Chapter 16 #4
Rhyden walked in front of her. She tried to silence her footsteps on the stairs, thinking of the others circling the building’s outskirts with gasoline before they’d all meet and light it up.
It was actually smart for Rhyden to go below. He didn’t need a lighter and gasoline to start a fire. He was the fire.
The light of the tubes was brighter in the utter darkness. Her watch went dead right as the glow grew, making her eyes water, her attention wavering as her feet started to go, and she just wanted…
Rhyden grabbed her shoulder, snapping her out of it. "I don’t think so. Stick by me. You’re like a goddamned moth."
"Sorry." Rin’s voice was light. "I forgot how they made me feel."
"They won’t be making you feel anything in a few minutes." He stared at the line of tubes. Some were gone, as if they’d been moved, only dark circles on the floor marking that something had once stood there. "Sure hope this shit doesn’t explode. Think it’s fireproof?"
Rhyden’s hand on her arm was like a distant tether, slipping, slipping. She saw a shadow coil around a glowing tube, a hand pressing through dimensions. Her fingers twitched. "No, it’s not," she said, breathless. "It’s safe." She felt it in her Soul.
Rhyden’s body moved before hers, covering the blue glow. "Snap out of it, Vesperin."
She stared at the thinner rays haloing his form. She reached out to touch, skimming her fingertips over the air around him. "It’s pretty."
Rhyden gripped her cheek roughly. She still didn’t look at him. She heard him curse, then—
His lips pressed to hers. His fangs pricked her lower lip, and she forgot all about the blue lights and their pull.
Rhyden kissed her like he was starved.
Something warm and metallic dripped down her chin. Her fingers curled into his leather jacket.
She pulled away, bottom lip stinging. She tasted iron on her tongue. Saw red on his white fangs. He licked his lips and smirked.
"Why did you kiss me?" she asked hoarsely.
"You need a distraction. You’re distracted, aren’t you?" His voice was rough, pupils blown with lust.
She reached up to touch her lips. They tingled from his kiss.
That unnatural, bone-deep thrum called to her.
Her eyes were still open in shock as Rhyden kissed her again. It was even more punishing and demanding.
Rhyden was breathing heavily. "Don’t tell me I’ll have to keep kissing you, wife."
"No, I don’t think so," she said absently, voice light as air.
"That was facetious. But I guess…" Rhyden’s fingers teased the stray pieces of her hair around her temples and cheeks. He wrapped his index finger around one. The corner of her eye burned as she tried to watch as he twisted and twisted, then he pulled. The pain awoke her.
A little, at least.
"Ow." Rin shook her head, trying to dislodge his touch.
He smiled, revealing his sharp fangs. Somehow, she’d found herself backed against a wall. He was caging her in, and the cool concrete pressed against her spine. The thin buckles of her holster pressed into her ribs uncomfortably. That, too, helped to break through the daze of want.
Only to be replaced by a new sort of want, as Rhyden folded his upper half over hers, his hands by her head as his hips pressed into her, making her thighs spread.
His knee found its way against her core.
He used his knee to lift her until the tips of her boots barely brushed the ground.
He was so strong, he could keep her up with only that singular point of contact.
Her hands rose, trying to land on his shoulders, but the angle was off—he was too tall—and so they fell to his chest.
Rhyden’s lips grazed hers. "We have work to do, don’t we?
We can’t afford any distractions, wandering eyes, or feet that take you away from me.
" His hand landed on her shoulder, slipping down to the beginning swell of her small breasts.
She arched up into the touch. His palm covered her breast entirely.
Her skull thunked against the wall, toes curling in her boots.
"So this is just… me helping the mission. Is that fucking right, wife? Won’t this help our mission—my hands on you? "
She nodded furiously, just wanting him to continue touching her.
But his hand pulled away. "The old me would’ve locked you in this building and set it on fire."
"Why don’t you?" She reached for his wrist, her small fingers barely wrapping around it as she tried to tug his hand back to where it was.
"Because now all I want to do is set everything ablaze and fuck you right in the middle of it. You’d look good in red. Maybe even better if it was your blood too." He leaned his head down, fangs grazing over the side of her neck, but the lines of his body were taut with control.
The thrill of it all, combined with the pull of the lights, made her feel split in two. Her core clenched as she remembered how she’d left him so long ago. Unsatisfied. He’d nearly split her in two, then.
Suddenly, she was desperate.
"Do it—not the blood thing," she quickly amended. "But light it all up." Her lashes grazed her cheeks as her lids fluttered in embarrassment. "Fuck me in the flames."
Fire bloomed behind him, delicate flames licking at the walls like the growing thing in her core, begging to be stoked.
She held her breath, waiting for his fire to catch on the tubes, fumes heating, burning, exploding. Nothing happened.
Rhyden caught her with his knee when she slipped, pushing her harder against the wall.
She wanted to rile him up, make him remember what she’d done, entice him to hold her a little harder. "You told me to run. I did. I have been running from you since that day, Rhyden." She met his stare. "Now you have me. What are you going to do about it?"
"Fuck, I should’ve chased you down and tied you up myself that day. I wouldn’t have even needed to drug you. Left you pinned to the window, naked. The whole city could’ve seen you. Going to leave me hard and aching this time?"
"M-maybe. Depends on whether we’re found here. This is risky."
"Remember what I said to your doctor? The thrill of danger makes me hard." The words were a cool whisper slithering in the shell of her ear.
"I remember."
Rhyden laughed at the high sound of her voice.
"Let’s see if the thrill makes you wet." With that, his hand shoved beneath the waistband of her pants, diving beneath her panties.
His knuckles grazed the lace, and he hummed.
When his long fingers parted her and swept up the line of her core, she shuddered.
He made a deep sound of masculine pleasure. "It does."
She tried to widen her legs and let him in more. He didn’t let her.
"You’re mine, wife." His lips twisted into almost a snarl as he spat, "For better or for fucking worse."
He kissed her, his fingers still between her legs, diving into her core with punishing brutality.
He didn’t give her time to breathe. The fire was suffocating—or maybe that was just him.
The air began to smell like crackling embers.
She was so wrapped up in him, she forgot about the pull of the lights—what he’d intended, she realized.
His words stirred a memory, but it was buried too deep—under lives upon lives. Her head pounded like her heart, like her core as his fingers pushed up inside her, stretching her.
His knuckle pressed against that spot that made her see Stars, all while his fingers moved inside her. A gasp pushed out of her lips, echoing into the concrete room.
He released her waist as he undid his belt, taking himself in his hand. She stared at the silver piercings stacked up his length.
He tapped one, the rings on his fingers gleaming like the metal in him. "You didn’t make it past this one." His finger ran down the length until he stopped at the base, a groan leaving him. "Think you can take up to here?"
She rolled her lower lip between her teeth, nodding even though she wasn’t sure.
"Good." Rhyden tapped beneath her chin. "Because you don’t get a fucking choice. You didn’t give me one."
He rolled down her pants beneath her hips, and it constrained her, making her thighs quiver as she struggled to keep them open.
Rhyden kept her head lifted with his hand on her cheek. His fingers left her empty, then she felt something larger, hotter press against her core—like the fire burning behind him.
He didn’t let her look down.
Rin breathed heavily, feeling sweat bead at her temples, heat shiver over the exposed space between her legs.
"Hold your breath," Rhyden demanded of her. Then she felt him begin to push up inside her—
In one brutal thrust.
It punched the breath out of her lungs, made the beats of her heart ratchet up.
She felt each piercing scrape against her enticingly. It was almost too much.
Rhyden pushed past her tense muscles, giving her no choice but to accommodate him inside her.
"I told you to take a breath." He leaned down, lips pressing against hers, open-mouthed. Not a kiss, but it was like he wanted to be the hot, short breath in her lungs. His hand moved until he loosely gripped her neck. It made her eyes go wide. Would he—
He did.
Rhyden squeezed her neck, cutting off her remaining air. The cool piercings warmed from friction as he pulled out. Then he pushed back inside her brutally, making her head swim. She couldn’t breathe.
The fire burned hotter, swelling around them.
She never felt its heat, just the scorching sort of pleasure from being taken so thoroughly.
Without breath in her lungs, she found her upper half seizing in desperation, jolting from his firm thrusts and unnatural strength as he kept her pinned to the wall.
His grip loosened, and she dragged in blessed air, hot from the growing flames.
"Rhyden," she gasped.
"Do you like feeling powerless?" he asked her, squeezing her neck. Would he leave bruises? "Do you like being fucking breathless because of me?"
"I do."