Chapter 27 #2
“Of course he is,” I said on a bitter laugh, turning to face her from across the room.
“But, let me guess – he doesn’t have all of the information just yet?
He’s really close to figuring out where the man you wish to kill is hiding but it will take a little longer.
And in the meantime if you can just hang around here and play wife, suck his cock and thank him for the pretty crown he lets you wear while doing it, then that’s all fine isn’t it?
It’s all worth the price so long as it gets you what you want.
Eventually. Whenever he can manage it. Just… not yet.”
Vesper scowled at me, her own fury rising with every taunt, every accusation, every truth. But she wouldn’t back down, so of course she exploded instead.
“What’s the problem, Bastian?!” she yelled. “Did you think that maybe somewhere, deep down among the messed up shit we both grew up in there was a connection we’d forged which might end up in marriage one day? Be real. You’re a Stonebreaker and I’m–”
“Forgetting that I own your death, princess,” I growled, the title holding so much scorn it dripped from my tongue like acid.
“And you can have it. Sooner than either of us thought, I’ll be claiming Alestro Sharbone’s head and you can have mine in turn.
What was it you told me? You were looking forward to snapping my pretty neck one day?
Well me too, Bastian. I wake up every morning hungering for the day when my constant suffering in this infinite grief will end.
So don’t go thinking I’ll try to escape our bargain, because I’ll run willingly into your murderous hands just as soon as I can. ”
She took something from the pocket of her gown and hurled it at me before turning and unlocking the door once more, slamming it behind her so hard that the walls rattled with the shock of it.
I turned, meaning to throw my window wide and leap from it in Dragon form, but my boot struck the package she’d thrown at me and I looked down at the deck of hand-painted tarot cards in surprise.
The edges were gilded in real gold leaf, their backs painted with small leaves and flowers.
This deck was old, rare…incredibly valuable.
I could feel the power of it recharging my magic with only the toe of my boot touching it.
I dropped to one knee and flipped the deck over, the cards parting as I did so to reveal a single card.
The Tower stared back at me with wicked malice. Destruction, chaos. My life embodied.
I could still hear her footsteps on the stairs as she tore away from me, each one like the stab of a dagger to my chest.
I was doing it again. Destroying everything in my path.
I ran for the door and ripped it wide, vines pouring from my fists and tearing after her.
I caught her in my tethers and she fought back, air magic howling up the stairs and knocking me off balance.
But I dug my heels in and pulled, dragging her back to me, refusing to let her run.
Because she was all I had in this world. And I couldn’t simply let her go.
I caught her as my vines hurled her back into the room. Her elbow slammed into my chin with such force that I released her again just as fast and she landed on her feet, whirling on me furiously.
“You can’t just–”
“I can.” I took her face between my hands and kissed her ruinous mouth before she could bend her tongue around more poisonous words.
She didn’t mean them anyway. Or maybe she did and I just didn’t fucking care.
Because nothing in this place meant a thing to me aside from her, and I was done pretending that wasn’t the case.
Her lips parted for my tongue and I kissed her so hard I stole the breath from her lungs, my hands pushing into the pale pink strands of her hair as I pulled her closer and refused to let go.
Vesper’s hands curled into the front of my shirt and she tugged me closer still, her body pressing to mine, her nipples hard through the thin fabric of her dress.
Our kiss was devastating, annihilating, the death of all that was and might have been. The birth of something lethal, which was bound to end in the total demise of us both. But she was the only thing in this world which I desired and I refused to deny myself her any longer.
I tugged at the neck of her dress and dropped to my knees, my mouth roaming down her throat as I went, then over her collarbone and finally to the curve of her breast. I pulled harder and the fabric relented, freeing the fullness of her breast to me so that I could seize her nipple with my mouth.
She moaned my name into the emptiness of my bed chamber and I relished in the way it echoed from the walls.
I didn’t care what claim any other man had made on her or whose wife she was supposed to be. She was mine. I would make it so this night and every other. And I’d fight for the right to keep that as the truth so long as I had breath in my lungs.
Vesper tugged on my shirt hard enough to tear it, her hands cold against my shoulders as she explored my body with rough passion.
I kept pulling at her dress, my mouth moving down with the fabric and when it finally pooled at her feet, I leaned back to gaze up her exquisitely bared body as she stood before me in only her undergarments, stockings and heeled shoes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her hands in my hair, her expression full of lust.
“Because I’m going to devour every inch of you and I’m simply deciding where to start.”
“In that case, I can help you make your decision.” She raised her foot, placing her shoe against my chest and smiling down at me like the predator she was. “Take that off.”
I gripped her ankle tightly but instead of falling into line and doing as she’d demanded, I ran my other hand up the back of her leg, my callouses catching against the smoothness of her stockings.
I forced myself to go slowly, worshipping the feel of her skin against mine, watching her as the anticipation of where this climb might end filled her grey eyes.
I reached the top of her stocking and curled my fingers into the fabric, rolling it down and shifting closer to her at the same time, forcing her knee to bend until I could turn my head and brush my teeth across the soft skin I’d exposed.
Vesper cursed, leaning back, her grip on my hair pulling tight. I pushed her ankle, forcing it up and over my shoulder while running my mouth up the inside of her thigh until I met with the fabric of her undergarments.
I kissed her through them, the material drenched with the taste of her desire and her cry of pleasure echoing from the vaulted ceiling.
“I could get used to that sound,” I said into the wetness of her cunt and she bucked against me, trying to back up as the vibrations of my deep voice sent a message straight to her core.
I took hold of her other leg, gripping her tightly as I lifted her off of her tiptoes where she’d been precariously balancing to claim this pleasure from me.
But I didn’t want her to be worrying about falling.
I wanted her to ride my face while I fucked her with my tongue and made her scream my name until she was hoarse.
Vesper’s thighs tightened around my jaw, her ankles locking at my back as I took hold of her ass with both hands and buried my face against her wetness.
I tugged on her undergarments with my teeth, taunting her with what was to come, teasing her with a lap of my tongue along their seam which just managed to graze the edge of her entrance.
“Please,” she gasped and I wondered if any man had ever made her beg before. Somehow I doubted it. And that only made me hunger for her to do it all the more.
With a growl, I allowed the smallest spark of Dragon fire to roll up the back of my tongue until it set light to her undergarments and burned them from her flesh.
I closed my mouth over the flame to douse it before it could do more than heat her skin and her yell of alarm had me grinning into her cunt as I buried my face against it and sank my tongue inside her.
She cried out louder then, her spine arching backwards, her grip on my hair threatening to pull it out but I didn’t care. I was lost to her, wild from the taste which coated my lips. I slid my tongue out of her and slid it up onto her sweet clit, capturing it between my teeth.
Vesper came hard and fast at the single bite, her thighs clamping shut around my ears and drowning out all sounds but those of her pleasure and the thundering roar of her pulse.
I fell onto my back beneath her, dragging her weight down onto my face as I continued my feast, and she started to ride me just as I’d dreamed she would if ever I got her in this position.
The silken fabric of her stockings caught and frayed against the rough bite of my stubble, and I relished the destruction, wanting to see her pretty gown spoiled too.
She was too wild a thing for lace and silk.
This sweet monster of mine was designed for leather and bloodshed, dirt and grit.
And I so wanted to see her pretty facade ruined at my hand.
I lapped at her clit, pulling her down onto me hard, her hips rolling to chase the pleasure I was offering, her muscles tight with the oncoming release. I growled into the heat of her, the pad of my tongue stroking her clit in a long and thorough demand.
Vesper came for me again with a ragged cry and I skimmed my hand beneath the curve of her ass to sink my fingers into her wet heat and feel the way her pleasure pulsed through her body.
“I want to feel that while you’re wrapped around my cock,” I said before sucking her clit into my mouth again.
She moaned my name loudly and I peered up the length of her body as she toyed with her nipples to seize even more pleasure for herself.
“Aren’t you still afraid I’ll ruin you?” she panted, throwing me a knowing grin as she rocked her clit against my tongue, utterly in her element, a creature of sin and sex.