Chapter 44
AMbrOSIA
Poppy
Bronte settles into a leather wingback by the blazing hearth and studies me the same way a starving panther studies a plump lamb.
My brow pinches. “What are you—”
“I didn’t give you permission to speak.”
“I don’t need your permission, fuck you very much.”
“Say the word, then. I’ll gladly get on my knees for you. You want control, come and take it from me. Or, you can do as I say, and let yourself be whoever you want. The choice is yours.”
Choice. That’s what this is: a decision for me to make.
Am I his queen?
Or am I his whore?
“I want you, Poppy. No matter who you choose to be.”
Lifting my chin, I remain silent.
Bronte grins, his bloodstained fingers leaving sinfully red smudges on the chair as he grips the arms. “Light the cigar.”
I pluck the roll from my ear and light it with a nearby candle. I bring it to my lips—
“Did I tell you to smoke it?”
I lower the roll.
“Mhm. Spread those succulent thighs for me.”
My legs separate. His shaded gaze dips to the sliver of flesh his blood arrow points toward.
“Wider.”
I lean back on the heels of my palms, stretching my lower limbs until they ache.
“Bonne fille. Now, touch yourself.”
My left hand—
“With the cigar.”
My right hand travels the crease of my thigh.
Smoke spirals from the cigar in a veil of gray.
I slip my fingers through my seam once, twice before delving two digits knuckle-deep and pushing the warm roll of tobacco into my opening, the cap first. A gasp rushes out of me as heat scorches me from the inside and smoke puffs from my pussy.
His chuckle reverberates through the floorboards. “There she is.”
Flames lick up my spine as I stroke my innermost walls. My back bows in time with a long moan—
“Enough.”
I stop.
“Bring it here.”
I stand—
“No.” He points to the floor. “Crawl.”
I pinch the cigar between my teeth and lower onto the floor. He drinks me in, a king watching his mistress submit herself to him as he lounges on his throne. When I reach him, I sit back on my heels and proffer the cigar.
“Eyes on me, Poppy.” Bronte’s warm fingers curl under my chin, tipping my face up. “You bow to no one, ma reine. Not even me.” An unbidden tear slithers down my cheek, and he dips to steal it with his tongue. “No more of these until I’m buried so deep inside you, you’re choking on my name.”
I nod as he takes the cigar and drags, the cherry flaring red. The sight of my blood smeared on his fingers and lips melts my core to magma.
Bronte wraps his hand around my throat. “Belt.”
Unbuckling the clasp, I pull the leather free. He takes it, replacing his hand with the belt and cinching it tight.
“Can you breathe?”
I nod again. He yanks the belt tighter.
Gasping for air, I claw at the strap.
“This doesn’t come loose,” he growls, “until my cock is filling your pretty little throat.”
I nearly rip his pants to free his stiff dick. I have half a second to marvel at the nine-inch map of delicate skin and thick veins on his broad length before I’m taking him in like oxygen. The belt loosens as I swallow him whole and fist what I can’t take in.
A curse hisses between his teeth. His fingers curl into my hair as I suckle his crown and pump his length. “You are absolute nirvana, Poppy.”
I moan around him, my eyes stinging with the effort not to gag. He angles me deeper, hips thrusting. It’s swift, punishing, and leaves me gagging anyway. He’s literally fucking my skull, and I can’t get—
“Enough,” he barks, releasing me.
He flings the belt aside, startling me. I jolt, clinging to his shirt.
He bares his teeth, snarling smoke. “Down, Petit Diable. Or I fuck that tight little ass all night and stitch you up in the morning.”
Huffing, I sink onto my heels.
Bronte reaches between his shoulder blades and pulls his shirt. Then he commands me to take off the rest. It should be impossible, his beauty. His entire body is ink and muscle and the power of a warrior turned god, and he’s all mine.
I pepper kisses down the length of the sword tattooed on his thigh, going no farther than the edge of its broken tip before he’s growling at me to back off. My insides squeeze in response. Wet warmth slithers down my thighs. I brace an arm around my middle, wincing through the cramp.
From my secret stash hidden in the coffee table beside him, Bronte pulls a bulbous plug shaped and textured like a dragon egg. “Spit.”
I let saliva drizzle from my tongue onto the toy.
“Turn around.”
When I do, he grips my hips and lifts my ass, guiding my legs onto the seat to frame him. My forearms are on the floor, my most intimate parts bare to him like a buffet. His hot exhales scorch my skin.
“Fucking ambrosia.”
Then he drags his tongue from my slit to my ass, smearing warm blood and thick saliva all the way up my crack. My hips jerk, and he eases the plug into me with a rumbling chuckle.
“There’s nothing quite like seeing the perfect princess turn into such a good little whore. Ready for your reward?”
“Mhm,” is all I can manage as he grinds his swollen cock against my belly.
Bronte grabs my nape like it’s scruff and hauls me up onto his lap.
My spine is flush with his torso, his cock a spear against my stomach.
Snatching my butterfly knife from the coffee table, he scrapes the colorful blade over my throat as the cherry of his cigar flares as bright as a flame in my periphery.
“Tell me what you want, mon amour.”
Mon amour. I know what that means: my love.
All I hear is the rush of blood in my ears. A single arrow shoots straight through my heart. Something within me splinters and splits into a crevice.
I slip and fall right in, tumbling all the way down to the graveyard of my soul. Freeing the old and buried parts of me from their coffins: the suffering, the heartache, the fury. They all claw to the surface, demanding to be felt.
And I feel them all.
The tears deluge, and they don’t stop.
“Poppy.” Bronte palms my cheek. “What did I say about these?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing his scent into my lungs and wishing I could hold it there forever. “It fucking hurts.”
“Why does it hurt?”
“Because you have the power to destroy me.”
Bronte turns his cheek into mine, his scar branding my skin. “I’m not Nikolai.”
“I know.” I blindly reach for his fingers. His hand twines with mine like it was always meant to be there. “I need you to do something for me.”
Smoke billows from his nostrils as he cocks a brow, waiting.
“Is there a rune for ‘love?’”
“Oui.”
“Carve it.” My free hand wraps the knife, dragging the blade down to my heart. “Right here.”
“Poppy—”
“Now, Scythe. Live up to your name.”
Taming his snarl, Bronte puffs the cigar and passes it to me. “Breathe.”
Sweet smoke fills my lungs as the knife tips into my flesh. He ghosts the blade in an intricate pattern over my skin, showing me what hell I’m in for. Then he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me higher. Until his rigid cock nudges my entrance.
“I’m going to fill this pussy past full,” he whispers in my ear, “but I need you to stay still while I work. Can you do that for me?”
“Hai.”
“Spread those heavenly lips.” I obey, reaching down to split my seam wide. His crown presses into me, blood oozing down his length from the intrusion. I moan as he groans, “Fuck, Poppy. Do you see that? Your cunt is weeping for me.”
And then he carves the first line.
Pain bolts from my chest, ricocheting in my heart and pounding between my legs as he sinks deeper into me. Pleasure melds with agony, the blade shredding my skin as his cock buries into my soul. A burning sensation coils up from where he pushes into me, stretching me farther than I’ve ever been.
My body revolts, the pain of being split open above and below unbearable.
“Breathe. I won’t say it again.”
I bite the cigar, resisting the impulse to escape.
My fingernails dig into his thighs. It feels like he’s caught me beneath his paw, claws outstretched as he drags me down and down to the pits of hell.
His hips tilt, rocking another inch into me and splitting me apart from the inside.
The growl that bursts from my throat doesn't sound human.
“You’re doing so good, ma reine. Just a little more.”
I’m nearly chewing the cigar to shreds. Tears leak from the corners of my lashes. His hilt is still a world away. I’m so focused on his cock, I barely feel the quick work he does with the knife. The blade leaves my skin with a stinging bite, and the cigar is plucked from my mouth.
“Look.”
I glance down to see his elegant script, the bleeding mark as indelible as scars and as stunning as the man who made them. I feel like one of his rebound books. Only, the story is my own. The ink, my blood. The binding, my bones. The hide, my skin. The rune, my soul.
Bronte grabs my jaw, popping my mouth open with his fingers and breathing smoke through my lips. “I love the sight of your devastation.”
He grips my hips and thrusts into me, bottoming out and slamming his balls against my clit with an audible slap.
My cry is silenced by the pounding rain.
Blood gushes from between my shaking thighs.
I swear I can see the outline of his cock pushing against my navel and bulging the arrow he drew there.
“Oh my God—”
“I’m right here. Now quit your bitching and take this dick like a good girl.”
His hips roll, grinding his base against my fingers still spreading myself open for him. Embers of euphoria ignite inside me, blazing through the agony. With painstaking slowness, he pulls me up and up, sliding out inch by heady inch. From root to tip, he’s soaked in my blood.
“I loathe you, Poppy,” he breathes when he’s withdrawn to his crown. “You’ve ruined me, body and soul, for any other.”
I bite my grin, relishing his guttural growl as he slowly slides back in. His bloodstained palm splays on my belly, feeling the bulge of his length invading me. His groan thunders from his chest to my heart.
“Mine. Do you hear me, Poppy? You are fucking mine.”
In the span of a breath, he goes from gentle to savage.
Bronte strikes like a viper, sinking his teeth into my neck.
Stars flicker across my vision, and then he’s gathering me into his arms like a knight for his damsel and striding for the bed.
He tosses the cigar into an ashtray on the nightstand then drops me onto the furs.
He swallows my squeal with his lips and tongue as he spears me with his cock in a single, powerful stroke.
Pure bliss explodes through my veins. My legs knot around his waist, and I cling to him as he ruts into me like an animal lost to primal instinct.
I mewl into his mouth. He growls in return, fisting my hair and kissing me like he can’t satisfy his thirst. His skin dews with sweat, his muscles twitching and clenching as his hips piston.
He bites my breasts, licks the blood he draws like it’s nectar.
Grabs my ass and lifts me higher for longer strokes and deeper plunges.
Fills my mouth with his tongue as he fucks me and tastes me like I’m his final supper.
He’s chasing me toward the ledge, but I don’t want to fall just yet.
“Bronte,” I gasp, tugging sharply on his hair. “Look at me, s’il te pla?t.”
When he does, desperation flares in his hazel eyes. “Don’t ask me to stop, because I won’t.”
“I want you to slow down. Let me come with you.”
His veins pop in his neck as he reins himself in, and his pace gradually slows.
“Such a good boy.” I smile, tapping the tip of his nose. “Scythe.”
He grabs my other arm and traps it above me, his gaze darkening. His powerful body grinds into mine, sheathing himself inside me at a smooth, languid pace. He’s everywhere and yet not everywhere enough. I want him closer—to consume me, inside and out.
I throw my weight forward, toppling him backward until I’m riding him. His knees fold up behind me, his thighs caging me in. He drops kisses down the curve of my neck as he pulls me so close, our hearts collide.
This is what I want. Him.
Forever.
My cheek is against his temple, my moans in his ear, his on my neck, our bodies moving to the rhythmic clap of the headboard against the wall. We are mere beasts, drowning with each other in the fires of passion. I happily burn with him.
Too soon, ecstasy coils in the base of my spine. “B-Bronte.”
“Fall, Poppy.” His teeth drag along the column of my throat. “I’m with you.”
My nails claw gashes into his shoulder blades.
Then I let go.
I’m devoured by an inferno of rapture. He tips me onto my back as if we’re plummeting from grace, and then he’s crashing into me, forcing us down through the layers of earth to where we belong.
When he comes, it’s with a growl that shakes the damn bed.
Liquid heat spills into me. He captures my mouth with his, delving for my soul, praises on his lips as my pussy clamps tight around him and milks him. He doesn’t stop kissing me until he’s hardening inside me again.
I yelp as he suddenly flips me to my stomach. There is no tenderness in the way he lifts my ass off the bed and punishes my pussy with his cock. My teeth leave marks in his arm when he holds me as I come, pressing me deep into the furs.
I’m going to die in this man’s arms.
And I gladly welcome my end.