Chapter 23 Rae
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RAE
I expected a kiss from Phaethon, that’s the bold truth. I expected to pick up where I stopped with Jai, but Phaethon only noses at my earlobe, breathes heat down my neck and says, “What did the king tell you?”
I flinch. “Whoa, hold up. This is why you took over Jai?”
“Why else? What did he tell you? I fear he’s been lying to me and I don’t take kindly to lies.”
I swallow down my ridiculous disappointment. “The king didn’t tell me anything new.” Slowly, I step back. “Jai thought you wanted me.”
“That’s…” He cocks his head to the side. “Possible.”
“How? You being… you and all. An Eosphor bent on destruction.”
“That’s not strictly true. I only want to return.”
“To your people.”
“… yes.”
That pause is intriguing. “And is it true you’re Astar?”
Another pause. “That used to be my name. How do you know?”
“Does Jai know?”
“What I know, he knows.”
“Ah, but that’s not strictly true, as you already told me. You’re not always thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same sensations. And apart from that… would he know your name, and what it implies?”
“I am not sure,” he admits. He’s looming over me, observing me with interest in his dark eyes, and it’s unnerving to see that coldness in Jai’s familiar, pretty eyes. “You’re so… fragile.”
“What?” I bristle. “I’m not fragile.”
“Delicate, if stubborn. Is that what draws Jai to you?”
“Enough of this. It was a mistake.” It’s hard to admit it, but Jai was right. Phaethon isn’t interested in me that way. “Why don’t you let Jai—”
His hand curls around my neck once more. “I like your eyes. They look like polished silver.”
I gaze up at him, my heart booming. “What do you want?”
“I want to see what this wanting is all about.” That sharp smirk is back, and Gods, it’s hot. He’s eyeing me like a morsel on a silver dish. “Jai was right about me. You should have listened to him.”
“Will you hurt me?”
“Are you asking me to?”
“No, what I want is to share pleasure with you.”
“This is what I meant.” His smirk turns into a grin. “Pain is pleasure. I’ll be happy to torment you.”
Before I can react, without my inhuman reflexes to fall back on, he shoves me against the balustrade. The void yawns behind me and terror fills me.
“No, no, no…” I clutch at his forearm. “Don’t throw me down!”
His nostrils flare. “Your fear smells sweet.”
I’m shaking as I try to pry his hand off my neck. “Damn you. Put me back down.”
And he does. He opens his hand and I drop down to the floor, coughing and panting. I knew he was strong, but I never realized just how much. It never scared me before.
It scares me a little now.
I rub the burning marks he’s left on my neck. “Phaethon…”
“Show me,” he says, voice low and full of clangs and echoes from other worlds. “Put your hands on me.”
“That’s what you want?” I eye him and I can’t deny I still desire him.
It’s pure animal attraction. Has to be. He’s so handsome, pure masculine power, that I can’t resist. The fear only made the desire for him pulse stronger, and for some reason, the small of my back is burning, where my birthmark is.
But I ignore it, just like I’m ignoring plenty of things right now in favor of experiencing life. Living the moment.
Getting Phaethon to look at me with desire in his cold eyes. Breaking him.
Making him almost human.
With a boldness I don’t really feel, not anymore, I step closer again and put a hand on the bulge between his legs. “Like this?”
He jerks and hisses, lips peeling back. I force myself not to move, trepidation and arousal warring inside of me.
“Should I let go?” I whisper.
He looks down, between our bodies, brows lifting. “That’s all? You’re just… touching me and it feels like lightning?”
“Lightning?” I frown. “Not sure that’s good. Does that hurt?”
“No.”
“So you do feel a difference from pain.”
He’s observing me now, brows knit. Again that confusion, that disconnect between what the body he inhabits needs and what he knows. Between pain and pleasure.
It’s almost adorable. Almost moving me to feel something for him.
Such a strange juxtaposition—Jai, who is formidable but fair and gentle, who knows how to kiss and hold and pleasure me, and Phaethon, who is cruel and violent but seems at a loss when it comes to fun and delight.
Mad as a jackal…
“So that’s what you and Jai did?” he asks, making me realize I’m still touching his hard-on. “This groping thing?”
“What? No, that wasn’t it. Let me—”
“Now you have shown me your way,” he says, baring his teeth, “it’s my turn to show you what I had in mind.”
Oh shit. Again, I step back, or try to. “Careful,” I whisper. “Don’t break me, Phaethon.”
“Fragile, I know.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and simply pushes. “But also strong.”
Insult. Praise. Hesitation. Violence.
I shouldn’t want this, but I do. Oh, I do, and I shiver when he shoves me down to my knees, fumbling with the other hand with the buttons of his pants.
Slightly clumsy, making me wonder if he’s ever present in Jai’s mind when Jai dresses or undresses.
Perhaps that bores the mighty Eosphor to death—but then he pulls his hard cock out of his pants and the sight of it, the sight of those powerful hands handling that big, hard cock cut my breath short.
Holy shit.
“You did this,” he says. “With Jai. It feels familiar. He liked it.”
Hells. I sure hope he did. He had come, after all.
“Take it,” he says, and I brace myself. He pulls me toward his cock again and I won’t lie, my mouth waters like it had the last time.
This is hot. Why is this so hot?
I grip his length as I had done to Jai and mouth the head, tasting his salty-bitter essence, but he isn’t patient like Jai.
He grabs a handful of my long hair and hauls me closer with a grunt.
Lean hips start rocking, pushing his cock deep into my mouth until it hits the back of my throat with every thrust.
He’s fucking my mouth, hard and relentlessly, and my core contracts, wetness spilling out of me.
Good Gods. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating—and I like it.
Yet it’s too much. After a moment, I slap his leg in protest. Tears track down my cheeks. My chest burns from lack of air.
Oh Gods, I’m going to suffocate on the cock of the most handsome man I’ve ever met, killed by his dark alter-ego.
Unexpectedly, he relaxes his hold and I jerk back, gulping in a sobbing breath, and another. Saliva runs down my chin.
His fingers are still twisted in my hair, and he hauls me forward again, against his cock. “Are you okay?”
I summon a grin, flicking my gaze up at him, and shit, the sight of him focused and intense, dark eyes burning over flushed, marked cheeks, mouth drawn in a smirk that’s as much grimace as anything…
“It’s my pleasure,” I murmur, not waiting to hear a reply before I put my mouth back on his hard cock.
His hand in my hair doesn’t exactly gentle, but his thrusts are less forceful, and when I glance up, I find his gaze on me, his lips parted.
Phaethon is fucking my mouth and he seems… to be enjoying it.
Who would have thought?
I inhale the musky scent as I lick and suck and let him use my mouth, stronger here, mingled with the salt of his cum. He’s close, I can taste it on my tongue. Feel it in the rigidness of his cock. The stutter and hitch in his breathing.
But then he stops. Stops moving, stops thrusting.
“Enough,” he growls, dragging my head back.
“But you…” I cough a little, wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. “You haven’t come yet.”
His lip curls. “I’m more interested in seeing what gets Jai so excited.
You are the only woman to trigger such a response in him during all this time.
Now…” He crouches down and puts his hands on my bodice, over my breasts.
I shiver, my peaked nipples hypersensitive even through the fabric. “Let’s see what we have here.”
No other woman?
You asked for this, I remind myself as he grabs my already ripped gown and shreds it, leaving me bare on the floor.
Jai warned you but you wanted to see for yourself. Now take it like a woman. You’re wet for him, wet and aching, his forceful behavior hasn’t changed that. It might even have made you a little hornier, as you’d suspected it would.
Because this is still Jai? Because you wanted to push your own limits? Because you’ve been curious about Phaethon since you found out about him?
Because you wanted Phaethon to come apart just like Jai did?
I wish I had a clear reply.
Still, fear grips me when he shifts onto his knees in front of me, his cock jutting out big and proud, wet and flushed a dark purple. I haven’t had any actual sex with Jai—and my first time is to be with Phaethon?
This is like some cosmic joke.
I prepare to fight. If he tries to force me or wound me, I won’t lie down and take it. The roughness I want should be light. It shouldn’t leave me a cripple, physically or mentally.
“And you should have listened to Jai.”
Damn. Okay. Perhaps I should have. Now let’s work with what we have, shall we?
And we have to work with a big, stiff, blunt instrument that’s currently very much in my face.
I gasp when he slides a hand up to my bared breasts, covering one. My aching nipple is pressed to the center of his palm.
“You’re so soft,” he says. “But your nipple is hard.”
I choke a little. “Yes.”
“A sign of desire. As is the wetness between your thighs.”
“Right again.”
His mouth tips to one side, baring a sharp, crooked canine. His hand travels up to my neck, circling it. He bends over me and I think he will kiss me—but instead he lays me down on the floor.
And then he shoves my legs apart, his hand trailing back down, over my belly, to quest between them.
“Shit, I…” I can’t help but arch my body when his questing fingers slide down my center and push inside. Two long fingers, blunt and rough, plunging into me, making me cry out.
“Soft,” he murmurs. “Hot. Yet clenching so hard. Why does it feel so good?”