Chapter Twenty-Seven #3
“You’re going to pay.” His mouth smiled.
I strained for him to kiss me, but he dropped to his haunches, and with swift fingers, he buckled leather straps around my ankles. His touch felt like a million needles dipped in velvet.
I moaned and shivered. “Stop.”
He didn’t reply. Standing upright, he grabbed a lever to the left, and I screamed as the cross flipped upside down.
Blood rushed to my head as my view switched.
Upside down, gravity grabbed my hair, my breasts, my mind.
The shackles around my ankles kept me upright, cutting into my skin.
He groaned as his gaze locked onto my spread and exposed centre. “Damn. I’d hope your mouth would line up with my cock. Sucking me would’ve definitely shut you up.” He sighed. “Ah well, I have other ways.”
I’d never felt so vulnerable as he ran his nose along the trimmed black hair between my legs then stuck his tongue inside me from above.
Not a lick.
Not a lave.
A takeover.
I didn’t scream this time, I choked.
My entire body went to explode—
He stopped.
Tears rolled from my eyes, falling the wrong way, soaking into my hair. “Hen...”
“Don’t,” he barked. “Until you say my name correctly, you don’t get to come.”
Breathing hard, Henri left me upside down as he strode across the snuffbox and grabbed a sharp little knife from the rack housing all manner of awful implements.
I hovered in that nondescript magical place, hyper aware of his every move.
I lost all track of where we were and why and how and became nothing more than a river of need.
He returned with a tiny jewel-handled dagger. Flicking a look at Victor, he grabbed his discarded jeans on the floor and grabbed the vial from his pocket. “How many scars am I allowed?”
Victor paused mid-thrust, his hips plastered against Rachel’s. It took a moment for his mind to catch up. “However many you want. Now shut the fuck up. I’m busy.” He resumed his rock.
Henri fisted his two toys.
I trembled as he marched back toward me.
I waited for him to flip me the right way up.
To whisper to stay calm. That he hadn’t lost himself.
But he merely latched his mouth on my pussy again.
Every nerve ending arrowed right where he punished me.
My entire system fritzed and fried.
The lashes on my back braided with the pleasure between my legs, and I lost myself completely.
Overwhelming.
Encompassing.
Tears sprang.
I sobbed as he ate me out. I shuddered as his teeth scraped my clit. I scrambled and screamed as he drove me straight toward that lacerating climax only to stop as the first ripple of release worked its way through my entire body.
He laughed cruelly and pressed the sweetest kiss on the paper-thin skin of my inner thigh. “Not yet, little nightmare. I mean to make you bleed first.”
His left hand landed on my thigh, stroking me in the exact spot where his own leg wore the permanent reminder of where he’d tried to take his own life.
I shivered as he pressed a kiss there, then replaced his lips with the dagger. “Don’t move.”
Every part of me tensed as he added pressure to the blade.
My skin resisted.
Pain intensified.
The dagger won.
I cried out as he cut me.
Too many feelings at once.
Too many sensations.
I couldn’t keep track of them all.
They all spiralled into one ball of fire, and blood, and need.
“Three lines. Just three.” Dragging the dagger over my skin, he sliced me with a steady, focused hand.
Blood trickled, rolling hotly toward my hipbone.
The first line scrambled my every thought.
The second shoved me straight into spiritual salvation.
And the third...it scribed me with everything I shouldn’t want... building, building, building.
I strained in my bonds, scratchy and achy and going out of my mind.
Henri let out a savage snarl as he licked up my blood. His tongue flat and heavy, licking me clean with every long swipe.
I pulsed in time to the blood throbbing in my punishments.
I trembled.
I ached.
I’d never felt this way. This unbound. This honest. This free.
Tossing the knife away, he fisted the vial and yanked out the small cork.
Without a word, he sprinkled sapphire dust on the three lines—two vertical, one horizontal—sealing up the wound with glimmering blue, coagulating with the red of my blood.
Victor wasn’t the first to do such a thing.
In my studies, I’d come across many indigenous people who used gemstone dust to harness the properties of the stone and alter their physical capabilities. Victor was right that gemstones were antibacterial, antiseptic, and often used in healing modalities.
The thought of forever having sapphires in my skin? It intrigued me. Perhaps I’d inherit the metaphysical properties of the blue stone and gain wisdom, intuition, and spiritual insight.
Or maybe it would do nothing more than brand me with Henri’s mark—
Sudden wetness.
Aggressive heat.
My thoughts scrambled as Henri’s tongue dipped inside me again.
The three stinging lines on my thigh faded. The punishment from the whip meant nothing.
His tongue was everything. Deep and worshipping, addictive and all-consuming.
I groaned as a flush of sick, sick desire made my entire body contract.
“Christ, you have no idea what this is doing to me.” His voice sounded utterly inhuman. “Your blood. Your taste. I can’t wait any longer. I can’t fucking do this.”
Breathing hard, he flipped the lever.
With a wooden groan, the cross righted itself, taking me with it. My head swam as I went from down to up.
Dizziness added to my desire.
Out-of-control hunger only magnified as he grabbed my hips and stroked his thumbs in those maddening little swirls.
I was too far gone to sense him beneath the game we played. Too deep into lust to care about anything but coming. “Please...” I whimpered.
Tracing his thumb over the sore sapphire-branded wounds, he sighed in absolute awe. “It looks like you got mauled by a beast with blue claws. A beast that can spell...”
I looked down.
H.
A crude, primitive H marked my skin forever.
“You...” My words slurred. “Autographed me.”
His eyes snapped closed; he swayed on the spot. When he opened them again, I no longer existed in this world. I was his. Just his. My every thought, breath, and whimper...his.
“So you never forget.” He licked his lips. “Now...tell me, little nightmare. Do you need me? Tell me you need me, and I’ll put you out of your misery.”
It took every ounce of control. Every drop of discipline. But I shook my heavy head and mumbled, “Fuck...you.”
He grinned.
A boyish, blinding grin.
Leaning close, he breathed, “Mon Dieu, je t’aime.” (My God, I love you.)
Dropping to his haunches, he unbuckled my ankle restraints then stood and laughed for our audience. “Ah, Ilyana, I think you’ll find I’m about to fuck you.” Without warning, he spun me around again. My front whacked against the cross, sending agonising shockwaves through my breasts.
“No,” I panted. “No more.”
“No more? You should know by now not to tell me what to do.” His voice was gravelly with sin as he tripped away from me. “For that, I’ll give you more. Three more before I fuck you. Hold on.”
“No—” I screamed as he flicked his wrist.
The whip sang. Connected. Pain.
This one thinner, crueller—a single bite of torture.
“I need you to suffer,” he groaned. “I need you to know how it feels.”
A faint ringing noise was my only warning as he whipped me again.
Tight and tangy, tormenting and torturous.
I moaned as pain became pleasure. Life became death. And he became the only thing that could save me.
My body took control, preparing to come without any other touch.
I’d never been so sensitive that the very air fondled me.
My insides weren’t just liquid anymore they were molten and glowing and on fire.
The slither of the whip over stone became its signature song as he flicked it one last time and kissed me with leathery, lashing pain.
It bit into my left hip.
I didn’t know who I was anymore.
So desperate.
So—
“Shit, you’re bleeding.” I convulsed as Henri cursed. “Fuck.” With a savage groan, he threw the whip to the side and crashed into me. Grabbing the vial forgotten on the floor and dropping to his knees, he latched his mouth over my new cut and sucked.
His hot mouth.
His silent worship.
I cried out as the first coil of a release unravelled.
Yes.
God, yes—
“Wait,” he seethed.
I squirmed as he cleaned the red mark, then shivered as he scattered sapphires like blue snow on my side. With a gentle thumb, he smoothed away the loose grains and sucked in a tattered breath.
I wanted to see what it looked like.
The smallest sapphire scratch.
But he shot to his feet and pressed his entire body against mine.
His entire naked body.
The world narrowed to a pinprick.
The second his chest kissed my back. The moment his heat and hardness covered me, my body fell and—
“I said wait,” he panted.
With a guttural snarl, he yanked my hips back, arched my spine, and kicked my legs apart. Bending his knees, he notched his crown exactly where I needed him...
“Now scream,” he growled.
And slammed home inside me.
To the hilt.
To the heart.
I did what he commanded.
I screamed.