Chapter 16
Lenna
In front of the mirror in her bedroom in the safehouse, Lenna opened her hands and Gave herself something she hadn’t used in a very long time. Not since before the Fifth Crusade.
Stripes of fire-red laces covered her torso, barely covering her nipples, yet holding the full weight of her breasts masterfully, like Jake’s hands used to.
They continued interlacing against her waist, where they tied to a suspender.
Underneath the suspender, a thong with transparencies revealed parts of her core.
The clips of the suspenders held up a pair of black tights that reached her mid-thighs.
She looked at herself, trying to find the will and sass that used to drive her life forward.
What she found instead was terrifying. There was nothing but hurt, rage, and fear.
So much fear. Fear she was very much determined not to let win the battle of her future.
She would learn to mold the fear, convert it into a tool she would use at her will.
She wanted her man back, and she was fucking going to get him.
So, with a last glance at the fire burning in her golden eyes, she Gave herself a long, black coat that covered her lingerie-dressed skin from neck to ankles.
A button around her throat, followed by a thick black belt around her waist, closed it up.
Sharp black heels finished her outfit, then she inhaled sharply, and she was gone.
The moment she stopped spiraling in the void and landed on the outskirts of the East House in the East Petal, she let out a loud curse.
If she had moured two feet to her right, she would be dead right now.
The fence around the East House was like nothing she had ever seen before.
If “fence” was even the word for this palace of torture.
Sharp, metal spears twice as tall as any mortal being covered the whole perimeter around the House.
Spears that could have her bleeding if by some Cardinal-cursed miracle she hadn’t aimed properly.
It took Lenna a while walking around the outside of the non-friendly fence to find anywhere that could remotely be an actual entrance and not just a wall formed by metallic weapons.
When she realized what she was looking at, Lenna’s first thoughts were that the bloody East Cardinal was indeed twisted, and so had to be the Rulers of her House to live in such a place.
In front of her, at the height of her waist, was a ball full of broken glass shards.
A ball that looked like a doorknob. A ball that she held in her palm as she squirmed, holding in a scream as the glass broke her skin and her blood fell inside the ball, where it bubbled as if welcoming it.
A second later, navy handwriting that she knew all too well appeared on her forearm:
Clever way for the Ruler of the House to be notified of any unwanted visitors. She sent her golden ink to Jake.
There was no further reply, however fifty metal spears were momentarily swallowed by the ground, and Lenna didn’t hesitate for a Fifth-damned moment before walking past and quickly inside the House, in case they reappeared and they speared her sorry ass.
The principal residence of the East House was at the other end of a black stone passage delimited by all sorts of roses.
Especially full-of-thorns roses. From afar, the House appeared…
wrong. It appeared to have pieces attached to it that were unnecessary and unexpected, but she was too far to identify exactly what they were.
She was not too far to recognize the black-haired man walking straight to her, though. Her heart beat faster than a drum, and the fear… Fucking hell, the fear was threatening to swallow her alive faster than the ground had swallowed those spears. Her jaw hurt from clenching it so hard.
Jake stopped in front of her, shaking his head, with a shine in his silver eyes that made Lenna wonder if she stood a chance, but his words when he opened his lips sliced Lenna’s heart.
“You should move on and forget me. This is over.”
“What is over?” Her voice was a whisper, and it was a miracle her words had even come out as all air had seemed to abandon her lungs.
The straight line of his jaw was marked as he bit hard. “Us. We will never be partners, we will never be together, we will never be anything. Don’t waste your time with false hopes, Brachyan. And don’t waste mine either.”
“I have research to conduct in your House, Jake.
Oh, and don't Brachyan me.” Her hands trembled as she lifted them towards the button on her throat, unbuttoning it.
“Call me Lenna,” she said as she untied the belt around her waist, and opened the long coat, revealing all her naked skin and the transparencies underneath, “and fuck me.”
“Lenna,” he said her name as quiet as a forbidden prayer. He closed his eyes. If his self-control was in full force, this was going to be practically impossible. “What on Terrha are you—don’t do this. I can't—”
“You can't love me? Well the fuck aware, and I don't care. You can fuck me, and that's all I'm asking for.”
His piercing stare hadn’t moved from her eyes for a second. Damn, all that lingerie and he wouldn’t even bother admiring it?
“I might be heartless but I’ve never been stupid. If it’s purely sex you need, you can have any being you want. Why do you need to make things complicated?”
“It’s pretty simple, actually: because no one else fucks me even remotely as well as you do,” she shrugged, trying with all her will to keep her facade cool.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, his broad chest expanding in front of her. “I don't want to hurt you. You deserve someone who can love you, who can care for you. I no longer can.”
Lenna swallowed, biting her inner cheek to keep her bottom lip from trembling and all her pretend composure from breaking down in a blink.
Her heart was not shattering. Her heart was not shattering.
Her heart was not fucking shattering.
She could do this. She had to do this.
She indeed deserved someone who loved her and cared for her, and so did he.
The only person she wanted to be loved by, to care about her, was right in front of her, apparently keeping even her physical needs at bay.
It was probably a wise choice. She was probably going to fully regret being this close to him—fuck, she couldn’t even imagine having him inside of her again, if she managed to convince him. It was definitely going to hurt. A whole fucking lot. But did she care? Not one Cardinals-damned bit.
If this were the only way Lenna could have Jake, then she would spend however long she needed putting back the shattered pieces of her heart after being with him. If it were purely sex or nothing, then she would have that, even if it meant spending the nights repairing her soul after.
He would not accept her rupturing whatever feelings she had left for him, though. But a woman had to pretend to survive sometimes, even if the price of that survival was her own heart.
“Don't worry about me falling for you,” she managed to say with her best convincing, take-no-shit face. A mask of her past. A mask she had to wear if she wanted to get him back. A mask she had to transform her face to.
His silver eyes narrowed to slits. “Why?”
Her inner snort was louder than a thunderstorm. Why? Because she had fallen in love a long time ago, and there was no going back.
She lifted her eyebrow with as much sass as she could muster, and it felt like lifting the biggest weight one could bear. “All I want—all I need—is sex. Unless you don't like my outfit or my pussy, in which case I'll indeed go fuck the next candidate on a very long queue.”
He didn't move.
She started closing the coat, but his firm hands ripped it open, sending the button flying across the ground.
“Not so fast,” he growled. He held the sides of the coat in tight fists, and he was so close.
So, so close to her, yet still not taking his eyes from her face. “You want me to admire you, don’t you?”
One of his fingers touched her top lip, and she held her breath while he traced it to her bottom lip, then her chin, then her neck. Without opening her mouth, she mustered to nod. It was more than a nod, though. It was a beg, a prayer, an offer.
His finger moved so slowly, and from this close, with his leather scent invading her mind, she found it hard not to kiss him.
But if he had decided to get close to her, she would let him explore.
She would be his toy, his tool—whatever he let her be, she would be, as long as he allowed her into his life.
“You want me to desire you, don’t you?” His voice was gravel, and when his finger flicked her hard nipple, exposed through the lingerie, she gasped, pressing her thighs together to keep the aching need in her core from making her knees buckle.
He pinched her nipple between his index and his thumb, and she arched her back, extending her neck as she tilted her head backwards.
He didn’t get closer to her, but took a step backwards, not letting go of her nipple as he massaged it with his fingers, sending all sorts of nerves around her sensitive body. It was then when he finally looked at her, her clothes or lack of them covering her skin. “Look at you,” he whispered.
He took his sweet damned time, his eyes examining her clavicle, her breasts, the line to her belly button, the way the suspender embraced her waist, how the thong revealed part of her core, how the semi-transparent black tights shaped her legs, how the high heels embellished her ankles.
“You want me to think about you and wish you were mine to devour, don’t you? ”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely audible. She couldn't breathe. She didn't want to breathe. Not even the air deserved to be part of this need, of this desire.
The corner of his lips tilted upwards, and his eyes darkened from a pure silver to a dark grey.
“You want my cock to be hard and fill your tight little pussy, don’t you?
” The fingers playing with her nipple finally resumed their downward course, down the curve of her waist, over the red suspender, on top of the bone marking her hips, directly aiming to the apex of her thighs.
One of his fingers slid through one opening of her thong, and he traced her core from the opening to her clit, making her legs shake when he claimed the nerves there to react.
Jake then took his finger out and put it straight into his mouth, licking it slowly, closing his eyes as he savored her taste.
“So wet and so sweet, molten honey. Just like I remember.”
She was speechless, her lust overriding all her verbal capacities. She needed more. She needed a lot more. She needed his touch, his feeling, his skin—she needed him. All of him.
“I will allow you to be my guest until you conduct your research, Brachyan. Consider it a kindness for a past that we lost and will never recover.” He held the sides of her coat together, opening a hand to replace the missing button by Giving it a new one, and then he tied the belt around her waist, giving it a last pull to tighten it further around her body.
“Who knows, perhaps we could become lovers who just fuck and don’t feel. ”
Shattered. Fucked. Shattered. Fucked.
It’s this or nothing, she reminded herself.