Chapter 27 #3
He kissed me over my shoulder. He held his palm against my front, my back flush against his chest as he prodded between my legs again, but didn’t go in.
Against my better judgment, I kissed him back. The room stopped spinning, and I was in a delightful high, willing to indulge.
“Alina.” He swallowed, like it physically pained him to wait, poised.
I pulled away, his hands smoothing over the fabric, as if it was making him impatient with the lack of skin contact, shaking feverishly.
“You are the same creature you’ve always been.” I swallowed. “Will I ever be rid of you?”
“In death, plausibly.” His lips lingered by my ear. “Mine or yours.”
I peered at him over my shoulder; his eyes were black, only the silver halos present, watching me with that starved intensity. I nodded, gripping the sheets to brace myself.
He pushed in, jolting me forward in tandem with his grip on my hip. The low groan from him, coupled with the dangerous frequency of clicking, reminded me how exciting it was, how dangerous it was.
He began to roll his hips, working with my movements until my body relaxed entirely.
His pace picked up until he bottomed out every time, pushing my body forward. It was beginning to get sore.
“Slow down,” I whined. “Please.”
“Shh,” he hushed me, gathering me in his arms to turn me over.
I was on my back, staring up at him, though this view was more terrifying. He loomed over me, an ever-present threat. I would have been embarrassed to be caught like this, but his eyes were focused on something else.
He moved his hips slower, pushing in and out and watching himself do so.
I covered my mouth when a moan escaped; I wanted to melt into the sheets. I didn’t know what was more mortifying; him seeing me or him knowing I might be enjoying it.
“Look at you,” he practically purred. “Does it feel good to finally give in?”
He thrust hard into me when I opened my mouth to answer, an incoherent sound manifesting.
“Music to my ears.” His eyes raked over my exposed chest. He gripped the waistband of my skirt, using it to pull me into his thrusts. He began to get more forceful, his hips slapping against my thighs.
I arched my back, my elbows rubbing into the fabric and forming an inevitable burn.
“S—” I gave up on words, but it just made him thrust harder.
“Let . . . it out,” he panted, staring at me with such intensity I wanted to shrivel away and hide.
I shook my head in protest.
He grabbed my face as he thrust harder. “Say it,” he breathed against my lips, and I embarrassingly held mine open for him, wanting a taste, craving it. “Your blood, your screams, your pleasure. They belong to me.”
“Silas,” I whined.
“What do you want, Alina?”
“I want,” I began, staring at him through my lashes, my cheeks sore from the grip of his hand. “Harder” is all I managed.
While my demand wasn’t complicated, it was all he needed to keep going.
He turned me on my side, my leg thrown over his shoulder.
He placed one hand on my leg, the other on the bed as he fucked me so hard the only thing I could manage was a cry of pleasure. There were no words I could utter that would capture an appropriate response.
I bit down on my lip to muffle the moans.
Then he slowed to a stop.
He looked like he wanted to say something, but he gripped my hips, shoving his cock hard inside. I expected the pierce of those venomous spines, but they didn’t come.
I looked up in confusion.
He stood on his knees, only the tip inside me as he finished. Between my legs I could see the spines on the underside of his cock flex, disappointed they weren’t latched into something. His cock twitched with every release, making a shiver shoot up my spine.
He leaned over with his hands grasping the sheets on either side of me, out of breath.
I swallowed hard, as if our breath mingling was more scandalous than what we had just done together. More intimate in the post-lust sobriety.
He leaned closer, and I thought he was going to kiss me. His forehead touched mine, and to my disappointment, he didn’t open his eyes.
There was a change in the air, a switch, then finally, a retreat.
He shoved my leg off his shoulder and stepped away. The sudden change was tinged with an air of disgust. Regret, perhaps? Whatever it was, his posture changed, something that could have possibly been shame.
He fixed his trousers and sat down in the chair in the corner of the room.
Each limb shook, and every inch of my skin crawled. I hadn’t realized how much until my arms covered my chest. My skin rose in bumps as the chill settled in.
“Why do you look at me like that?” he spoke. “Why do you cry for me just to push me away? Like this isn’t a gamble on your life every time? Why must you dare me with the look in your eyes as if I’m not capable of consuming you whole?”
I blinked, barely registering his question.
“What? Now you have nothing to say?” He scoffed, sinking farther into the chair and plucking a cigarette out of his pocket.
He flicked his lighter a few times unsuccessfully before he got a flame, the light striking his face every time, but it revealed something more.
His brows were creased, his jaw tense. He hated this.
We sat in silence. Not because I didn’t have things to say, but I was in shock. I was embarrassed, consumed with loathing for the man.
“You are no different from them. There is no use pretending like your heart doesn’t beat faster when you say such things to me,” I whispered finally.
“Oh, no,” he laughed cruelly. “The things that make my dead heart sing are much worse than anything I’ve dared to say to you.”
“Then say it, you coward.”
“I will say them over your grave someday, you have my word on that.”
“You will undoubtedly be the first to perish, and I will revel in it.”
His expression softened, shaking his head knowingly at me.
“There it is,” he praised, “even your words of malice are sweet like honey.”
“You betray me again and again. Your loyalties lie with nobody except yourself.”
“Betray you? You left me!”
“You abandoned me when I needed you most and then joined in on the fun.”
His brow furrowed as he breathed in, the tip of his cigarette growing brighter from the anxious drag. “I did not feed.”
“Liar,” I bit out, “you didn’t fight for me.”
“It isn’t so simple.”
“You killed many around me for a simple raise of the tongue, yet you couldn’t kill Luka.”
“He has years on me and was surrounded by people with whom I am not in good graces with.”
“You joined him.”
“What was I to do? Watch him tear into you? Listen to your screams? Watch as he drained you within an inch of your life?”
“You should have found it within your cold, dead heart to kill me,” I snapped.
He was quiet, shaking his head, a smile of amusement on his face. “Then what? You turn? You told me to be less impulsive and to think about how my actions might affect you—and that’s what I did.”
“How?”
“Well, you’re alive, are you not?”
I swallowed, watching as he ashed the cigarette, seemingly losing interest in it and me, as he stared off somewhere.
“You can hate me all you like, if it makes you feel better, but I did not join,” he spat the word like it was rotten in taste, rubbing his thumb over his brow as if the conversation was wearing him.
“It killed me to know that the only kindness I could give to you in your moment of need was sedation. It hurts more knowing that you saw it as a betrayal. I was helping you.”
“You’re selfish.”
“I am. I’m selfish, I’m greedy, and I wanted you to live. I knew you would hate me, but I know you well enough to know you would have hated yourself if you became . . .”
“Like you?” I finished for him.
“Like me,” he repeated quietly.
That is where his comments ended. Something about his words was tired, longing to say something more, but deciding against it.