Chapter Fifteen #2
His eyes turned black; his voice thick. “If I told you I wanted to string you up and gag you. If I admitted I wanted to eat you out, then cut the inside of your thigh with my sharp little knife...what parts of you respond?”
What parts?
God, all of them.
I grew damp and hot and wet.
Horribly, disturbingly wet.
I couldn’t help it.
I’d never been able to help it.
Why can’t I help it?
I hated this man.
I feared this man.
He was the reason my life was ruined, yet...right here, right now, I’d never felt so alive. So cherished as he’d pummelled those who hurt me. So precious as he killed for me—
God, Ily...stop—
“If I told you I wanted to drag you into the dungeons. If I admitted I wanted to whip that hate right out of you and force you to feel every part of me...would you fight me or bow for me?”
Fire.
Everything was on fire.
He was flames and fury, burning me alive with his wrath.
I didn’t believe in fairy-tales.
I didn’t really believe in destiny.
So why did Henri and I burn so badly together?
No, not just burned...blazed.
There was a name for that.
A label for that.
My eyes flew wide.
Horror filled me.
A Vedic astrologer told me once.
He warned me—
No.
It can’t be.
It can’t—
Henri spun me around, then marched me back until my spine slammed against the wall.
Tugging my head aside with his fist in my hair, he pressed his lips to my throat.
“If I told you that my teeth literally ache to bite you. That my tongue stings with the need to taste you. That my body is moments away from taking yours—with or without your permission—what would you say?” His teeth threatened to puncture.
“Answer me. Or I’ll answer for you, and if I do... there’ll be no going back.”
I gasped as he licked me.
My heart thundered as he bit above my collar.
Gently at first.
Then harder, harder.
His arms bunched as if trying to restrain himself, caging me against the wall.
I tried to speak. I tried to push him away but every sense, every awareness locked on his hot, hot mouth pressed against my highly sensitive skin.
He trembled as his self-control snapped.
With a guttural groan torn from the depths of his monstrosity, he tossed away the tie and sank his incisors into me.
I fought him.
Instinct made me struggle to get away.
But at the same time, a heaviness fell over me—a haven full of dizzy desperation.
I submitted.
Just like a deer in a lion’s mouth.
Just like a fox in a trap.
I went loose and full of longing, all while I did my best to get free.
I tangled with two very different, very potent things.
He groaned as he broke my skin.
I flinched and cried out in pain.
Pain that morphed into mind-scrambling pleasure.
He snarled as he tasted my blood for the second time.
I was burning, burning.
I’d never been so hot, so tight, so needy.
The word for what we could be together shot into my head again.
A word full of could haves and maybes.
A word full of destiny and star-crossed fate.
He could’ve been my everything.
He could’ve been my only.
But not here.
Never here.
He lapped me, inhaled me.
I couldn’t stop him.
Kicking my ankle aside, he wedged himself between my thighs and hoisted me up the wall. My legs automatically wrapped around his hips. His throbbing hardness pressed against my core.
I couldn’t keep fighting anymore.
I felt faint and woozy and upside down.
W-What’s happening to me?
My hips rocked forward on their own accord, needing, needing, needing.
Cupping my cheek, his fingers shook as he pulled away from the wound he’d caused and licked at a ruby streak on his bottom lip. “Goddammit, little nightmare...”
My chin came up.
His tipped down.
He came so, so close to kissing me.
My heart burst wide open.
He hurt me worse than anyone.
He was driven by demons I could never exorcise.
Yet as he stood there, crazy-eyed and dripping in need, I saw him.
The real him.
The lonely boy. The tortured man. The feral monster.
And in that single moment of time, I forgave him, wanted him, begged him.
Pressing his forehead to mine, he reached down and angled his cock to find me.
I didn’t judge my complicity. Didn’t care the bite on my neck drove me deeper into delicious hell. We were a match made in perfect fucked-up heaven, and I clawed at his back to finish what he started.
I needed to be claimed, bruised...awakened into this new misery where I’d fallen.
Henri stroked his thumbs on my hipbones—that maddening, mocking swirl. “It’s driving you insane, isn’t it?” His entire face resembled that of the beast inside him—cut with shadows and hollow with wanting. “Now you know how I feel every second I’m around you.”
Every emotion overflowed.
Every heartache and fear.
With a cruel smile, he reached for my breast and twisted my nipple.
Hard.
“Ahhh.” I squirmed in his punishment, only to scream as he thrust violently inside me. “Oh God—”
Stabbed against the wall with his cock, I couldn’t stop the convulsing clenches that sucked him deeper.
“Jesus Christ.” He fisted my breast again, squeezing me so damn hard.
My eyes watered with agony.
My body reached another level of crazed.
“Qu’est ce que tu es en train de me faire?” (What are you doing to me?) His eyes tangled with mine, swarming with ghosts and monsters. “What the fuck is happening to me?”
The same question I’d thought.
And still no answers.
“I have no idea how to survive you.” He twisted my breast again, his thumb digging into my nipple.
My vision was full colour.
My body a riot of anguish.
Any other man and I’d be in full combat mode.
Any other abuse and I’d be in tears.
But with this man and this abuse?
Fuck, I almost came.
He bent his head and lapped at the bite mark on my neck.
A full-body shudder had me falling into yet another level of desire.
I’d never felt this way. This unbound. This honest. This free.
Feeding a whisper directly into my wound, he rutted deeper, deeper into me.
“You think I’m like them. You call me a rapist like the other Masters.
But...you’re wrong. I’m not a man who can hurt another and get off.
I thought I was. I feared I was, but you...
you showed me that I need someone to fight me.
To be brave enough to survive me. I need you.
” He groaned as he bit me again, tonguing my blood.
“Christ, I need you. Only you. You make me so goddamn hard. You’re messing with my mind, Ily.
But...if I’m brave enough to face what I am, then you better be too. ”
Pulling away, he glowered at me as if he truly hated me, all while falling into war with me. “I’m a sadist, little nightmare. There, I said it. I confess I want to string you up, whip you, bleed you, and do a thousand bad things to you—”
“Oh my God.” My head fell back.
I wanted to tell him to stop. To shut up. To keep his perversions to himself.
Yet my ears rang for more.
My core fisted his penetrating length.
I throbbed.
I ached—
“Fucking hell.” His forehead landed on mine, our sweat mingling, our essence binding.
“You’re perfect. So damn perfect.” Nuzzling my cheek, he whispered, “If I’m a sadist—if I’m finally ready to admit that word—then, I hate to tell you, little nightmare, but you—with all your morals and sweetness, beneath all your goodness and bravery—you are nothing more than my angry, dirty masochist.”
My eyes flew wide. “What—?”
“I’m not done.” He couldn’t look away from my mouth, his face tight with hunger. “And the best part is...you don’t even know it.”
Masochist.
The word echoed.
It grew teeth and chewed into me.
It became a dagger and slaughtered me.
Because I suddenly did know.
It answered my question.
T-That’s what’s wrong with me.
That’s why—
“The label fits, doesn’t it?” He swayed closer to my lips, hypnotized against his will.
“I might not have seen who you truly are beneath your prickly ferocity, but I did wonder the moment I realised what I am. You grow so wet for me despite your hatred. You fuck me like you love me, all while despising my touch. You were desperate at dinner because I spanked you and didn’t finish you off, yet you covered it up with a nasty powerplay of taking from me. ”
Lowering his voice, he came so close to my mouth. “Tell me, Ily...didn’t that feel wrong to you? Taking from me instead of letting me give you what you deserve?”
“What I deserve?” I glowered, doing my best to see straight when every molecule vibrated out of control. I swallowed a groan as he continued to rock into me. “You think I deserve all this pain?”
“Yes.” His gaze darkened to a flat sterling. “I do. Because you cause me pain just by existing.”
His mouth came closer, closer. His lips agonisingly near, too near, tinglingly near.
My heart kicked.
I swayed forward despite myself, summoned as if he was a necromancer bringing a black, black part of me to life.
That creature in the storm—the girl who was ready to murder and turn her back on everything—stalked bolder through my veins. My claws kept growing. My needs kept changing. Metamorphosing and rewiring the last of my pieces until I had no idea what I’d become.
His chest heaved, scattering the last remaining droplets on his skin.
I was afraid of him.
Wet for him.
Exhausted by him.
But I really, really needed him to kiss me.
A shocking, soul-wrenching connection weaved between us.
The way he’d defended me tonight.
The way he begged me to accept his black-riddled heart.
I had no immunity anymore.
No defence against him when he had an uncanny knack of making me see the tortured boy within, all while layering me in bruises.
Swallowing hard, he grunted, “This is me, Ily. All of me. You can’t change me.
I. Can’t. Change. God knows I’ve tried. I hate being this way.
I hate that I can’t let you go. I hate that I can’t stop.
I hate that you hate me, but when you look at me the way you are—without all that loathing I deserve—you make me wonder if I could have your heart... after all.”
I couldn’t look away.
The hollowness of his cheeks and intensity of his smoky eyes...