Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sasha felt her head spin as Moriarty held her by the throat from behind.
Like going from hot to cold and back again, the adrenaline rush, then crash, then rush again was too much for her.
And she knew that had been the entire point of it all.
She could only gasp as he pulled her back against his chest, easily controlling her without even having to squeeze. His other hand splayed across her stomach, fingers wide, and pressed her firmly against him.
She felt his desire against her lower back, giving her no question of his intentions. Or the sincerity of it.
“Before we begin…” He bowed his head low to her ear, and ran his tongue slowly up along the edge of it before nipping at the lobe. “I feel as though we should set a few things into record.”
For all intents and purposes, she was putty in his hands. “You want to take this moment to talk?” She dug her fingernails into his thighs again, needing something to hold onto more than anything else. And bringing him a little pain had seemed to spur him on before.
His chuckle was darkened with a growl as he pulled her harder against him, grinding his hips against her. “Do not rush me, woman—” He pushed her forward, sending her staggering toward the windows that faced the street. “I want you to open the windows wide and pull the curtains.”
She was shivering. Positively shaking like a goddamn leaf. As she went to turn to face him, he stopped her with only his voice.
“No. Do not look at me. Do not turn. He can see you.”
“Wh—” She paused. Then she understood. Sherlock. Of course, the bastard would follow her home. Of course, he’d watch her flat in case they were having some sort of secret meeting. “You want to give him a show.”
“More than he bargained for.”
Which meant…Sidney was there, also. Fuck. Fuck! She shut her eyes. It was inevitable. All of this was inevitable. “None of this is about me, then.”
“That is what I wished to discuss before we…advanced the matter.”
Lifting her chin, she opened her eyes and waited.
She would take this news with her head held high.
She wouldn’t be some wilting wall flower.
She wouldn’t be defined by if a man loved her or not.
“I didn’t come inside expecting you to have feelings for me, James.
I am not a naive child. I just expected the desire to be legitimate, if nothing else. ”
“I promise I do not have this reaction to Sherlock.”
That made her laugh, if weakly. “Why put on such a display? He is hardly the type to become jealous.”
“Mm. Perhaps I wish for him to feel debased. Debauched. To feel dragged low by watching us together. That is what this grand experiment of yours is all about, is it not? Ruining the man’s soul?
” He paused. “And perhaps it simply brings me a thrill to think of him as our audience for this particular performance.”
Could she go through with this? Knowing Sherlock—Virtue—was watching? But it…might serve her end goal.
In her hesitation, Moriarty spoke up again. “I do not believe in love. I do, however, believe in respect.” His hand tangled in her hair and yanked her head back, causing her to hiss in pain.
It did anything but deter how very badly she wanted him.
His lips hovered close to her ear again as he murmured to her. “And I want you to understand that what I will do to you tonight is a sign of how much respect I have for you, though it may appear the opposite.”
That made her feel as though she’d been thrown off a ledge. What he was promising to do—veiled through flowery language or not—made her blood run as cold as ice and as hot as lava at the same time.
“Now…if you agree? Do as I say. Open the windows and the blinds. Let them watch their fill. Let this night serve a purpose more than our mutual satisfaction.” He pushed her forward again, though that time she was expecting it.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she took a moment to consider what she was going to do.
And she knew she only had one choice.
She opened the windows.
Sidney watched as Sherlock shifted nervously as he watched through the binoculars. His teeth were gritted, and his body was locked tight.
And that wasn’t the only thing that had grown tight about him.
Oh.
Placing her back to the wall, Sidney’s mind began to race. It was clear that Sherlock was…affected by what he was watching. In more ways than one.
It was beyond depraved.
Beyond fucked up.
Across the street, her sister was getting—her sister was probably—and she was standing next to Sherlock Holmes who was—who was getting aroused watching—
And the worst part of it all?
The thing that was going to send Sidney to hell?
She had one job, didn’t she? Seduce Sherlock Holmes. Make sure that he would sacrifice any number of innocent people over Doctor Watson.
Fuck you, Sasha.
Fuck you, Vile.
Fuck you.
Fuck. You.
Sasha could see the glint of something reflecting in the window across the street, though she couldn’t make out what. She imagined it kind of like the lens of the camera from Rear Window, though she knew that was far too modern.
Sherlock was watching.
Virtue was watching.
They had an audience.
And something about that…
Didn’t bother her.
It did something else. Something else she didn’t understand. Something she didn’t want to understand at the moment. Everything was too complicated. Too messy. Too frightening. She needed things to be simple. Easy.
A hand snapped around her throat and tightened. “I will leave no bruises and your voice will be unharmed. But the rest of you…is mine.”
Yes.
Yes, Vile, yes.
She sank into his grasp as he pulled her to his chest and once more splayed his hand over her stomach, though this time he ran his hand in through the slit of her silk gown, quickly parting it and baring her skin to the light of the moon.
“Let us ensure those in the box seats miss no detail…” He wasted no time in roughly squeezing one of her breasts so hard that it made her cry out.
Biting her lower lip to stifle the noise, she turned her head to glare at him in protest.
“Oh, yes, please, do glower at me like that. I do love your fire.” He smirked down at her, and in response to her expression pinched her nipple hard enough that her knees almost buckled. “Mind you, I will win.”
Yeah. He would. He was the primary villain. She was just a supporting character. She had to remember that. But in this moment? She was happy for that. Happy to be the sidekick. Happy for him to make it simple for her. For him to take. To conquer.
Keeping her pulled taut with one hand on her throat, his other drifted lower to delve between her legs. He groaned into her ear at what he found—at how mutually she desired his actions. “Oh, Irene…what a pair we make.”
That was true, wasn’t it?
“Will you kiss me?” It was a strange question to ask him. But she couldn’t help it.
With a pointer finger along her jaw, he turned her head to him and without hesitation, answered. He kissed her as though he meant to devour her soul by that motion alone, deep, firm, and certain. Not violent—but like a machine. Unwavering. Unyielding.
The fingers he drove up into her body at the same time were the same.
As she cried against his lips, his tongue claimed her mouth.
And pleasure crested over her—a wave of release so unlike anything she’d ever experienced before that she had to throw an arm behind his neck to keep from completely toppling over.
A snarl, deep in his throat, ended in a laugh as he broke the kiss. “My, my…so quickly?”
“Shut up.” She glared at him again. “Don’t tease me.”
“Hardly teasing.” He licked her bottom lip, grinning. “Oh, perhaps a little. I’d say you owe me one, but…you have a matinee tomorrow, and I’d hate to ruin your throat by ravishing it. No, I will have to make my mark on you another way.”
God, she wanted to punch him. But his fingers were still inside her, slowly working inside her, and they were driving her mad. She couldn’t imagine what kind of show she was making for Sherlock.
And her sister.
Fuck.
But Moriarty wasn’t letting her dwell on that thought for long.
There was a chair in line of sight of the window, facing it.
She hadn’t noticed it before. His hand moved from around her throat to twist in her hair again, and the one that had been delving into her body left her as he walked to the chair, dragging her along beside him without waiting for her to catch up to his plan.
He sat down first, roughly grabbing her by the hips and swiveling her around so she was facing away from him. She stood there for a moment while she heard him rustle with things, until he pulled her backwards, urging her legs apart. “Sit.”
She obeyed.
“Good girl.”
That…oh, why did that do things to her?
She sat on his lap. His pants were around his ankles. His arms slid around her, and he cupped her breasts, kneading them roughly as he spread his legs, forcing her own legs wide. She was on full display, now. There was nothing hidden from the view of the window in front of her.
For a moment, she wanted to cover herself with her hands. She clenched her fists.
“You can do this, Sasha. Let go.”
That wasn’t Moriarty’s voice.
That was Vile’s.
Turning her head to look at him, she caught just the barest glimpse of glowing purple in those dark black eyes of the professor. Maybe there was a point to this beyond lust, after all. A reason to surrender to it all.
She let one hand thread into his dark hair and pulled him into a kiss, her other digging her nails into his bare thigh. She wanted him. She wanted this. When she moved back, he watched her, those eyes of his lidded with lust and need.
Sasha couldn’t help it. “Let’s give them something worthy of an encore…”
The smile that he gave her was positively demonic. Whatever she had done? It had either been the right thing, or the very wrong thing. He lifted her hips, and pulled her back down on him, and sank himself into her to the hilt.
She was an opera singer in this story.
And the note she hit?
Proved it.
But he didn’t let her breathe for long. His hand was around her throat a moment later, restricting her air, as he rutted her like an animal, thrusting into her like the machine she had likened him to earlier.
He was unstoppable. Unreasonable. Inhuman.
He was going to have from her everything he wanted.
And he wanted it all.
Moriarty was all consuming.
His thrusts into her felt like heaven. Like bliss. He was perfect. Just a little too much. He ached in all the right ways. Filled her to perfection.
But just when Sasha thought it couldn’t get any more depraved? Oh, she was very wrong. He picked her up from him and stood, his fist once more in her hair. That was when she remembered…she owned a balcony.
And before she could process what was happening, she was bent over the stone balustrade, being rutted from behind like a wild animal. She had to stuff the silk of her nightgown into her mouth to keep from screaming at the sensation of him ramming into her like a train piston.
“Yes, like that—do you think he’s touching himself, watching as I ravage you? Do you think he can only imagine what it feels like?” His voice was a dusky snarl, thick with lust.
It was too perfect.
Too amazing.
The feeling of his hands clenching her hips, dragging her back against him—inescapable. She pushed back against him, needing more of him. Needing him deeper. Needing him to ram into her harder. More.
“That’s it, soprano, that’s it, my little understudy—” Those last words weren’t Moriarty. And they twisted in her, bringing her to the peak of bliss once more, riding her over the crest of ecstasy. But it still wasn’t enough. Moriarty wasn’t finished.
Vile wasn’t finished.
“What—do I have to do—for you—murder a kitten?” She gasped out in between his violent thrusts. This was going to break her.
He laughed before he wrapped his arm around her throat, pulling her up straight without separating them. It lessened the depth of his strokes, but not the presence of him inside of her. He tutted into her ear.
“What, suddenly too much for you, now? Which one of us are you fucking right now, is my question, hm? Moriarty, or me?”
Clinging to his arm, she gave the only answer she could. The honest one. “Both—”
A shudder wracked through him. He threw her back over the balustrade, pressing her down with a hand between her shoulder blades.
The other held her hips tight in his grasp, likely leaving bruises—despite his insistence otherwise—as he rammed himself forward and pressed himself as deep as he could go.
She felt him surge inside of her, felt the heat of him as he met his own end. He bent over her, holding her close, his muscles twitching in the spasms of release. The sensations of it were too much for her, and it sent her barreling into her own crest of pleasure one final time.
He yanked her up in the final throes of it, wanting to show to the world—to Sherlock—what he had done to her. The breathless thing she had become, covered in a sheen of sweat, clinging to him in dizzy need.
“Fuck you,” she whispered.
“Mmnh,” was all she got in response. Leaning down, he scooped her up behind the knees and carried her inside.
For it seemed that Moriarty might be a villain. But he was not, in fact, a bastard.
Because he did not leave her alone that night.