Chapter 29
It’s been more than two weeks since we went to Kinwick. It’s eleven PM on a beautiful May night and there are no other students except for me in the Library. I keep sitting here in desolation, flipping pages with a bunch of materials I haven’t even touched yet scattered across the table before me.
It startles me, when my phone pings and I see it’s a text from Alaric. “Come hang out before you turn in.”
For a second, I consider accepting the invitation and transforming from a tortured Library troll into a normal student who hangs out with her friends and talks about the exams. But despite Bane’s entire routine thing working wonders, I’m still so devastatingly tired, numb and restless at the same time.
There’s the fact that I’m not any closer to shifting than I was two weeks ago.
There’s the fact that I can’t seem to figure out the goddamn ritual no matter what I do.
There’s the fact that we’re not any closer to figuring out where the third piece of Baldur is buried, knowing only that two have already been awoken and that one of them was the rib.
And then…
Then there are the eyes of that sweet old man haunting every moment of my existence, my mind adding to the torture by trying to picture the remaining twelve of the thirteen dead Kinwick residents.
Instead of wallowing in guilt, I decide to do exactly what I’d been doing for the past two weeks — use all the emotions to push myself even harder.
“There’s nothing I’d like more in this world right now,” I reply to Alaric, “but I don’t have a single minute to spare. You two enjoy yourselves.”
Hopeless, it rings in my ears. But I go back to my work, going through lists and lists of symbols, trying to find either one or three squiggly lines among them.
Give me something, please, I tell the old tome.
But the only squiggly lines that ever appear are said to symbolize water.
No, it can’t be. What would fucking water have to do with it?
I look up from the book to stare ahead, thinking. Maybe it just signifies the medium through which the ritual is conducted.
No, you’ve had that idea already and no, it doesn’t work.
Maybe… I flip back to the page talking about the basics of performing rituals. Interpretation, gathering materials, execution… And there’s the conclusion, in which the author is talking about the difficulties in each of the three steps. Interpretation… Some rituals can’t be properly interpreted because everything can be done in countless different ways and if the knowledge is lost...
Then it hits me. Maybe, just maybe I’m going about it the wrong way, presuming this is a ritual that even can be interpreted using existing knowledge.
Yeah, as if I haven’t already had revelations like this one.
Alright. Still worth a try. I draw a breath to push myself to keep going. If I knew nothing about rituals whatsoever, what would I think about these indecipherable squiggly lines?
There’s one symbol with three of them and one symbol with just one. They’re on the opposite sides of the schematic, breaking the circle of the bloodlines’ symbols in half.
My eyebrows raise and then pull down. No way…
“Increase, decrease,” I mutter to myself.
My eyes rounding, I freeze, stay like that for a second, and then type, “Library, now,” to Alaric.
I keep sitting there, not knowing what to do with the excitement that’s flooding me.
Minutes go by in absolute silence.
“I think I’ve got it,” I say to my friends as soon as they appear from among the bookshelves and walk up to my desk, Raven blinking at me and Alaric frowning.
“What?” he mouths, although there’s no need, as the two of them are already taking their seats around me.
I slide the book closer to them, open on the bookmarked page. “The ritual, what it’s supposed to be. I think I know.”
Raven gives me another blink.
“And?” Alaric asks with bated breath.
With rushed movements, I lean a little forward and trace my finger along the bloodlines’ symbols. “So it really bothered me, why the bloodlines’ symbols are just repeating like this.” With my finger, I draw a line from one squiggly symbol to the other. “But then I came up with a possible interpretation of this set of symbols and it finally hit me.”
And I just keep looking at them with this growing smile on my face, until, after a moment of silence, I realize I haven’t actually said it. “Increase, decrease.”
“Now everything’s crystal clear,” Alaric says with gentle mockery in his voice.
I let out a laugh. “Sorry, let me try again. So if you work through the top symbols from right to left,” I explain, “you’re increasing the central symbol’s power. If you work through the bottom symbols from left to right, you’re decreasing it.”
“Um,” Alaric says, but with genuine interest, “say what again?”
It makes my heart pound, the very thought that I could be right. It’s in a low, excited voice that I say, “It’s a ritual for blocking Baldur’s power.”
Alaric’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, leaning back in my chair with a smug smile on my face.
Raven just looks at the symbols for a second. “But how do you…”
“Yeah, I don’t know exactly what to do,” I reply, turning serious. “But I need to find three items, three spells, or three separate rituals even, representing the three bloodlines.”
***
As usual, what shocks me out of sleep the next morning is the buzzing of my very own demon bracelet. I groan, pushing myself up in my bed just as my phone starts ringing on the nightstand.
“Urgent meeting,” a cold, serious voice sounds from the other side.
Lorcan.
Frowning, I hear him hang up and pull my phone away from my ear with this fear flooding my body.
I spring out of my bed and rush to the secret order room, finding Alaric and Raven already standing in front of the door. As soon as she spots me, Alaric opens it, the three of us exchange nods and walk inside, finding Lorcan standing next to his chair, waiting.
Where’s Bane with my coffee?
No, Anna, focus.
“What is it?” I ask as I walk up to the table.
Lorcan motions for me to take a seat — I’ve noticed he hates talking while people are just standing around. But this also means nothing really bad has happened. Otherwise he’d say something straight away.
All three of us take our seats. In silence, I watch Lorcan follow suit and slide a piece of paper down the table to me. A meadow with a cross sticking out of the ground.
“We need you to take a look at this photo, Miss Novak,” he says.
I do, my eyebrows immediately pulling down. “I… do feel something.” I look up at him. “Is that the third spot?”
“Obviously we don’t know yet, do we?”
“Oh quit antagonizing the girl, Lorcan,” I hear Serra’s voice boom from behind me and I crane my neck to watch her enter. “When will you finally realize that last one wasn’t her fault?”
“She was being reckless,” Lorcan grits out as we watch her walk over to the table, “refusing to understand a very simple, very important fact.” He makes a point of not looking at me. “That there are some decisions you simply don”t come back from.”
I sense Alaric and Raven stirring, probably to defend me, but I throw them both a pleading look, stopping them from interfering. After all, I deserve no defense whatsoever.
Serra takes her seat, letting out a sigh. “How could she have known her very presence would cause the second piece to come to life?”
“Dozens of people died, Serra,” Lorcan insists.
“Yeah, they died,” she replies matter-of-factly, “and there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
I grit my teeth, forcing myself not to fall into the guilt and self-pity trap.
“That’s right,” I cut in, making everyone’s eyes snap to me as it finally hits me. Why would I try to figure out the whole ritual thing on my own when I could just ask? I just need to be careful not to raise any red flags. “But there’s something the two of you can do. I’m this close to strengthening the bond with my wolf enough to shift.”
Are you?my wolf growls mockingly. I didn’t get the memo.
“Shut up please,” I tell her. Still, it makes my lips curl into a smile, how clear it”s becoming to me — that she”s not exactly telling the truth when she says she doesn”t care about me.
“What do you need?” Lorcan asks with a squint. “Now, if it’s yet another request to access the Restricted Sections—”
“It’s not.”
He looks at me for a second. “Then ask and we’ll give it to you.”
My eyebrows shoot up. That easy, huh? “I need a way to represent all three bloodlines in a single ritual.”
I sense Alaric and Raven shooting me looks, while both Lorcan and Serra frown. “What would you need that for?” Lorcan asks.
Just stick with the idea, I tell myself. It’s in a nonchalant voice that I say, “I’m having trouble with my shifter part, right? But if I got to somehow visualize and connect with the other parts of myself—”
Lorcan cuts me off with a sigh. “How many times do you need to be told—”
“I won’t be able to awaken any of the other powers until I’ve mastered shifting,” I finish his sentence, impatiently. “No, I get that. I just think it will increase my chances of doing shifting properly.”
Alaric adds, “You know, to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.”
I throw him a grateful smile.
Lorcan and Serra exchange a look. “Makes sense,” Serra says.
But it’s only when Lorcan doesn’t say no, grumbling instead, that I feel that I’ve won this round. I’m having trouble suppressing the smile. “Well?” I ask, eager to get to it.
“Unfortunately,” Serra says with a sigh, “it’s not possible.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she starts with a slow shake of her head, “a ritual is a kind of language, right?”
My frown growing deeper, I say, “Right.”
“Every bloodline has its own. Can a shifter speak in a vampire’s language, or a fae in a shifter’s?”
“Um, no.”
“The three don’t mix. Since it’s only shifters speaking shifter language, vampires speaking vampire and faes speaking fae…”
I nod, saying, “Why would a shifter need a word denoting shifting?”
“Or how could they say something that means vampire or fae?” Serra continues.
My heart sinks. “I see.”
“The only being that we know of that could use all three ritual languages is the Aurora,” Serra explains. “But the rest of us don’t speak that language, and we have nothing passed on from the Aurora herself.”
“Perfect,” I say with a bitter smile.
She presses her lips tight. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”
I do something between a shake and a nod. “Are we done?” I ask, and in my mind, I’m already back at the Library, continuing the grueling work.
“Actually, we’re not,” Lorcan says with a smirk. “You’re all going to help sift information on the third piece’s possible locations.”
And he gestures at the piles of papers on the table in the far right corner of the room. “Should all be done in a jiffy.”
“Come on,” I say, “you’re not being serious. That’s all stuff we’ve already gone through.”
“Well, maybe we missed something.”
And I think it’s new information we should be chasing, but I choose to keep my mouth shut. “Fine,” I say as I get up to go grab the first stack, Alaric and Raven following suit.
Raven seems to already be diving into it, while Alaric throws me a sympathetic smile. I give one back, shaking my head to say it’s alright.
I guess I’ll spend the next gods know how many hours rereading reports and articles on and from mostly Northern, Western and central Europe. As if that narrows it down by a lot. Warsaw, London, Oslo, Copenhagen, I could go on and on, listing the places we’ve sifted through already.
It’s just as I return to the table to start the work that I get a need to look over my shoulder. I spot Bane enter the room and everything else seems to disappear. There’s something different about him — a grumpy look on his face, disheveled hair, shirt that’s not buttoned all the way up.
“Oh, good of you to join us, Bane,” Lorcan grumbles. “Just in time for the real work. That must make you so happy.”
“Ecstatic,” Bane says flatly as he approaches the table.
I’m already reaching out my hand to take the coffee, when I realize he’s not holding one. It throws me off, but I quickly lower my hand.
“Morning everyone,” he says. We lock eyes as he walks around me to get to his chair. He seems to have come straight from bed, that’s what’s different about him. It makes this need explode inside me, to wake up next to him.
What snaps me out of it is watching him walk past his usual chair — the one next to mine — and taking the seat next to Alaric.
I watch him lean to ask my friend, “What’re we doing exactly?”
For a second, I just keep staring at him in this vague confusion.
Then he looks up at me and I quickly lower my eyes, the confusion in me only growing.
My mind wants to linger on it all, but I force myself to shift my focus onto the papers in front of me.
***
It’s tiresome work, what we’re doing. We’re all doing it in silence, everyone except for Bane and Alaric, who for some reason have been buddies ever since Kinwick. The two of them keep whispering stuff to each other, letting out little chuckles that burst every bubble of concentration I manage to envelop myself in.
It doesn’t help that I’m finding myself feeling cold to the bone — as if all the warmth has been sucked out from the world around me. I keep glancing at him even when the two of them aren’t being disruptive — my mind buzzing in search of potential reasons for this change in behavior.
Could he be mad about something?
It’s all driving me so crazy, I end up taking my phone out of my pocket and pulling up our chat. I skim the last interaction I had with him before this, looking for clues.
I frown. It was just me asking if we could skip training for a week or so. He was proving to be a distraction and I felt I should just put a pause on it for the time being, giving him my exhausting list of obligations as the reason for doing so.
And he did make a point of letting me know he was against me doing all this in the first place, but that was basically him saying he couldn’t care less, in a manner very typical of him. There’s nothing else I can think of that he could be mad about.
So what’s all this now?
I hear him shift in his seat and I can’t help but steal another glance. I look away, but I think I see him catch it.
No, he didn’t, I’m making stuff up.
Can I give you some advice? my wolf’s voice booms inside my head.
I smile. “So you’re only willing to do it when no one’s asked you? Figures.”
And I know I didn’t make her angry, but she does stay silent. I imagine her quirking an eyebrow at me.
“Yes,” I rush to say, “give me any advice you want to give me. Please.”
Either stop glancing at him every three seconds like some teenage girl, or leave and have him come with you.
“Yeah,” I mutter, “I don’t know if I should be doing that anymore.”
Really? she asks, sounding genuinely intrigued. Why is that?
I hesitate for a second, throwing another glance at Bane, which he definitely catches this time. “I feel he might be… a bad influence.”
Bad influence? she echoes. There’s suspicion in her voice. How exactly are you letting him influence you?
“It’s just… Sure, he could be extraordinary, if only his heart was in the right place. It’s not though, which makes him less than suitable company for someone with my values. Besides, I knew all along that this will have an expiration date.”
I see. Then do whatever you want.
It makes me frown. “Is that it? That’s your advice? Do whatever you want.”
There”s a moment of silence before she says, Seems to be the only piece of advice you ever take into account.
And with that, she disappears.
I have to fight not to let out a scoff. I try to go back to work, but the words on the papers in front of me refuse to come into focus.
Especially when he clears his throat, and with the corner of my eye, I see him toss one stack of papers to the side and grab another, leaning back in his chair and rolling his sleeves up.
Before I can stop myself, I look up, and I find him skimming the papers with a pen in his hand and a serious look on his face. It’s all so sexy — the way his eyebrows are pulled down a little, the shape of his lips, the curve of his collarbone showing under the shirt, that maddeningly deft way in which he spins the pencil around his fingers — that I simply can’t look away.
The next thing I know, he’s looking up, his eyebrows shooting up a little as he locks eyes with me, making me realize I’m still staring.
For a second, we look at each other. To try to save face, I throw him a smile and go back to staring at my papers. I feel his eyes linger on me, but I don’t look up again.
Instead, I imagine dragging him to my room instead of having sex with him at the gym as usual, wondering what that would be like. It wouldn’t be quick for sure, like it never is with him, except those few times we hooked up in random places and almost ended up getting caught. But in my room… we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone interrupting.
I frown when I realize I’m still thinking about this instead of working.
It’s fine. I’m just a little wound up, I tell myself. After all, a week is by far the longest I haven’t had sex since that first real training session with him.
I contemplate getting up and taking my work elsewhere, when I hear him get out of his chair. This time, I force myself not to even glance in his direction.
Then I hear him clear his throat and say, “Alright, people, time to wrap things up.”
Now that makes me look up, my eyebrows shooting up.
“We’re done when I say we’re done, Bane,” Lorcan warns.
Bane throws him a forced smile. “Scorpio is in Mercury today,” he says. “Miss Novak has an excellent opportunity to establish a better connection with her wolf this afternoon. Unless… You want her to miss it.”
“Of course we don’t,” Serra says.
Excitement floods me.
I turn to look at Lorcan, who’s thinking. “Fine,” he finally replies. “We’ll continue this tomorrow, seven AM sharp.”
Everyone starts getting up to leave. I get out of my chair as well. And I’m still under the impression of Bane’s weird behavior, but this is important, so I push all my shit aside, I turn to look at him and I say, “Let’s go. You can walk me through it on the way to the gym.”
“We won’t be needing the gym for this,” he replies as he pushes his chair back under the table.
“Good luck, Anna,” I hear Raven say and I look over my shoulder to wave to her and Alaric just as they disappear through the door and shut it behind them.
I turn to face Bane again, finding him walking around the table to where I’m standing.
“You sure you want us to do it here?” I ask, my eyebrows pulling down when I see how intently he’s looking at me.
“So serious,” he teases in his bedroom voice, the contrast to how he’d ignored me throwing me off a little.
Maybe it was all in my head, and even if it wasn’t… I don’t care. I just want to hear him say more stuff to me in that tone. I find myself walking over to him with my arms folded and an eyebrow quirked. “Why? What would you like me to be?” I ask in a teasing, sultry voice.
He lets out a scoff, but there’s a flash of hunger in his eyes. “Two things,” he starts as he pulls my hands away from my chest and presses my core to himself with an arm around my waist. “One, wearing a lot less than this.” He locks eyes with me, the deft fingers of his free hand making my breath hitch as they start work on unbuttoning my shirt. “Two, looking at me like you did during the whole meeting.”
Meeting. Opportunity. Fuck.
Forcing myself to refocus, I pry his fingers away just as they start sliding under the shirt, cupping my breast. “We might not have a lot of time, you know better than I do how time-sensitive these things can be,” I say.
He just hums, his eyes fixed on my lips as he moves in for a kiss.
“No, I need you to stop,” I say, trying my best to sound firm and ignore the gnawing need for him in the pit of my stomach.
His lips come to hover in front of mine just before he whispers, “You mean, you need me, period.”
The words… They make me clam up, instantly and completely. I raise my palms to his shoulders and push him away.
I turn my back to him so he can’t see the discomfort on my face and I fold my arms. “You said we’d be making a breakthrough this afternoon,” I insist, trying not to sound too cold.
I sense him get closer. “Yeah, we will be,” he replies in a smoldering voice. “After a week-long siege, I’m about to penetrate an impenetrable fortress.”
He tries to grab me, but I just duck out of his reach and turn to face him with a frown. “My shifting, Bane. What kind of opportunity were you talking about?”
There’s a moment of silence before I see his jaw clench. He takes a step back. “Nothing in particular,” he says with a shrug, his eyes narrowing at me slightly.
I fold my arms. “So you stopped the meeting because you were bored and wanted to fool around?”
“I did,” he says defiantly. “Why? Were we making progress and I somehow failed to notice it?”
“You know, you should start taking this whole thing more seriously.”
It’s with this bitterness in his voice that he says, “I believe you’re taking it seriously enough for the both of us.”
I frown at him. “Are you actually trying to make me feel stupid for giving my best to stop this psycho from waking up?”
He just looks at me for a second, teeth gritting. Then he smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m just saying it’s all you think about these days.”
I blink at him.
Then the old man”s eyes flash before my face. Before I even realize what I”m doing, I”m getting in his face, my chest heaving and my jaw clenching. “What should I be thinking about, huh?”
His eyebrows shoot up and he moves to touch me, but I take a step back, my jaw clenching so hard, it hurts. “Let’s see, on one hand, there’s my outfit for the Grand Ball, on the other…” I fail to stop myself from raising my voice, my face flushing and my nails digging into my palms, “there”s the fact that I got actual people killed and will probably end up somehow doing it all over again because I”m a reckless… fucking… idiot.”
By the time I”m done, I”m forcing myself to inhale deeply, all the while gritting my teeth in an effort not to lose my shit completely. I barely register the look of surprise on his face before he comes to look me in the eye with this super intense look on his face. “You shouldn”t talk to yourself that way,” he says under breath.
“Really? Well, that was me being kind,” I say forcefully as I take a step back and fold my arms. “Because everything I just said is true, so you need to stop making me out to be a fool simply for trying to fix my mistakes and make sure I don”t repeat them.”
I watch him grit his teeth, then get in my face, smoothing out his features. “Spending all your waking hours stressing about it won’t get you anywhere.”
I just stare at him for a second. I can’t believe this shit. It’s people’s lives he’s willing to gamble with here.
“You know what?” I finally say. “I don’t have time for…” I make a face. “This.” And I start straight for the door. “I’m going back to the Library.”
There”s a moment of silence before he snaps, “Fine, I couldn’t care less.”
I crane my neck to throw daggers at him. “Yeah, it’s in that department that you seem the most reliable.”
I push through the door and slam it behind me.
***
I’m lying on my bed, my feet on the wall and my eyes fixed on a crack in the ceiling, trying to figure out how to make the ritual work in almost total silence.
My brain is shit though. I’m not letting myself even think about anything personal, but it doesn’t help. I can barely keep all the information on the surface of my mind, let alone make any connections or draw conclusions.
Maybe I should go to bed and try again tomorrow.
When I last checked my watch, it was 23:53. Normally, at this time, I’m already under the covers or at least preparing to get there.
Tonight, the very thought of doing what I normally do makes this defiance burn a hole through my stomach.
Other than that, I barely feel a thing. So I just keep lying there, imagining the symbols and trying to see them come to life somehow.
The next time I glance at my watch, it’s 00:01.
I glance at my phone and see that I have no new texts, even though the light in my room is still on.
What I want to do is grab my phone and throw it at the wall, but I just keep lying there. I pull my knees up and I put my upper arm over my face, this noise filling my ears — the noise of silence and solitude and despair.
The thought is laughable to say the least. That it’s me who’s supposed to protect everyone ever from some guy who sounds like the incarnation of both power and evil.
The old man, dead.
Raven, dead.
Alaric, dead.
I choose not to think about anyone else.
I feel the wet glide of tears down my cheeks, but they bring no relief. Without a conscious decision, I imagine the patterns of my Aurora tattoos and start drawing them with my finger, on my palms, my forearms, my chest.
It’s at that moment that the sound of footfalls drifts up to me, making my ears prick up.
I know this walk.
Frowning, I get up, quickly wipe my tears off and walk over to the door, opening it softly. I was right, he’s right here, standing in front of my room with his hands in his pockets and his eyes narrowed at me. The look makes me feel as if it’s clear I’ve been crying, but I’m all numb and couldn’t bring myself to care even if I wanted to.
“Yes?” I ask, trying to make my voice as flat as possible. “Is there something wrong?”
“It’s midnight,” he says as he strolls past me. Into my room. “Time to put you to bed.”
No, it was one thing to fantasize about this, it’s a whole other to break rules like this. I turn to frown at him, but he just tugs me away from the door, shuts it and turns the key in the lock.
“I don”t need to be put to bed,” I protest.
Clicking his tongue, he shakes his head, lifts a hand into the air and closes it into a fist, surrounding us in complete darkness. I feel his breath on my ear just before I hear a low but firm order, “You don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.”
He’s not even touching me, but the darkness, the words and his scent break through the numbness enough to send a thrill down my spine. I forget all about the rules and I move to put my arms around his shoulders, leaning in to inhale him.
He pulls away, making me lower my hands with a frown. I find myself having to look around in complete darkness, sensing him slowly circling me, observing without being observed.
My skin pricks and my breathing turns shallower.
It makes me freeze, when I feel the heat of his body draw near. “Hold your hands out,” he orders in a low voice.
My breath held and my heart racing, I obey, hearing the sound of him unbuckling and sliding the belt out of his pants.
Before I know it, he’s tied my wrists together and is pulling my arms over my head, this soft clang of metal against wood sounding from the ceiling before I feel the belt get yanked upwards.
My feet are still touching the ground, but I find myself breathlessly hanging off the low wooden beam in my room, in complete darkness and with his hand coming to wrap around my nape. He tugs my head closer to him and I feel a slow lick along my cheek, one then the other, the tongue wiping the salt of my tears away.
I lean to steal a kiss, but he pulls away and I sense him get on his knees in front of me, his hands slowly and deliberately sliding my pajama bottom and my panties off my legs until they’re pooled around my feet. It makes the coil in the pit of my stomach tighten, when I feel the intensity of his gaze sweeping up my body.
Gods.
“You”ve been such a bad girl lately,” he says in a low, scolding voice as he gently takes my foot off the ground, makes me bring my thigh to my stomach and presses a kiss into the arch of my sole. It makes me shudder when the kiss turns into a little bite. “Do you know why?”
He’s trailing these kisses and bites up my foot, the curve of my shin, the dip of my knee, straightening and lifting my leg as he goes and making me long for that intense attention of his touch and his eyes to get to my thighs.
He stops and I feel his scolding gaze fix on my face, making me snap out of it. “How the hell should I know?” I protest.
“Oh you will before I’m through with you,” he sneers and dips his head to keep trailing kisses along my thigh, making me shudder with pleasure.
I let out a scoff, but the scoff turns into a shaky breath when he puts my leg down and moves to my stomach, using his teeth to pull at the flesh under my navel, his hands starting slow, diligent work on unbuttoning my pajama top. “So unusual,” he murmurs, “for such a know-it-all to disappoint like that.”
“Yeah,” I ask breathlessly, “how exactly?”
All my buttons undone, I feel him get to his feet even before I see his shifted eyes right in front of me. He threads his fingers through my hair and pulls my head back. “How many times do you think I caught you staring today?” he demands as his eyes narrow at me.
My breath catches.
“And how many times do you think I didn’t?” he asks as his free hand slides up my stomach and comes to cup my breast, the thumb playing with the nipple in that way that always makes my eyes flutter shut, heat pooling between my legs.
He leans to breathe down my neck, “You think you know when you’re being noticed, don’t you?”
Still keeping my hair pulled back with one hand, he grips my waist with the other and lowers his head to take my breast in his mouth, making me let out a shaky moan when his tongue starts flicking over the nipple.
He looks up to ask, “You think you know what is being noticed, don’t you?” He sucks my nipple into his mouth, making me grimace with pleasure as I feel myself get wet.
“When, in fact…” He straightens, takes my neck in his hand again and dips his head to softly drag his teeth down my jawline. “You know nothing, isn’t that right?”
“Some things I do,” I manage to say as he gives my neck a languid sweep of his tongue from the base up.
He tugs on my earlobe with his teeth and asks, “Like what?”
My lips curl into a smile. “Like, when you’re hard,” I say as I lift my leg to rub my thigh against his crotch.
“Yeah?” he grits out, pulling my head back even more as he slides his fingers inside me, making me bite back a moan. I don’t see him, but it’s in a voice dripping with smugness that he whispers into my ear, “Soaking wet.”
“Arrogant,” I say breathlessly.
He runs his fingers up and down my swollen clit, making me have to fight not to squirm with pleasure. “Desperate,” he whispers forcefully.
“Delusional,” I protest as I try to pull myself away from him.
Letting go of my hair, he grabs onto my ass and pulls me tight against him. “Voluptuous,” he grits out. “No word like it. Voluptuous,” he enunciates with a pop around the p. “Say it,” he demands with all the intensity of his gaze fixed on my mouth.
I grit my teeth. “Vexing,” I snap.
He just stares at me for a second, then takes a surprisingly precise bite of my Cupid’s bow, making me let out something between a wince and a moan.
“How about…” He lets go of my waist and walks around me, pressing my ass into his crotch and forcefully sliding his hands up my back. He leans to whisper in my ear, “Fucked senseless? Do you like that?”
The words make me feral. “Yeah. That, do that.”
“Yeah?” he asks as he gets on his knees, trailing those kisses up the backs of my thighs. He cups my ass with both hands and gets his head under to take a bite out of the flesh right in the dip next to my throbbing core.
It makes me almost cry out and then grit my teeth for fear of being heard in the adjoining rooms.
“And who do you want inside you, hm?” Then he slides his fingers inside me, making my mind go blank with desire. “Who does this belong to?”
“You,” I say in a shaky voice, “belongs to you.”
“That’s right,” he says as he gets up, lowers his pants and grabs onto my waist with one hand, making me cry out for real when I feel him start sliding himself up and down my slit. “Now do you finally know why you’ve been such a bad girl?”
I shake my head vigorously. “Yeah.”
“Yeah you do,” he comes to murmur in my ear, his chest pressed against my back, “denying me what’s mine, you know I can’t have that?”
“I know.”
I hear him mumble something as he pushes himself inside me and starts thrusting, my spine arching with pleasure and my muscles clenching as I fail to muffle my moans.
“That’s more like it,” he rasps as he keeps thrusting, only pausing to give my back, my shoulders and my nape slow licks and languid but forceful bites.
Then he pulls out a little and angles me so when he gets back inside me, I feel him deeper than ever before. I turn my head to the side and bite into my shoulder to muffle another cry.
“No no,” he warns in a ragged voice as he slows down, leaning to grit in my ear, “no muffling, no biting back, I want to hear every single moan, you understand me?”
“Uh-huh.”
The next cry I don’t suppress. I just let it out and he mumbles a few curses as he goes back to slamming himself inside me, leaning to bite me on the neck just as he starts coming. Feeling what it does to him only makes my own hunger grow. For a moment, he stays with his face pressed to my back, then pulls out, unties me and carries me to my bed, all swollen with desire, with my arms around his shoulders and legs around his waist.
“You’re being so good,” he murmurs as he lays me down and gets between my legs. “You know how good you’re being?”
Flushed, I shake my head for yes. I thread my fingers through his hair and he starts dragging his tongue all over me, making all my muscles clench and my hips buck.
“Now I’m going to let you come,” he whispers. “Would you like that?”
I grit my teeth. “Yes,” I say on a shaky exhale.
He slides his fingers inside me and starts pushing them in and out. “Tell me you need it,” he says, all breathless.
“Please,” I hear myself say.
He pulls his fingers out. “You mean, please stop?” he demands in a ragged voice. “Because I told you what you have to say to get what you want.”
“No, don’t stop,” I plead, delirious with anticipation, “I’m begging you, Jericho, I need it so bad.”
“Fuck,” he groans just before I feel his tongue on me and his fingers inside me again and he starts taking me over the edge, making the already unbearable tension inside me swell even more, before it snaps and pleasure comes crashing down on me with such intensity, it feels like being shot out of my body to float in boundless space, blissfully empty-headed.
“Such a good girl,” I hear his voice drift to me as if through water. “My perfect little she-wolf.”
As I float, countless stars blossom in the deep deep darkness all around me, slowly spinning around me, some close some far, some cold some warm. It starts dawning on me, the possibility that maybe I don’t need anything but myself for that thing I was worried about before.
Whatever it was.