29. Falling Star
Falling Star
Elias
Desdemona sits above me like a fallen angel, pulling at my belt with impatient, imperious movements. I stop her by digging my fingers into her waist, her skin feverishly hot beneath the delicate fabric of her dress.
“Let down your hair,” I command her softly.
She obeys without protest, pulling out a thick gold pin shaped like a narrow V and letting it drop to the floor with a tinny clatter.
Her hair uncoils, tumbles over her shoulders like a slow-moving cascade, all that gold, and the summer fragrance that radiates from it, magnolias and sun-drenched sand.
“Like a princess,” I whisper, reaching up to brush my fingers through a long strand.
Desdemona pushes my hand away, glaring down at me.
“I’m not a princess,” she says. “Or an angel or a saint. I’m not made of gold or marble. I’m flesh and bones, just like you. Messy and real—just like you.”
No, you’re not, I think. But I smile, and I slowly drag her skirt up her legs, revealing the strong length of her thighs.
Her skin almost seems to emit its own faint light in the dark auditorium.
She’s warm and soft to the touch, and she spreads her legs as far as the velvet seat will allow, pushing herself up just enough that she can unzip my trousers, reach down, slide her hand between us.
I settle back into the seat, watching her, letting her take the reins—knowing she won’t be holding them for very long.
Her fingers find the length of me, already hard and ready for her, because she’s exquisitely beautiful, and because I’ve wanted her ever since I made her come with my fingers on top of her head girl’s desk—maybe even before that.
Maybe I started wanting her that night she showed up at my bedroom door, or when I made her kneel to collect her money off the floor at my feet.
Maybe I’ve wanted her since that very first time, when she stood there, unflinching, as her boyfriend threw knives at my face. I marked her, that night, with my own blood.
Like she was always meant to be mine.
“You’re hard,” Desdemona whispers.
There’s a hint of awe in her voice that sends a tendril of tenderness curling through me.
I breathe out an amused laugh that tapers off into a sharp hiss as she pulls my cock free from my trousers, fingertips gliding up the smooth length in the exact same curious gesture with which she touched the telescope earlier.
The softness of her touch, the hesitation, makes me twitch beneath her fingers. My skin feels hot and alive, crawling with a heady mix of impatience and anticipation. I squirm underneath her, angling my hips, pushing into her hand.
She looks up with an expression of wonder.
“It’s beautiful,” she says in a breath. Her eyes meet mine, emotions pooling deep within. “You’re beautiful.”
A terrible emotion rends my heart, and red alarms flash through my mind, screaming danger. Desdemona wants to fall—but I don’t. I can’t. I have much further to fall than she does, and if I do, there won’t be anyone to help me back up.
“Don’t go romantic on me now.” The laughing confidence in my voice has never felt more blatantly like a lie. Pushing Desdemona firmly off my lap, I gesture towards the floor. “Kneel for me, love.”
A series of expressions register across her face: surprise, defiance, lust—obedience. Is she choosing between standing and falling? When she obeys, it’s the same way she did that night back in my bedroom: her back stiff and her chin up-tilted.
A hot rush of affection sears through me, almost indistinguishable from the surge of adrenaline. Her pride, I’m starting to realise, isn’t arrogance like I always thought. Her pride is actually defiance—just like mine.
I let out a low, breathless laugh.
“Good girl. Yes.” I take her chin in my hand, cupping it. “Open your mouth.”
Her jaw works beneath my fingers, and I see in her expression the battle that rages within her: the voice that’s telling her she’s too good for this, too good to kneel on a moss-ridden, rain-stained floor, to part her lips for a nameless nobody.
So why does she obey? What is that other voice saying, the one that’s making her look up at me with those eyes?
That’s the voice I can’t imagine, the one I’m most terrified to know about.
Her lips part with a soft, wet noise: on her bottom lip, caught on the pale pink gloss she wears, a tiny raindrop is balanced. It’s stopped raining, but neither of us has realised yet. There’s nothing in the world, right now, except for my hand cupping Desdemona’s chin, and her gleaming open mouth.
“God,” I rasp, voice thick, heartbeat erratic. “You look perfect like this.”
Perfect all the time, even when you’re not—especially when you’re not.
I draw her closer to me, guiding her with my fingers, which are still cupping her chin. She moves obediently, despite the fact she could pull away at any point. Why? It would take no force whatsoever to free her chin from my fingers. She doesn’t.
She’s choosing to stay, to part her lips—for me.
Choosing me.
Fuck. My heart is racing. And—and that raindrop on her lips is driving me crazy, so I swipe it away with the tip of my cock. Desdemona’s eyes are still on mine. She doesn’t flinch; she sticks out her pink tongue slowly, tentatively.
“Ah, fuck,” I breathe. “Yes, sweetheart, just like that.”
Desdemona wraps her lips around me, and I move her chin, guiding her to glide her mouth slowly up and down the length of my cock. I catch my breath, head rolling back, muscles straining. Putting her on her knees was supposed to put her at my mercy—put me back in control.
But I’ve never felt less in control than I do now, with her mouth on me, soft and warm and impossibly intimate.
The auditorium is so quiet that all I can hear is the wet glide of her lips, the tiny sounds caught in her throat that she’s too shy to let out. She’s tentative yet unafraid; her seeming lack of experience is balanced out by her obvious eagerness to please.
No, not quite that—not eagerness to please.
Eagerness to please me.
“Ah, Desdemona, fuck…”
I bite deep into my bottom lip, arching into the seat, hips straining, pushing deeper.
Desdemona… It’s not pity, exactly, this thing I feel pouring out of her tonight, this sudden, coiling connection between us that seems to be drawing us ever closer.
Pity is a familiar taste, chalky and dry, more bland than unpleasant.
Desdemona would not be the first person to pity me, but that’s not it.
It’s something else, something new and unexpected and unsettling.
Tenderness.
It makes me want to lean into it and pull away at the same time.
It makes me want to be only just brutal enough with her to bring tears to her eyes, and it makes me want to make her melt with pleasure.
Maybe there’s the exact same battle waging within her right now, because she’s picking up her pace, growing confidence, her eyelashes two gold, glistening fans on her flushed cheeks.
And before I know it, I feel my own pleasure ignite, cresting.
“Ah, fuck—”
I push Desdemona away from me, my cock slipping from her mouth with a muted wet sound, a thick line of moisture connecting the tip to Desdemona’s swollen lips before dropping, breaking.
“You’re going to make me come,” I tell her in a low, rough laugh, heart beating a mile a minute.
She dabs her wet lips with the pads of her fingertips, looking up at me. “Isn’t that the point?”
“Yea.” My voice is hoarse. “But not like that.”
Closer, I don’t say out loud. Need you closer.
I draw her back up to her feet, then reach beneath her long skirt, all the way up her interminable legs, and pull down her underwear, tossing the delicate scrap of satin and lace aside.
Her hands still balanced on my shoulders, we go tipping back into the auditorium seat, Desdemona straddling my lap.
My eager cock bumps against her inner thigh as I roughly bunch her skirt up.
She lowers herself onto me, but I stop her with a huff of shocked laughter.
“Love, wait,” I gasp haltingly. I slide a hand up her inner thigh, finding the molten, red-hot place between her legs. “I wanna make sure you’re ready.”
She rolls her eyes impatiently. “I’m ready.”
“No, I mean—”
My fingers find what they’re looking for: she’s so wet that my middle and ring fingers slide in with no effort. Inside, she’s hot and tight, and I feel her tightening. I widen my eyes. She gazes back, unflinching, eyes almost black.
“I’m ready,” she repeats, voice low.
I nod, my throat suddenly tight. And I realise a new layer of danger to what we’re doing here: this isn’t something we can chalk up to pretend.
No plausible deniability for us, then.
But fuck—real feels so good.
I already know this is going to be fast and hard and messy before I even slide my cock inside her.
After every fantasy I’ve ever had of humbling Desdemona, of breaking her pride, of bringing her down to my level, in the end, when it comes to it, when I’m standing in the eye of the storm and the silence and the clarity all set in, all I really want is her.
Her pleasure. Her voice, her eyes, her body.
Her heart.
“Oh, f-fuck,” Desdemona whimpers as she lowers herself on me, my cock pushing deeper into her. “God. Oh, god.”
“No,” I breathe. “Just me.”
She gazes down at me, blinking slowly. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes glassy and dim.
She bites deep into her bottom lip, bracing her arms, and slides all the way down, settling herself on top of me with my cock buried inside her, her entire body shuddering as she adjusts, her voice one long, satisfied hiss.
And she says the one thing I didn’t even realise was what I most wanted her to say.
“Elias.”
Fucking Desdemona Sutton-Knight is like chasing a streaking comet—like trying to swallow a supernova.
I hold her hips in my hands, fingers tangled in the sinuous fabric of her dress, nails dug in the skin of her hips, and fuck into her with short, hard thrusts, and I look up to see her face thrown back, her long neck pale, muscles stretched taut, her golden hair bouncing on her shoulders.
One strap of her dress has fallen down, the draped fabric drooping to reveal a bare shoulder, a pale throat, the pearly curve of a breast, a nipple as pink and delicate as the petal of a cherry blossom.
A stray thought blooms inside my mind.
I don’t want to belong to anyone, but if I did, I’d want to belong to you.
“Fuck,” I bite out.
Reaching up, I catch Desdemona’s nipple into my mouth, and I suck hard, punishing. Hunger and love and resentment, all tangled up inside my veins, my head. Wanting her to be mine and wanting to be hers—is there that much of a difference, in the end?
Her fingers tighten on my shoulders like claws, and she raises her head to look down at me, pain and shock and pleasure and annoyance all mingled on her unreasonably beautiful face. Do you want to be mine as much as I want to be yours?
She meets my gaze, fingers digging so hard into my shoulders I hope she leaves bruises.
“More,” she rasps.
Fuck. No wonder nobody can get enough of this girl. Maybe that was my first and greatest mistake: underestimating her. Time to make amends.
I flash her a smirk. “Whatever you want, love.”
I’d give it all to you. Anything you asked. Anything I had.
I suck on her nipple until it’s hard underneath my tongue, and I leave it a wet, pink mess before tugging down the second strap of her dress with my thumb.
I lick her other nipple, and then I catch it between my teeth and tug, drawing a warbling cry from her.
I lick up her throat, kissing her hard and wet and messy, sucking on the delicate skin until Desdemona’s hands, scrambling for control, find my own neck, her nails scratching deep, then moving up, grabbing handfuls of my head, yanking it back.
Marking her—being marked by her—it feels so fucking good I harden more inside her, jerking my hips in an involuntary, desperate thrust.
“Ahh,” she moans. “Elias—”
Choking my name out like a command. I release her neck from my mouth with a wet gasp and choked, mean laughter. Tightening my hands on her waist, I give her another hard thrust, making her pretty tits bounce and her eyes roll back.
“Gorgeous girl.” My voice is a ghost of itself, harsh and raw and hoarse. “Tell me what you want.”
I want to hear your voice some more. I need it.
She glares at me, hisses out, “You know what I want.”
Imperious girl. Prideful little thing.
“So what. Say it.”
Her body’s already saying it: with the shaking in her thighs, the tension in the muscles of her stomach where I’m holding her waist, thumbs pushed into her abdomen, with her tight wet heat clamping down on me.
“G-god, fine,” she gasps. “More.”
“More what?”
“You.” Desdemona’s voice, also a ghost of itself, is soft and broken. “I want you.”
She can’t know I’ve never heard those words before—my entire body shakes. I thrust myself into her hard, all the way in, her entire body jolting from the force of it.
“I know,” I breathe. “I know, sweetheart.” I want you too. “Now come for me.”
She obeys me one final time. She comes with a whimper like she’s been fatally wounded, and my own orgasm obeys the command in hers. I come with a rasping gasp, thrusting into the explosive crest and the deep pulsating pleasure that follows, my hips erratic, out of control.
Desdemona’s head slumps forward, all her hair falling like a curtain over her face.
My hips finally still, my cock still inside her, feeling the hot, gooey mess of us.
I reach up into the golden curtain to find her face flushed with pleasure, her lips bruised and dark, her eyes heavy-lidded and glittering dully.
For a second, we just stare at one another, still panting, still irredeemably connected.
You want me, I mouth, a smirk ghosting over my lips.
Desdemona lets out an impetuous breath.
“That didn’t count, by the way,” she says, stubborn pride flaring back to life. “Forced confession.”
“Hah.” Genuine laughter melts from me, and my cock twitches inside her. “Too late.”
Too late, yes.
My heart falters.
For both of us.