CHAPTER THIRTY
TESSA
I hum in consideration, shifting my attention between the Adonis before me and the prop representing his godlike status.
The vision of power he’s suggesting sounds more equivalent than I envisioned.
I’m not sure he’d survive telling me to crawl.
Then again, arousal coats my thighs from the mental image. Another war.
He reads my inner conflict, stretches toward the bedside table, retrieves a few things from the drawer, and then he planks over me.
His lips tickle my earlobe, his scruff grazing my cheek.
“You got on your knees for me last night and let me paint your pretty tits with my cum. I understood what that meant to you.” He waits for my eyes to latch to his. “It meant everything to me.”
In those wintry gems, there are glimmers of blue flames and white specks of hope.
I’ve heard people talk about how unsettling they are, the contrast of the sparkling silver to his onyx locks.
There are employees who avoid direct eye contact, even though he’s fun.
And members who fear him, despite being corrupt and dangerous in their own right.
I never agreed. Even when I hated him, his eyes felt like a lighthouse in a storm. It pissed me off.
And now? All I see is that little boy who wanted his mom to think he was doing a cool trick and a man who needs me to tell him he’s all I want.
“It did mean something to me, Maddox. I’m mixed up, angry, but not … not about you.” My eyes burn with tears I’ve held at bay for years. “About all of this. About so many things.”
“I know.” He pulls my ponytail out, massaging my scalp. “Things are hard right now. They might be hard for a while. Let me carry it all for you, Tess. Let me take care of you. It would be my honor to serve my queen.”
His queen.
The veneer I’ve plastered on for as long as I can remember fractures. I’m not sure what’s happening to me, what’s setting it off. If it’s being shot at or being told I don’t have a choice. My family finally giving up on me or the touch of the man who refuses to.
“I can be that for you. Your safe place. Your armor. You can break with me.”
Choking back the overwhelm threatening to wreck this sexy encounter, I focus on what we’re doing here. “So, you fasten me to my throne and then what?”
“You can let me have my way with you. Or you can torture me and not allow me to touch you. Withholding, like you are now by fisting my dick and not moving.” He waggles his brows. “Make me beg. Whatever feels good, baby girl.”
I roll my head to see what he grabbed from the drawer, stroking his cock once for encouragement. “What else?”
“Lube and an anal vibrator. If you want.”
“Okay.” I bite my lip, nod, and release his shaft so he can set to work.
“Just in case, let’s assign a safe word.” His mischievousness lightens that directive. “How about post office? I can’t imagine anything worthy of derailing a sexual encounter more.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Hades.”
“Exactly.” He pecks my lips and flips me over so my upper half is lying on the bed and my feet are on the floor, and he spreads my arousal along the crack in my ass, uttering, “Fucking phenomenal,” as he massages my virgin hole.
The cool gel of the lube hits me next with a squeak from the bottle, and then he’s guiding the long, smooth plug into place.
He takes his time, easing it in, as I clamp my eyes shut and let the sensations dissolve my reservations.
It burns in the best way. I’ve always liked my ass played with, but I’ve never had a partner willing, experienced, and trustworthy.
Once that’s set, he picks me up, bridal-style, and delivers me to the throne. As he moves my limbs where he wants them, fastening them to the chair, he’s clearly undone. Lust-driven and emotional.
He contorts me so my ass is pushed forward, my wrists buckled flat to the gold arms of the chair, thighs spread wide, and knees bound to the sides to keep them open.
My pussy is on full display, my clit pulsating with need.
There’s a fullness in my ass. I’m dripping all over the purple crushed velvet.
And bound to a throne in the private Noire owner’s wing.
But none of those things are what hit me. It’s the veneration in his gaze.
“I’ve always loved you in purple,” he rasps, transfixed as he ogles me.
“Why me?” It slips out before I can catch it, and, with it, a tear.
He lurches forward, cradles my face, and languidly licks the droplet beneath my eye, sending a shiver through me, as much from the act as his declaration. “How could it be anyone else? You’re the only woman who exists for me.”
“Maddox, that’s—”
“No,” he cuts me off, a fiery conviction conquering us both. “Fuck anyone who has made you feel anything less than worthy of every-goddamn-thing. I would choose you in any life, under any circumstance. You are and will always be mine, and nothing you do can change that.”
When he phrases it like that, it doesn’t sound like captivity.
He kisses my nose, such a gentle giant, but then he morphs back into my demented lunatic.
“To be clear though, if you touch another man or another man touches you, I will dismember him, set him on fire, roast marshmallows in the flames, and fuck you in the soot of his corpse before eating the s’mores of his demise. ”
I close my eyes and sigh, but it’s laced with dry humor. “So close. So fucking close to being mildly normal.”
“That was romantic as fuck. A death threat in this world far surpasses candy or roses, and I managed to promise a body, an orgasm, and a treat. I’ll even let you throw flowers on their grave. Ugly ones.”
I’m seriously sick in the head because that is a valid argument, but it was the choosing-me vow that burrowed into my fissures of pain. It makes me wonder what he said to my dad that day, something that won my father over. Even without knowing what it was, I’m in awe. Rejuvenated by the bondage.
How did we get here? The first time he was inside me, I had slapped him minutes before. The second time, I knocked him over beneath the water, practically drowning us. He dominated me after both incidents, threw me around, and secured the upper hand. It was an angry tango.
This is relenting. Or becoming.
Belonging.
“At my mercy, but calling the shots,” he summarizes before swaggering to the wall directly in front of us, the mouthwatering globes of his ass retreating to offer a divine view.
I watch his every step, mesmerized. He’s stunning. So gorgeous that, apparently, I’ve found myself delirious enough to succumb to his every suggestion.
He whips another curtain back, revealing glass. “I can’t bear to let others watch you, but I noticed you enjoy the illusion. Thought the reflective glass might provide that. Just imagine us in the voyeur hall.”
It’s not as clear as a mirror. Our facial traits are washed out, but it accomplishes what he intended. I drink in every angle of his long, lean, sculpted frame and the sight of myself spread open for him. Hair wild. Chest heaving. He’s right. I love it. But I wouldn’t have requested it.
He’s more in tune with my deepest desires than I am.
He scans my face for approval, obviously noting the desperation tinting my expression as he struts this way. And he’s on me, his lips gliding over the slope of my neck and shoulder.
“Please let me get on my knees for you, baby.” He tweaks my nipple and kneads my breast. “I need you, to lick every inch of your silky skin.” His tongue laves over my sternum before he moves to the other nipple, biting just behind the barbell to produce a tantalizing ache.
“To leave my mark on your sexy curves.” His eyes rise to mine, imploring. “To taste your sweet pussy.”
Summoning the confidence I generally carry, I determine to seize what’s mine and perhaps inflict some torture. “Get on your knees, but if you want to taste me, you have to earn it. Beg.”
He said something similar our first night together, and the glint of pride in his eyes reveals that he remembers it too.
He lowers himself between my legs, and his lips surf over my heated flesh, inch by glorious inch.
Toes. Ankle. Knee. Thigh. “Please, Tess.” Hip.
“Let me have all of you.” Stomach. “I’ll be a good boy.
” He smiles against my lower abdomen, his breath fanning my sweltering core. “Such a good boy for you.”
How the hell does this man always know precisely what I need? He melded a bondage fantasy I never shared with my thirst for control. And every good boy out of his mouth only makes me wetter.
“I like it when you beg,” I whisper.
“I knew you would, Nightmare.” He lifts his chin and winks, and a vibration jolts to life in my ass.
“What is … oh my … oh,” I stutter as a chill skitters over me.
His fingertips dig into my hips, undoubtedly marking me, and his lips tickle my lower abs as he gloats. “Thought you’d like that too, baby.”
He must have the remote on the floor. I didn’t pay much attention to that since I was busy being fastened to my throne.
The juddering sensation reverberates through me.
Spine. Ribs. Core. Clit. My will to torture him wanes.
Every nerve ending fires, igniting each cell with greed.
The image of us from the reflective glass is obliterating.
I’m wanton and hungry, dripping with desire.
And he’s bowed before me, eager to please.
All I want is for him to stop messing around and use his tongue to ease the throbbing ache between my legs. He knew I’d never be able to fight this. His wickedness is unmatched.
Intoxicating.
As if he were privy to my thoughts, he chuckles between sucks on my inner thigh, the sardonic humor blasting out of him and cascading over my needy pussy to lure me further into his trap.
“Ready to let me worship you?” He bites into the sensitive skin close to my center, delivering a titillating sting.
“Yes,” is all I manage. Airy and feral.