Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ARKEN
Iswore I saw the faintest flash of fear pass through Kieran’s eyes, there and gone within an instant, replaced by a grim sort of confidence.
Cock still hard and twitching against the barriers between him and my center, he offered just a little bit more of what I wanted: pressure, delicious pressure against my windpipe, the searing weight of his hand forcing me to become conscious of every besieged breath I took.
My body melted in momentary supplication, and Kieran swore under his breath.
“You’re gonna be the death of me, Arken.”
Take me with you, I wanted to whisper, but held my tongue.
Though I was lost in a haze of whiskey and need, I had only witnessed so much of Kieran’s self-proclaimed depravity thus far.
And despite his claims for how deep it ran, and the fact that I got the distinct sense we were both still holding so much back…
I couldn’t bear the mortifying possibility that I was wrong.
Because what if I was the one with the darker cravings between us? Did he really know what manner of beast he’d awakened within me?
I didn’t just want his hand around my throat because it felt good, though gods, it really did.
And the whiskey had done its job, but what I was truly drunk on right now was the fantasy of laying my life in his hands.
I wanted to offer Kieran the power to decide whether I was allowed to breathe.
Intoxicated by the idea of letting him force me to struggle beneath his hands—to bend, to break, to beg for him in this safe darkness.
An honorific danced on the tip of my tongue, tasting like juniper, citrus, and cloves.
For several delicious seconds, Kieran pressed his hand against my throat even harder, practically using that weight alone to keep me up against the wall. All too quickly, I found myself released and catching my breath with a few quick gasps.
No. More. Gods, I wanted more. I needed more than that.
“Mmm,” Kieran hummed, eyes darkening. “My pretty little masochist likes flirting with death, doesn’t she?”
“Are you death in this metaphor?” I breathed, my bare feet on the floor again as Kier put a touch of distance between our bodies, his chest rising and falling fast. “’Cause that’s kinda hot.”
“Ssomething like that,” he replied with the slightest hint of a slur on his tongue. His hands were flexing at his sides, indecisive. Like he was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do with me and my bad behavior.
Though my Kieran had returned to me, the foul cloud of his earlier mood seemingly out of sight, I could tell he was holding back. Was that because he’d been drinking? For a man who claimed he wasn’t a fucking gentleman, he sure held on to far more reservations than I ever asked of him.
Come on, Captain.
“I think you liked that much more than you’re letting on, Vistarii,” I teased, taking the risk of being wrong. “I kinda think you want to do it again.”
His breath remained heavy. “There are quite a number of things I want to do to you right now that I probably shouldn’t,” he muttered darkly. “Not right now. Not while I’m drunk.”
Thought so.
“Mmm,” I mused, walking backward toward my bedroom, tugging at his belt loops. “How very responsible of you.”
“I may be an irresponsible bastard most of the time, but there are some things I take seriously, Asher,” he breathed as I tried to guide his left hand back to my neck.
He slipped his hand underneath my jaw instead, stroking my cheek with his thumb.
“A rare few, perhaps, but still. This is one of them. Especially with you.”
The implication grew heavy, thickening the air between us both. It felt as though a silent conversation was taking place between our bodies, an understanding developed through touch, eye contact, and the slightest shifts in our expressions.
I’m not afraid of you.
I know you’re not.
I want it as much as you do.
I know you do.
It’s already yours for the taking, you know.
It godsdamned better be.
If not now, then when?
Soon. Just not tonight.
“Okay,” I whispered, both in response to his actual words and the unspoken conversation, the exchange that likely only took place in my desperate imagination.
Liquor always made it harder for me to mask, which usually worked in my favor, but in this case, made it impossible for me to shroud my disappointment as I tried to swallow the sharp little pang of rejection that shot through my chest. I knew I was being unreasonable, I just…I wanted. I craved.
Kieran ran one hand over his face, releasing a groan of frustration, laced with both desire and self-restraint.
“No, really,” I said. “It’s okay. I get it. We’re drunk. Do you wanna just…do something else?”
I was wracking my brain for some other method of entertainment that might also keep his mind off the day he’d had. I had books and a few stacks of playing cards, somewhere. I wasn’t all too interested in going out tonight, but if it would help…
“Do I want to—” Kieran repeated, staring at me with a deadpan expression. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Shut the fuck up, and take your godsdamned clothes off,” he snarled.
“Just because I’m not sober enough for breath play doesn’t mean you’re getting out of this, Arken.
We will be fucking tonight. I’m going to fuck you like a whore until you’re babbling just as stupid as this gin is making me feel. ”
Every single thought in my mind emptied as my lips parted, his words leaving my pulse pounding, my cunt clenched.
Holy fucking Hel.
Kieran jerked his chin in the direction of my bedroom.
“Go on.”
Even a whisper of authority from his mouth was enough to send me spiraling, and I moved as swiftly as I could manage without tripping over my own feet and embarrassing myself.
I was definitely still drunk. Some swerving was involved, and he chuckled beneath his breath, low and dark as he trailed behind me, already unbuttoning his shirt.
I didn’t bother with a striptease—had no patience for being graceful or seductive after those words spilled from his filthy mouth. The things that man was starting to say, the more comfortable he got, were ruining my fucking life in the best of ways. And I knew he was still holding back.
Kieran was just so godsdamned convinced that he needed to hold himself back from me. I had caught him tempering the sharpness of his tongue on more than one occasion, swallowing whatever barbed retort had come to mind.
He still hadn’t figured out that I liked him mean. I liked him vicious. And I reveled in the way his rough edges sharpened me, too, like a blade against a whetstone in his skillful hands.
Don’t you know, Captain? I fell for your violence long before I ever knew you could be gentle.
My mind drifted back to the day this all began.
“Do you enjoy being put under duress, Arken?”
Yes. Yes, and I ached for it. I wanted it more than I felt like I’d ever managed to want anything, both in that moment and right here and now. Only Kieran fucking Vistarii could manage to leave me both unbelievably satisfied and utterly famished within the same godsdamned breath.
The gentle clink of his belt hitting the floor disrupted my obsessive internal monologue. I wanted to drop down to my knees alongside it, to worship this man in more ways than one, but he crooked his finger, beckoning me forward with a bemused expression on his face.
I kicked my clothes aside and drifted forward, still in my bra and panties, but he seemed to like taking those off himself.
“You know, Arken,” he said slowly, teasing at the strap on my shoulder until it fell off. I could smell the gin on his breath, mixing pleasantly with his natural scent. “Just because I’m holding myself back tonight doesn’t mean that you have to hold anything back…”
He stroked the column of my neck with his knuckles before toying with the other strap. I glanced down hungrily at where his erection was tenting his underclothes, the dark fabric the last of what remained on his body.
“Who said I’m holding myself back?”
Kieran simply chuckled, pinching at the lace beneath my collarbone, using both hands to peel it back, exposing the rosy peaks of my breasts. I shivered as he dipped his head, tongue darting out to lick the tip of one, just once.
He slipped two fingers between my thighs then, rubbing against the thin veil of cotton with a calculated amount of pressure. It was enough that I could feel my own arousal begin to soak through, my weeping cunt pulsating with every slow stroke back and forth, but not enough—never enough.
“Are you?” he murmured.
Am I?
Maybe I was. The whiskey had awakened a certain degree of confidence—a hunger in me that I typically couldn’t act upon until we were so feverishly entangled that I lost my grip on self-control entirely.
And in my desperate desire to pull Kieran from the depths of his dark, defeated mood tonight, I had yielded to certain urges, pushing past my own insecurities to see how he might react.
My eyes flickered to the marks I’d left on his neck just as Kieran bent forward, teasing at my nipple yet again with the tip of his tongue. He blew gently against the thin trail of saliva left behind, making me shudder from the heightened sensation while he awaited my answer.
“I-I don’t think so,” I stammered out.
Lie.
Kieran’s smirk deepened. “I dunno, sweetheart,” he slurred slightly. “I think you might be. I think you might still be hiding some fangs behind these pretty lips.” His thumb stroked over my mouth. “Come on, baby,” he crooned. “You can let those claws back out. You aren’t gonna hurt me.”
“First of all, I could,” I countered, a bit stung. I wasn’t that weak, not anymore. “And second, you’re not the only one who’s been drinking. Why should I let go, but you be so restrained? I fail to see the difference here.”
Another lie.
There was absolutely a difference between what I wanted from Kieran and what he wanted from me.
I knew he wasn’t asking me to dominate him—neither one of us had ever implied we were switches.
I certainly wasn’t, and I’d put every Lyra to my name on a bet that he wasn’t, either. Dominance ran in Kieran’s veins.
He laughed softly at my irritated expression, still stroking at my core.
“The difference is,” he rasped, “there is nothing you could do tonight that wouldn’t get me off, Arken. You could shove an aetherblade through my chest and I’d still spill my seed balls-deep inside that perfect cunt.”
The decadent filth of his words made my mouth water. “Somehow, I doubt that,” I breathed.
“You’re more than welcome to try,” he replied. “You know how much I like proving you wrong, pretty girl.”
Honestly? This man probably would let me ride his cock with a blade against his neck if I asked it of him. If that was what I wanted. But I would much rather those roles be reversed.
Gods, I was too drunk for this. There was too much desire, too much need, too many conflicting fantasies that shook free from the logic and reason that typically kept them contained.
“What do you want from me, Kier?” I whispered. “What are you asking for?”
Kieran let his open hand ghost around my throat again, biting his lip as if he were admiring the sight. Fucking tease.
“Not asking for anything, gorgeous,” he replied huskily. “Just giving you permission to let go.”
I still hesitated.
“I want you to let go,” he clarified, knowing that adjustment—that precision of language made all the difference to me. Knowing me all too well.
As you wish, Captain.
Tentatively, I slid one hand behind his head, yet again finding purchase against the soft, inky black. Kieran closed his eyes, remaining perfectly still, letting me explore.
“You can do it, Little Conduit. Do whatever you want with me. Take whatever you need.”
Spurred by his intoxicating encouragement, I pulled his hair hard, tugging him toward me with experimental aggression, using my free hand to palm his cock.
Irritated with the existence of cloth, I shoved the waistband of his underclothes down so that I could feel the heated velvet of his length as I wrapped my fingers firmly around the base, gripping him tighter than I ever had before as I stroked him hard and fast.
“Holy fuck, alright,” he panted. “Okay—gods, yeah. Gods. Just like that.”
Thoroughly stroked, my ego began to purr in my chest.
And so I placed one hand against his chest and admired the pretty contrast between our skin tones before I let go of his hair and shoved.
I knew that Kieran could have held his ground, but he let himself fall back against my mattress, his gaze half-lidded and hungry as I followed suit and straddled him.
His eyes were still a bit glassy, staring up at me through the haze of all that quickly consumed liquor, licking his lips and speaking slowly as I reached back to unhook my bra. “Yeah, you better take that thing off. Show me those pretty fucking tits I love so much.”
I, for one, loved the mouth on this man right now.
I should get you drunk more often, Captain.
Even though this was me succumbing to his whims, following his instructions…
There was something about it that felt like a personal victory.
It felt like a prelude, a promise that soon enough, I would have my way.
Perhaps, if I showed him what I was capable of, he would understand what I could take—and Kieran would give me what I’d been craving since the day we met, in the darkest corners of my mind.
For Kieran, I would let go.
But I was taking him with me all the way down.