Chapter Thirty-Two Wilde
Past, Present, or Maybe Future
Lying Naked on a Bed of Flowers
Content
My eyes were closed, and wherever I was, I was too comfortable to open them. Silk sheets were below me and flower petals all around me. A breeze drifted through the room, carrying with it the sweet scent of honey.
Fingers ghosted over my leg, so light they only left the impression of touch behind.
I shifted restlessly, wanting them to stop teasing and hold me.
The hand obeyed my silent command and closed around the back of my calf, firm enough to feel the pressure of all five fingers.
“What do you want me to say?” Treasure murmured, his breath warming the sensitive back of my knee. “Would you like me to call you master?”
I wanted him to, once. It filled my head and my heart until I could think of nothing else but his lips shaping pretty words of obedience.
Back then, ‘Master’ meant he belonged to me, that I could keep him and have everything I ever wanted.
Now the minions tossed the title around constantly.
In seriousness and in jest, to report, complain, or question.
It meant responsibility. Conformity. Dozens of people called me ‘Master’ and I didn’t want to lose Treasure among them. “Call me whatever you want.”
“Wilde,” he whispered. “Or perhaps something more intimate?” He pressed a kiss to my knee and slowly spread my leg wide so he could fit himself between my thighs. “My dear?”
Delight shivered through me simply at the word ‘my.’ He could call me whatever he wanted, as long as I was his.
His hand skimmed up one side of my leg while his lips trailed over the other. “My love?”
That should have filled me with joy, but the endearment felt empty somehow, like it was only a word and not a feeling we shared.
I frowned and shifted under him, not sure if I meant to push him away or grab hold of him to confirm he was real. My fingers tangled in flower stems first before finding his hair. I gripped it tight and pulled him up, finally opening my eyes.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to see. A nightmare creature?
Something made of flowers and magic? A twisted replica of a familiar face?
But it was only Treasure, smirking at me, like he’d finally gotten what he wanted.
He leaned into my hand and his eyes drifted shut, red-gold lashes vivid in the sunlight.
“That’s what you want, right? For me to love you. ”
My heart lurched in my chest. “Yes, but …”
“But what?”
“Only if it’s real.”
“You don’t want real,” he tilted his head, speaking the words into the palm of my hand. “You only want control.”
I sat up, refusing to have this conversation while laying beneath him. I supported myself with one hand on the ground, my fingers burying themselves in silk sheets and dirt. The other hand I wrapped around his head and held him still while I gazed into his sky-blue eyes. “That’s not true.”
He wrapped his arm around me and traced a hand over my spine. I shuddered, inadvertently pressing closer to him until our faces were barely an inch apart. “Isn’t it?” he whispered before closing that short distance with a kiss.
I wanted to protest, to continue arguing with him until he believed me, but his tongue filled my mouth, leaving no space for words. He tasted like apples, something I’d never noticed before.
We fell back down against the bed, into the field of flowers. His hands roamed over me as if he wanted to memorize my shape. Everywhere he touched left a trail of heat, until I burned so hot my thoughts turned to ash.
Even after he ended the kiss, I couldn’t remember what I’d wanted to say. His swollen lips glistened as they shaped the words, “Tell me how to fuck you.”
The only way you’re fucking me is if I tell you exactly how to do it.
I laid my arm across my eyes, unable to look at him. I wanted to prove him wrong—to prove that I didn’t need to be in control of every aspect of our relationship—but I also didn’t want him to stop. “Do whatever you want.”
“That’s not the game, Wilde.” He pushed his hips flush against mine, so the heat of our arousal mixed. “You command, I follow.”
“No.” I finally realized why that was wrong.
“I command, and you decide whether you want to play along or say ‘fuck you’ and do the opposite.” His challenges had been frustrating at first, because it wasn’t how I’d been taught.
I’d molded myself into someone who followed the orders of people with more power and gave orders to people with less.
I was his superior on the mission, an apprentice rather than a pawn.
Yet from the beginning, every order I’d passed along, he questioned, rebelled against, found another way.
The few times he had followed my orders, it’d always been on his terms, an expression of trust.
“So you prefer when I rebel?” he asked.
I let my arm fall to my side as I nodded.
“If that’s what you want.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
He flexed his hips, rubbing himself against me in a move that shot pleasure all the way to my fingertips. My protest ended on a groan and my eyes slid shut again. He trailed kisses up my neck, soft and sweet, which seemed wrong too, even as they overwhelmed my senses.
At some point, he’d slipped hand between us and wrapped it around both of our straining erections.
His hand moved, slick and fast, urging us toward a climax.
He should have left me there, hovering on the edge—I’d done it to him, and I knew he’d want revenge.
Instead, he kept a steady, rhythmic pressure until everything overflowed and cum spilled into his hand.
He smeared his thumb over my lips, spreading them open and slipping his thumb inside so I could taste our mingled pleasure. There was no salt or bitterness, only an overwhelming sense of sour oranges. “Tell me everything you want me to do.”
My mind was too hazy from pleasure to understand the words at first. “I don’t need to be in control!”
“Of course you do. You change time like other people change clothes when it doesn’t fit your needs.”
My heart pounded at the accusation. “No.”
“A snap of your fingers, and it all resets.”
“I did that to save you.”
“You’d already saved me, but you kept going. Plotting behind the scenes, trying to control every aspect of my life. Whenever you didn’t like my choices.” He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. The sharp click echoed in my ears. “Reset.”
“It wasn’t always about you!” Sometimes it was my own choices I hated, or Fitz’s, or Maximus’.
“You’re right, it was always about you. You have to control everything around you. You created a pocket dimension so you could control every aspect of your world. Anything that didn’t go as planned, you erased.”
“No.”
He gave me an innocent look and said, “If you don’t like what I’ve said, this conversation never had to happen. Reset time, take us back to when we were kissing. I never have to say a word if you don’t want me to.”
I didn’t move, didn’t say anything, yet we were kissing again, and I couldn’t tell if it was a new kiss or an old kiss. Honied apples and sour oranges flooded my mouth until I choked.
“Wilde.”
Petals spilled from my lips, my nose, my eyes, until I drowned in flowers.
“Wilde!”
Trey’s voice seemed muffled, far away, even as his weight on top of me pressed me into the dirt to mingle with the roots.
“I know you’re fucked beyond all belief right now, but we could really use your help!”
He shouted my name a third time, and like a spell, it pulled me from the dream.
I woke surrounded by flowers and chaos.