14. Emotional Bondage
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Emotional Bondage
Hawk was looking at me like I had hung the very stars in the sky, and it had a feeling unfurling in my chest that I had never felt before. One that, even without the curse, I didn’t have words for.
“Are you all right? I’m sorry he said those things to you.”
He gave an easy shrug. “I’ve been called worse.”
I hated that. “You didn’t have to do that—any of that.”
“Yes, I did.” He reached out and gently toyed with the end of my braid, and the feeling in my chest felt like it was trying to claw its way out. I didn’t meet his gaze.
“How did you know it was him? That he cursed me?”
He ran his thumb down my cheek, gently guiding me to look at him.
“Because I see you, Lucia. I hear you.”
I looked down again. “Of course you do. We’re magically bonded—”
He tipped my chin up again. “That’s not what I mean.”
Hope—that forbidden magic—fluttered in my chest. Soft wings, so easily torn apart. But with him here, maybe I could hope. Maybe I could believe that a soft future was possible for someone like me.
“My middle brother…he has that new shifter autoimmune disease. I used to do thirty-six-hour delivery shifts to make enough to pay for his medicine. That was until the generic was made and the price dropped. Now, I just work regular twelve-hour shifts.” He smiled, that beautiful, shy smile that had me spellbound. “That was because of you.”
I placed my hand over his. I’d done it to help people—of course I had.
I’d seen the online reactions, and of course I’d been happy.
But after the curse, that had felt so far removed, like it wasn’t real.
It wasn’t something I could hold on to in the lonely nights to know that it had all been worth it.
But this—this was real.
This had helped him, long before he had ever helped me.
That hope in my chest was glowing dangerously bright.
“There you are.” His eyes softened, and the magic between us threatened to burn away all the walls I’d built to protect what was left of my heart.
“It will make you a target…their lawyers—” I was reaching for those walls. I couldn’t let him get hurt, not because of me. I didn’t deserve that.
But he wouldn’t let me.
“You heard it from him. I’m a cryptid. They’d have to catch me first.” He smirked, tilting his head slightly, his thumb tracing circles on my cheek. “I’m pretty flighty. Only one person has ever managed to do that.”
“Hawk…”
“Yes, boss?”
I laughed, and it resonated deep, not deadened by the creeping vines of the curse, not locked away and private. It was a gift he had blessed me with, and I would not squander it.
I closed the distance between us, pressing my lips to his and toying with his piercing. He moaned and returned the kiss in kind, his arms wrapping around my waist as his wings pulsed rapidly.
Immediately, heat flared, and my hands wandered over the bare skin of his stomach, tracing the waistband of his dark jeans and toying with his belly button piercing. He hummed, releasing the kiss.
“Wanna head inside?” he asked, his eyes already glazing over.
I looked at the house, then back at the greenhouse, where my plants were still settling into their shrunken forms. I recalled the flush on his cheeks when I’d tied one around his wrist, the arousal he’d felt at the pain that had lingered from the bind.
He’d given me so much, brought me out of a darkness I had never thought I would escape.
I think he deserves a reward.
“I’ve got a different idea. Do you trust me?” I trailed my finger down the lines of the Death’s Head moth tattoo on his chest.
He glanced at the greenhouse, and I felt the same thoughts pass through him and down the bond, white-hot.
“Fuck yes, I do.”
I tugged on his belt loops, leading him inside the humid structure and pushing him back onto the workbench. He went easily, scooting back so I could climb up in front of him, his thighs spread around my knees.
“Do you know the color system?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yes, I do.” His voice was hoarse.
I waved my hand, coaxing my plants to grow again. I expected them to complain, overworked from intimidating my brother, but they snapped to attention immediately.
Perverts.
They grew up the table legs, and as their leafy heads curled over the edge, Hawk’s eyes went wide. A deep note of arousal threaded with an intoxicating hint of trepidation traveled up our bond.
“If anything is—”
“Green! Yes, please, Lucia, I—” His arousal was cut by embarrassment again as a flush creeped up his neck. I couldn’t have that. He never needed to hide around me.
I leaned down and captured his mouth, tugging on his piercing with my teeth until he moaned. “Are you going to be a good boy for me, Hawk?”
The rush of arousal that shot through him had me clenching. “Yes—yes. I’ll be so good. Please—”
I cut him off, kissing him deeper, loving the moan that rolled off his tongue and into my mouth.
“You say red if it’s too much.” The vines had wrapped around his arms.
“It won’t be.”
“Hawk,” I warned.
He bit the piercing on his lip until the skin blanched as the vines wrapped tighter, and a whimper slipped from him. “Yes, boss. I’ll say if it’s too much.”
“Good boy.”
I flicked my fingers, and the vines clamped down around his wrists and drew his arms up over his head. I waved my hands, guiding more around his torso and chest. I wove them around the outline of his firm pecs until his back arched, and the veins leading to his nipples bulged under the pressure.
With each breath, I constricted them further, squeezing mewls out of him as they closed around his body.
I grew more vines beneath his back to support him—avoiding his wings, keeping our weight off them—and pulled him closer as I leaned down and gripped one of those tortured nipples between my teeth.
“Luciafuckfuckfuck—”
I swirled my tongue, drawing back to blow on the wet skin until it grew taut, fighting the pressure of the restraints.
My head was already spinning with the pleasure surging through the bond, and I could feel myself leaking into my soaked panties.
I knew his cock was just as wet, and I ground down onto him until tears streamed from his eyes.
I traced the triangular glyphs of his chest tattoo with my tongue, found the firm muscle near his nipple, and bit into the soft flesh hard enough that he thrashed and the sharp pain throbbed around my clit. I knew it would leave a mark. I wanted him covered in them, and I knew he wanted them too.
But I couldn’t give him what he wanted. Not yet, anyway.
That would be too easy.
Seeing him beneath me like this, absolutely wrecked and on the verge but never pushing him far enough to break, was addicting.
I kissed lower, down his stomach, until I caught the piercing in his navel between my teeth and his hips jerked. Lower and lower I went, running my tongue over the veins that disappeared into his jeans. Then I pulled back and sat up, and a desperate sound escaped him.
More magic rushed through me, and the vines lifted my lacy dress as I rose onto my knees and slid my panties down my thighs so he had an unobstructed view. The pleasure in the bond hit so hard it nearly knocked me back down.
His long tongue unfurled from his mouth. “Lucia, please, let me—”
I traced my fingers down my stomach and over the soft hairs of my mound until I flicked my swollen clit, and his eyes went wide. I rubbed tight circles, and he strained against the vines.
“No, Lucia. No, let me, please. Use me!” His antennae were going haywire, and I watched his muscles bunch as pale blue veins rose beneath his tan skin. I cinched the restraints tighter, working myself until my thighs started shaking.
“Good boys who are patient get rewarded.”
He groaned but stopped fighting, and I could feel the agonizing ache of his cock, still trapped in his jeans. But he held still, didn’t even rub against the rough fabric for relief.
I gave him a pleased hum as I pressed two fingers into myself, tilting my hips so he could see them moving in and out.
His wings flapped so hard that a few empty seedling trays scattered across the floor, but no other part of him moved. His eyes were locked between my legs, and his tongue played with his piercing, but he was still.
Perfectly obedient.
He was so worked up and desperate that our connection had me almost coming from the light touch of my fingers, but I knew how to be patient too.
I withdrew my fingers with an obscene squelch and raised them to his lips.
Without prompting, his long tongue flicked out, sucking them into his mouth.
His eyes rolled back as his cheeks hollowed, licking me clean with a soft moan.
“Greedy boy.”
His red eyes flew open at that, desire shooting up my spine.
“I bet you’re desperate for me to touch you.”
“Yes, yes, please—”
I had my vines drag down his pants until his cock popped out, bobbing between us, dripping wet. His knot was already swollen and red, throbbing angrily between his piercings.
I pulled on an exaggerated frown. “You poor thing. Are you aching?”
“Yes…so bad. I’ve been good, haven’t I? Please, Lucia…”
I traced my thumb through the precum leaking along the vein on the side of his cock, dragging it around the head and squeezing just inside of mean. He cried out, his hips bucking off the table and thrusting into my hand.
“FuckLuciapleasepleaseplease—”
“Tell me what you want.” I grabbed his chin, making him look at me. “Use your words.”
He flushed that beautiful pink hue, hips still moving, his cock throbbing in my hand. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, forcing clarity into his words.
“Lucia…please. I—I want to be inside you. Want you to use my knot, use me.”
I smirked. “Well, how could I say no when you ask so nicely?”
I straddled him and sank down slowly. His back arched harshly as his first piercing pushed past my entrance, then another, dragging against my pussy until I reached his knot.
It was big, and I couldn’t take it right away.
I clenched around him, trying to work myself open, but my legs were burning, and every pulse sent pure ecstasy up my spine through our bond as Hawk’s legs thrashed.
“So tight…yellow, Lucia. Wait…”
I stopped immediately and grabbed his face. “Are you hurt? Where?”
“It’s not that.” His jaw was clenched tight. “You feel too good, and I don’t want to come yet. Not until you do.”
Oh.
His cheeks flushed redder. “Can you help me?”
I nodded and called the softest vines I had up over the edge of the table. They wrapped once around his thighs, then one circled the base of his cock and the other beneath his balls. I clenched my thighs, and the vines squeezed as my pussy did the same. His eyes rolled back.
“Color, Hawk.”
“Green…green…”
My hips rolled in figure eights, and my vision nearly whited out with what he was sending down the bond and the sensation of him stretching me, but slowly—oh so slowly—I worked his knot and then the rest of his piercings into me.
The curve of his knot hit my G-spot every time I thrust down against him, his broad head rubbing deeper over that ribbed spot until I was seeing stars.
“DoIfeelgood? TellmeIfeelgoodLucia.” He was drooling, his biceps and forearms swollen beneath their restraints as his whole body tightened.
“So fucking good, Hawk. I’m so close. Just a little more?”
He nodded frantically, his eyes closing as I felt him holding back, and I moved faster, harder.
The leaves on the vines around his cock flicked against my clit, and every inch of my skin was on fire.
Low in my stomach, the pressure was inevitable, and then magic poured out of my chest, and I couldn’t stop it.
Silver vines, soft as moonlight and mirroring the ones I had him tied up in, wound around my ribs. They snaked down and around his chest, throbbing gently with our joined heartbeat. My eyes widened, but his were still clamped shut, so he didn’t see them. He just whispered.
“You’re perfect. So perfect. I’m yours…please.”
The vines tightened beneath my ribs, daring me.
You’re mine, Hawk. Stay. I want you to stay with me.
The words sat at the tip of my tongue, but five years—a lifetime, really—of hurt and thorns killed them. Instead, I placed my hand on his tattooed chest and said, “Come with me, baby.”
My legs gave out as I slammed down onto him one more time, bracing myself against his chest as wave after wave of molten pleasure rolled through me.
I loosened the vines caging him, and he cried out as his circulation returned and catapulted him over the edge until he was shaking and pulsing inside me.
The orgasm seemed to last forever as the bond carried it between us and copious amounts of his cum dripped out of me and down my thighs.
But those silver vines between us floated away like ash—unsatisfied.
His eyes fluttered open. Well, half-open as he breathed deeply, dazed. I used what energy I had left to send the real vines back to their cuck pots.
As they retracted from his skin, angry red marks remained, twisting around his wrists and torso. Guilt washed through me, and I gingerly took his hands in mine, placing soft kisses against the tortured skin of his forearms.
“I’m sorry. We’ll go inside and get you a poultice.”
He shook his head. “No, I mean…they aren’t too bad, and—” That embarrassment rose again for a second, but he moved past it quicker this time. “I like them. I mean, I like having your mark on me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, even as my heart stuttered.
“So being tied magically to me isn’t enough?” I asked, half teasing, half guilty. “I guess you are getting greedy.”
He looped his fingers through mine and placed a soft kiss against my knuckles. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
What pulsed down the bond was so soft, so gentle, it terrified me. He was so good, so sweet, so caring, and he’d been leashed to me. I’d heard what he’d said…about staying. But that was just proximity and magic. He deserved far better than this.
Far better than me.
I knew that, and I’d let him climb inside my chest anyway. It had been easy—so easy—to pretend that I could keep him. And now ripping him out might be the most difficult thing I’d ever have to do.
“Come on, Mothman. Let’s get you cleaned up.”