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.
I was prepared to fight him back. To show him I was still here and not broken.
But I wasn’t prepared for the addictive rush of filthy, greedy yearning.
His entire body shuddered. “Only if I can take you with me.”
Victor chuckled as he ran a soft flogger over Rachel’s barely-there baby bump. His eyes flickered to us as if amused by our show.
We couldn’t talk freely. We could barely talk at all on this fucked-up island, but…I trusted Henri.
I trusted in our vow.
And I let go.
I dove into that black.
I let the twisted creature who’d been born the night of the treasure hunt take control. To embrace her fury, her lust, her violence.
“Touch me again, and I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
A gush.
Not a droplet this time but a river of hot, slick, ravenous need.
“Ah, Ily…” Falling on me, he bit my neck above my collar. “Are you sure you want to threaten me?”
“Get off me.”
He chuckled.
The softest hiss of the whip on stone echoed as he flicked it left and right.
An orgasm kindled in my core.
Already?
How?
God, why?
Why did this turn me on so much?
How much more could I stand before I shattered without a single touch?
He grabbed my jaw. His fingers scalded; body heat seared.
I gulped as electricity crackled between us.
“Tell me again what will happen if I touch you? Because…” He licked my cheek, his tongue pointed and cruel. “I’m touching you.”
I moaned.
My heart flurried.
My fault.
My choice.
I’d allowed my synapses to accept this.
Encouraged my system to crave his.
And damn…I craved and craved and craved.
Grasping at sanity’s shore that seemed so far away, I bared my teeth. “You’re sick.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He shuddered as if he couldn’t control the hungry beast snarling in his eyes. Wedging his hips against mine, he thrust. The iron rod in his jeans stabbed against my belly. “Feel that? See how much your fire turns me on? See how badly I want to snuff it out?”
Words flew away.
All I could see was his smoky-grey eyes. Heavy lidded, magnetic, hypnotic, demonic.
His hands feathered into my hair, the whip dangling from his right and branding my shoulder. Pulling me forward until my shoulders threatened to pop from the hook holding me in place, he hovered his mouth over mine.
My lips stung for his kiss.
I grew drunk and dizzy, waiting, needing—
Without warning, he flipped me as nastily as Victor had.
I moaned as my breasts wedged against the cross. My stomach and cheek smashing against the wood. My criss-crossed wrists kept me trapped. “Henri—”
“Master H, if you don’t mind.” His slightly calloused hands roamed over my back and ass. Squeezing hard, he spread my cheeks and wedged his hips against me. “Fuck, I want to take you here.”
True fear returned, amplifying my out-of-control need into something heart-fistingly potent.
The gemstone dildos Victor had given us. Would Henri use them? Did he truly plan to take me there?
I’d never…
I didn’t want—
“Christ, you’re soaking.” His fingers drove from behind, spearing inside my core, sending me soaring onto my tiptoes.
I didn’t just moan this time, I cried out—tortured and tormented, desperate and dark.
Running his nose along my tattooed spine, he murmured, “I honestly have no idea how I’m going to react when I start whipping you, Ily, so…I suggest you hold on.”
My heart skipped. “Wait…don’t—”
“You look fucking amazing strung up like this.” Two fingers became three. My mind blacked out. “Ride my hand. Come for me like a good little girl, then maybe I won’t whip you after all.”
His command soaked into my blood.
Any normal person would obey. They’d choose a release over pain and do whatever it took, but today…I wasn’t normal. He wasn’t normal. In this place, we were abnormal.
And so…my response was the only one I could give.
Clamping my legs together, I tried to bruise his wrist. “Stop touching me, you bastard.”
Hissing between his teeth, he yanked his hand away.
I mourned the loss of being filled, but then…his body heat vanished too. His footfalls tripped unevenly away. And the slither of that terrifying whip ratcheted up my pulse until I breathed with quick little pants. True terror shoved aside my script. “Henri…wait…”
“Master H is my title. Use it.”
“Don’t—”
“Too late.” He made a guttural noise that made my hair stand on end. “I tried to warn you and even gave you an out. You didn’t take it.”
The quiet hiss of leather flying through the air landed with the sting of a thousand angry bees.
“Ah fuck.” I jolted. My cuffs jingled. My back burned.
Never.
I’d never felt anything so sharp, so stinging, so savage.
The whip snapped over my left shoulder blade, burning me with a million fires. The ink down my spine seemed to throb, the tip of my wand pulsing with heinous magic.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Henri groaned.
I scrambled against the cross. The hook clanged against its chain. And I screamed as the whip sang again—
“Ahhh!” The second lash burrowed deep into my skin, blazing on my other shoulder blade.
“Your tanned skin makes me work harder for those red welts,” he groaned. “You should see what I see. See how drenched you are. See how you arch into the whip’s kiss.”
He struck again.
I collapsed against the cross, my shackles holding me upright.
Just a game.
Just a game.
Playing.
Faking.
So why did it feel so real?
Why did my mind fracture, and my body shatter, and everything I’d ever known tear itself into silly little pieces?
He struck a fourth time.
Fire.
Liquid, luminous fire.
Everywhere.
“Your tattoo is glowing red, little nightmare,” he grunted. “The wand looks alive. A curse just for me.”
The pain billowed and cycloned. It soaked into my blood and travelled straight to my soul. With fingers made of light and whispers made of night, it shut down my thoughts one by one. Snuffed them out. Turned them off.
I was no longer human with feelings and fears. I was pure energy and vibration.
I sank into the trance.
A fifth lick, this one tattooing my very heart.
I screamed.
I convulsed.
My insides contracted on emptiness, needing, needing, needing…
“You were made for this,” he snarled. “Made for me to mark.”
I sagged. I tensed.
The synergy between us became carnal.
His energy wrapped around mine. My energy bled out to join his.
Crowding me against the cross, he pressed his front to my blazing back. His sweaty, scorching skin plastered to mine. He must’ve ripped off his t-shirt and, good God, it felt too good. Far, far too good.
I moaned as his hand speared between my thighs, penetrating me with three thick fingers. My legs spread of their own accord, delivering myself up to him. My ass backed up, begging him.
He groaned as he grabbed my hip with his other hand, rocking me over his hand.
Stars in my eyes.
Galaxies in my heart.
“Tell me again not to touch you,” he grunted. “I dare you.”
I almost swallowed my own tongue as he pumped into me, rough and primal.
An orgasm spindled from nowhere.
So close.
So near.
Up and up and—
“I feel you.” He pressed his forehead right on the tip of my wand. “Feel your greedy pussy milking my fingers with those hot little pulses.” He bit my ear, his breath tattered. “It makes me want to fuck you so bad.”
Do it.
Yes.
Please!
“I hate you,” I groaned, falling deeper into love.
Just words at this point. Just scrambled-up lines that meant the absolute opposite.
“You hate me, huh?” With a soft, sensual chuckle, Henri removed his fingers.
I moaned as my core rippled with frustration.
I needed him to fill me.
Complete me.
A cold draft prickled down my back as he stumbled away. The warning hiss of the whip and its dangerous song slicked through the air.
Another lash cracked right on my ass.
“Ah fuck!” My hips shot forward, bruising me against the cross.
I had no words for what happened.
No explanation for how the corporeal part of me suddenly existed on a spiritual plane of sensuality. I’d touched such a metaphysical place yesterday when I’d hidden from Victor. I’d fallen into sublime quietness for only a few seconds every time I meditated, but this…
God this…
“Beg me to stop,” Henri gasped. “Tell me how much you hate me.”
I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.
Another lash.
A waspish sting.
Meditative calmness.
Intense mindfulness.
I burned alive.
Because of him.
My other half.
My missing half.
My blood turned to light as every molecule shivered for more.
“I want to do such bad things to you, Ily…” He struck again, this time on my other ass cheek.
I snapped forward against the cross again. My knees trembled. My legs threatened to give out. Another wave of hot fire cascaded down my back and into my blood.
It pushed me headfirst into a deeper realm.
An awful detonation.
It wasn’t his darkness that shoved me into pleasure but the innocence beneath his mastery. The pain tangled in his power. The vulnerability and love and kindness.
A kindness that hadn’t been eradicated despite what his father had done to him.
A commitment that came from a lifetime of needing to belong. To belong to one person. Just one. Just me.
Another lash directly on my spine.
I went completely blind as all my heat soaked into my clit.
I hovered on the edge of an orgasm.
I panted and sweated, moaned and mewled.
All I wanted was for him to finish. To fill me. Instead, I clung to our play and forced, “Fuck you.”
“Such a filthy word from your pretty little mouth.”
“Get away from me.”
“Nope.” His heavy footsteps stepped into me. The prickle of his energy coated my entire back. “I have just the thing to tame that mouth of yours.”
My hovering orgasm teased.
If he touched me, I’d fall.
I held my breath and—
With brutal hands, he flipped me to face him.
My wrists uncrossed.
Our eyes locked.
And all our games fell away.
His gaze held no light, just pitch blackness. His lips thin, temples glittering with sweat. He’d stripped to his tight navy boxer-briefs, his erection popping out.
Whatever intensity we existed in lashed us together.
I felt him.
Heard him.
You’re perfect. His eyes glowed.
“You’re drenched,” his lips murmured.
I love you, his heart whispered.
“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.)
Pulling away, he 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 shackled 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.