Chapter 52 #2
My palms pressed to the dark wood of the desk, parchment crinkling beneath them. I felt Septimus’s hand flatten at the small of my back, and then run slowly, slowly up, tracing the lines of my muscles.
“You have the most exquisite back. I’m glad I get to see it this way once.”
The next words remained unspoken: before the end.
Then he reached my hair, fingers tangling in it, grabbing a fistful, tilting my head back. “And this hair,” he growled. “Perfect.”
I moaned through my teeth at the way the bend in my spine sent my hips grinding against him. His breath hitched in response.
I liked that. That just a flex of muscle could do that to him.
“Eager,” he said. “But you haven’t asked.”
Fucking prick. Everything was a game. But then, from the first night I met him, I’d always been such a willing playmate.
I did not speak. But I clenched my pussy again, contracting around his cock. A challenge, because I did not give him the words he wanted. And a concession, because he’d be able to feel the wet slick of my desire dripping over our skin, more desperate than any plea could be.
He let out a fractured groan. With that broken exhale, I knew I had him. He withdrew from me and then pushed in, so deep it verged on exquisite pain. His thrusts were hard, unrelenting, and my body responded to each one in kind, my hips lifting, my thighs opening, offering him more and more access.
All logical thought disappeared.
Our bodies acted out every pain, every frustration, every anger. Every fantasy I had nursed alone in my bed when we traveled together. Every dream and hunger. Every hope and disappointment.
And the truth was, I was at his mercy.
Because when his hand ran around my hip, gripping it, grinding me against him with each powerful thrust—
Because when those elegant fingers slid over my slit, my blood following his touch, and circled my bud—
Because when he leaned over me, chest pressing to my back, his mouth nipping my ear, and said, “Now, Kyrene, you will come for me”—
I had once thought I would never take a command from a vampire. But I was already burning, the blaze uncontrollable, and at that one final touch, it exploded.
My climax crashed through me with the force of a falling star. I rocked back against him, chasing every shudder of pleasure while also issuing a demand of my own: If I fall, you go with me.
And through the blinding depths of my orgasm, it satisfied me that he was in no more control than I was.
Because with one more powerful thrust, he clutched my hips, dragging me closer.
I felt his muscles tense against me. Felt his cock shudder as I convulsed around him.
And his teeth found my shoulder, not quite biting, as he collapsed over me when we came together, bodies trembling, breaths heaving, utterly connected in our pleasure.
I realized, as the haze faded, that I had been screaming. I realized that he was whispering my name. The world came back into focus. My cheek lay against the desk. The parchment was hopelessly crumpled. Hopefully nothing important.
I felt suddenly exhausted. And . . . exposed. I was grateful, for some reason I couldn’t quite articulate, that Septimus could not see my face under the tangled mess of long copper hair. One hand was still intertwined in it.
I thought I knew what would happen next.
It would be, I was certain, the same as every other tryst. He would buckle his trousers, and I would put my clothes back on, and we would go about our business with our energy burned and our minds cleared and our mortal impulses satisfied.
I would act as if nothing was different, because it never was.
I wasn’t sure why this time, I felt as if I was bracing to hide something deeper away.
But Septimus did not withdraw. His forehead remained pressed against my bare back. He was collapsed over me the way one might prostrate at an altar. His other hand was still between my legs, where we were still connected, lazily tracing the folds as if admiring the petals of a flower.
And I was grateful.
Grateful that he was still here. Grateful that he hadn’t pulled from me.
His fingers stroked me, and a fresh spark of pleasure stirred at that touch.
His hips shifted ever so slightly, pushing against mine. Such a slow, languid movement, hardly a thrust. And yet, the sensation of his cock hardening again made the spark catch.
Maybe I understood the appeal of vampires after all.
My hips lifted, trying to chase friction, but Septimus pinned me to the table, the pressure so unforgiving that I couldn’t move. Every slight shift of movement, he seized to push himself deeper and then hold there. My muscles tensed as his cock hardened, deepening. And still, no movement.
His breath skittered across my shoulder as he chuckled. “You have so little patience.”
“I never claimed to,” I ground out.
I clenched around him, and he drew in a sharp breath that brought me a dizzying wave of pleasure. His fingertip lightly brushed my bud again. I jerked against that touch. But the movement only gave him room to slide his other hand around my stomach, holding my torso to his.
“Let me torture you a little,” he murmured against my ear, “for all that you have done it to me.”
Another slow, light circle. I hissed a moan that came out something like a, “Fuck you.”
“Again? Only if you behave.”
I huffed a scoff. “Oh, clever. You’ll stroke yourself to that one later.”
I was a little ashamed of how difficult it was to get those words out.
He laughed softly. “There will be no later. So I won’t apologize for making the most of now, Kyrene.”
My smile faded. A spike of something sharp and painful, something that was not pleasure, rose in my chest.
And then after one more agonizing stroke, his weight was gone. His cock withdrew, and the emptiness inside me was torturous. I let out an involuntarily moan of protest, but Septimus flipped me over.
“Oh hush,” he said. “So much complaining from you.”
Whatever snarky retort was halfway up my throat died on my lips as I rolled over.
I was entirely naked, lying on the desk, propped up on my elbows.
Septimus stood before me, his hands on my knees.
And yet, though he was still mostly dressed, I was struck by the marks I had left all over him.
By the hunger in him, deeper and more dangerous even than the way he’d looked when he had fed upon me.
His white, bloodstained shirt was wrinkled and partially unbuttoned, his hair mussed, his beautiful cock hard and glistening with our combined slick in a way that made my core tighten and mouth water.
But it was his eyes that betrayed him the most. Unguarded and raw. Even now, when they were so red that all but the final threads of silver had disappeared.
I wondered if anyone in my entire life had ever looked at me like this. Not with the reverence of a divine warrior. Not with the disgust of a shameless bounty hunter. But honest, genuine affection for exactly who I was.
The realization hit me all at once, stark and terrifying:
This had been a mistake.
The idea that what we had just done was ever going to be some meaningless distraction, or a way to work out our anger with each other, or a bid to drown our pain in pleasure now seemed so foolish.
We had just changed something, forever.
Yet, most frightening of all, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
He knelt at the apex of my thighs. I let out a choked moan as he slowly, deliberately licked my slit.
“You taste good, full of me,” he murmured against my inner thigh, and then he straightened, his fingers dancing up my body in featherlight touches.
There was a line of concentration between his brows, like he was committing every inch to memory.
He paused at a scar on my shoulder, snaking down toward my left breast. It wasn’t even the worst scar I had, or the most visible one. Yet I knew why he was stopping here. Because it was the one I had gotten that night.
The night I had gotten Zefiah. The night I had lost my child. The night I had murdered the real Vindica Ultis, and damned us all.
He said softly, “As selfish as I may be for it, I’m still glad you killed her.”
My chest pulled tight. A warmth shivered through me that had nothing to do with arousal, so intense it bordered on painful. I suddenly felt newly naked, in a way that had nothing to do with my bare skin.
I sat up, yanking Septimus closer, bracing my knees on either side of his hips. We were almost close enough that his cock could rest against my core, and my walls tightened, sensing his proximity and begging to close the distance.
But instead, I placed my hands on the strong lines of his shoulders. I examined his eyes, his face. His eyes closed, fair, thick lashes lying against his cheeks. It occurred to me with an immovable certainty that I had never seen any being so beautiful. Not even gods.
My face hardened as I lifted my fingertips to trace the wounds left behind by Nyaxia’s caress. More of them than I remembered.
“Nyaxia’s idea of poetic punishment,” Septimus said bitterly. “She wanted to leave a mark.”
“Bitch,” I muttered. Not very poetic. But it was the only word that came to mind.
One lazy eye slitted open, sparkling with amusement. “I like you possessive, lyri.”
My touch strayed lower, to the triangle of skin at the base of his throat, leading to his chest. Pale flesh, the hint of red veins, and . . .
My brow furrowed. Something else. Just a sliver of it, poking up from beneath the fabric. Something white—
I began to unbutton his shirt, but he caught my hand. “You are about to see something that I have never let anyone else witness.”
I chuckled. “Full of yourself, aren’t you?”
But he was utterly serious. “It isn’t a joke, Kyrene.”
I searched his face, and felt a pang of sympathy for what I saw in it:
Fear.