Chapter 6
I was wet and hating myself.
It was like a light switch. His name upon the file, telling me in just a few steps, the man that haunted my nightmares—and occasional confusing dreams—was so close, I’d be inhaling the air he exhaled. I rubbed my thighs together to discard the heat between them, however that only made it worse.
I needed a hand between my legs.
I needed to get the hell out of here.
Dig Graves had been dwelling in this box for seven years.
I had known he was here and very much still alive, however I had been preoccupied with my arrest, my new tittle as Soulless and my recent relocation into a new home that I had forgotten this creature of darkness would be lurking in the basement.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck.
The private cells were shoe boxes all with metal rusted bars spearing up from floor to ceiling. You could see in. You could see out.
I dug my heels into the floor before we passed. Before he saw me.
“I cannot go this way.” I whispered to the guard who walked with me. “Another way please.”
He prodded my back with a baton. “You wanted a private cell, I’m taking you to a private cell.”
“Dig Graves is down here!”
The guard rolled his eyes. “Don’t be scared. He’s locked up. He can’t hurt you. Not for two days.”
“He tried to kidnap me!”
“Move!”
He shoved me. I stumbled forward, into the territory of Dig Graves. Wincing, I skated my eyes into the cell.
Maybe he wouldn’t remember me.
In his cell, my face had been carefully chiselled into the entirety of the concrete wall. A mastery of work that would have taken years.
He probably remembered me.
“I smell princess.”
The voice emerged from the dark like a ghost scampering out of a freshly planted headstone. My arm hair speared. My bones chilled. My respectability told me not to think of what this was doing to the throbbing between my legs.
I did not see the arm that grabbed me, but it came from between the metal bars of the cell. A hand so strong and quick, he snatched me by my shirt collar and flung me forward to face the cell, forcing my cheeks to press in between two bars. I lost a gasp.
Quivering from the impact, I managed to source some healthy fear.
Though, he was not touching me, he did not let go of my shirt.
There, in the cell, he stood before me. Wingspan shoulders, a bicep filled of muscle. A shadow sluiced across his face, hiding his eyes, showing me only the outline of his jaw, a slip of black hair and his pink lips that twisted into a grin.
“You are not allowed to hurt me!” I grabbed his wrist.
He was far too strong for me to unpick his fingers.
The guard behind me yawned and leaned against the wall enjoying the show. “He’s not hurting you.”
I bent as far as I could to show the guard my distaste.
“Eyes on me, Princess.” A command.
A command spoken with a voice sturdier than steel. My thighs burned with the heat of a thousand blistering suns.
Swallowing down hard, I puzzled defiance into all the corners of my face and showed him my gaze.
He smirked. “That’s my girl.”
I think I got pregnant.
“Let go of my collar!” I pulled at his wrist. “You're wrinkling the material. I do not have access to an iron.”
“Oh, sorry.” He let me go.
I grabbed him by the wrist before he got away. “Hold me by the throat instead.”
“What?”
“Do it!”
“Um…”
“Hold me by the throat!”
Promptly, his hand throttled my neck.
I shivered with delight.
His hand around my throat was not solid enough to constrict my breath, but enough for me to feel the power of his murderous hands.
If he pressed firmer, I might stop breathing.
If I he pressed firmer, I might come. Once, I tried erotic asphyxiation with a belt in bed.
After years of delirious frustrations, seeking at least one proper orgasm, I had been willing to try anything.
I came close but it didn’t work. I did, however, end up in hospital.
“Am I hurting you?” Dig loosened his grip, his voice softened. “Do you want me to let you go? I don’t want to hurt –”
I tore my fingers into his wrist, ready. “Harder.”
“What?”
“What?”
He unpeeled his thumb from the hand that held my throat and stroked my jugular. “You came all the way here, to visit me?”
I twisted his wrist which did nothing to tighten his grip. “I’m Soulless.”
He was quiet for a thoughtful moment. “You turned twenty-five yesterday.”
“How did you know it was my birthday?”
“You never replied to any of my letters.”
Confusion lined my forehead. “What letters?”
It seemed he was momentarily confused and then the creature in him came out again, a delicate sneer coated the lower half of his face. “Your brother must have taken them.”
“Probably.” I nodded, choking a little, wishing he’d squeeze. “I prefer reading fiction over the threats of a madman.”
His laughter echoed.
Eager to make him face his crime for breaking into my house, I promptly flung my hand through the bars and slapped him hard across his cheek. “You ruined my antique rug, you undercooked chicken!”
His laughter ceased.
“Do you have any idea or consideration for your atrocity?” Rage ran over my tongue.
“It was cashmere, from the underbelly of Himalayan goats and hand woven in the eighteenth century by a small village in Kotkahi, their ancestors have long died out and I’ll never find a suitable replacement. What you did was unforgivable!”
I did replace it with another rug. It was better. But I did not elaborate on that.
My captor’s lips quirked down. Confusion, I think.
“Also.” I lifted my chin despite his hand on my neck. “You broke into my house and tried to kidnap me. That’s very bad. You shouldn’t do that.”
“When we get into the battle, Princess.” He licked his lower lip. “Doesn’t matter how quick you run or where you hide, I’m going to find you. Then you and I are going to have a nice long chat.”
“Oh, no thank you, I’m going to be busy that day.”
“You’re mine.”
“I’m not.”
“Your throat is mine.” His fingers pressed tight against the veins on my neck. “Your mouth is mine, your arms are mine, your legs are mine, your belly button is mine. And your heart? That organ belongs to me.”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t seen your name written anywhere on me—oh.”
He lifted up the sleeve on his arm, exposing a tattoo scrawled across his outer bicep. It was a portrait of myself with my hair out. Underneath my very generous sized looking chest scrawled ‘Delphine,’ in cursive.
“You’ve got my name on your body,” I said. “So, technically, you belong to me.”
“Yes.”
“Not the other way around.”
“No, you also belong to me.”
“Ah, no, it doesn’t work like that.”
“I am yours; you are mine.”
“No—”
He squeezed my throat to stop more words from coming out. The choke was insufferably perfect. I dug my nails into the back of his hand. “You dare chase me and I won’t miss your axillary artery next time. Also, can you squeeze a little harder?”
“You and me, we’re going to have a fun time.”
His wicked smile promised violent intent and yet I could not focus on anything besides where his eyes might be. The upper half of his face was smothered in dark. I bored my sight into it, searching the shadows.
“You, uh,” I cleared my throat, “You don’t happen to be wearing your heart-shaped sunglasses?”
His lips fell. A frown. “No. Why?”
I glared at where his eyes would be, drawing the shape of the sunglasses over his face, reminiscing. “No reason.”
His thumb brushed over my jugular again.
That single stroke sent me into hallucination and I rubbed my thighs furiously together. “Let me go, I need to masturba—urinate. I need to urinate.”
His hand released my throat and he walked back into the shadows of the cell.
Fixing my collar I bit into my lip, chewing on the soft flesh, impatient for privacy in whatever bed I might be given. There was just one more thing I needed
“Excuse me,” I whispered into the cell. “Awful man?”
No noise emitted, but I knew he was listening.
“Can—can you call me Princess again?”
“Princess.”
“Thank you.”