Chapter 10
10
Nicole
I nvi leaned with the massive bulk of his upper body against the table so hard, the poor piece of furniture squeaked, its legs sinking into the soft grassy ground half-way.
“I dare you to kiss me,” he rasped.
His otherworldly eyes of vivid green stared at me with the same intensity as on the day we first met. Aside from the lack of facial hair and…well, the lack of human skin, his facial features remained the same too.
When he looked at me like that, I didn’t see a monster. I simply saw the man I had spent a wonderful night with. The man who stood up for my best friend, who worshiped my body like at the altar of a goddess, and who made me feel like a goddess too.
“It doesn’t need to be a dare.” I reached to cup his face, bringing it closer to mine.
Just like the rest of him, his head was larger in this form, but his lips met mine with the same tenderness as before, robbing me of breath just the same. Swaying on my feet, I gripped his shoulder.
He pulled back in concern, supporting me with a hand around my waist.
“Kissing you has never been a chore,” I breathed out. “I always loved it.”
He searched my eyes, looking like he was going to say something, only to just exhale my name at the end.
“Nicole…”
He grabbed me, lifting me over the table to him. A wide sweep of his tail cleared the table from the dishes, sending them to the ground and the food into the creek to the utter delight of the ducks.
“What a waste of food.” I mourned the loss of all the mouth-watering dishes.
“I have something much better here.” He lay me onto the table, licking his lips. “Far, far more delicious.”
I stared at the tip of his tongue as it skimmed his upper lip. In this unearthly form of his, Invi’s tongue was impossibly long and forked, split in two at the end. I drew in a bracing breath, fisting my skirts as he tied his long hair back into a knot, clearly meaning business.
“Relax, my dearest,” he murmured, caressing the side of my face. “I won’t do anything you won’t thoroughly enjoy. Before I start, however, is there any part of me you’d like me to change for you?”
He must’ve sensed my apprehension, but I hated for him to think that I disliked any part of him. His appearance was unusual. Just a couple of days ago, I would’ve found it inconceivable. But now…
“It’s always me on the inside,” he’d said.
Deep inside, his essence never changed, no matter what he looked like on the outside. Understanding it helped me to accept his appearance, whatever it happened to be.
Invi opened the buttons of my dress, kissing my skin as he revealed it.
“No.” I sank my fingers into his hair. “I don't want you to change a thing, Invi. I feel drawn to you, no matter what form you’re in.”
“Ahh.” He smiled, lifting his head. “The good old appeal of a sin. It helps, even despite my frightful looks.”
“You’re not really that frightful , upon a closer look.” I brushed aside a strand of his forest-green hair, revealing more of his handsome face.
Through everything that had happened, I felt a real connection with Invi. Every moment we spent together, I grew closer to him.
Was it wrong? I didn’t know. But with his hand sliding up my thigh and under my skirt, his touch felt more right than ever.
He slid aside my dress, letting the warm breeze stroke my naked breasts. His forked tongue flicked my right nipple. I gasped, arching my back, and he slipped his hand between my legs, finding my most sensitive spot.
“Oh, Invi…” I moaned.
With the tip of my breast between his lips, he just hummed in response. The fork of his tongue nudged my nipple, sending a shudder of arousal through my entire body. Need burned through me, and I thrust my hips into his touch.
“More,” I begged, needing to feel him inside me. “Oh God, please… Fuck me, Invi.”
“Mmm, there is nothing I want more, sweetheart.” He clicked his tongue, roaming his eyes over my exposed chest. “But I’m afraid I’m impossibly big for you. With my shape not under my control today, I’d hurt you, and I’d never forgive myself for putting you in danger like that.”
“How big?” I challenged. “Show me.”
I rose on my elbows, forcing him to lean back a little.
The mighty mortal sin suddenly looked rather flustered. “Do you really want to see them right now?”
“ Them? Is there more than one?” My mouth dropped open. “But…it can’t be. I’ve seen you naked before?—”
“You saw me in my human form. Here, in Purgatory…” he scratched an eyebrow, looking uneasy, “I have two.”
“Two? Two dicks? Really? But how do they even fit down there?” I craned my neck, trying to glimpse his crotch. “Side by side? One over the other? Nested inside each other, like the Russian dolls?”
He grinned at my impatience.
“What a curious little duckling you are,” he murmured so tenderly, my heart ached with longing. “Let me make you come first.”
Taking my chin in his fingers, he tilted my head for a kiss while his hand took its previous position between my thighs.
“Look how wet and needy you are, my dear.” He moved his fingers in circular motion, spreading my arousal over my hot and indeed very needy clit. “This can’t wait another second.”
I tried to protest but couldn’t muster a single word in reply as his deft fingers expertly worked me between my legs. Pleasure rippled through my body, building up into a desperate urge to release.
“Invi, I need you…” I breathed out against his lips. “So, so badly…Please.”
He leaned back, raising the tip of his tail in my line of view.
“May I?” He arched an eyebrow in question, waiting for my permission.
I paused, staring at the rattle on the end of his tail. He had used it to make me come before, but only on the outside so far.
“Do you want to…put it inside me?”
Both of his eyebrows slid up in surprise. Clearly fucking me with his tail was not what his had in mind. He probably just wanted to use it on me as a vibrator again.
Great, now I managed to shock the mortal sin with my perverted ideas.
His expression quickly turned from surprised to intrigued, however. “Is that what you want, my sweet Nic?”
I was in Purgatory, spread out on the Sin of Envy’s dining table with my skirt up and his finger inside me. The rattle on the end of his tail buzzed softly while slowly inching up my thigh. It was way too late for me to act all demure and proper now. The urge to be filled didn’t ease. It pulsed even more persistently.
Blowing out a breath, I went for it. “Yes. I want it.”
An approving rumble vibrated deep in his throat as he slid the rattle further up my thigh. It touched my hot, swollen clit, spiking my pleasure. I whimpered, jerking my hips.
“Oh God…oh God…oh God,” I chanted, blinded by pleasure.
“No God, just me, my sweet, darling girl.” He trailed kisses along my neck then down my chest. His long tongue flicked my hard nipple as he slipped the vibrating rattle inside me.
I stilled when it stretched me, sinking deeper and deeper. The incredible sensation of the gentle vibration against my inner walls and my g-spot made me see stars, rendering me speechless. Invi pressed the pad of his thumb to the bud of my clit while his rattle vibrated harder inside me, setting off my orgasm.
Pleasure exploded through my body, making my thighs shake.
“Beautiful,” Invi murmured, placing a kiss between my breasts. “What a divine picture you present, my dearest.”
I opened my eyes and was met with the view of the white-and-green butterflies playing between the swaying branches of the willow tree. What a serene, beautiful place this was.
Who would’ve believed that a mortal sin lived here?
Who would’ve guessed all the debauchery that had happened here?
Invi moved a strand of hair away from my face. “My dear Nicole, watching you writhe in pleasure brings me the most exquisite joy.”
I stopped short from asking about his own pleasure. Did he care about it at all? For the second time he’d had me undressed and panting. But I was yet to see Invi come. Instead, I pulled my dress closed on my chest and yanked my skirt back down while getting up.
When I accepted his invitation, it had not been in my intentions to come on his hand with his rattle shoved deep inside me. And now that it happened, my feelings for him had muddled even more than before.
With the heat of arousal gone, I tried to remember why having Invi’s hands and tail in me was not a good idea.
“So…” I focused on closing the buttons of my dress. “Are you still planning to have three hundred and fifty souls here tonight? Or will it be just three hundred and forty-nine now, with me added to the count?”
“What count?” He helped me off the table, which was hardly necessary. With its legs having sunk even deeper into the grass and dirt, the table was barely a foot off the ground. “Nic, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you having sex with hundreds of people in one night.” I almost wished he would deny it even as I needed him to be completely honest with me.
“Oh, that…” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
By the tone of his voice, I knew it was the truth, and my heart sank in despair.
“So, it’s true then, Invi? You need to fuck that many to be satisfied?”
No wonder he’d never even bothered with his own orgasm when he was with me. I was just one person, after all. How could one compete with three hundred and fifty?
“Absolutely not,” he protested. “I don’t need hundreds. And it happened just once. One night. A few centuries ago.”
“But it happened. Why?” I tried to understand, I really tried, but it remained behind my human comprehension. “Really, Invi? Three hundred and fifty people at once?”
“Not at once,” he said. “It took me a few hours to please them all. And after about three hundred and three, I was so tired, I didn’t even care about my own pleasure anymore.”
“ Just a few hours?” I laughed sarcastically to mask my hurt. “I mean, I know you have two dicks, but still… Why did you do it?”
He raked his fingers through his hair, teasing out a few long strands from the knot he’d made.
“I learned that Lux had bedded hundreds of thousands of souls over the centuries, and I wished to beat him at that.”
“Is Lux?—”
“Luxuria, the Sin of Lust. He makes it look so effortless. And he seems to enjoy it more than anyone.”
“So, you got jealous?”
“ Envious ,” he corrected with a soft smile. “I calculated that if I had sex with three hundred and fifty souls every night, I would eventually catch up with his number and then beat him. But I lasted just that one night.”
“You quit after just one night? Why?”
“Everything we do here in Purgatory is ultimately for pleasure,” he explained. “Otherwise, why even bother with the existence, right?”
“Um…” I wasn’t sure how to reply to that.
Thankfully, he didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, after that night, I realized that for me, pleasure comes from quality not quantity. Scarcity ultimately makes my joy that much more intense.”
“And ‘scarcity’ for you would be like what? A dozen instead of three hundred?”
“One, Nic. Just one. All I want is you. As often as you’ll have me.”
With a finger under my chin, he lifted my face to his and paused just long enough for me to protest, but I didn’t. I let him kiss me.
“Do you believe me?” he asked, searching my eyes after the kiss. “Who told you about that night?”
“Kindness. Only she said you did it every night, not just once. She also said you were a liar and a murderer. And…well, many other bad things.”
He winced as if having bitten into a lemon. “Please don’t believe everything Kindness says. She lies a lot. In fact, it’s safe to assume that everything Kindness says is either partially or completely untrue.”
“How can she lie? She’s a virtue.”
“Do you think the virtues are infallible? That they can’t lie?”
“Maybe they can. But they shouldn’t, should they?”
“My sisters are queens of hypocrisy, but they often act like they have no faults. They would commit the gravest of atrocities as long as they can justify it somehow that it’s necessary for a greater good. Kindness believes that lying is perfectly acceptable as long as it’s done with the best intentions. She is the cause of most white lies and often of lying by omission too.” He looked at me carefully. “Did you, by any chance, make Kindness believe that her badmouthing me would make you feel better?”
I thought back to my conversation with the virtue.
“I’m afraid I did…” I admitted with a pang of guilt.
“Were you that angry with me, sweetheart?”
It wasn’t the anger, but my desperate attempt to fight my attraction to him. It scared me how easy it was for me to like him. Even back when I was afraid of him, I still felt attracted to him.
“I hoped to discover something terrible about you,” I explained, avoiding his eyes. “Something that would help me not like you as much as I did.”
“Well, Kindness is always happy to help.” He nodded somberly. “But did her lies actually help? Do you like me less now?”
“Well, I still like you enough to come here and…to let you make me come .” I tilted my head with a tiny smile.
He gave me that look of warm adoration that made me weak in my knees and melted my heart in response.
“Nic, dearest…” He brushed my hair aside, then gently circled the dimple on my left cheek with his finger. “Please give me the chance to win your heart.”
“How are you planning to do it?”
“I deeply believe that all I need is time. I have to regain your trust, to prove that I’m worthy of your affection, but I can’t do that with all my brothers already lining up to court you.”
“Nobody is courting me,” I laughed, confused about how he’d come up with that.
“Didn’t Gul call on you last afternoon, bringing his stupid cannelloni as a courting gift?” he growled low.
“Gul brought the cannelloni, yes, but I didn’t get to meet him. I was in the kitchen, and Kindness didn’t let him in.”
My words didn’t seem to make him feel any better.
“Mother must be keeping them at bay for now,” he said gravely. “She wants us to compete in a race for the prize of your affection.”
A tendril of worry tightened around my chest.
“What does that even mean?” I frowned. “How can a personal feeling like affection work as a prize?”
“You’d be the actual prize, my dear—you and the chance to earn your affection afterwards as Mother informed me this morning in a second visit since…well, since the day I started living on my own. Mother would lift the wards around the teahouse, and the winner of the race would get the honor to host you in his place.”
“But it isn’t right. It can’t be legal to use a person as a prize in a game. Why didn’t Pandora talk to me first? I’m not some trophy to be won.” I pursed my lips in indignation and clenched my fists tightly, but fear slithered inside me already.
Here in Purgatory, I was but a mere human among the mighty, supernatural beings. How could I stop them from doing whatever they wished with me?
“This race can’t happen,” I said, hating how small my voice sounded.
“Nic…” He hugged me to his chest, and I leaned against it for support, my heart thundering inside my ribcage as if trying to leap out and run. “No matter what, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“Okay,” I said, with little faith in his words because they sounded too much like an actual white lie right now, just to make me feel better.
“If I win the race—and trust me that I will win it, come hell or high water—you’ll stay with me until Avar is back,” he murmured soothingly, stroking my back. “I’ll get the transcendence potion from him?—”
“Will you let me go back?” I looked up to see his face.
“Sweetheart, I’ll do everything to make you happy. If you want to return to your world, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“Thank you.” Hope eased my worry a little. I wanted to trust him so badly, but I still wasn't sure if I should.
“I’ll do more than that, dearest. Avar has a device that can transport you back to the time when I took you from. I know it’s important to you. You’ll go back to that Sunday morning and won’t miss the finals of your cake decorating challenge.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Is something like that even possible? Also, isn’t Avar mad at you for taking his ring?”
“I’ll make it possible, sweetheart. You don’t have to worry about any of it. I’ve messed it up badly between us. Let me fix it. Please give me a chance to make up for what I’ve done.”
“But for all of that to happen, you’ll need to win that race first.”
He nodded. “After I win, no one will ever contest my right to claim you. I’ll be able to do whatever I want, and all I want is to make you happy.”
“But what if you lose?” Blood rushed from my extremities, leaving my hands cold and trembling. “What will they do to me then?”
“I won’t lose,” he said with conviction. “I’m faster than most people know. I excel in competitions, and no one has the motivation that I have to win this.” He cradled me to his chest, placing a kiss on my temple. “I’m the Sin of Envy, sweetheart. Rivalry and competition are deeply rooted in my very essence, and winning is the only goal I’ve ever known. Please, Nic.” He cupped my face, tilting my head back to look deep into my eyes, “Please, let me win you.”