Chapter Twenty-Seven
...............................
Ily
––––––––
NEITHER OF US MOVED FOR AN eternity.
Hearts pounded.
Energy flowed.
Adrenaline drenched my system.
It’d taken absolutely everything not to scream when Victor touched me. My entire body recoiled and rejected him. I felt psychically sick and horribly vulnerable.
Just because I hadn’t watched him abuse me last night didn’t mean my body wasn’t highly, highly aware that this was the man who’d done it. This was the monster that hurt me.
And Henri made me apologise to him.
For show.
I’d seen how much it cut him to do it.
How much his pain matched mine.
That was the only reason I wasn’t a mess.
Why I could hold my chin high and not cry.
He loves me.
My heart squeezed.
We’d found love in hell.
We’d made a pact against the devil.
I can do this.
He won’t hurt me.
Not really.
And if he did...well...
I swallowed hard, still not comfortable with the admission.
I’ll...probably enjoy it.
Standing taller in my binds, I found Henri’s eyes and lost myself in his churning grey-dark depths.
Victor had left to join Rachel on the bed. His attention only on her.
It was just me and Henri.
Just us in this despicable world.
We stared for far too long, both of us waiting for the other to make the first move.
With a grimace, Henri shook his head and looked down at the whip in his hands.
I shifted where I stood, bound to the cross. The chain and its hook jangled, sending a wash of the same delicious, dangerous awareness through me. I’d felt it last night when I’d gone pliant beneath him.
Playing the captive.
Relinquishing my power.
It’d done something to me.
It’d done something to him.
He’d infected me with his dark disease, and I couldn’t hate him for it. How could I hate him when he made me feel so alive, so in-tune, so sensitive?
His face darkened as time ticked past.
His chest rose and fell, his breathing shallow and harsh.
His knuckles whitened around the whip as he fell back into memories.
No...
Stay with me.
You have to stay with me.
I cleared my throat loudly; the noise wrenched his eyes back to mine.
He froze.
I shrugged. It’s okay...
Rocking backward on his heels, he reacted as if he’d heard me.
All those warnings I’d read of twin flames being graced with almost telepathic abilities didn’t seem so crazy anymore.
You need to do this. I arched my chin at Rachel, making Henri look over his shoulder. Victor had stripped and shackled her, spread-eagled on the bed.
Henri tore his eyes away, his throat flexing as he swallowed hard.
I felt no jealousy that he’d slept with her. No complicated possession or pain. Just needling determination to get through today so I could take him to the kitchens and tell him everything.
Henri... I jangled my cuffs, getting his attention. Do it. Do it now.
Sighing heavily, he wiped his face with a shaking hand.
I knew why he struggled.
Why he hesitated.
He probably thought I was mad to suggest doing this. To willingly taunt the darkness in him, but...he was the only one who could ensure Victor stayed lazy and content. We couldn’t have him scouring the video feeds. Couldn’t have him being suspicious.
Our entire plan hinged on Victor not questioning why maids suddenly hid things under beds or why the orders for cleaning supplies had increased or why the recycling shed didn’t hold as many bottles.
Henri was the key to keeping Victor happy.
So...please make him happy.
Dropping his hand, he gave me the saddest smile.
Then his jaw clenched, his face hardened, and he spread his legs as if he was about to go to war.
Oh God.
This is it.
My ass heated, remembering the punishment of his palm as he spanked me by the pond.
I hadn’t been prepared for the aching desire his hand had caused.
Would this be the same or—
My core clenched as Henri suddenly flicked his wrist and sent the whip and its nasty forked tongue licking through the air. He didn’t aim at me.
Practicing.
Most likely remembering.
His first swat looked a little shaky, his second a bit stronger, his third smoother, and his fourth—the sharp snap as it cracked—echoed loudly in the torture chamber.
Well, fuck me...
Dressed all in black with unreadable eyes and perfect mastery over such a violent weapon...he was stunning.
Beyond stunning.
Diabolical.
I melted.
My insides turned to liquid.
My adrenaline switched to arousal.
Terrible, tempting, treacherous arousal.
Victor glanced over. “Nice crack, mon ami.” His eyes narrowed. “You said you’ve never used a whip before?”
Henri had a hard time looking away from me. His voice sounded like smouldering volcanic ash. “Pure novice, but...I watch things.”
Victor’s forehead furrowed. “Just like you watch MMA and somehow became a killing machine?”
“Something like that.”
“Hmm.” Victor sniffed. “It took me weeks to master the art of cracking a whip. Either you’re very humble or you’re lying.”
Henri stiffened. “You know I’m descended from Quincy Mercer the First. I witnessed him playing. One of his favourite toys was a bullwhip.” He swallowed hard before admitting, “And I may have had a few swats myself, now and again.”
“He taught you?” Victor lost all his tension, a slow smile crossing his face. “In that case...carry on. I’ve always thought Mercer the First and I would’ve gotten on quite well. It’s fun watching you step into his shoes.”
Henri didn’t respond.
Victor returned to Rachel, stripping off his jumper and grabbing a few silver clamps from a nearby rack.
Henri turned back to me; the whip coiled like a sleeping serpent on the floor. With a flick, he cracked it again.
Another droplet of need.
A heavy emptiness needing to be filled.
I feared him and wanted him.
I hated that he had to share a past he obviously detested. I pitied him that his mind had protected him from all of this, yet his present dragged every dirty memory to the surface.
My thoughts raced and collided for ever agreeing to this.
For making him become this.
I grew wetter and hotter, and God...
I wanted this.
I wanted him.
I-I couldn’t help it.
I wanted to save him, submit to him...
I felt ashamed and embarrassed and so turned-on that tears prickled up my spine.
I couldn’t look.
Closing my eyes, I did my best to remember who I was.
I was strong. I was smart. I—
Henri suddenly crowded me against the cross. His heat, his hardness, his power.
I moaned as he grabbed my chin and forced my eyes up.
His skin blazed with wildfire. His lips wet from his tongue. Tipping my head to the side, he whispered, “Don’t be afraid of me. You promised you wouldn’t be afraid—”
“I’m not.” I sagged against him, humming under his touch. “I’m afraid of myself. Of how much I need you.”
“I can see how wet you are. It’s taking everything I have not to fuck you and forgo all this shit.” His hand holding the whip grazed along my hipbone. His thumb stroked those maddening little Morse code swirls, sending me messages of love and togetherness. “I’m jumping out of my skin, Ily.”
Behind him, Victor kissed Rachel as he finished clamping silver things to her breasts. She didn’t utter a single word to her Master, yet I had a million I wanted to say to mine.
Henri sensed the racing alphabet of my thoughts as he nipped the shell of my ear. “If you’ve changed your mind about doing this—”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not that...”
He groaned and pressed his hips against mine. His cock branded me through his jeans, hinting I wasn’t the only one struggling with right and wrong. “Feel that? I could climax right now. One touch from you and I’d cover you in cum.”
I shuddered.
I bit my bottom lip as his voice entered me, stroked me, made my entire body quiver.
How could I have this reaction with Victor in the room?
How could I even think about sex after what’d happened last night?
For a second, I feared my mind had snapped, and this was just another coping mechanism, but then Henri kissed his way along my jaw and captured my lips with his.
Everything fell away.
All of it.
My heart ached with a thousand bruises as he licked me.
The kiss wasn’t just a kiss but everything we couldn’t say and everything we would always mean.
I’m yours.
You’re mine.
I love you.
I’ll free you.
Teeth and tongue, breath and bliss.
He groaned as I nipped at his bottom lip. I moaned as he grabbed my bare breast.
For a moment, I let romance carry us away.
Enchantment and passion blocked out the entire island, but as Henri’s hand skated from my hips and dove between my legs—as two fingers slipped exquisitely deep inside me and he stumbled as if my wetness completely undid him, I pulled away from his mouth and provoked the sinner he was.
He wouldn’t do this without trusting me. And he couldn’t trust me unless I played.
So...I played.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” I spat on the floor.
In my lust-hazy stare, Victor smirked across the room.
The more Victor thought I hated this—that I obeyed merely because of what I’d seen in the caves—the less he’d see the truth.
The truth that I was absurdly, alarmingly, absolutely in love with Henri freaking Mercer.
“Get away from me,” I hissed, committing to this ruse. “I hate you.”
Henri didn’t just freeze, he died.
Perished right before me.
Blackness hooded his eyes.
For a moment, he looked as if he’d throw up—the good parts forbidding him from enjoying this—but then the bad parts...all those parts cultivated in those formative years. The parts that’d evolved from sheer terror and survival sprang into being.
I didn’t need psilocybin to see the devil before me.
Didn’t need bat wings or hallucinations to witness his transformation.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he withdrew his fingers and brought them to his kiss-swollen lips.
Not looking away, he inserted both into his mouth and sucked. Hard.
His moan was pure eroticism. His flicking tongue as he cleaned my flavour from his fingers deliciously perverse.
Finishing the last drop, he grabbed my chin with his wet hand and descended into all that black. “You tell me not to touch you, little nightmare, yet your body fucking drips for me.”
“Go to hell.”
Oh God.