Chapter Thirty-Three
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Ily
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HALLOWEEN
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I TUGGED AT THE GAUZY, DIAPHANOUS material.
So sheer it hid nothing, so many layers it made my physical body look as if I’d become a creature made of light.
Turning in front of the mirror in our bedroom, I plucked the floaty whiteness, watching as the fabric whispered back to the other layers, looking like closed flower petals. The halter top wrapped tight around my throat, the train behind me as translucent and cobweblike as the rest.
Set against the black of my hair and rich tan of my skin, I had to admit...pure white rather suited me. The small crown I wore glittered with a million cubic zirconia. I might not have gotten my wish to wear the Crown Jewels, but tonight, I’d been transformed into a princess.
Victor had spent the past few weeks planning this masked ball for Halloween.
Our costumes had arrived this morning.
The energy in the fortress buzzed with anticipation and intrigue.
Last Monday, most of the Masters flew back to their families and despite it being a weekend now—the busiest time here at Joyero—only ten Masters had flown back in. The rest were either celebrating in their own way or not invited to Victor’s event.
Ben and Stewart had nodded at us over breakfast.
Abby and Penelope had become invaluable as they whispered the locations of five guns that’d been hidden in the foyer, library, games room, ballroom, and kitchens.
Peter and the rest of the jewels knew where extra bullets were stashed along with a few lighters May had given us from the kitchens.
We also had two butane torches used to melt sugar on the regular crème br?lées Victor ordered.
We had guns.
Ignition.
And bombs.
We still hadn’t made the larger, more dangerous presents that would take out certain structural integrities of the fortress, but we’d done enough that waiting for Christmas started to grate.
Every day was painful.
Every night was terrifying.
Victor didn’t act like he guessed anything was afoot but...we could never know for sure.
At least he’d been distracted with organising this ball.
He’d joined Henri and me for lunch, giggling like a freaking loon as if he genuinely couldn’t wait for this evening.
I’d never expected the dominating psychopath to place weight on something as silly as a dance. He actually believed the jewels were excited to be dressed and paraded, then abused and fucked as the evening went on.
Scooping the delicate mask from the bed, I secured the ribbon behind my head and blinked through a million facets of light. Every inch of the mask blinded with shimmering crystals, turning everything into rainbows.
“Are you ready?” Henri asked, striding from the bathroom where he’d dressed.
With his eyes on the floor as he tied his own mask behind his head, I had a quick moment to study him without his stare on mine.
And good grief...
Could someone fall in love multiple times?
I’d never seen a more handsome man.
Never had my breath stolen by another just for existing.
Dressed head to toe in black, he wore a heavy velvet cape that flared from his shoulders and whispered against the floor. Glossy black shoes, mandarin collared black shirt, and a mask covered in glittering black tourmaline.
The light-sucking gemstones drew every illumination in the room to his eyes, ensnaring me, killing me—
“Je-sus.” He froze as his hands dropped and his gaze landed on me.
His mouth hung open.
He shuddered on the spot.
And then he prowled toward me, his grey eyes erupting with silver flames. The familiar starfire between us built and billowed, igniting every piece of our bodies, hearts, and souls.
“Tu es et tu seras toujours la plus belle femme que j'ai jamais vue.” (You are and always will be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.) He cupped my cheek, running his thumb over my unpainted bottom lip.
He forgot our pantomime. Ripped up our script.
And kissed me.
The moment his mouth met mine, I slung my arms around his cape-draped shoulders and clung to him.
Just for a single moment.
A stolen second.
Then I let him go and broke the kiss.
I dropped to my knees for the cameras.
He sighed heavily as if my submission annoyed him, all while understanding why I surrendered.
His energy switched from rosy and warm, full of love and connection, to mean spirited and cold. Raising his voice so the cameras would record, he chuckled. “I have a good mind to make you blow me. A necklace of cum would really set off that dress.”
I didn’t look up.
I didn’t answer back.
I played the role of a good submissive jewel.
Henri’s hands landed on his belt.
I instantly hummed with need.
If he took me over the chair before we went to this stupid ball, I would not complain.
After so many weeks of giving in to animalistic urges—of encouraging my system to be dirty and bad and crave such despicable things, I couldn’t get through a day without some form of pain and release.
I needed it.
I grew itchy for it.
I craved him and his unique brand of torment.
God...
My insides clenched.
My breasts became painfully heavy.
A gush of wetness—
Yep, now he’d done it.
No way could I go down there without him fucking me.
A shadowy part of my mind judged me. The old me pitied the creature I’d become.
I feared I’d become an addict to fear and pain and suffered regular nightmares of going home, moving back into my family’s house, hugging my brother and kissing my parents, all while crave, crave, craving the absolute fucking madness that only Henri could cure.
My fingers sneaked across the carpet and latched around his ankle.
He sucked in a breath.
I looked up.
My body put on a performance for the cameras, but my eyes...they spoke the truth.
I need you. Badly.
He shuddered. Now?
I nodded.
Bending over me, he grabbed my elbows and hoisted me to my bare feet.
“You know what? A cum necklace would be a waste. How about I fill you up, so you drip for me all night long?” Cupping me roughly between the legs, he drove the wispy fabric directly into my soaking core.
“Would you like that? My cum oozing down your thighs? Knowing you’ve been fucked by me. That you belong to me?”
I convulsed.
My knees stopped working.
God, yes please.
“Fuck you,” I snapped.
“As you wish.” He smirked.
I love you, his eyes whispered.
Tossing me onto the bed, he flipped me onto my stomach and flipped the hem of my dress over my back. Kicking my feet apart, he unbuckled, unzipped, and fisted himself.
My heart pounded in my ears, my fingertips, my clit.
Every cell in my body wanted to submit and arch for him.
I needed him to fill me.
I wasn’t whole without him inside me.
But I had a show to put on.
A show we’d perfected, and Victor had bought hook, line, and sinker.
Pushing up off the bed, I made to feint to the side.
He snatched me and threw me back down. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
Pressing a fist against my lower back, he kept me pinned.
“Get off me!” I struggled.
“Still so strong.” He dragged my hips off the edge of the bed. “Still so unbroken.”
“Get your fucking hands off me.”
“Either beg or scream. Your choice.”
I screamed.
He laughed.
Grabbing my ass cheeks, he spread me wide, and impaled himself deep, deep inside.
My pussy fisted around him, not making his takeover easy.
The pinch despite my arousal.
The thickness of his size.
It all pushed me into mania, and I lost it.
I fought the urge to surrender to him.
I forced myself to thrash and cry.
And my Master and twin flame understood both sides of me, both the act and the truth, the lust and the love. His fingernails dug into my hips as he grabbed me and pumped fast and fierce into my body.
His thumbs stroked me in those wonderful Morse code circles.
His cock punished me over and over again.
The bed creaked with his every vicious pound.
My ears rang.
My womb tightened.
A release percolated and popped in my blood.
“Fuck...” I couldn’t breathe. “You.” I gasped as he rode me like a manic beast.
He didn’t reply. His pace absolutely unhinged, his hipbones bruising me, his cock punishing my G-spot over and over and over...
Every inch of me prepared to leap.
Yes.
God yes.
I stopped fighting him.
I gave him everything.
I screamed for real as his hot hand slapped cruelly against my ass.
“Five strikes for making me so goddamn hard for you. You’ve got your juices all over me. How am I supposed to last the night knowing you’re this fucking wet?”
He hit me again.
Pain.
Glorious, frenzied pain.
I moaned.
He groaned.
Our pace reached delirium.
“Fuck, little nightmare.” He spanked me again all while his cock grew and throbbed, claiming me, maiming me. “Feel that? Feel how much I need to come?”
I nodded.
I gasped.
I yelped as he struck for the fourth time, sending me hurtling toward heaven.
“You and that damn tattoo. You’ve cursed me for life.”
I hovered on the cliff’s edge.
The fall looked so deep and black, full of starbursts and supernovas.
I just needed one tiny push.
A single little—
Thwack.
I combusted on his fifth strike.
I grew wings and flew.
My entire body came.
Waking and rippling, milking and fisting.
I made noises.
I begged for things. Nonsense, unknown things.
I wasn’t human as I shattered and fractured and—
“Ily. Goddammit.” Henri dragged me onto him. Crawling inside me as deep as he could go. “Ily. Fuck. Fuck!”
His release spurted and coated, branding me in hot, ropey liquid.
His grunts as he kept feeding me his orgasm threatened to push me into another.
I could barely see, hardly think.
He destroyed me.
When he finally shuddered and held himself locked inside me, I shivered at the sensation of him marking me forever as his.
I wore his cum.
I had his scent all over me.
With a breathless groan, he withdrew, tripped backward, and fought hands that no longer worked to stuff his spent erection into his black slacks and buckle up.
Twisting upright, I sat primly on the edge of the bed.
A wet patch soaked into my dress, matching the silvery trails of my arousal glinting on the black fabric over his fly.