Chapter 28
DAMNATION
Bronte
Poppy Morgenstern will be my damnation.
My mouth crashes into hers. She instantly retaliates, biting my bottom lip. I hiss from the prick of pain, tasting rust. She gives it a healing lick and delves for my tongue. I groan like a beast starved for lifetimes, and she arches into me, fisting my jacket and lapping at the roof of my mouth.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but she tastes even better than she smells: a heady rainbow of flavors from her last vape hit. I palm her jaw, biting her teeth when she tries to take control.
Both of us fight for dominion with every last scrap of our souls. Neither of us yield.
Her knees dig into my thighs, her closed legs sealing me off.
I growl in protest. She relents, spreading her thighs and sighing through the long, languid kiss I gift her as I sink between them and meld my body to hers.
Her fingers thread through my hair, kneading like a feline in heat.
My hands roam the curves of her silhouette and squeeze her ass as I grind against her.
Poppy lets out a breathy moan. Her legs wrap my waist like ivy on stone, imprisoning me in paradise. A purr vibrates from my chest to hers. She echoes the primal sound with a throaty groan. I swallow it whole.
Not enough.
I don’t just want to kiss her or fuck her. I want to consume her. I want to ruin her for anyone else, brand her with my body, and mark her as mine.
“Bronte,” Poppy breathes through an open-mouthed kiss that has me seeing entire constellations. “Stop.”
Stop, stop, stop, the command clatters through my muscles and bones like an order from the other end of a leash.
It takes every ounce of my willpower to tear myself away.
To rip my lips from hers, still my hips, and flatten my palms on the sarcophagus.
My breath mingles with hers as her heavy-lidded eyes lift to mine.
She doesn’t know it, but she has all the power in the world right now to cut me open and bleed me dry.
Then she says, “If anything happens to you because I’m too selfish to stay away, I…”
I loathe the fear in her voice. Fright doesn’t belong anywhere near the most powerful woman in the world. “You should be afraid for them, Poppy. Not me.”
“You’re only human, Bronte.”
“As are they.” I plant a soft kiss to the bridge of her nose. “No more woes tonight. That pretty fringe can only cover so many age lines.”
Poppy closes her eyes and controls her breaths as I idly twist a strand of her hair between my fingers. The pastel pink lock wraps the runes on my knuckles like praying hands over a holy writ.
“What are your wishes, ma reine?”
“That depends.” Her eyelids lift, unveiling those diamond eyes. “What does that mean?”
I kiss a slow path over the vicious arc of her cheekbone before breathing in her ear, “My queen.”
Her shudder summons my devilish smile, and I drag it down her thrumming pulse.
“Kneel.” She trails a fingertip over the scar on my right cheek. “I want you to kneel, mon ange, and beg for my forgiveness.”
She could ask me to carve out my own heart, and I’d do it.
“One condition.” I cherish the flutter of her lashes as my lips travel up to hers. “No more of that ‘monsieur’ bullshit. You call me ‘mon ange’ or ‘mon roi’ from now on.”
“Mon roi?”
“My king.”
Poppy grins fiendishly. “Deal.”
Gifting me with a kiss that defies gravity and flings me into the clouds, she loosens her legs and nudges me down. I lower to a knee, eyes on hers as I peel her waistband past her hips. Kissing her soft skin and relishing her shivers, I inch the fabric lower.
Lower.
Until I have the unobstructed view of paradise beyond her pearly gates.
And a glittering black bat plug firmly lodged in her ass.
Angels fucking take me. It’s a miracle I don’t blow my load from the sight alone.
“I don’t hear you begging, mon roi.”
“Poppy—”
“Lucia.” She smirks down at me. “My middle name is Lucia.”
Of course it is.
“Poppy Lucia Morgenstern, you have my deepest apologies for every lie I’ve spoken and deception I’ve enacted. Upon my life and soul, I vow that I am truly sorry to have caused you any pain, seen or unseen.”
Her fingers weave through my hair, nails scraping my scalp as she grips by the root and forces my eyes up to hers. “I have an IUD, and I’m clean. Your turn.”
The implication heightens my every sense. “I’m also clean.”
“Magnifique. Now eat this pussy like a good boy.”
I swallow as her legs widen, welcoming me home.
My fingers bruise her supple thighs as I tip her down onto my open mouth.
Her jaw drops as I feast on her pussy like a lion with raw meat.
Her head falls back, spine arching. I lick her swollen clit and guide her across my face in a motion as old as time.
I growl into her, savoring her shudders as the vibrations wrack her bones.
The sarcophagus creaks as she grips it too tight, her hips undulating with abandon. I kiss her cunt and drink her earthen sap like it’s the fountain of youth. I suck down oxygen when I can, not giving a single fuck if I die of suffocation in this sweet oasis.
My fingertips flirt with the plug. When I can count the ridges lining her throat from how far back her head kicks, I tug the small handle. Her pussy clenches around my tongue in return.
“More,” Poppy whimpers.
I pull the plug halfway out and plunge it back in. Her neck bows, and her groans turn savage. She’s close, but I don’t want her to be close.
I want her to split at every perfect seam.
I nip her clit. Blow a whisper of breath on her glistening sex. Swallow her whole. Fill her with my tongue until she comes undone. Her muscles stiffen with her paralyzing orgasm, and I let primitive instinct take over my limbs.
Rising, I yank my Kimber from my jacket. She watches with wide eyes as I free the clip and empty the chamber then drag the barrel down her navel.
“Your knife, ma reine.” I tap my carotid. “Put it here.”
Poppy obeys, her cold blade kissing my skin.
“If I do anything you don’t like, you know what to do.”
She nods, chest heaving as I seek her pussy with my gun.
“Ready, Petit Diable?” She nods again, and I tsk. “Don’t be lazy. Use your words.”
“I’m ready,” she breathes. “Fuck me with your pretty gun.”
I bury the barrel straight to the trigger guard as I capture her hoarse cry with a crushing kiss.
“Fuuuuck, Poppy,” I groan as she moans a curse. “This is nothing compared to how it will feel when I’m inside you. But I’m not claiming you here with the dead watching. You need to be patient and wait. Understand?” When she nods, I purr in her ear, “Bonne fille.”
“T-translation?”
“Good girl.”
She shivers, and I guide her free hand to my belt. Her fingers slip under the waistband, curling around my rigid length. “Oh, God—”
“That’s right, Petit Diable.” I groan into her mouth as she pumps me to the same torturous rhythm I set for her. “I am your god.”
“Bronte…” Her spine jerks as I toy with the plug and grind the gun against her clit. “Bronte, I’m going to—”
“You come when I do.”
She bites down on a screech of frustration, and I nearly explode from her fury. “Fuck. You.”
“You already are. Now shut your mouth before I fuck your pretty tits and paint them in my cum.”
“You’re paying for this later.” She chokes my cock, pumping me from root to tip. “Fucking prick.”
My eyes threaten to roll back into my skull and never stop. I thrust my hips, losing myself in the sounds of our gruff grunts and whispered curses.
“Bronte.” She sobs, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I can’t hold it.”
I lick the drop of bliss. “I have faith in you, ma reine. Don’t let me down.”
Her teeth clamp down on my shoulder, more tears spilling from her eyes as she willingly withholds her own pleasure.
Never have I pushed anyone this far, but never has anyone been this strong.
I am worshipping a deity of another world, and as much as I’m telling her to pray to me, it’s entirely the other way around.
“Bronte!” Her entire body shudders as she defies nature to heed my command. “It hurts.”
“I’ll give you something that hurts.” I bite her neck, savoring her gasp. “I don’t hear you praying, Petit Diable.”
“G-God, let me see heaven.”
“Wrong direction.”
“Fuck you. Take me to hell.” Her blade digs into my neck in warning as her desperation bleeds to wrath. “I want to see every circle on the way down. There, happy?”
“Not quite.” I grin as she seethes. “Say my name, Poppy. Say my name, and you can come.”
“Bronte! B-Bronte, Bronte—”
I steal her lips, tasting her honeyed music straight from her tongue. Her greedy little cunt suckles on my gun. My cock swells, priming to burst. I let out a rabid growl that doesn’t even sound human.
“Inside me.” Poppy blindly fumbles with my belt and sets me free. “S’il te pla?t, mon ange. Fill me.”
I have less than five seconds to decide my next move. My ravenous gaze bounces from her pussy to her mouth and lands on the bat plug.
Fuck it.
I toss the gun aside, turn her around, pull the bulb, and spread her cheeks, sinking my dick in.
Her tight hole devours every inch of my thickening length slickened with precum.
Ribbed heat surrounds me on all sides, blindingly tight.
I push to the hilt, murmuring praises against her neck as she chokes out Japanese curses.
I rut into her once, twice, thrice. I yank her hair aside and bite her throat.
She groans in pure rapture. Her release chases my own, and my cock pulses inside her as stars streak across my vision.
I growl into her hair, cupping her pussy and feeding her clit with the pad of my thumb.
She moans in tandem with me, our bodies rolling as one, wringing every last drop of pleasure.
Time suspends as the aftershocks rearrange every atom in my body. I ensnare her mouth and kiss her back down to earth. A satiated sigh slips through her lips as she goes boneless in my grip.
“That was…I…holy fuck.”
“That was the complete opposite of holy, Petit Diable.”
“Good thing we’re in a satanic crypt.”
I chuckle, dusting a kiss over her drunken smile as I pull out and twist the plug back in.
Pearlescent liquid slips past the toy, trailing down the backs of her thighs.
I finger my spend, smear it over her weeping slit, grinning as she groans.
I force myself to withdraw and buckle my belt, then secure her waistband back into place.
I can’t be greedy, not with her.
Poppy remains where she is, her palms on the sarcophagus, her chin skyward, and her eyes closed as she rests her head against my shoulder. I’ve never seen her this…relaxed. How long has it been since she felt so at ease?
Unwilling to disrupt her moment of peace, I kiss her temple before reassembling my gun atop St. Aurelius’s resting place.
It’s laughably lavish for a sarcophagus designed to hold what I assume is the ashes of the man who was supposedly burned to death: dark bloodstone hewn into the shape of a slumbering angel, his wings broken, his hands folded over an inverted cross cut from a massive ruby in the center of his chest.
I was never devout, but the design seems odd.
Eyeing the deep viridian stone streaked with sinister red, I dig through decades of memory to find Mama as she taught me and my siblings everything she knew about her studies.
“Bloodstone, the martyr’s stone. Supposedly formed by the blood of Christ mixing with jasper during crucifixion.
Believed to protect the beholder against malignant forces.
” I step closer and skim my fingers over the dusty inverted cross.
“Ruby, also a crest of protection. Now why would a dead man need so much security in the afterlife, hm?”
Poppy shrugs, bemused. “Fear of the very thing he worshipped?”
“Fear of his secrets being found.”
I press the cross down. It clicks into its own little coffin. Metal audibly grinds from beneath, breaking the seal of the sarcophagus with a sudden hiss of air that startles Jezebel awake. Then it opens.
Poppy leaps back, her mini Glock poised to shoot. I snicker and grab a nearby torch. “What are you going to do? Kill him again?”
“Hai. If I must.”
I sigh, waving away the cloud of dust as I squint into the dark. Slowly, the dirt dissipates.
Poppy’s nose wrinkles. “Are those…stairs?”
“Would appear so.” I approach the descending steps leading down into a black abyss. “Think it’s the stairway to hell?”
“Only one way to find out. Your lead, mon ange.”