Chapter 27 #3
I growled deep and low, pressing my lips against her so that she was forced to cry out for me again, and that smug grin was wiped from her features.
“I’m starting to think I’m ruined either way, spectre. No other woman could ever torment me the way you do.”
“You’re right,” she agreed, though the words were laced with a bitterness I hadn’t wanted to hear from her. Her muscles had tensed, her whole demeanour shifting. “There’s not many in this world like me.”
I stilled in my devoted worship of her clit and lifted her, pushing her back so that she straddled my chest instead of my face.
“I didn’t say there weren’t many women like you,” I said roughly, pushing up onto my elbows so that I could peer into her shuttered eyes, the truth of what she was thinking still there for me to see, though she was clearly trying to hide it. “I said there was no other.”
“Succubuses are rare–” she said as if it were some practiced line, but I wasn’t going to allow for her bullshit when it came to this between us.
“I couldn’t give a shit if there were a million more of your kind in this land or any other. None would be you, Vesper.”
I leaned forward to kiss her as she opened her lips on a reply which was almost certainly another dismissal of my claim on her.
She kissed me willingly but I could still feel those walls in place so I deepened it, my mouth slowly exploring hers. And as she gave in and let her tongue roam over my own, the taste of her euphoria passing between us, I let the walls around my magic fall away.
Vesper sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the press of my power against hers. There was a purity to the offer, a level of trust which I hadn’t given anyone in a very, very long time. Only her.
She hesitated but finally her barriers fell down too, her magic colliding with mine in a way that was alarmingly intense and breathtakingly intimate all at once.
She broke our kiss, her forehead falling against mine and her hands coming up to cradle my jaw.
“I trusted a Stonebreaker once before,” she said, a tear slipping down her cheek as the weight of her grief pressed in on her. “I don’t think I can do it again.”
“Then don’t,” I expelled a heavy breath and pushed aside the desperate ache in my body to continue what we’d started because no matter how much I wanted to, I knew she wasn’t ready for me yet.
“I won’t be a mistake you make, Vesper. I won’t be a distraction or a scratch to that itch beneath your skin.
I don’t want you because of what you are but I don’t expect you to blindly believe me on that either.
So I’ll be here for you and I’ll tread whatever path you need to walk too.
Because you’re it for me. The only thing I have in this forsaken world.
And I’m willing to become your shadow so long as you can swear to stop keeping me in the dark. ”
Vesper frowned as I withdrew my magic, shattering the connection between us before I shifted her carefully off of me then stood, offering her my hand.
She accepted, allowing me to draw her to her feet and I crossed the room to grab a tunic from my armoire to offer her.
“You don’t want to finish what we started?” she asked, still frowning as I strode away from her and pulled back the covers on my bed.
“No,” I grunted, removing my boots but leaving my trousers on and tightly fastened as I laid down. “Not until you’re ready.”
“I’m no virgin, Bastian. I know how to fuck for pleasure’s sake–”
“And I’m no plaything for you to use at will. So I’m not going to claim you until you’re ready for me to, spectre. You can have my mouth and hands as often as you want them. But I won’t give you all of me until you’re able to give me all of you in turn.”
“You’re serious?” she asked and I could feel her power surging around the room, tasting my desires. “I know how badly you want to–”
“Want and will are not the same thing. I desire far more from you than a simple release of tension for my cock and I won’t change my mind on the matter. Now get into bed. It’s fucking freezing in this place.”
Slowly, she gave in, her eyes staying pinned to me as she pulled the tunic over her head and finally removed the torn stockings from her legs.
My cock throbbed with unsated desire as she sank onto the sheets beside me but I only drew the covers over us and pulled her into my arms.
“Someone might find me here,” she said, though she didn’t make any move to leave.
“None dare to approach my chambers while I’m here,” I said dismissively. “Though I suppose your husband may notice you missing from your marital bed.”
Silence stretched for several long minutes but just when I thought she’d fallen asleep, she spoke again, her lips brushing over my chest where my heart thumped heavily beneath her.
“It isn’t like that. Evard doesn’t share a bed with me. He doesn’t expect that or even want me that way. And even if he did, I wouldn’t have…I’m not a whore,” she finished bitterly as if I had ever accused her of such.
I couldn’t help the smile which tugged at the corners of my lips at her confession though.
“I know you aren’t,” I said in a low voice, my fingers twisting through her hair. “And that does simplify things for us.”
“Why?”
“It makes it far less likely that I’ll have to murder him.”
Vesper laughed unexpectedly, her hand slapping down on my chest.
“It’s treason to even joke about that.”
“Treason? I’m not air-born, love. Everything about me is treason. And I’m fairly certain that’s the only reason you’re even in my bed right now. The danger turns you on.”
“Everything turns me on,” she taunted, that self-deprecating humour coming all too easily to her tongue.
I caught her chin in my grip and turned her gaze up to meet mine.
“Don’t do that,” I warned her. “Tell me if I make your body ache with desire, tell me if your cunt is wet just looking at me, tell me if arguing with me is fucking foreplay to you – but don’t sell me bullshit and don’t put yourself down just because others have tried to turn those weapons on you in the past. You shouldn’t laugh with someone calling you a whore any more than I’ll allow them to keep their tongue should they be fool enough to say it within earshot of me. ”
Another jibe tugged at her tongue but she swallowed it back, knocking my hand aside before dropping her head down onto my chest once more and speaking in a soft voice instead. “Okay.”
“Tell me about them,” I urged when it seemed she might succumb to sleep instead of continuing our conversation.
Vesper hesitated as if she was going to ask who I was referring to but she clearly read my desires to hear her answer instead. Her whole body tensed and I said nothing as I waited, wondering if she would be willing to share the most precious pieces of herself with me or not.
Finally, she spoke.
“Dalia was a heathen. There’s no other way to describe her.
She was born in hellfire and devoted to chaos and she was afraid of nothing.
And Moraine probably seemed to be the more level–headed of the three of us, the one who thought things through – and she was that.
But she was also the wildest when the moment required it, the fiercest, the bravest.”
A tear fell heavily against my chest but I only continued to hold her in my arms as she spoke of them, the little vial of their blood laying against my skin where it still hung from her neck.
Vesper told me stories of warfare and espionage in their company, her tears slowly ceasing as she allowed herself to remember them clearly at last and I smiled while I listened to her.
Even though my heart ached at the loss which had shattered her already damaged soul.
But this was the real woman beneath the mask, the true heart of all she was.
And no matter how much pain had gone into building her into the creature she now was, I didn’t want to turn my gaze from any of it.
So I held her in my arms and drank in every word she spoke.