chapter twelve #2
A burning festered in my throat, making me squirm under his grip. The pervasive sensation got stronger. It was like a hand was closing around my throat while I was forcibly fed hot embers.
My breath quickened, and I let out a cough. A whimper accompanied it when I failed to clear it. A bitter metallic taste took over my throat.
The Creature turned me around to face him. “What did I tell you?” He tilted his head to the side. “Did I not say I was made of poison? I thought you would have surely taken that part seriously.”
My eyes watered, and my fists had balled up in his shirt from pure desperation. Another labored gasp was taken in vain. The burning was unbearable, like trying to rid my throat of hot coals only for it to spread farther.
What is this?
Admittedly, as a poisoner myself, I had never thought I would be the one to be poisoned. The past few weeks had been full of many firsts. How poetic that I die the same way I reaped.
He lowered his face to mine, and my body protested the proximity.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered against my lips.
“No.” My voice came out as a weep. My sight was blurred from tears, and I gripped him tighter to steady my dizzy spell. The air was being cut off from my lungs, and they struggled to expand.
“Find it within you to do so, just this once,” he whispered.
He grabbed my face with one hand, jolting it toward him. His lips found mine, and I could feel his tongue slip inside my mouth. The kiss was soft, despite his voracity.
I refused to return any such gesture, but then the burning slowly dissipated. My body forced my mouth open to take in air, and he wasted no time seizing the opportunity. A gasp escaped me as my throat loosened, making our kiss deepen.
The Creature picked me up and pushed me onto the workbench, gardening tools clattering to the ground.
My breath hitched at the sharp movement, our lips hovering earnestly over each other. If the room had been dark, there would be static electricity trading flashes of light from the tension between us. My hands were riddled with tremors from shock.
He almost killed me. Again. And nobody would be left to blame but myself, as much as I would want it to be his fault entirely. The Poisoner Who Poisoned Herself. I could see it on the headstone now.
He was generous enough to let me catch my breath. How humiliating.
I did not have to look at him to know that an undoubtedly coy look would be present as he watched the color return to my face.
“You know, you’re quite cute when your lips turn blue.” His eyes glanced from my lips to my eyes. “I can understand why you prefer to execute people this way.”
There was that dreadful pang in my gut. The knot formed low in my abdomen as I entirely took in the position I was in.
This Creature was poised above me, hungry and waiting. His hips were pressed between my legs, his hands steadying my tremors.
It could have been the adrenaline, or it was a manifestation of my own hunger. I did not know how to explain it. It was like a jolt of lightning had shot through my body. Why did he make me feel so hot ?
“What little thoughts are smacking against the inside of your skull?” His pupils were constricted. The air about him was as dangerous as the still air before a storm.
“No…thoughts,” I mumbled, refusing to look at him.
“You seem upset.”
“I am.”
“Oh, that won’t do, then, will it?” He leaned down, biting gently on my ear as he pressed his body against mine.
My hair had slipped out of my neat bun when his fingers tangled through the midnight strands. He hiked my dress up to expose my legs, using his hips as a barrier that kept them from closing.
“Wait—” The words fell short before he sucked high on my neck by my jaw. A cold, leather-covered hand traced under my dress and crept up my thigh. I tried to clench my legs closed, but he was in the way.
“Behave,” he breathed into my neck. “I am trying to be nice. Let me cheer you up.”
My skin was on fire wherever he breathed, touched, sucked. Any thoughts about my rigid ethical compass slipped away and spun out of control. He was purely magnetic that way.
As much as I hated him for making me feel like this, for him, of all people, he could have anything he wanted. Why bother me? Why must he be so stubborn and fixated on the one who wanted to kill him?
“Remember how my tongue felt on your fingers that night?” he asked against my neck, placing another mark on my neck above one of the nearly healed bruises.
I nodded and turned my face away in embarrassment.
He responded by pulling away.
A disappointed knot formed in his absence. I looked down and saw those broad shoulders between my legs. My eyes widened, but my reaction was delayed by a warm, wet sensation against my skin.
“ No! ” I snapped, but he reached up and gripped my thighs, my legs resting on his shoulders. He pulled my body closer to the edge of the table.
His tongue traced up and down my labia lightly, teasing around the area before I could feel myself throbbing in anticipation, twitching at any stray movements.
His tongue dampened the surrounding skin.
Fingers played with the hem of my silk stockings as his focus was dedicated entirely between my thighs.
“ Let go! ” I grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head up.
His now-black eyes peered up at me through his blond lashes before his face lowered behind the bunched-up dress, ignoring my protests.
A long tongue danced playfully between my legs before prodding gently to ask for entrance.
If I bit my lip any harder, it would have bled.
Though I did not think he would mind that either.
It was getting harder to muffle the sounds my throat ached to make.
What kept me from saying no? Whenever I thought to tell him off, I was distracted by the feeling of his tongue teasing me.
My fist still held on to his hair, but I was unsure if I wanted to push him away or pull him closer.
Slowly, he pushed his tongue inside until his lips could suck on the surrounding area, coaxing a soft gasp from me.
This was new to me. In the many times I’d tried to seek pleasure from a man, it never came close to something like this. The tightness forming at the bottom of my abdomen made me pant, struggling to catch a full breath. The windows began to fog around us in the small glass room.
His mouth vibrated against my skin when a low clicking emanated from his throat.
I lay back on the table, letting go of his hair, as I was unable to support myself as pleasure rippled through my body.
He shifted by standing up, my legs over his shoulders, so that he was in full view, but so was I. He glanced down at me while he lapped between my thighs, using one of his hands to play with my clit.
My cheeks were now red from embarrassment and from the blood rushing to my head from the position. My nails dug into the table’s surface, desperately trying to find something to grab.
I could only manage to glare at him. If I let him derive too much pleasure from this, he would begin to think he’d won.
“Oh, if this isn’t the most beautiful view”—he flattened his tongue against the wetness coming from me—“then I don’t know what is.” Without another moment wasted, he slipped that devil’s tongue into me again, reaching deeper than I would have expected anyone to.
I yelped, arching my back.
He gasped against me as he moved his tongue, flexing it forward and curling to hit that forbidden spot that was not often found.
“ Silas! ” I whined, closing my eyes tight as he moved inside me.
Calling his name made him physically tense, his movements becoming more ravenous.
There was not much more I could take. My abdomen was so tight that I could combust from the heat. The end was coming on fast. There was no stopping the wave washing over me.
The orgasm ripped through my body with such intensity that I swear even he could feel it move through me, clamping around his tongue. It rolled through me in waves, each time less intense than the last, before it left my body and took any remaining tension with it.
My body went limp, and my chest rose and fell with a dizzy pant. The corset was not helping me in the slightest to regain my breath.
He slipped that unforgivable tongue out, slicking over his lips in response. “You know, you taste better than I imagined.” He smirked. “But all those lovely sounds really made it an experience,” he teased.
“I cannot…wait…to kill you,” I breathed, letting my head fall back with a thud against the table. I just needed to close my eyes for a minute.
What have I done?
“Is that any way to thank me?” He dropped my legs, pulling me back up to a sitting position, my thighs shaking. “If you’ll let me do that, why not let me have a different kind of taste?”
“I have to get back?—”
“What’s the rush?” he asked, leaning in. “Why not just stay here all night?” He pressed his hips between my legs again—an awful insinuation.
Sickening.
“You’re delusional if you think that will happen.”
“I saved your life and tasted both of your sweet lips tonight. Anything can happen.”
I lowered my gaze in embarrassment. In anger and in haste, I pushed myself off the table.
“Red looks good on you,” he said, “especially when it is blood rushing to your face.” He laughed, but I was already out the door.
I tied my hair back up again and used the previously secured ribbon to tie it into place. What a mess this was.
My shaking hands fidgeted with my ribbon in an attempt to tie it in a bow before my face smacked into a hard chest.
“Miss Lis!” a nervous voice bumbled. “I am so sorry, I should have seen—” Viktor placed his hands on my shoulders, looking down at me with those sweet brown eyes. His expression twisted in concern when he saw the state of my flustered face. “Are you all right? You look a bit drained,” he said.
“Yes—yes, it’s all right. I just needed a break!” I exclaimed nervously, itching to get as far away from that room as I could, my legs still quivering. “How about we dance? Yes! Let’s dance. Come!”
My hand was clasped in his as we moved through the footpaths into the main event area. Some string instruments lit the room with a comforting spirit among the low ambient light. The sun had set, and a few stars littered the dark sky on the other side of the glass ceiling.
It was best to be surrounded by people, as I wished not to grapple with my thoughts for the rest of the night. I plucked a champagne flute from a passing tray, and I let the cool liquid slip down my sore throat in a single swig.
Viktor looked perplexed as I dragged him with me.
We joined the crowd that occupied the floor, and I clung onto this new figure of mine like a life preserver on a sinking ship.
“Miss Lis, are you sure everything is all right?” he whispered, resting a hand on my waist and taking my hand in his.
“Yes! Fantastic—everything is great!” I forced a smile, peering over his shoulder skittishly like I might fly away at any sudden movement.
He did not press the subject any longer but pulled my body in gently with a reassuring squeeze of my hand. The gesture calmed me slightly. At least Silas could not make a scene in front of everyone. Not here. I lowered my head to Viktor’s chest, and he rested his chin on my head in response.
“Miss Lis?—”
“ Alina. Please just call me Alina,” I mumbled into the lapel of his suit.
“Alina,” he corrected himself, playing with the sound of my name on his tongue. “Do you want me to escort you home?”
“ Please. ”
The door unlocked with a heavy click, and I looked back at Viktor.
He was standing on the first step, looking up at the town house. His deep eyes looked like they were eating up the details, taking it in completely.
He reminded me of myself—how he studied everything like it was holding secrets.
“Would you like to come in?” I offered, opening the door wider for him.
He pretended to contemplate it, giving his chin a few taps. “I don’t know… That’s a really hard decision. What if you turn out to be a witch?”
“There are worse things out there, like alienists.” I winked.
He tucked his hands in his pockets, giving a shy glance at his shoes. “As much as I’d love to, I must go. I am rarely even out this late.”
“Suit yourself.” I shrugged. “Ring me some time, will you?”
“I can do you one better.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’ll send those papers you asked for.”
“We have a deal, as long as you put yourself through the post as well.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He laughed.
With that, we parted ways for the night.