Chapter Forty-Two
ELYSSARA
Kael doesn’t set me down. His arms are steel, his grip unrelenting as he takes the stairs two at a time, black silk brushing against my bare thighs.
The key Amarisse tossed him bites into the hand braced at my hip, and every step is a vow—that he’ll use it to lock us away from the world and finish what we started.
I can feel the storm he’s holding back in the coiled flex of his arms, the rough edge of his breath against my hair. Violence simmers under his skin, but he’s channeling it into me instead, every stride a promise of possession.
The pleasure parlor blurs around us—perfume, velvet, the murmur of courtesans selling fantasy—but I’m not part of that world anymore. I’m in his.
He kicks open a door, the hinges groaning, and the air inside is cooler, quieter, scented faintly of rose and smoke. The four-poster bed in the center of the room is draped in blankets and covers made of silk, bracketed by low burning lanterns that cast the room in a soft golden glow.
A glimmer catches my eye as the lantern reflects in the ornately detailed mirror that stretches from floor to ceiling on the far side of the room, making it feel like the Stars themselves hang in the air.
Kael’s piercing blue eyes drop to mine, stilling my every move and arresting all thought.
“They bought your act,” he breathes, as his gaze rakes over my parted lips, down my neck, lower.
“We both know there is no act when it comes to us,” I murmur, tilting my chin up to claim his mouth. I sweep my tongue in, colliding with his in a dance of heat and want.
“Will you let me have more of you?” he asks through ragged breaths, pulling away and blazing a trail of light kisses and gentle nips of his teeth along my neck and shoulder.
But surely he knows that no matter how fiercely I try to use my words like a blade, to hold my hurt between us like a shield, to use him for my own escape, it only brings us closer.
It only makes me realize that fighting this is futile.
It only ignites the undeniable thread that forever connects us.
That despite everything, he’s already got all of me, whether I will it or not.
“I’m yours,” I whisper, and Stars save me, but I mean it.
I feel him let out an exhale—as if the words are a balm to his tension.
Kael’s sure and steady gait takes me to the bed, lying me down with care as the silks caress my bare skin.
He leans over me, his beautiful face hovering inches from mine. “I already knew that, El. But I’m relieved you’ve finally admitted it,” he taunts, wicked grin on his face.
I huff a laugh, but it’s quickly cut off by his hands gripping the lace around my hips and yanking the undergarments down my legs, and onto the floor.
His hands move expertly to the silk robe, sliding it from my shoulders and removing the tie at my waist. He deftly unlaces my corset, and my breasts spring free from the fabric, hanging heavy on my chest under the intensity of his gaze.
He hums his pleasure at my bare body—a low rumble vibrating through the room, and his hooded eyes make no move to hide his attention. “So fucking perfect, my love.”
Heat coils low at his words, hungry for his encouragement.
He removes his own robes, onyx silk cascading down his body in a slow reveal and pooling on the floor at his feet. His cock is already hard, pulsing, glistening at the tip, and a sharp breath escapes me at the sight of him.
But it’s his eyes—the ones that promise ruin, worship, ecstasy.
“Spread for me, darling, and I’ll worship like you’re the last altar left in this godsforsaken realm,” he growls, and the words sound like a devastating prayer.
I slide my legs apart, and he drops to his knees in worship. He hooks my legs over his broad shoulders with his calloused hands, as he tastes and licks my skin from my knee to my thigh, until he reaches my center.
“Lift yourself up on your elbows,” he commands, and I do as he says without thought, submissive and compliant under his instruction.
I press onto my elbows, raising my head, and that’s when I realize—
Behind Kael’s muscled shoulders, my own reflection stares back at me.
The intricate gold mirror reveals my peaked nipples, my tousled hair, and my spread legs with Kael’s mouth between them.
“Watch what I do to you,” he rumbles, and I moan at the promise.
His tongue licks slowly up my center, savoring, devouring, and his eyes are pinned on me.
He focuses on my clit with a firm, flat tongue, pressure and friction colliding in ecstasy, making me press my heels into Kael’s back, and buck my hips wildly at the sensation.
But Kael’s hands grip my hips, pushing them down into the silks. “You can ride me soon, Elyssara. But it’s my turn now,” he breathes between languid licks, eyes never straying. “I want to enjoy the taste of your pussy on my tongue first, darling.”
Fuck.
My hips strain against his hands, desperate for leverage, but his hold is unrelenting.
I drop my head back, closing my eyes in the overwhelming haze of pleasure, but one of his hands pushes into my lower abdomen, shaking me from the spell he has me under.
“You’ll watch how fucking perfect you are, my love.
Eyes on the mirror,” he commands, and my head snaps up, rebelling against my own languidity.
A whimper escapes me, but I do as he bids: I watch.
I watch the way his hand snakes up my torso, gliding over my breast to massage it firmly but tenderly in his palm.
I watch the way my peaked nipples roll between his fingers.
I watch the way he devours my pussy, licks my clit, pins my hips like a man possessed and starved all at once.
I watch my lips part in rapturous pleasure while the man who bows to no one, ravishes me on his knees.
His rough, battle-hardened hand presses into my chest, sliding up my body until the full breadth of his hands wraps around my throat.
And despite myself, I lean into it.
I press against his hand until my breath comes in short, ragged pants.
“Open wider for me, darling,” he growls, claimed by the ecstasy himself. Then, he releases my hips from his grip.
My knees spread wider, and I grind my clit against his tongue.
Pleasure trembles through my core, hungry to spread to the very edges of me, and my legs shake, molten, lost to his touch.
I can feel release coming, and I race for it. Hips bucking and grinding, chasing it as if I can stop myself from drowning in him.
I fight the urge to close my eyes, to take shelter in my own rapture, but—
“No,” Kael’s voice cleaves through my euphoria, and my eyes fly open. “I want you to see how perfect you are when you come around my cock, darling.”
Kael’s hand releases my throat, and his mouth breaks from my clit, as he pushes himself to stand.
Holy fucking gods.
He’s a deity. Divine. A king. A god. But his wicked mouth bears the promise of something unholy. Something forbidden.
I groan in frustration at the loss of contact, but I know this is not where it ends.
His muscles are coiled tight with restraint—veins bulging, cock hard as stone, torso forged like a weapon.
He lifts me bodily from the bed, placing me gently on my feet facing the mirror.
He unfolds himself onto the silks behind me, feet still on the floor, back pressed into the bed, and with a sinful smirk, his eyes rake over me. “Look at your pretty cunt, Elyssara.”
The evidence of my arousal drips down my inner thighs, and a breathy moan escapes me.
I’m under his spell.
I face myself in the mirror—swollen clit, glistening skin, chest heaving with the desperate need to finish what he started.
My legs tremble, sensation curling through every inch of me.
“Step back, thighs open for me, darling,” he commands with a low timbre that spreads through my body like the charge of lightning.
I step back, and his hands—those fucking hands—wrap around my hips, positioning my legs either side of his, his cock lining up at my pussy, and my ass towards his face. “Get on,” he says—no ceremony, no patience, only hunger.
My breath hitches at his command.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror—spread wide, straddling, wet, bare.
And it’s almost too much.
He notices my apprehension, his senses attuned to mine, and his fingers trace faint circles on my hips. Soothing. Present. Here.
“We don’t have to,” he offers. “We can go back to what we were doing, my love.” His eyes looking at mine in the mirror, sincere, unguarded.
But I want to trust him. I want new memories to obliterate old ones.
“No,” I breathe. “I want to.”
“Do you trust me, my love?” he asks, and the question arrests me.
Do I?
I trust him with my life.
I trust him with my pain.
I trust him with my body.
But my heart?
I pause, still staring at my naked form—exposed, stripped.
And despite the fear that courses through me, I feel safe in his arms.
“Yes,” I answer, and I mean it.
So, I lower myself onto him.
His cock spreads me open, sliding into my pussy, stretching me wide.
A rich, deep hum of approval tears from his throat. “Ride my cock how you were riding my tongue, my love,” he encourages, and his words embolden me.
I suck in a sharp breath at the size of his cock stretching me wide, but I move my hips, inviting him in deeper.
And gods.
With every roll of my hips, I can see his cock moving in and out of me in the reflection, and the sight obliterates me.
His hands palm my ass, gripping and bruising as I take him deep inside me.
“Holy fucking Stars,” he murmurs to himself.
My hand moves to my clit, adding the friction I’m so desperate for, and he huffs a laugh of disbelief as his eyes rake over my body from behind and in the mirror. “What are you doing to me, woman?” he breathes.
I can’t speak, too lost to the bliss, too pulled into the sight of myself taking him, riding him, breasts bouncing to the rhythm of my movements.
“Look how well you take me, my love. You’re doing so well for me,” he encourages, voice all spice and heat.
My pace increases, pleasure building at his words that pool low in my belly. I add more pressure to my clit, and I can’t help the moan that tears from my throat. Unrestrained. Wild. Raw.
“That’s it, darling. Grind my cock. Just like that,” he urges me on, and then his fingers swipe between my cheeks, moving in the rhythm of my hips. Dipping and caressing. Forbidden and taboo.
Kael’s hands move and stroke between my cheeks, and the world collapses into the small, hot vortex of his body meeting mine.
Each stroke a vow, each grind a punctuation—sharp, necessary, taking and giving—and I ride him like I’m trying to rewrite my own history.
The mirror throws us back at ourselves: my face, wild and raw; his jaw clenched, eyes drinking in my body; the slick of our skin catching the lamp light and turning us into confession.
Kael’s hips buck, hard and sure, and I open myself the way he told me to—thighs wide, tips of my toes on the floor for leverage, my own reflection inescapable.
His body is a throne beneath me, solid and unyielding, and mine is the spectacle. Every thrust makes my breasts bounce, every grind drags his cock deeper, every sound I make caught in the reflection. I can’t look away.
His hands are heavy on my ass, guiding, claiming.
One drifts lower again, rough fingers spreading me wider, dragging his fingers between my cheeks.
Then he slides higher, teasing along the center of my ass in a way that spirals pleasure up my spine.
A mortified sound escapes me—sharp, instinctive.
I freeze, shame prickling hot across my chest.
But Kael sits up in a rush, broad chest to my back, breath fire against my ear.
His hand stills me, possessive. “No,” he growls, voice lethal with certainty.
“Don’t you dare hide from me, Elyssara.” His fingers curl tighter on my hip, anchoring me.
“I want every part of you. All your hunger. All your desires. All your pleasure. Every dirty fantasy. Every fucking place your body gives in to me.” His mouth drags along my neck, biting at my pulse, and a shiver ripples across my skin.
“Don’t ever give me less.” His hand trails up the side of my torso, over my shoulder, and into my hair as he brushes it off my neck, and whispers, “Let go for me.”
My shame shatters, molten heat flooding in its place.
He lies back again, hands cupping my ass, waiting for me to decide: will I cower under the weight of my shame? Or will I claim this pleasure for myself?
So I rock back against him, deliberately pressing into his hand with my ass this time. Obliterating shame with a single movement—not just allowing, but embracing, claiming what I want. His answering groan vibrates through my spine.
“Just like that,” he murmurs, reassuring, encouraging.
The mirror shows everything: the flush staining my skin, the tears at the corners of my eyes, his cock spreading me open as I ride him, the lines of my torso that ripple like waves with every grind.
Kael’s gaze burns into my back, but it feels like it pierces straight through to the woman in the glass.
The woman who’s been taught to hide—her fire, her magic, her pleasure, her desires, her power.
But Kael sees me, and asks me to drop the act. To reveal myself. To step out of the shadows of who I’ve learned to be, and let myself be seen—bare, whole, me.
“Look at you,” he rasps, thrusting up into me, hard enough to make me cry out. “My Queen.”
I moan at his words, at the dizzying collision of shame and worship, of hiding and revealing, and the pleasure tips me over.
My body convulses, unraveling in the reflection—lips parted, breath heavy, body vulnerable but alive, and Kael follows with a guttural roar, spilling into me as his grip locks me down tight on his cock.
My pussy pulses around him, squeezing in rapturous ecstasy, and the hum of his approval annihilates me.
A flood of pleasure ripples through me, and Kael’s grip remains firm on my hips until every last shudder is wrung from me.
“You’re so fucking sexy when you come, beautiful,” Kael praises, his voice strained and heady.
I collapse sideways into the silks, trembling, shaking, wracked with pleasure that floods every part of my body.
Boneless, languid. But Kael eases me back into his arms, pulling me in tight.
He pulls a silk sheet over my bare skin, tucks my hair behind my ear, and kisses my temple in an act so contrary to everything we’ve just done.
His voice is softer now, stripped bare. “Never hold yourself back with me, Elyssara. You can be all of yourself. Every jagged edge, every hunger, every want, every pleasure.” His hand presses over my heart, steady and sure. “I want all of you.”
I bury my face in his throat, because the thought of not hiding, not holding back, makes me realize that it’s the only way I’ve ever lived.
Until him.
And I’m never going back again.