Chapter Sixteen #2
Something moves in the corner of my eye, and I glance over to find Kolfina still nearby.
She looks as flustered as I feel, her usually pale cheeks now painted a lovely rose-red that carries down her throat and blooms across her breasts.
Her fingers tangle in the skirts of her dress, and though I do not think she needs to, she is gasping for air as if she had been the one kissed senseless.
“Kolfina?”
Her eyes snap up to mine, that blush only growing darker against her skin. I cannot read the emotion in her wide eyes, cannot see what she is thinking, but I know what I want. I share a glance with Azizi, just to make sure, and she offers me a smile that soothes the nerves buzzing in my fingertips.
“You do not have to join us,” I say quietly as I turn to Kolfina once more.
Excitement wars with uncertainty in my chest, but I reach out a hand and cradle it around her cheek—feeling nothing but a vibrant chill kissing my palm, like frost promising the coming of winter.
She tips into the false-touch, lips parting as she watches me.
“I know you cannot… participate, in the traditional sense, but I—we—would be happy to have you with us. If you wanted to.”
She looks unsure, her lips parting a few times as if trying to speak, only for petals to gather behind her teeth—soft pinks and purples and yellows drenched in seawater. She closes her mouth again, glances between the two of us, and then gives a tiny, hesitant nod.
"Come then, darlings," Azizi says, holding out a hand in our direction with patient fondness.
And we follow without hesitation, allowing the Devil to guide us up those stairs and into damnation.
There are very few places in the chateau that I have so far not been allowed: Azizi’s studio, her bedroom, and the room directly next to it.
So stepping over the threshold into her private chambers is like being given a gift I did not know I’d asked for, and I find myself fascinated by the dark drapings around her bed and the various art pieces decorating every surface of the room.
Kolfina does not look so surprised by the location, though such is the nature of ghosts, I suppose. I doubt there is anywhere here that she cannot go, and I do not see Azizi barring her from a place that was once her home as well.
Long fingers brush the length of my back as Azizi circles me, her lips trailing up my ear and across my cheek, distracting me from my observations of a rather erotic painting hung on the wall opposite the bed.
I lean into the touch, trying to steal a kiss when she draws near enough, only to find myself stumbling once more over the lack of her.
It takes me a moment to register what’s happened, to blink and find her sat at the edge of the bed with one leg crossed over the other, leaning back in a way that draws attention to the enticing curve of her body.
“Tsk, stay there,” she reprimands when I take a stumbling step forward, a playful smirk on her lips when I comply.
She glances instead at Kolfina, patting a hand on the bed beside her.
“Come, petal. I want you to sit here and watch. And if you feel uncomfortable or wish to leave, you do so, understood? We will not be upset.”
Kolfina’s steps are more hesitant than mine were, but she does as she is bid and places herself delicately atop the bed, her skirts pooling around her like her own little puddle of sky.
The duvet does not shift, the bed does not sink, but Azizi rewards her with a proud smile regardless, before turning her gaze back to me.
“Tell me, Theodore, what it is you want.”
“You.” I don’t let myself think, don’t try and silence the word as it tumbles out of me.
Her lips twitch, and I take a small step forward, that fear starting to creep back into my fingertips, my wrists, my arms. I am so close to something beautiful, something priceless, in the two of them, and only a layer of fabric away from possibly losing them both for good. “I want you, both of you, but—”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, unable to force the rest of the words out.
I have never told anyone before. I have never needed to tell anyone before. The few people I found pleasure in when I visited the city didn't care what I looked like so long as we both got what we wanted. And Louis has known me my whole life, so my body has always been something natural between us.
But Azizi and Kolfina are different, and I am terrified of losing whatever this is between us before it has a chance to grow.
"But?" Azizi raises her brow at me, patient, yet expectant. Beside her, Kolfina looks confused, a worried pinch to her brow.
"I told you I am not what you think I am. I—" I pause when my voice trembles, and I clutch at my shirt with shaking hands. "I have lied to you and deceived you, and I do not wish for you to be angry with me."
Recognition flitters through Azizi’s eyes, followed close behind with a soft fondness that I have only ever seen on my father's wrinkled face.
She reaches for me, drawing me in between her legs.
Her hands settle on my hips, fingertips brushing beneath the hem of my shirt but going no further than the small strip of skin above my trousers.
"My darling Theodore, you've nothing to be worried about with me."
Rubies sparkle in the dark chestnut of her eyes, and I swear I see freckles of gold interspersed between them.
She leans closer still, palms finding my thin waist, fingers just barely edging the fabric of my bindings.
The expression on her face does not change, and something eases in my bones when she presses her lips to the center of my chest.
I suck in a breath, hunching my shoulders as if to hide the lumps beneath my wraps, but Azizi tuts at me again, and her grip tightens around my waist.
"You are perfect, Theodore," she tells me, her soft accent colouring my name.
My name.
Not Theodora. Not Dora. Not even Theo, which I shortened in an attempt to compromise.
Theodore.
"I have a love of all people, of all bodies," she continues with another kiss, this time between my collarbones as she stands.
Her hands slide with her, cresting over my wraps, over my breasts, until they lift my shirt over my head completely and toss it to the side.
"Just because your body is different from expected, it does not mean I will enjoy it any less. "
For a moment, I cannot remember how to breathe.
Cannot tell if my heart is still beating or my blood still pumping.
All I know is Azizi and the warm care of her touch as she shucks me of the rest of my clothes, hesitating only on the cotton bandages wrapped tightly around my chest. Waiting for permission.
No one has ever asked for that before.
I nod, and by the time she has me completely bare, that age-old fear has simmered to something silly and small in the back of my mind.
Azizi looks at me like she wishes to devour me, all of me. Like she does not care about my breasts or my cunt, like it does not matter in the least when she circles around me to press up against my back, hands settling on my hips as she puts me on display for the other woman in the room.
Though Azizi did not look surprised upon seeing me, Kolfina does.
Not in a bad way, I do not think, but it’s clear I’m not quite what she expected.
Still, she does not look disappointed, her cheeks once again darkening to that lovely rose as she presses her bottom lip hard between her teeth.
I find my own face heating up at the sight of her shy interest, unused to being seen so clearly and still being desired.
"You are perfect, Theodore,” Azizi says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Handsome, beautiful, whichever you'd like to hear.
I will say it over and over again." She nips at my jaw, turns my face to hers and kisses my lips when she finds them.
"But you need only say the word and I will stop, the both of you.
Anytime, you understand? Should I say or do anything you dislike, you will tell me. Yes?"
I cannot imagine her doing anything I might dislike, but I nod anyway, whispering a quiet "yes" in the space between our lips.
"Good boy."
For a second, I am convinced I have disappeared entirely. Melted like candlewax across the wood floor beneath me. If not for the sound that tears through me in response—high-pitched and crackling—I might have been able to convince myself I did not exist at all.
Heat bursts across my cheeks and down my chest when Azizi grins at me, the predator back to prowl beneath her skin.
"Oh, now that is interesting." She takes my hand, pulling me forward and arranging me how she likes.
When she is satisfied, I am leant up against the headboard with Azizi perched like a queen in my lap, her chemise discarded somewhere on the floor with my clothes, and her hair tied with a crimson ribbon at the base of her neck.
God forgive me. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. My mouth waters with the need to sink my teeth into the dark gold of her skin, the overwhelming desire to leave my mark there for only us to see burning through me.
Her breasts fit perfectly in my hands when I draw the courage to touch her, and though she is thin, it is not in the sickly way that I am. She has the waist of an athlete, the thighs that rest atop mine muscled but lean.
She is all animal—a jungle cat sleek enough to hide in the shadows of the trees and powerful enough to break bones with a snap of its jaw. A part of me dearly wishes for her to break me.
"Go on," she whispers, tucking my unruly hair behind my ears. "Take what you want, Theodore. Anything you want, I shall give it to you."
I want everything.