
“Okay…I wouldn’t mind you being with people outside work. It’s who you are… And I think I might like finding out what ‘ insignificant in a good way’ looks like…and you watching me with someone else. Or maybe…fucking me in front of other people?”
He breathed a laugh against my neck. “I like it when you tell me what you want, darling.”
I nodded and grinned, exhilarated to speak my desires aloud and have them met with enthusiasm. “What’s the deal with your club? Styx mentioned going to their place upstairs. Do they live here too?”
“In a different wing of the house, but yeah. Grim lives in a guest house out back. Ophelia isn’t always here, but she’s got a suite for when she is. It just made sense for everyone to be on-site where I could make sure they were safe and we could all deal with the business.”
They were more like a family than I’d realized. It was an enormous property like King’s, but full of chaos and life instead of surveillance and hired help he treated like furniture.
“And the sex club?” The party had been happening in the ballroom, but I assumed hired escorts weren’t just working out in the open during business operations.
“The lower level,” he said in an exaggerated menacing voice. “I’ll give you the full tour next time you’re here.”
Would there be a next time?
“Who does what in the business?” I asked to distract from the despair I felt at the idea of leaving here to get married.
His smile was tender. “Az and Grim are my partners. We started the club together. Az is our resident tech genius, and he oversees security, Ophelia is my head Mistress and general pain in my ass. Styx is a cam girl, but she’s become a sort of personnel and recruitment manager on top of that. And Grim…is Grim.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “He’s fucking terrifying.”
“If you only knew the half of it. But I love him like a brother. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them all safe.” When I was quiet for too long, wondering whether anyone cared about me like that, he nudged my shoulder. “We could use a business manager, someone whose accounting skills make my dick hard.”
I cupped the dick in question. “Oh, it’s my accounting that does this, huh?”
He bit his lip and nodded, mischief glowing in his eyes.
I laughed, feeling things for him that could put us all in danger. If he’d do anything to keep his people safe, that would have to include staying away from me.
“Why did you trick me that first night?” I looked into his eyes, saw him try to slide his indifferent mask into place only to drop it altogether.
The look on his face was achingly vulnerable. “I didn’t mean to. I found out you were in that room alone, and I had to see you again. But you started acting weird, and I immediately knew that you thought I was King. So I played along, knowing you’d kick me out if I corrected you.”
He sighed heavily, dropping his head. “I caught a glimpse of how it would be for you. The mask you’d have to wear, the way you’d make yourself smaller to be who they wanted you to be. And I couldn’t stand the thought of them erasing the woman I’d met in the boathouse. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I’d make you come so hard, you’d want to run away with me? I’d never done anything so fucking selfish in my life, and I had to stop, or I’d never get another chance with you.”
I kissed his stomach. “So you came to my room that night looking for another chance?”
He laughed. “I came to your room because I couldn’t stay away, but by then your father had gotten to you, and I’d already made a mess of things. Fuck , I wanted you. And I knew you wanted me too. The fucked-up part of me knew if I pushed, you would’ve let me do whatever I wanted. But I didn’t want you to regret it. I needed you to come to me willingly. And you never have.”
My stomach clenched with shame. “I did tonight.”
He blew out a breath. “You had no one else to call.”
I looked into the dark depths of his eyes, struck by the spark he’d referred to. I’d never felt this kind of connection with anyone. “Not then. On the dance floor. I came to you willingly and got on my knees in front of half of society. I came to you tonight. I’d stay with you if I could.”
Styx had escaped and killed her husband when he’d come for her. I had to find a way out that didn’t involve running to Reaper and expecting him to risk everything to protect me.
A dozen emotions swam through the dark pools of his eyes before he said, “Call off the wedding.” He didn’t smile, didn’t blink. “That’s my price for saving you tonight.”
“ Impossible .”
He smirked. “So was getting us out of that clubhouse in one piece.”
I dropped my head, wishing I could do as he said. “I have to marry him now. If I leave him two weeks before the wedding, he’d be a laughingstock no matter what story we spun. I can’t do that to him.”
Because he’d scorch the earth on a quest to destroy everything I love.
Reaper gripped my shoulders gently. “You had to sneak out in the trunk of a fucking car tonight, and you’re telling me you care about his feelings?”
“He’s controlling. But he doesn’t deserve that.” He deserves worse. “I’ll marry him, then wait until the spotlight isn’t shining quite so brightly on us to quietly separate. That way no one gets hurt.”
“I can protect you, Juliet.”
But who’s going to protect you?
I could only shake my head.
He frowned. “A deal’s a deal. That’s my price.” He was deadly serious about this.
“Why?”
He smiled sadly. “I told you…it’s about fucking time someone took care of you.”
I was so caught off guard, all I could do was blink at him in surprise. “I’ll hate you if you force me into this. It makes you just as bad as them.”
His thumb stroking down my jaw was gentle, but the look in his eyes couldn’t have been harder. “I’m willing to live with that.”