13. Why Did I Just Get Hard
Chapter 13
Why Did I Just Get Hard
CHARMING
“ I ’m not putting on the shoe. I’m going to break it and it will slice my foot off,” I insist.
Cinder’s bow lips tilt up before she looks away, hiding her smirk.
She’s wearing the other shoe on her foot and trying to convince me to wear the matching piece. In one arm, she holds the dress she wore last night.
This feels like some kind of prank.
“It won’t break, and if you insist on being with me, you’ll have to come to the Common World, and this is how I do it. Though I’m not sure I should be sharing this with you,” she mutters the last bit more to herself.
“Don’t be like that, my little black cloud of cuddles. We are betrothed. We must share all our secrets.”
I earn a glare for the newest nickname. My pulse quickens every time she scowls at me.
Maybe I’m too used to the ‘yes sir’ treatment of servants and those who adore me. Maybe I’m discovering I’m a masochist. I mean there was that time I let that dominatrix pour hot wax on my balls.
Painful yet so pleasurable.
Just like the blue balls she’s given me.
Just like Cinder.
Though I doubt she’ll appreciate the comparison.
“Stop being a little bitch and put the shoe on or stay here,” she snaps at me.
Why did I just get hard?
Doing as I’m told, I wriggle some toes in the glass high heel. The fit pinches my foot with a strangling tightness, but I’ve got it mostly balanced in the shoe.
“Now what?” I huff, feeling blood flush my face from enduring the pain. This better be a quick trip or I’ll end up having to amputate half my foot.
Per her instructions, I’m holding a pair of my boots in the other. She even gave me ten minutes to go and drink some blood. The evidence of my father’s anger has already faded from my face.
I’m half surprised she didn’t bolt while I was gone, but I threw every argument I had at her. I need to stick with her to protect her. There are plenty of people or agents who will be unhappy with our union and may even try to stop it. If I don’t get out of this castle, I'll go crazy. I could really go for a cocktail, and I wouldn’t be any trouble at all. She wouldn’t even notice I was there.
In the end, she may have agreed simply to shut me up. Or dare I hope, she enjoys my company?
More likely, she wants to see me put on a terrifyingly small glass shoe because she’s a sadist.
She frowns, a little line forming between her brows. “I’m not sure exactly how to do this together, so uh hold my hand.”
“Can we lace fingers?” I ask hopeful, taking her pale, elegant hand in my larger one.
“Only if you want me to cut them off,” she says dryly. “Now shut up and let me focus on where we are going.” Her lids drop shut as she concentrates.
We stand there holding hands, her wearing one glass slipper while I puff air out of my cheeks to keep myself from yanking my foot out of the tiny matching shoe.
I wait for someone to pop out with the flash of a camera yelling, “Gotcha, idiots!”
Not that it would be the first time I’ve been photographed doing something strange, but could we at least be naked?
The world tilts and colors swim before my eyes.
Oh fuck.
“Step forward,” Cinder instructs. Despite being completely off-kilter, I follow her command.
The world solidifies under the step and suddenly I’m standing in a small apartment living room. It smells like mold and cinnamon baked goods.
When my vision focuses, I find the source of the delicious scent. A candle on the coffee table where a white-haired girl has her foot currently propped, nail polish posed over a big toe. It’s the same girl from the Poison Apple, Snow.
“Hey,” Cinder says casually in greeting, her face flat and expressionless.
Snow’s brows raise in surprise. “Uh hey.” Her ice-blue eyes bounce between the two of us, observing our joined hands, matching footwear, and state of dress. The question on her face is loud and impossible to ignore.
Cinder jerks her head toward me. “This is my fiancé.”
Snow looks as though someone slapped her with a wet fish. Though to her credit, all that comes out of her mouth is, “Cool.”
Apparently, Cinder hadn't told anyone where she'd been going. Or she had but hadn’t explained herself fully.
When she got to the Poison Apple with yours truly in tow, the questions came like a flood. Not from Snow, who seems content to watch us with the morbid fascination of someone observing bugs and trying to understand their mating patterns—but the blonde one sure as hell had a barrage of questions.
“I can't believe you got engaged before me,” Goldie says, throwing her hands in the air.
The Poison Apple isn't as crowded as it was when I came last time, but then again, it's a much earlier hour. I take up a post at a nearby booth where I can kick back (in my own boots now) and keep an eye on the bartenders—bartendresses?—in between deliveries of dirty gin martinis to my table.
“I didn't plan it,” Cinder says with a shrug.
“You know that makes it weirder, right?” Snow chimes in.
Goldie adjusts her pink pleather dress with a sniff. “Ted and I have been living together for over a year, and every time I bring up marriage, he changes the subject.”
Cinder sets her hand on Goldie's shoulder. “Ted adores you. Don't worry about it. And besides, my engagement isn't even real. To Prince-follows-his-dick this is a publicity stunt, and to me, it’s about getting the truth.”
Goldie bites her lip and touches Cinder’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry to hear about your dad. I bet you guys will unearth something together.”
“We aren’t exactly working together, just using each other,” she clarifies.
Ain’t that the truth. If I had my way, I’d be using her for a lot more.
She can use me for anything she wants.
After the way Cinder responded to my words only a mere couple of hours ago, I’ve filed away that her attraction far outweighs her disgust for me.
The way her nipples stabbed at the silk robe, they were begging me to pinch, lick, and tease them. The scent of her blood and arousal filled the room, until I was near ready to blow in my pants from the promise of her alone.
The outline of her lace underwear also had me in a chokehold. I wanted her to slip that piece of fabric down before shoving it into my mouth like a gag so I could suck on her desire soaked panties.
Judging by her aversion to having my fangs near her skin, I imagine that might make her more comfortable too.
The fact Cinder wasn’t averse to me kissing her mouth, but vehemently against me putting my lips anywhere else also hadn’t escaped my notice.
Was she really so worried I’d just bite a chunk out of her arm like some animal?
I pretend not to notice the sweep of Snow's eyes as she assesses me. “Yeah, but maybe you should go through this engagement for real. Because that prince is a hot piece of ass I'd chain down any day.”
I bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from grinning.
“He'd probably be into the chains,” Cinder says quietly, maybe to herself.
I suck on an olive, careful to keep my gaze averted so I don't get caught eavesdropping.
She has no idea.
As the night continues, people ready to unwind from their daily responsibilities stream in until the bar is packed. Cinder commands the space behind the bar like a dark empress, all sharp edges and fuck-off attitude.
I’d waited in the living room of her tiny apartment until she came out dressed for work, and my cock instantly got hard again. My poor prick hasn’t fully relaxed since.
In the layered dresses she wears in the Midnight realm, she is a haunting gothic phantom of beauty. But in fishnets, leather, and clothes with cutouts in all the strangest places, her hip bones bared but her legs covered, she is a forbidding dominatrix.
I would drop to my knees and lick her boots if she asked. Instead, she sweeps past me without a word, counting on me to follow her around.
Cinder is a slip of a thing, skinny as a wraith, but there's no denying the raw power she wields. It's there in the jut of her chin, the line of her brow as she stares down anyone foolish enough to test her.
And oh, how they try. I watch from my perch as a string of cocky bastards belly up to the bar, thinking they have a shot. Cinder shuts them down with a withering glance, those violet eyes flashing like shards of amethyst.
It only makes them hungrier for her.
I know the feeling.
It's a thing of beauty, the way she moves. Each pour, each shake of a cocktail is a dance, her lithe body swaying to the music pumping through the joint.
I lean back, savoring the burn of my second martini as I drink my goth princess in. She's a monochromatic dream, all black hair, black lips, and black lace barely covering her moon-pale skin. The only pops of color are the vivid tattoos winding up her arms, a serpentine tease disappearing beneath her sleeve.
Fuck, I want to follow those lines with my tongue, map every inch of her until I know her body better than my own.
I shift in my seat, trying to ease the tightness in my jeans. I'm here to watch over her, to make sure she's safe, to make sure she comes back with me, but damn if she doesn't make it a sweet kind of torture.
My attention snags on a rowdy group of finance bros shouldering their way to the bar. They're already shit-faced, with ties askew and eyes glassy as they place their orders. The ringleader, a hulking meathead with a thousand-dollar haircut and a spray tan, leers at Cinder like he's ready to eat her alive.
“Hey, hot stuff,” he slurs. “How about you be a doll and get me a whiskey sour, extra sour?”
She gives a clipped nod.
One of his buddies with a bold-patterned tie nudges Hair Cut in the ribs, egging him on.
Hair Cut waves him off before saying, “Is it true what they say about goth girls?”
Cinder doesn't pause as she pulls out glasses and liquor bottles.
“I hear they are always into the kinky fucked-up shit. Is that what you are into?”
I want to laugh. Does he really think that will work? What an absolute fuck-nugget.
She doesn't respond, simply continuing to pull glasses and mix drinks for the group.
A thick tongue slides over his lips in what I'm sure he imagines to be a seductive move. “Why don't you come sit on daddy's lap, and you show me what's under all that fishnet?”
Again, his lewd comments are met with stony silence.
“I've always wanted to bang an emo chick. I hear they're crazy good at sucking dick. Care to prove me right?” he presses.
Cinder continues to ignore him, though I’m starting to have a hard time doing so. My hand grips my knee with an increasingly bruising force.
Hair Cut lowers his voice, and I strain forward to hear. “I heard a rumor that you pierced your pussy. Is that right?”
And there it is. The final straw. Snapped in two.