83. Levi
LEVI
“Idon’t want this to end.” Violette’s words make that squishy thing in my chest tighten.
With her body curled against mine, I pause massaging her neck to peer over her shoulder from where she still sits between my legs in the tub.
Her gaze is distant even as tears glitter on the edge of their oblivion.
Her lower lip trembles.
She blinks.
Tears plummet.
That sensation in my chest tightens further. My arms wrap around her, binding her to me as I press a firm, fervent kiss to her cheek. “Baby, we’ve only just gotten started.”
She heaves a shuddering sigh. “I don’t mean just the courtship. I mean us.”
Violette pauses, turning in my arms. Her bright lilac eyes reddened with emotion, dancing between mine.
“All of us.”
Her desire isn’t surprising. I expected it. Knew it. Knew that even beyond this courtship, she wants both of us. She’d already vocalized it. But it had left room to question, ‘to what end?’
Sexually?
Temporarily?
Fuck, it was still a question as to whether or not she wanted either of us.
Now, there is no question.
And it had allowed me to ignore what such a possibility forces me to ask myself.
Do I want to devote my life not only to Violette, but to Azrael?
A male.
Despite the curiosity I’d felt as a kid, or the fact that it never waned, it wasn’t something I’d allowed myself to entertain.
And thanks to my heavy attraction towards women, the distraction of life and work and trauma, or the fact that it requires, quite literally, an act of God for me to open myself up to someone...
It was something that I’d more or less to keep neatly tucked away, in a box, in a haunted storage unit trapped with in my mind, distinctly labelled, do not fucking open.
But with Azrael, there is an undeniable pull I feel towards him. Something I’ve only ever experienced with Violette. And thanks to her and Azrael, this is something I can finally explore now.
Although I can’t help but wonder what exactly occurred when he severed mine and Violette’s bond.
Is what I feel just a symptom of his magic?
Did he do this deliberately?
Are Violette and I both being manipulated by him?
Trust is the most integral part of any relationship to me.
If I can’t trust Azrael, then I won’t entertain my heart any more than it has with imagining a life where I share Violette and myself with him.
And he might not be capable of dying, but I’m fairly certain quartering his body and sinking each piece to the bottom of the ocean would be pretty fucking close.
My mind whirs with all the many ways I might try to kill him as my fingers gently graze Violette’s cheek. She stares up at me like I hold her heart in my hands. It’s an honor and responsibility I don’t take lightly.
“How much do you trust him?”
Violette’s brows knit together, eyes sliding towards some distant corner like she hadn’t given it much thought.
My sweet, trusting Violette.
I can’t help but admire the fact that despite everything she’s been through—she hasn’t allowed it to carve away her willingness to trust people. To see their potential for good.
I can’t say the same.
“Well, we vowed with our blood and magic to complete the courtship rituals... I don’t see what he would have to gain from it, if it wasn’t something he truly wanted.”
Gradually, I nod, not wanting to upset her or make her paranoid.
Maybe I’m being paranoid.
“I mean... can you? See what he would have to gain from it, outside of what anyone would normally gain from a lifelong partnership?”
I can barely wrap my head around there even truly being a god of death, much less fathom his ulterior motives.
But there is something tickling the back of my mind.
Violette’s father is a god of the sea. Perhaps there is some connection there, but I’m not willing to disrupt her increasingly frequent tears of joy because of mere suspicion, so I just shake my head and kiss her forehead.
Resume stroking her hair, massaging her neck.
“Not really, no.”
Violette rests her cheek on my chest, peaceful once more, and some of the mounting tension in my chest eases.
Her fingers trace the tattoos peppering my chest and arms. There’s a gap in ink revealing the blank flesh on the edge of my left pec, right over my heart, while every other inch of my body is painted.
“Why is there nothing in this spot?”
My gaze follows hers, shrugging. “Seemed sacred. Never came up with anything that was equally so…”
Until now.
She gives a subtle nod. “Understandable.”
“Why don’t you have any tattoos?”
She huffs a small laugh. “There was a time I wanted to be covered in them, but as I grew older, it seemed like more of a statement not to get any. Plus, with my former work and all…”
Her throat dips, and she goes quiet. My heart thumps.
I want to hear about this; learn about every part of her and her past. I don’t like the idea of her having worked in a brothel.
I fucking hate it. Not because it makes me think any less of her, but because the idea of some fucking scummy asshole preying on her vulnerability, touching her, taking pleasure from her—from my Violette—makes me want to burn her whole fucking realm to ashes.
“What about it?”
“Maintaining a look of... purity was encouraged.”
An ember of anger flares to life at the idea of Violette being stifled in any capacity.
“Would you want to get one now? Now that you’re no longer there?”
She sighs. “I don’t know... I think I also just have this intrinsic fear of committing to something and then being let down—even with tattoos. Like I’d find something to hate about it later and regret ever getting it.”
A few moments pass. The only sound is our breath and the trickle of water with each stroke I give her hair.
“Did you enjoy your work?”
Her eyes lift to mine. Soft. Searching.
“Aspects of it.”
I try not to be jealous. Have no right to be.
“Like?”
“Many of my clients didn’t come to me for sex. Sometimes they just wanted someone to take control from them. Someone to hold them. Make them feel like everything was going to be okay. Give them a place to be vulnerable…”
She pauses for a moment before adding, “Or sometimes they just wanted someone to talk to, or sit in silence with, without feeling judged.”
“And you liked... the companionship of that?”
It takes her several more moments and a deep breath before she manages to reply, angling her face away from mine. The words come out little more than a whisper.
“It made me feel like I was worth more than sex.”
Her words press into me like a knife—piercing the core of me and stealing my breath. Emotion is swift to burn my eyes.
Violette turns, attempting to curl into a ball, as if caving in on herself.
“Oh, Vi…”
With one arm around her back and the other sliding beneath her knees, I guide her curled-up form to rest against my chest and abdomen. Her body trembles as she finally releases a soft sob—something I can imagine she’s been bottling up for as long as she can remember.
I press soft kisses to the top of her head as I cradle the back of her head with one hand. “I’m gonna spend the rest of my life proving to you just how much you’re worth, okay?”
She replies with a hiccuped sob. “B-but our bond…”
My own tears tremble on the banks of my eyes as I clutch her more tightly against me and attempt a soothing tone. “I don’t give a fuck. It’s changed nothing. I want and need you just as badly now as I did then. If anything, its absence has given me clarity.”
Her sobbing eases, but she shakes her head weakly against me. “Something will happen. One day, you’ll decide you want something else, something more, and you’ll leave?—”
“Violette.”
She stills.
“I am not your father.”
Violette sniffles. “My parents were soulbound, and he still didn’t stay. He treated her like garbage. How will you ever stay without it?”
The truth reaches my lips quicker than I can even think, and I swear speaking them feels like an out-of-body experience. Like I am both my mother and my past self, watching my present self speak them. Like karma has altered reality to reach this point of my surrender.
“How could I ever leave when I don’t want to live this life without you, Violette?”
She finally tilts her head to lift her watery eyes to mine, brow furrowed.
“You say that now, but?—”
I huff a dark laugh, shaking my head.
“Woman, I would carve a hole in my chest if it meant you’d call me your home. Feed you my innards if it meant sustaining you. Give you my eyes if it meant you being able to see you the way I see you. Rip my fucking heart out if it meant that you’d be able to feel just how much I love you.”
Violette’s lips part as her eyes frantically leap between each of mine, searching for the verity in my words.
I take her head in my hands, sitting up and hunching over so that I can bring my face closer to hers.
“Do you understand?”
Her throat works, and more tears spill, beckoning my tongue and lips. I collect each salty gift, murmuring against her cheek.
“I should probably apologize now for the fact that you’ll have to endure the lifelong burden of my love…” My lips roam from one cheek to the next. “But if it’s any reassurance, I promise to try my best not to escalate beyond being mildly deranged.”
The organ in my chest thumps a heavy, needy beat for her, further excited by the breathlessness in her voice. “I think that just may be your best quality.”
My mouth widens in a grin as a dark chuckle rumbles from my chest.
“The feeling is mutual.”
Violette rears back on a dramatic gasp. “I am not deranged.”
I nod, drawing her closer again. Bringing my lips within an inch of hers. “You are. And every time I see that highfalutin mask it’s hiding behind slip, it makes my fucking dick hard.”
My hips give a single thrust, causing my fully erect cock to press against her pussy. I hadn’t exactly meant to do so, but I’m not mad about it. The action causes her to gasp again and reach down to wrap her hand around it.
She narrows her eyes at me even as she gives it a lazy stroke.
“Your dick is always hard.”
I huff. “For you? Yes.”
Her palm circles my crown before sliding down its length. Groaning, I allow myself a single thrust to counter it before I grip her hand.
“Today’s about you, princess. You should be lying on a bed of pillows as we tend to your every whim.”
She arches a brow in challenge. “And what if my whims include putting you at my mercy?”
“Woman, so help me God, you will get used to me taking care of you. Courtship rituals or not.” Removing her hand from my aching length, I nip at her ear. “That being said, I want you begging and needy for us…”
Us...
My heart stutters at the word.
The fact that it slipped so easily out of my mouth, like it was natural and shouldn’t be any other way, betrays just how much I want Azrael to be part of this too.
Even Violette seems to notice—she stills, but says nothing. Thankfully.
I’m not quite ready to commit to that idea just yet. Not with the shadow of suspicion lingering in the back of my mind, and not with my too-sensitive heart still coming to terms with the fact I’m opening myself up to potential heartbreak from yet another person.
As if reading my mind, Violette turns around in the water and presses a soft, lingering kiss to my lips that makes my cock twitch.
“Why don’t you go keep him company, hm?”
Her lilac eyes twinkle with knowing.
My chest pinches in my chest.
Fuck.