Chapter 23
Irelynn
There is a warm weight covering my back, pressing me into the bed. An iron band, searing hot, is wrapped around my front.
I blink into the darkness of a familiar room, but it’s not the room I fell asleep in. I know, because I sleep with the curtains thrown wide so the moonlight can spill in.
I inhale a sharp, surprised breath that tastes of Ilya.
The thief threatening to steal my soul.
The devil threatening to cut the strings of my heart so that he might capture the organ rather than let it flutter happily in the wind of his woo.
My monster.
My heart, that sticky, silly thing in my chest, weeps with relief.
He’s here. He’s home.
I want to sob.
The relief quickly turns to confused rage.
He left me—for weeks.
After kidnapping me!
I don’t think before I act. I simply move.
As I thrust my ass back into his groin, he lets out a deep grunt that is quickly followed by a rough growl of warning. “Little Blue.”
“Don’t Little Blue, me!” I hiss, giving my hips another vicious buck that hits home and delights me with yet another pained grunt.
Serves him right. Asshole.
“Irelynn, fuck.” He pulls his hand from where he had it pushed up my shirt, to grip my hip, as I ready for yet another swing back into his groin.
I try to wrestle him, to fight him. I’m angry enough to do some damage, I think. But I quickly find I’m wrong as he pins me to the bed beneath his massive body in under three seconds.
Breaths heave from my chest into the space between us. He’s shirtless, and the skin of his chest sears mine through the fabric of his shirt I wear. My traitorous body is way too aware of his as it rests against mine intimately. His hips notch snuggly between the legs he forced to spread.
Heat floods me from head to toe, even though I’m shivering.
“Get off me.” I try to buck my hips. He shifts in response, dragging his body up the length of mine until his face is hovering right above mine and—and the hard steel of his arousal—oh, God, he’s aroused—is pressed against the tender, suddenly throbbing, core of me.
“That’s it, Little Blue,” he murmurs darkly, giving his hips another slow buck. My blood boils, because that motion has the hard pipe of him dragging over the seam of me. When his tip presses into my clit over the fabric separating us, I have to bite back a moan.
“You said you wouldn’t…” The words shudder from my lungs.
I don’t know what I want anymore.
“I also said you were mine. That I would touch you and kiss you. That I wouldn’t fuck you until you begged me.” He drags the blade of his nose over the tender flesh of my neck, behind my ear. When I shift my head to the side, he inhales into the hair at the base of my scalp. “I’m promising now, my Little Blue, that I will make you beg me.”
The tip of his hot tongue glides over the skin below my ear before I feel the sharp graze of teeth along the shell of my ear. Shivers erupt just as he tosses a match to the simmering flames in the pit of my belly, igniting me.
This time, I do moan. But I do my best to cover it up with venom as I snap, “You left me here for weeks. What was the point of taking me only to murder me with boredom?”
I feel his smile against my flesh before he pulls back, and I see it. He’s beautiful when he smiles. “Did you miss me?”
I scoff. “You wish.”
His cocky grin widens.
My core clenches.
Dang, but he’s pretty.
With my palms in his shoulders, I do my best to shove him off me. He laughs. “I don’t think so.”
His hands wrap around my wrists, pulling them high above my head as he grinds into me again and again. He’s playing my body like a guitar, strumming a song I vowed never to play.
I hate him,I remind myself.
I hate him. I hate him. Oh, God, that feels sooo good.
He wraps both my wrists in one big hand as I struggle to free myself at the same time, I do everything I can to wrangle control of my hedonistic body that should NOT be responding to him.
Oh, Hell…
“It wasn’t my intention to be away from you for so long.” He catches my jaw when I try to look away from him, keeping my hands pinned to the bed above my head. “It could not be helped. But I thought of you every day.” He gives his hips another slow drag over my center. I shudder, my breath hitching as I bite my bottom lip to keep my cry restrained. Desire lights the wick in his eyes, igniting them. “I craved you every night. The scent of cookies plagued me, and I wondered—do you taste as sweet as you smell?”
A shuddering, “Oh,” whispers across my lips as the pressure of his strokes increases.
I think—I think my panties are wet.
“I promised myself I’d steal a taste when I returned.” He drags his hand down the side of my torso to my hip, holding me in place as he strokes the length of his arousal over my core. “Then I found you in a bed that wasn’t mine.” He tsks. Fear flutters in my chest and I make my first attempt to free my bound hands. I fail. His voice drops in pitch. “I think you’ve earned a punishment, don’t you?”
“Fuck you.”
He laughs again. It’s a rich, decadent, sinful sound.
My core clenches. He strokes his arousal into me, and I feel a spill of sticky, hot, wet heat pool in my panties.
Oh, no.
My cheeks burn.
I have no control over my own body. He’s manipulating me.
“I promised myself a taste,” he continues. “But now I think I’ll taste more than your mouth.”
“Wh-what?” I gasp, because I swear to all that’s holy, my panties are soaked through. It won’t be long before I’ll have soaked his pants, and he’ll know that I want him.
The idea of him knowing that he’s made me feel this need has a new kind of fear blooming inside me. Digging my heels in the bed, I thrust my hips up in a vain attempt to buck him off me. All it does is spread me more for him. My swollen, throbbing wet pussy spreads as the ridge of his cock glides over the slippery wet material of my panties, his thick tip notching my clit and pulling a reluctant cry from the depths of me.
My ass slams back to the bed as horror lashes across my heart.
Oh no. I just moaned for him.
I clamp my teeth down on my lip.
“Oh,” he makes a dark sound. “On second thought, this doesn’t end until I hear you come.”
“But you said…”
“I don’t need to fuck you to make you come, Little Blue.” With those words, he crashes his mouth to mine.
My pussy clenches, trying and failing to stop the ache of knowing, instinctively, that it wants to be filled. Needs to be filled.
His kiss is as ruthless as he is. It’s brutal and bruising and claiming. I submit to the power of it as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. As though my body has forever known that the day would come where I would belong to him, and it’s just giving in to the inevitable.
His body grinds into me, his chest crushing against mine until I can feel the pounding of his heart against my breast as my own beats in tandem.
Out of breath, my lips part. I suck in air that tastes entirely of him. He takes the moment to slide his tongue between my lips, savouring me. He doesn’t just slide his tongue against mine. There’s nothing tentative about the way his tongue licks into my mouth, his lips crushing into mine again and again.
As if my body wasn’t already aflame, I whimper as the burn threatens to incinerate me from the inside out. His mouth moves from my throbbing lips to kiss down my chin and over my jaw. He nips my ear as I throw my head to the side, offering him more access even as my mind screams distantly that I should fight him.
It feels too good.
He feels too good.
Oh....
His tongue is hot and wet, trading places with his lips and teeth as he travels down the length of my neck to suck at my pulse point. I moan a sound that is meant for dark spaces, intended for darker promises as I arch my back into his kiss. My eyes are closed now, my mind spinning.
I can’t think. If I think…
He releases my wrists and rears up between my legs. Cold air replaces the warmth of his body. I open my eyes in time to see his hands gripping the material of his shirt I wear, and then he pulls viciously. Fabric tears and buttons pop, scattering over the bed and falling to bounce and roll over the floor.
I make a noise between a gasp and a scream as he bares me to him. There’s not a lot of light in the room, but I can see him perfectly. So, I know he can see me.
He’s haloed in darkness, shadows bursting from his back as though taking flight on the wings of a dark devil in a darker night. The dark ink on his chest tells a story I don’t have the mental capacity for right now.
He”s a work of art.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” His sentiment echoes my thoughts. He sounds almost pained.
When I make a move to cover myself, he maneuvers the shirt that still covers my arms, pinning me to the bed by the material. He’s on his knees between my legs, his chest bare and heaving as he looks down over me.
Like this, he feels even more powerful.
“Are you going to be a good girl and take your punishment or are you going to fight me?”
“What if I fight you?” I gasp, feeling so extremely on display. I want to beg him to cover me with his body.
“I’ll tie you to the bed by your wrists with my shirt.” His eyes dare me to fight.
“How are you going to punish me?” I resent the quiver I hear in my voice and lift my chin in a move of brave defiance.
“I already told you, Little Blue. I’m going to make you come.”
“H-how?”
“If I told you, that’d take all the fun out of it.”
I suddenly feel so very afraid. “I’m tired.”
“Should have thought of that when you moved to a new room.”
I gasp. “You left me!”
“I left you in my bed.” He drops his head to nip at my lips.
“You left for weeks.” Gosh, why does my voice have to sound so pathetically small?
So weak…
“Are you going to be a good girl?” he demands again.
With tears brimming in my eyes, I give a reluctant nod.
He hums in approval before he slowly releases my pinned hands. I leave them resting at my sides, watching as his eyes drink me in. Every inch of me heats as his eyes travel over the swell of my breasts, the nipples peaking as though reaching out to him for something—relief?
I want to moan in frustration now more than pleasure. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, his eyes drift down my belly, over my navel to land on the white cotton panties I wear. They’re nothing fancy, nothing sexy, and I feel a bloom of embarrassment heat my cheeks.
I don’t know why I care about the sexy barometer of my panties. The man kidnapped me. The last thing I should want is for him to find anything about me sexy—and yet…
“Are you wet for me?”
I am not answering that question.
He waits for a solid three seconds, before he grins. Then, he lowers his head and flicks my oversensitive nipple with the tip of his tongue.
“Oh!” I lift my arms to push him away because that little lick had felt like electricity pulsing through my body. Too much.
Thankfully, he raises his head. Cocking one brow, he asks again, “Are you wet for me, Irelynn?”
“Go to Hell,” I whisper.
He smirks, then he drops his head again. This time, he sucks my nipple into his mouth, using teeth and tongue to push me to the brink.
I’m twenty-one, but I’m untouched. Hell, I don’t even touch myself.
This—his expert mouth—it’s too much.
I don’t think. I just lift my hands and shove him violently away from me. He releases my breast with a popping sound that has my core aching. Then he licks his lips and says, “So, you want to be tied up after all?”
“What?” Panic flickers through me. Like a bulb not quite connected to power. “N-no.”
“You had your chance, Blue.”
He moves, and I really start to fight now. My legs kick and my body thrashes as he tears the shirt from my arms. I scream, knowing for a fact that everyone sleeping in this house isn’t sleeping anymore.
I don’t even care. Maybe someone will be brave enough to stop him. To stop this.
No one comes. And Ilya laughs darkly as he subdues me with ease, tying my wrists with the shirt I’d worn for him only minutes before, before tying it to the post of his bed.
Hot tears sting my eyes as a blaze sears my flesh. I’m naked, but for the panties I wear, and I have a feeling I won’t be wearing them for long.
I try to reason with him. “Please, Ilya.”
“Fucking hell, I like that.”
“Wh-what?”
“You saying my name when you look like this. Naked and fucking exquisite in my bed.”
“I’m not ready for this.” I try. My voice is soft and shaky. My entire body trembles.
“I’m not fucking you tonight.” He grins a dangerous grin. “Unless you beg me.”
“I won’t.”
He shrugs. “I’m only going to make you come. Now, are you wet for me?”
I set my jaw as a tear slides from my eye. He moves in, pressing a soft kiss to my wet cheek. “You won’t cry for long, my heart.”
I feel so rattled.“I’ll never stop crying.”
“I will make you happy.” He kisses my lips, softly this time. It’s not the consuming fire of our first kiss, but somehow, this kiss cuts deeper. It scores to the very deep of me where my wounded soul hides, quivering, and already so broken.
I gasp in air, vowing, “No. I’ll never be happy. Not with you and not with someone else.”
Breaths shudder from my lungs. Emotion threatens to clamp off my airways. This man is invading the inner parts of me like he invaded my life—my choice.
“I’ll show you pleasure. I’ll give it to you until you crave me like a drug.” He’s kissing down my neck again, licking into the hollow of my throat.
I’m so wet for him, it hurts. I feel so empty. So tragically barren.
My breasts quiver as he kisses a burning trail between them, before licking a searing path up the underside of one, to my painfully pebbled tip. He twirls his tongue around and around until I’m crying out, pleading for him to stop. To continue. I don’t even know anymore…
He moves between my breasts, taking turns driving me to the brink of something before he shifts to the other again. My core cramps. A tight knot of need I have no hope of fighting twists in the deep of my belly as he pushes back on his haunches once again.
“Are you wet for me, Little Blue?”
I bite my tongue, unwilling to answer.
He grins, like it’s a challenge he hoped I’d present.
Leaning over me again, he shoves one big hand into my panties. He wastes no time diving into the short curls and pushing into the wet heat of my pussy. I gasp and he groans, his mouth falling to mine, tongue invading my mouth as his finger dips into my core.
My body tenses at the quick, unexpected intrusion. This is nothing like my books, where the men take their time, playing with her clit first.
Oh, wow. His finger is thick.
“Fuck. You’re tight,” he rumbles between kisses. As for me, I gasp for air. For something, anything, to cool the burn in my lungs.
Ilya pulls his finger out before sliding in again, slower this time. It’s only his finger, but I feel so full. Heat threatens to burst me at the seams as I writhe against my restraints.
“Christ, you’re wet. Greedy little pussy pulling me in.” He nips at my chin. I whimper. “You’ll feel so good wrapped tight around my cock.”
My core spasms. I shudder. “Please.”
He quickens the thrust of his finger in and out of me, his palm teasing into the pearl of need at the crest of my sex.
“That’s it,” he praises. “Beg, Little Blue.”
“No.” I shake my head when I feel him add a second finger, stretching me. Panic and desire battle as I whisper, “Please. Slow, Ilya. Slow—I’m not?—”
He doesn’t slow. He stops altogether. His blue eyes are impossibly sharp as they land on my face. “You’re not…?”
“I’m n-not ready for t-this.”
He smirks, a little of the devil overtaking his expression. “Oh, you’re ready.”
He starts to move his fingers again. The stretch of both pressing into me, filling me, has my heels digging into the bed as I inch my body up the mattress, away from him.
“Ilya,” I cry out as the stretch begins to burn. He must hear the discomfort in my plea, because he stops again, knuckle deep. “I’m not—I haven’t—p-please.”
This time, he pulls his fingers from my pussy, his hand from my panties. Horrified arousal stings my flesh like a thousand bees as he lifts his fingers to his mouth and sucks me clean from him. His eyes hold mine through it all, and I think I might die.
Then, with the same hand he’d had in my panties, he captures my chin between thumb and finger. His eyes drill into the vault of mine. The prize he seeks?—my secrets.
His voice impossibly deep, he asks, “What haven’t you done, Little Blue?”
My lungs seize the air I so desperately need to breathe as I whisper with the last of my air, “I haven’t—anything.”
He inhales a sharp breath through his nose. “Are you innocent?”
My eyes burn as I nod. My body is quivering again, naked under his much larger, still half-clothed, body.
I’m struck by the flash of something primal in his eyes. He demands, “Are you a virgin?”
I think about lying, but he’s clearly very, very experienced. I’m afraid if I lie, he’ll take me at my word. And take too much.
“Yes.”