Chapter Twelve #2
I only dragged her closer. “Did you get wet from me spanking you? Is that what’s got you so hot and bothered?
Why you’re sitting there so quiet and still?
You don’t want to move because every twitch reminds you that you’re needy and greedy and dying for me to spread you open and stick my tongue deep, deep inside you. ”
She jolted. A breathy little moan. “No. I mean...hell no. I hated you hitting me. I—”
“You were wet. I noticed your arousal before you hid it with your t-shirt.”
“No, I—”
“Let’s see, shall we?” Tossing my fork onto my plate with a clatter, I dragged her up by her elbows.
The suddenness in which I scooped her from the floor and draped her on my knee ensured she didn’t fight.
But the moment I turned her to face away and spread her legs over my thighs, she stiffened into ice.
Victor smirked and fed a few mouthfuls to Rachel by his feet.
He didn’t interfere, and the porno began at the top of the ballroom. The guy prowled toward the girl. She wore the scantiest sundress and clung to a dishtowel as if she were a meek little housewife about to be ravaged by the handyman.
Drawing out Ily’s discomfort, I turned to Victor. “Who’s playing tonight?”
Victor dragged his gaze down Ily’s body, spread and trembling on my lap. “Kirk and Suri. A Norwegian boy I stumbled upon a few years ago trying to score ecstasy in the wrong place, and a Persian girl who was given to me in a trade for an alexandrite gemstone.”
Ily’s head snapped up. Her tension of being held against her will manifested into haughty disdain. “Alexandrite? How the hell did you get your hands on alexandrite?”
I squeezed her breast through her blingy black bra. “Hush.”
“Let her speak.” Victor chewed his way through a piece of chicken. “You act surprised, my sweetling, to know I have other hobbies outside of skin and sex.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She pressed a wrist to her forehead. “How perfectly awful of me to judge.”
“Ily.” I pinched her nipple. “Quiet.”
Victor stopped eating and gave her his full attention.
“Why do you think I’m so interested in jewels, Ilyana?
It’s not because I randomly chose a theme, you know.
It’s because I too—like you as I recall—enjoy traveling the world and digging up precious gems. I own shares in many mines. I dabble in a great many things.”
“What things?” she snapped back.
He merely gave her the sickest, cruellest smile. “Let’s just say, there are plenty other precious trophies that can be mined and not just from rock.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, shut the fuck up and prove to me that I’m right,” I ordered, cutting their conversation off.
She twisted in my arms to face me, her hips still spread over my thighs. “Let me go.”
I grinned, wrapping my arms around her and kissing her cheek. “I’ll tell you what...”
She stilled into stone.
“I’m going to touch you. I’m going to slip a single inquisitive finger inside you.”
She sucked in a breath.
“If...” I ran my nose along her cheek. “If you’re dry and truly feel no attraction toward me, I’ll put you down, feed you every mouthful of this delicious dinner, then allow you to go to bed unmolested.”
Rachel flicked us a look, catching Ily’s churning gaze.
Ily quickly glanced away, a blush creeping steadily over her cheeks.
“And if I’m not?” she asked ever so quietly.
“If you’re not?” I smiled, my cock aching to take her.
“If you’re as wet as I think you are. If you’re as sensitive and ready to snap as I believe.
Well then...I’m tossing that dinner into the storm and having you as my meal instead.
” I patted the table. “Right here. On your back. Where everyone will watch me eat you out, then fill you up.”
She shivered and tried to slip off my knee.
“Ah ah, where do you think you’re going?”
She refused to meet my eyes. “Henri...”
“Master H, if you don’t mind.”
Her teeth clenched. “Master H. I—eh, I’m not feeling well. You wouldn’t want me to throw up all over you, would you? Put me down before I—”
“Can’t fool me with that one, little nightmare.” I chuckled. “I’m well acquainted with nausea, and you, my wet, wanting girl, are the opposite of weak and nauseous.”
On the stage, the handyman had the wife in a chokehold as his hand strayed down her body and up her dress. With her splayed to the crowd, everyone saw the moment his fingers penetrated her.
A few Masters snapped their own fingers, ordering their jewels to service them while they ate.
Ily bared her teeth in fury. “You’re all sick. This whole place is wrong.”
“And you’re affected by it. Same as me.” I kissed her bare shoulder.
“I’m disgusted by it.”
“You’re wet because of it. You’re wet because of me...admit it.”
“Never. I would rather die.”
“Prove it.” I looked up, drowning in her golden rage. “Take my hand, guide it between your legs, and show me.”
“What?” Her eyebrows furrowed into a disbelieving frown. “Y-You can’t be serious.”
“Show me. And this all stops.” I licked my lips. “If you’re dry, you’re free. For tonight at least. But...if you’re wet. If you clench just once around my finger, then...you’re never allowed to lie to me again. You give in like I have. You agree to play along with me, just like I asked.”
“Play along with you?” Victor cut in. “I thought you said that was over with?”
Frustration built in my blood, scratching at my teeth, reminding me that a beast stalked within me and the longer I teased it, the worse it would pounce.
“Not to play along with me to fool you, Vic.” I shrugged, not really wanting to share my idiotic fantasy but knowing he’d see it on the cameras anyway.
“I’m here for life. I’m never leaving. Neither is Ily. I merely want her to act as though—”
“I’m his perfect little wife,” Ily spat. “To beg him to beat me. Plead him to fuck me. Pretend I love him.” She shuddered with uncontrolled anger. “Of all the twisted—”
“I think that’s sweet.” Victor sat back and stroked Rachel’s hair.
“We all need that special someone. I find men are a curious breed. The ones who have been coming here for years all have their chosen jewel. It’s rare for them to stray once they’ve found the one they prefer.
If Henri has already found his chosen one, then you should be grateful, my pet. ”
“I’ll be grateful when you’re both dead. When all of you are dead.”
“Well, none of us are immortal, so that will one day happen.” Victor fed a piece of chicken to Rachel with his fingers.
“But...that’s a long time to wait.” His eyes narrowed, glinting with explosive temper that he occasionally lost control over.
“Now, your Master gave you an order. Open your fucking legs. Take his hand. And show him what he wants to know.”
“I don’t need you ordering her about, Vic,” I growled. “My jewel. My rules.”
“Fine.” Wiping his fingers on a napkin, he faced the stage.
Lightning flashed through the ballroom, highlighting the erotic tapestries on the walls and statues of winged folk being fucked by demons. All around us lewd artwork encouraged us to join in.
The housewife let out a sordid moan as the handyman finger-fucked her as if his hand was a hammer drill.
An ear-splintering boom crashed right above us as thunder added itself to the electrically-charged air.
Ily’s chest rose and fell as if she bordered a panic attack. I searched her eyes for tears. I longed to see salt pour. But, unlike the breaking in the library on that first day, sorrow didn’t glow...hatred did.
My heart wrenched painfully.
My stomach chose that moment to turn sour.
I had everything I could ever want, but somehow, the one thing I didn’t know how to ask for was now the one thing I would fucking kill for.
“One day, I’ll turn your hatred for me into love,” I whispered before I could censor myself. “One day, you’ll feel for me as strongly as I’m starting to feel for you, and when you do...we’ll both be happy here.”
Her eyes met mine.
Her loathing morphed into pity.
With ever so soft fingers, she touched my scruff-shadowed cheek and pressed her nose to mine.
Her back twisted, her body contorted on my lap.
For the longest moment, she didn’t speak but then she breathed, “I’m sorry that your childhood turned you into this creature.
This confused, lonely creature who doesn’t understand the meaning of love.
I’m sorry you’ve never had someone to call your own.
And I’m sorry you’re searching for belonging in all the wrong places.
” Pulling away, she dropped her hand from my cheek and lashed it around my wrist. “But allow me to teach you the most important thing about caring for someone.”
I couldn’t breathe as she shifted and lowered my hand down her gorgeous body. My nervous system misfired. My blood turned to lava. My cock a battering ram of need.
“The day you actually learn what true love is, Henri Mercer, is the day you will know the darkest pits of despair, not happiness.” Turning my hand in her hold, she ran her touch over my knuckles and curled my fingers into a fist, leaving just my middle outstretched.
“You think just because you can make me come that I want you?”
Her skin flushed as she moved aside her G-string.
“You think just because I’m wet that I’m secretly in love with you?”
Her eyes darkened to bronze as she guided me lower, lower.
“You think just because I obey you that I respect you?”
I swallowed hard as she hovered my hand above the scorching fire between her legs.
“You don’t have a clue how far people will go for love. You don’t have the faintest idea how far I’ll go to one day be free of you.”
I groaned as the first touch of her scalding, sopping heat stung my fingertip.
Her head flopped backward, crashing on my shoulder.
Guiding my finger deeper inside her, she whispered, “You have no idea what I’m prepared to do to deny you every part of me.”
With a gasp, she shoved my finger in as deep as it would go.
We both jerked.
Fuck.
Me.