Chapter Thirty-Six • Viral • Lillith #2
“Yeah? You love a guy who couldn’t do anything but watch while some fucking void monster choked you to death?
You love a guy who couldn’t even revive you without the help of a defibrillator personified?
” His voice cracks and he looks away from me.
I watch his Adam’s apple bob with a tight swallow.
Then he sniffs and looks down at the cat in his arms, his long hair obscuring his face.
“Listen. I’m not some machismo asshole. But a man is supposed to be able to protect his woman, and when the time came, I couldn’t.
” My chest hurts as I watch a single tear follow the straight line of his nose before dropping onto Gloam’s head.
She chirps in response. “And now you’re telling me you want me to leave,” he says.
“Damien, I don’t need you to protect me,” I say. “I know I don’t look it, but I’m pretty damn powerful. I was just spent that night.”
“Because of me,” he says. “Because I was fucking around and fucking you into the ground and—”
“Damien, I wanted that. And I still want it,” I insist. “I swear to god, I will give you a talking cock if you don’t chase me down in a forest again and rail me until I cry.”
He doesn’t laugh. Instead, more tears fall on Gloam’s little head, and she wriggles out of his grasp to flee his stormy mood and its resulting rainfall.
I walk over to him, ducking beneath the cover of his hair to look up at his face.
The pinkish whites of his eyes make the blue and green of his irises jewel-like. Beautiful, despite the sorrow.
I brush his tears away with the backs of my hands, then cup his face. He finally meets my eyes.
“I’m such a fucking asshole,” he says through a hitching breath.
“A little bit, today, yeah,” I say. “But you went through something pretty harrowing a few days ago.”
“I just kept thinking ‘I’m watching the love of my life die. She’s going to die and I’m not going to be able to do anything,’” he says.
“And even though that was the worst day of my fucking life, when the label told us they were expanding the tour, I thought about being on the road while you’re back here.
I thought about what if it happens again?
What if you die while I’m gone? That would be even worse than having to watch you die. ”
His tears start pouring out, each one I wipe away gets chased by another. He closes his eyes as if he could stem this tide of sadness.
“Damien, I’m not going to die,” I whisper.
“I’m obnoxiously safe here. Even Aemon says so.
And with everything going on, I’m worried about your safety.
What if this thing tries to get to me by hurting you?
His efforts are probably concentrated on Del Lune, so go on tour. I’ll be here when you come back.”
Eyes falling to my neck, he places his hand above my collar bone, his thumb and index finger gently resting across the base of my throat. I suppress the wince that comes with the palpating of the tender, bruised flesh there.
“I wish I could heal them,” I say on a breath.
He nods and slips his hand up the side of my neck with a feather-light touch.
He cups the entire nape of my neck with his large hand, tilting my head back for a deep, soul-rending kiss.
Exhaling slowly through his nose, he tilts his head and slides the split in his tongue over the swell of my lower lip, a brief warning before he tastes the inside of my mouth.
Damien’s kisses are usually so quick—even a little bit brutal, but the way he kisses me now...
it’s gentle. Mournful. I light my hands over his waist and he guides me slowly backward.
All the while, I meet his kisses with my own.
When my back touches the far wall his hands slip down to my hips and he lifts me up, wrapping my legs around his middle.
He parts the kiss, cool piercings catching my lip as he whispers, “You’re going to make me leave.” Not a question, exactly. But it sounds like he hopes I’ll say no anyway.
“I’ll make you stay in your band,” I say as he brushes the point of his nose down the line of my neck.
Suddenly, a sharp pain spears through my shoulder right where it meets my neck.
“Damien,” I snap, trying to sound angry, but it comes out strangled and weak instead.
The pain rises to a peak as he bites down harder.
I squirm against him, bucking my hips, but he doesn’t budge.
Panic seizes my throat, but just as quickly as the feeling rises, it taken over by a bliss as sweet and viscous as honey.
He finally opens his mouth, tongue lapping at the abused spot. “I’m so fucking frustrated,” he hisses against my shoulder. “Nobody told me that when I got everything I’ve ever wanted, it would all be at the same fucking time.”
“I know,” I whimper.
“And I just want to fuck you into this wall. But you’re hurt.”
“You could—”
“No,” he growls.
Even as he says it, he thrusts, the rough fabric of his jeans dragging over the seam of my lounging shorts, pressing it into my clit and dragging. I whimper, balling my fists in his shirt. “Damien, please,” I beg.
“Not while you’re hurt,” he grunts, thrusting again.
That drag again makes my eyes roll back, head slumping against the wall. He looks down between us, and I follow his gaze to the impressive bulge tenting his jeans as it vanishes and reappears past my hips.
“Damien—”
“I’m not fucking you, Lillith,” he growls. “If you want to come, you can do it like this or not at all.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a fucking jealous prick,” he says. “And if you’re going to make me be without you for two straight weeks, then I’m going to make you suffer a little bit too.”
He groans, his abs trembling as he grinds another delicious thrust against me. The fabric of my shorts clings to the wetness coalescing there, making it drag just a little more against my clit.
Damien pins my hips against the wall with his large hands, holding me still so we both get more friction. “God, you’re fucking unreal. How does your pussy feel this good when I’m not even inside you?”
“I don’t know,” I gasp.
“You going to miss me when I’m gone?”
“O-of course,” I whimper.
“Good.” A long. Slow. Drag of his erection.
“Can you go faster?”
“Manners?”
“P-please? Pretty please? The most prettiest of pleases?”
He chuckles and nods. Increasing the pace. It’s steady and perfect and I don’t know what else I expected from a drummer, but in no time, I’m careening toward climax.
My thighs are slick with my own arousal, but for some reason I can’t seem to fall over the edge. “Bite,” I whisper.
He doesn’t ask for clarification, doesn’t make sure he heard me right. He lowers his mouth to the shoulder he didn’t bite earlier and clamps down, hard. I squeeze my eyes shut as that final tension coils up in my lower stomach, then one more perfect stroke has me shattering against him.
“Fuck,” he growls against my skin as his hips stutter. He moans once, then again, then a third time as he comes in his jeans. He’s not even sorry or embarrassed about it when he lifts his head to meet my eyes again.
He presses his brow against mine and exhales a breath across my lips. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“For being mean, or for refusing to fuck me?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
I laugh and shake my head. “You’re really not going to have sex with me before we have to be apart for so long?”
“I shouldn’t have even done this,” he says. “Baby, you’re pretty severely injured.”
“I mean, there’s something to be said for kissing it better.”
“Yeah? You want me to kiss it better?”
I blink at him skeptically. “Yeah?”
“Alright,” he says. “Fine. I will. But you’re going to have to do a little more of the work for me, alright sweetheart?”
“O-Okay,” I say.
He lifts me higher up around his waist and turns with me in his arms, walking toward the bedroom. He lays me down on the bed and says, “Stay there.”
I let out a small laugh as he vanishes inside of my closet. When he comes back, he’s got one of my silk scarves in his hands.
“What’s that for?”
“Hands on the headboard, sweetheart,” he instructs.
I give him a curious look, and he returns it with a dotingly impatient one. “You have five seconds to do what I say before you forfeit my plans for you.”
“Alright, alright,” I say through a laugh, getting up on my knees and holding onto the headboard. He approaches and starts tying my wrists to each of the bedposts.
“What for?”
“In case you get it into your head that you need to suck my cock while you’re sitting on my face,” he says. “Today, this is a one-woman show.”
I pout as he tests the knots. “But I want to use my new piercings on you again...”
He inhales tightly, like he’d forgotten about them and now kind of wants me to use them on him, too. But he doesn’t relent. He simply checks the tightness of my bindings with two fingers under each one. “Not today,” he says, sounding almost pained.
He reaches for my shorts, pulling them down to my knees and pausing to sigh and knead my ass cheeks. “No panties?” he asks, his low voice rumbling in that way that makes my skin tingle. “Someone really thought I would let her hurt herself today.”
Two fingertips slip through the slickness that built when he had me pressed against the wall. “You’re so fucking soaked already. I can’t wait for you to ride my face until you come.”
A breeze from the cracked bedroom window brushes over my skin, making me shiver. Damien withdraws his hand and gives my ass a brutal swat that makes me yelp.
“Close to the headboard,” he instructs. I press flush to it as he arranges himself behind me, lying down and getting comfortable before he pulls my hips down onto his face. No preamble, no teasing. He unceremoniously eats me out like it’s his favorite thing to do.
“Oh, fuck. Damien,” I whimper.