59. Bastian #2
That wouldn’t do. And neither would this restricted view.
I was denying myself some things, but not that.
My shadows brought over the mirror from beside the armoire, and I bit back a moan at the full sight of her. Knees planted either side of mine. Thighs open so I could see a hint of her pink slickness. Heaving breasts begging to be held.
I caught myself before I obeyed that instinct, and let myself squeeze her thigh instead. Still, it was a reminder of how dangerous a game we were playing.
“Fuck. Don’t you look incredible?”
In the mirror, her need-hazed eyes met mine, eyebrows peaking above them. She didn’t understand that I expected an answer. Though I wondered if the words of men like Langdon who would rather she only looked at cake instead of eating it made it hard for her to reply. We could build to that.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She tilted her head and met my gaze directly instead of through the mirror. “You’ve been drinking.”
I scoffed and touched my nose to hers. “I haven’t drunk that much.
Just enough to make myself weak, not to blur what I truly want.
Now”—with the arm wrapped around her waist, I pulled her tighter to me—“give me all of you.” She gave a delightful little huff of surprise as I took her weight.
“I can hold you just fine,” I murmured in her ear and parted my knees just enough to leave her pussy over the gap.
And then I set my shadows to work.
I let them have her tits first, kneading and cupping them as I soaked up the way that made her back arch. When they slid around her nipples and squeezed, she moaned, and I soaked that up too.
This grip was too tempting, too risky. If I moved my hand just a little, I’d be pinching her tight nipples, and then I’d lose all semblance of control.
Instead, I guided her arms behind her back and held her wrists with one hand.
The other hand I fisted in her hair and tilted her head back, just enough that I could meet her hooded gaze in the mirror and see her parted lips but still graze the point of my canine down her leaping pulse.
Then she said the word I’d been waiting for.
“Please.”
I watched in the mirror as she arched and spread her legs, making my pulse roar, urging me on even as the warning voice shouted in alarm.
But I was in control.
So, like I wasn’t one slip away from yanking my trousers open and driving into her, I smirked and murmured against her ear. “Please, what ?”
“Please touch me there , I need…” She twisted her wrists in my grip, but I was only letting go if she asked me to stop.
“What is it you need, my little ember?”
She made a little whining sound as I had my shadows form a hand and slide down her belly at a speed I knew would feel agonisingly slow. “I want you to touch me. To make me come.”
I teased the edge of the auburn hair over her mound. “You want to burn, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
I let the hand dissolve into tendrils and sent them between her legs.
Her head fell back against my grip as her breath eased out.
I didn’t need to feel to know she was slick and wet—I could see it glistening over the shadows as they teased her.
She tensed, trying to press into their touch so the tease would end and she could get what she wanted.
But that wasn’t the game we were playing today.
With a sound of gentle admonishment, I sent more shadows around her thighs and gripped her in place. The sight of their darkness squeezing her gave me an even better idea.
“Since you cannot restrain yourself…” I bit her ear, making her jolt as shadows snaked around her, criss-crossing her stomach and between her tits. They pulled her taut, making her soft flesh spill between their cords. My chest tightened on the verge of pain. “There. Stunning, aren’t you?”
“I don’t…” She frowned at me in the mirror.
“Look at yourself, Katherine. Look .”
Arched and spread, bound and spellbinding with the lick of my shadows between her legs. How could she see anything but beauty?
“Do you see?” I whispered against her flesh.
“You make me beautiful.”
“No, love. You do that all yourself. It is simply who you are. All those facets of you coming together to make a brilliant gem. I’ve done nothing but give you a setting.” I squeezed with the shadows binding her, grinning a little at my own metaphor. “It’s you. You are beautiful. Do you see?”
She watched for a long while as I told my shadows to tease closer and closer to her clit. Her cheeks deepened to that rich pink shade I adored, and her chest heaved against the bindings.
Just as I thought she’d forgotten my question, she answered. “I do. I see myself. Please, I need you to fuck me just as beautifully.”
Stars above, she couldn’t touch me, but she didn’t need to when she could drive me to insanity with her words.
I was meant to be setting her alight, but it was me who burned as my shadows coiled around her tight bud and she pulled taut against me, a bow drawn to full extension.
“Come for me, ember. Let’s burn this whole world and build a new one.”
Eyebrows peaked, breath snatched and fast, she trembled like she might snap.
And then she did.
Pressed into me, she cried out, every part of her body straining on the bindings and my hold, like she could break free of the grip of the very world and all its inconvenient truths with the force of her will.
“So perfect,” I murmured as she panted and sagged against me. “I want to see that again.”
Without relenting the circling of her clit, I drew more shadows into solidity and slid the form along her. I didn’t even try to pretend it wasn’t meant to be my length made of pure darkness. If I couldn’t have her, I could at least imagine it.
I pulled a smaller tendril through her wetness and pressed it against her back passage. “Do you want this?”
“Yes.”
“And this?” I positioned the shadow cock at her slick entrance. “At the same time?”
She nodded, hair yanking in my grip.
“So bold. That’s the flame I remember. Go on, then. Take what you want.” I eased my grip just enough that she could lower herself.
My dick strained as I watched her sink onto my shadows with a breathless moan.
Bit by bit, the shadow cock disappeared, until just shy of two inches remained and the smaller extension in her back passage held still. I only wanted her to feel the fullness this first time.
Panting, thighs trembling as she held her weight up, she leant back on me.
“Do you think you can take it all, love?”
“I don’t… I don’t know…” Her gaze darted down in the mirror and the moment she saw my shadows inside her, her eyebrows peaked and she made a wordless sound. Eyelids fluttering, she gave a small nod. “Maybe?”
“I think you can.” I slid the shadows out, letting her lift her head a little so she could keep them in sight. “Will you try for me?”
Her throat bobbed and she nodded.
She eased onto me—no, onto my shadows, as I reminded myself with gritted teeth and the ache of my raging hard cock. They rose, meeting her efforts until they disappeared entirely.
“That’s it, my perfect one.”
As she lifted herself again and rode my shadows’ length, it made my head spin.
I could have this. Have her.
The wild panic of that seized me, making my pulse spike. I could have what I wanted.
The distraction loosened my shadow grip on her thighs, giving her more movement, which she took full advantage of. Hips rocking, she went from tip to base again and again.
She whimpered as I reminded the shadows around her clit of their task: making her come completely undone.
“My sweet ember takes it all so well, doesn’t she?” I didn’t know what I was saying anymore. I was drunk. A little on the brandy; mostly on her.
On her scent. On how close she was. On how very near I was to all I wanted.
So while all my willpower occupied itself with keeping my hands on her wrists and hair, I sat here weak and foolish, spilling nonsense praise into her.
And I didn’t even care.
Not with the sight of her tits bouncing with every thrust. Not with her pussy dripping for me. Not with the rising cries telling me exactly how close she was to another climax.
I drove into her, chasing that for her.
Not me. Not me , as the tight frustration low in my spine reminded me.
This didn’t count, I told the part of me that cared. If it was my shadows touching her, making love to her, wrenching such sweet music from her lips and the little wet sounds, it didn’t count.
If I was doing it for her, to make up for all her husband and her country had taken from her, to make up for my own failings, and if I didn’t come, it didn’t count.
I told myself all that.
But it was a lie.
Fae couldn’t speak them out loud, but Stars above, could we lie to ourselves.
It counted.
And I took pleasure from it, even if I didn’t get to drive my cock into her. Her pleasure was mine, and each sound, each writhing movement, each trembling orgasm was pure joy in my nerves.
Even as I drove her to a third and fourth, I knew— knew this was a prelude to doing it for real, with my body and not only with my shadows.
I’d known since first spotting her in that maze, her skin flushed in the darkness, her body taut with fixed attention. I’d known that I needed to have her and one night would.
Just not this false night, with the curtains drawn and the sun outside.
After the fifth shuddering time I broke her apart, she sagged completely, putting no resistance against the bindings or my hold, and I knew she’d taken enough.
“There,” I murmured against her ear, taking in the sight of her sweat-slicked body and rosy cheeks. I caught her as the bindings faded out of existence, leaving pink marks on her soft skin.
I held her to my chest until she stirred.
“Am I dead?” Her eyelids fluttered as she touched her cheek. “Not complaining if I am, just… want to be sure.”
I caught her fingers—her unmarked fingers—and kissed the tips, even if it did break my own rules. “Not dead. And look.” I held out her hand—only her nails were purple.
She huffed a soft laugh, turning her hand over. “You’ve exhausted even my magic.”
Chuckling, I rose and carried her to the bathroom, then to bed. My shadows brought over her discarded nightgown, and I tried not to watch as she slipped it back on. Tried and failed.
“Any…” She swallowed and licked her lips as I pulled off my shirt.
The trousers were staying on. I didn’t have that much self-control.
She cleared her throat and started again. “Any regrets?”
I stroked her hair to see if my instincts pulled away. But even that voice that called me an oathbreaker was silent. Perhaps it approved of me skirting the rules.
The candles winked out one by one, smothered by my shadows, but before the last of the light faded, I gave her a smile. “No regrets.”