Chapter 47 #2
Frantic fight or flight locks into place, shortly dissolved by something entirely overwhelming—white hot need. My body blazes to life as I balance on the precipice of danger, of death, and total arousal.
A breath passes between us. Then two. Jace drags his tongue over his bottom lip, the predatory glint in his eye sparkling with something uncontained…unhinged. I swallow the knot in my throat. In the presence of death, I refuse to cower.
“There he is,” I whisper, half mad and grinning.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he growls.
Then his lips crash into mine, like a collision of stars. Heat floods my system, awakened and restless. My mouth matches his pace, frantic and hungry, and unapologetic. He takes every breath, every heartbeat, every godsdamned thought, and devours them whole.
His taste on my teeth is shadow incarnate, rage-fueled and roaring.
“You want to see my darkness, starling?” he whispers, sending a tremor of anticipation straight to my core.
“Yes,” I manage to reply, my breath shallow and strained.
Jace’s shoulders stiffen when I comb my fingers through his hair, pulling his chin back to plunge my tongue between his lips. He lets me explore every inch and sensation and taste of him I can steal.
I’m breathless and panting.
Writhing and reeling.
I clamp down on his lip and draw blood. The copper taste sinks between my thighs with a tension that refuses to be ignored.
Now we’re even, I guess.
The fury between us isn’t spiteful or cruel, but hot and heavy and entirely mutual. Morvayne help me, I’m entirely undone for the man, the monster, the nightmare.
His lips rip from mine, and suddenly he’s across the room. The distance between us is un-fucking-bearable, but there’s a cataclysmic promise in his eye that steals the protest from my tongue.
I draw in a short-lived breath as Jace pulls the laces of his tunic. The cotton drapes open, revealing his steel-cut chest, and the hair dipping beneath his trousers.
My thighs rub together, hungry for any friction. The thin sleep clothes I wear offer little to the imagination, but I don’t dare let my eyes wander from Jace, half afraid he’ll change his mind and bolt for the door.
Every speck of time between us is agony as he slips off the shirt and lets it fall to the floor. “Do you know just how infuriating you are? How mindless I am when I’m near you?”
He drags his thumb across his collar bone, and gods I’d bargain my soul to be that digit. “You want to know my deepest, darkest secrets, Nova Lindwen?”
“Yes.” I brace myself against the headboard.
“When I shifted the first time, I lost control. I lied when I told you I’d dismissed my staff. They fled, but I chased them down and drained every one of them, and I fucking loved it,” he whispers, his shoulders rolling. That should terrify me. It’s alarming that it doesn’t.
“It’s not your fault, Jace. Just as you said, you weren’t in control.”
“Okay, fine. If that doesn’t send you running, starling, how about this…” He starts on his trouser laces.
“After our offering, your scent on my fingers drove me to madness. I hunted you all night, and when I reached your bedchamber door, I pumped myself into fucking oblivion just to stop from breaking down the door and draining you.”
My lungs contort. Again, I should flee for my life, but I don’t. The wicked visions infesting my thoughts drown out any basic need for survival.
“Scared yet?” He watches me through thick lashes.
“No.”
“I hope you’re prepared for this, starling, because I’m going to show you just what kind of monster I am.” His voice is a rumble at the back of his throat, but those midnight eyes don’t shift to crimson. Something like disappointment quivers within me.
That’s fucking confusing.
My throat dries as his fingers pull his trouser laces.
“I can handle you, Jace,” I say, meeting this challenge head on.
“We’ll see,” is all he replies as he shrugs out of his pants. I don’t withhold my stare when his cock springs free. Thick and perfect like glistening steel. And the size of him…Gods above, I’ve never seen such a perfect specimen of the human form.
Fuck, he’s so hard already, the sheer length quivering my inner walls. I’ve had plenty of partners before, but gods above…none like this.
He grips himself at the shaft and strokes his hand to the tip, his eyes locked right to mine. Pure, fervent desire floods my body, glazing my vision in a voracious haze.
“Show me how much you want this.” His words slam into me, igniting a fire of tension between my legs.
“What?”
“Touch yourself for me, Nova,” he replies, dragging a canine over his lip.
“Jace, I— ”
“Be a good girl and do as I say.”
I can’t deny the physical reaction his command draws from me. My throbbing arousal seeps through my underclothes and slicks the sheets.
Fuck, this man is everything, and if this is what it takes to finally crack his walls, I’ll play along. I want to break him, just as he has me. I want him entirely undone, entirely feral, beyond the point of control. And if it kills me…well, I’ll wholeheartedly accept my fate.
He watches me with parted lips as my hand finds my breast. A shot of pleasure jolts right to my center when I pinch my nipple and a moan spills from my lips.
Jace goes rigid. Not a breath or a shiver escapes him. He tracks my every move, calculated, precise, and stone fucking cold.
My other hand trails down my stomach, my hips, then settles between my thighs. I let my knees fall open, exposing my glistening sex to the morning air. The dew-glazed chill sends a shiver through me, and my skin goes taut. Gooseflesh puckers on my arms, my legs.
“Fuck…” The growl from Jace’s lips is nothing less than primal. I sweep a finger through my slit and hold it up for him to see.
Arousal drips from my skin, trailing down my palm. “Is this what you want, Jace Ashborne? To see how wet you make me?”
His hand strokes up his shaft, agonizingly slow. He watches me like I might disappear, devouring every inch of my body, and storing it to memory.
Gods above, he walks the edge just as I do. The thought of pushing him out of control once terrified me, but right now I’m begging to see him unravel. I want him feral, fuming, and entirely at my mercy.
I let my fingers hover over my clit, already swollen and throbbing. Jace’s jaw ticks as he pumps himself again and his balls tighten.
Good.
Is he leading this or am I? Our mutual torture sends a thrill through my veins. My eyelids flutter when I circle the bud of nerves, never breaking our locked gaze.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” he whispers between breaths. A bead of precum glistens on his head. Fuck, I want to taste him, to take him to the hilt. The tension in my belly gathers.
When I can’t withhold any longer, I slip a finger inside me, curling and stroking just where I like it.
An orgasm builds like a spark to a pyre.
My other hand cups my breast, circling my nipple.
Touching myself is agony in his presence, his thick length tempting my every desire.
I don’t want to drive my own pleasure. I want him to claim it, but the look on his face—sinful and wicked—sends me to the fucking cosmos.
He watches my fingers work my clit like I’m the only deity he worships. My body is his temple. My release, his salvation. Gods, I might burst into flames right here on this bed.
“I want you to touch me,” I say between panting breaths.
“Not yet, starling. I’m enjoying watching you squirm for me too much.” He takes a seat in the chair opposite me. His eyes are directly in line with my sex, and I’m on display like a fucking dinner spread.
“Don’t make me beg, Jace Ashborne.” I sheathe a second finger to the hilt.
“Do what you’re told, and I’ll let you have my cock instead of those greedy little fingers,” he says.
A moan climbs up my throat, desperate for release. He wants to toy with me like I’m some plaything? To drive me to madness? Fine. My brow arches. I’ll make a show of it, then.
My toes curl as I fall into a merciless rhythm. Dipping my fingers all the way in then slowly withdrawing. My thumb circles my clit, exactly as his had during our offering. I can’t stifle the pants, growing shallower, as the orgasm builds.
My back arches, and I gnash into the bed, sweat beading on my flushed brow.
Jace’s strokes up his cock quicken, matching my pace. A deep, rumbling groan spills from his lips and he lets his head fall back in the chair. Those dark, deathly eyes never leave me as we chase pleasure, each gasp or cry a challenge for the other.
“You’re not allowed to come yet,” he growls when I withdraw my fingers again. My body is a fire of restless, aching tension. I’m so close, I can taste my climax—piny and sharp.
“You think you control me?” I pant, working myself until I nearly break. My eyes shut with a final pulse of sweet, mind shattering tension.
But a strong grip curls around my wrist—interrupting the orgasm like a godsdamned landslide. “Only I get to command your release, starling.”
Then Jace is above me, his cock nudging my entrance. My hips tense when he slides himself through my heat, rocking back and forth, wetting himself with my agonizing desire.
“If we do this starling, you’re mine. Your thoughts. Your dreams. Your body. Your very fucking soul is mine. So, I’ll give you one last chance. Tell me now if you’ve changed your mind, because I don’t plan on taking you gently.”
Fuck, I might actually lose my mind. His thighs between mine fit like our bodies were sculpted for one another, and maybe they were. We are flames of the same pyre, blades of the same arsenal. His malice calls to mine.
“You’re not going to scare me away, Jace.” I brush a thumb down the curve of his chest.
“We’ll see about that.”
Then he slams into me with his full force, stuffing me to the hilt. My inner walls stretch deliciously around his length. There’s no build up, no letting my body adjust to his size, just a fullness unraveling me thread by thread.
This is a rough, relentless type of pleasure and I’m ravenous for every inch of him I can manage.