Chapter 8 #2
For a tormenting moment, there’s only the sound of his ragged breathing behind me. His fingertip ghosts over my entrance, tracing the rim in a slow, maddening circle as if—
The touch vanishes.
The air hangs suspended.
Slap.
A sharp blow hits my ass, so violent it jars the breath right out of my lungs.
My mind staggers behind the sensation, failing to process the spanking until the pain blooms—a searing, white-hot heat that scorches the surface of my skin before sinking heavy and cruel into the flesh, the shock of it vibrating down to the bone.
“Do you love me yet?” The question hangs in the air, mocking and sharp, before his hand descends again.
The sound is as jarring as the sting, a whip-like report that echoes off the ceiling. I grit my teeth, burying my face into the crook of my arm to stifle the cry clawing at my throat, but he offers me no reprieve. He strikes again, harder, the blow landing perfectly over the ghost of the last.
“How is divorce sounding now?” he growls, his voice a low rumble in the room. “Still denied?”
I whimper against the hairs that rise along my arm. “You asshole!”
His next strike is quieter. Not due to lack of precision, lighting a fire across my skin that burns its way between my legs, but because he chuckles.
“Is this the love you spoke of, Elara? Hmm?” His next slap is duller somehow, mutating into a throbbing heat that spreads low in my belly, letting a current of energy tingle around my clit. “Can you feel it yet?”
My mind spins, fading the cruelty of his strikes. The dominance of his heavy hand holding me down no longer feels caging. It feels…steadying.
A shameful, liquid warmth unfurls between my thighs. My muscles ease, no longer bracing against the next impact. When his hand lands again, my hips don’t jerk away in recoil; they buck backward, a subtle, involuntary seek for the friction.
That’s when the rhythm breaks.
Vale stops.
He hovers there behind me, breathing hard, the violence in the room suddenly suspended in a thick, confusing silence.
Why did he stop?
Slowly, his hand slides from the burning curve of my ass, down, down, until his fingers curl beneath me. He brushes against my folds, seeking the entrance, and slips effortlessly into a slick, drenched heat.
I shudder, my forehead resting against the desk, unable to hide the evidence of my body’s strange reaction. He drags two fingers through the heavy cream, coating them, noisily testing the viscosity of my desire with a smack of his tongue.
“Interesting…” His voice is thin, breathless. “I cannot tell if I struck too hard…or not hard enough.”
With a rough growl, he slides his fingers inside me again, letting a beckoning motion scrape against my inside. My knees buckle, knocking against the wood, but his other hand presses down harder, keeping me bent, keeping me steady.
“You are impossible, Elara,” he snarls as he drives his fingers in a rhythm that is urgent, angry. “Frustrating, maddening woman. You’re so damn stubborn that you refuse to indulge me even with your pain.”
The pleasure is immediate and blinding, fueled by the adrenaline of his violence. I gasp, my head tilting to its side, chasing the friction. I’m close, so shamefully close, my body winding tight, a sob gathering in my throat—
His fingers vanish.
Crack.
His palm strikes my raw skin. Not hard enough to injure, but sharp enough to shock the pleasure right out of my body. The climax dissolves into a frustrated ache.
He tsks. “Don’t you dare.”
Vale immediately resumes the assault, harder this time, his thumb grinding down on my clit while his fingers plunder the wet heat inside. He’s relentless, stealing my breath, forcing the sensation back up the mountain at a breakneck pace.
“You cling to the things that should repel you,” he mutters, his breaths coming faster. “You should be running away, Elara. Why aren’t you running?”
I can’t answer. I can only keen as the pressure builds again, higher, hotter, a wave crashing over my head until—
The next blow lands on the other cheek, stinging and rude. The orgasm shatters again, leaving me trembling and whining, frustrated tears pricking my eyes.
“Please,” I beg.
“Please, what?” His tone is a taunt. “Please stop? Please hurt you more?” Before I can answer, he growls, “Be still.”
The command is guttural, making me freeze before I feel the pulsing, searing warmth of his crown press against my drenched entrance. “Vale, please…”
But he doesn’t push inside.
Instead, he drags the weeping, velvet head of his cock through my slick folds, coating himself in the mess I made. He groans, a low vibration that rattles through the oak, hips jerking slightly as if it takes every ounce of his ancient willpower not to bury himself to the hilt inside me.
“You want this, don’t you?” he whispers, sliding the broad head up and down, lubricating the path, teasing the entrance but refusing to enter.
“Want me to push inside. To fuck you. To bed you.” He pulls back an inch, denying me.
“Bringing you one imaginary step closer to that deluded goal of yours.”
I mewl in frustration, my hands scrabbling against the parchment on the desk. “Please make me finish.”
“I can’t. I’m a poor lover, remember?”
He presses the head of his cock directly against my swollen, tormented clit and begins to grind there. Intense, rhythmic slides, the ridge of his length gliding over my nerve endings, over and over, while the air fills with the sounds of his own unraveling.
“Fuck,” he hisses through clenched teeth, every thrust of his hips punctuated by a guttural groan.
He wants inside. I can feel the desperate, jerking seek of his body. I can feel the way he bears down, as if he is about to shatter his own rule and impale me, only to violently drag himself back up to my clit at the last second. He’s panting, ragged, harsh gasps tearing from his throat.
He’s right there, teetering on the edge with me. I can feel his tremors shaking into mine, until he slams his groin against my ass one last time, ruthlessly grinding his hard shaft against my swollen bud in little pulsations.
The sensation is too much—too heavy, too direct. My world whites out. I scream, my body seizing in a violent release that ripples through every muscle.
And it shatters him.
With a roar that sounds like it was ripped from the chest of a beast, he stiffens behind me. I feel the hot, wet release as he spills over, his seed spurting in heavy, rhythmic jets that coat my curls, run to collect at my lower lips, only to pearl down the insides of my trembling thighs.
The heavy weight of his hand finally lifts from between my shoulder blades, leaving a cold phantom impression where his heat had grounded me. He steps back, adjusting his clothes with shaking hands, his chest still heaving as he looks down at the mess he made.
“Hopefully that improved your mood,” he says, his voice raspy, stripped of its usual smooth cadence. “But I refuse to indulge your delusions.”
I turn slowly, my knees trembling, and lean back against the edge of the desk for support. I should be frustrated, but I’m too thoroughly unraveled, my body feeling heavy and loose, buzzing with a satiation that borders on narcotic.
Besides…what is there to be frustrated about?
I look at him—hair disheveled, eyes dark and blown wide. My husband gave me something far more valuable than a simple bedding. He gave me a tell.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Vale, it is that where he offers no resistance, there’s no value. But where he fights?
There’s the path.
I catch my breath and gift him a languid, knowing smile. “For an act you claim is inconsequential to the curse’s undoing,” I murmur, tilting my head, “you certainly try to avoid it desperately.”
His hands slow on the fastenings of his breeches. The tension returns to his jaw, but he doesn’t scowl. Instead, a slow, terrifyingly beautiful smile curves his lips.
“There is a…new element, my love. One I would rather avoid, lest we complicate things further.” He reaches out and slides a finger deep inside once more.
I gasp at the intrusion, sensitive and swollen, as he swipes through the slickness, only for him to withdraw.
His eyes lock onto mine, darkening as he brings the finger up between us, the scent of coins filling the air.
“You, Elara, are starting to bleed again.”