Chapter 25 #2
Baths are my new favorite thing, I say again, for some reason unbothered. I feel like I should be embarrassed, but I’m not.
Lucan chuckles. I figured that’s why you forgot about me.
I think it would be impossible to forget you at this point.
Is that so?
His voice is so thick it feels like it’s coating me. All these little places that have always felt neglected and empty, they’re bursting with fire out of my control.
Yes, I exhale. Are you going to forget me? If I end up like that other Chosen One?
That will never happen. He pauses. Almost like he’s taking a slow, steady breath that matches the rise and fall of my breasts. Your voice is etched into my brain.
My voice, I echo, both with hope and a little disappointment thrumming through my words.
I stare at my body through the water, the outline of my curves fragmenting with each tiny wave. I can’t help but wish it could be etched into Lucan’s mind just as well. That he could see me in the flesh, that I could feel his hands on my skin, his real voice in my ear.
How… much does this work from your end exactly?
What do you mean? he asks, and I can tell his curiosity has perked up.
Well, I assume you’re better at the mind communication than me. For instance, can you see through my eyes?
It doesn’t really work like that. He hesitates. More like a hazy second-hand view of the pictures you form in your mind, and even then, I’m lucky if I get that deep. It takes concentration from me and openness from the other person.
Ah, I say, tracing the surface of the water with my fingertips, so you’ve become good at shutting your own mind off then? Because I never get any of your mental images.
I’ve been practicing for centuries, he laughs. When your obnoxious family and friends are constantly invading your space, you have to learn.
Do I invade your space?
No, Lucan scoffs. You’re the best part of my days.
I fold my lips into a smile and continue to swirl my palms along the top of the water directly above my stomach, wishing with every fiber of my being that Lucan could actually see me right now.
Because I have a sinking suspicion that, in a way, he can see me.
That if he wanted, he could scrape away every thought I’m thinking and discover where they’re wandering. Maybe he already knows.
And could you… control me? If you wanted?
A beat of silence. A drip of water from the faucet.
Finally, his gruff voice fills my mind. If you let me.
My subconscious doesn’t even have time to goad him. I gasp when my hand moves to trace my collarbone, because I didn’t tell it to.
Earlier didn’t satisfy you enough? Lucan says, voice rough.
No! I want to scream as heat rips through my core with a dangerous intensity that I didn’t know was possible.
Is it me? Or him? I can’t wrap my mind around it. All I know is I want more.
I try to move my hand downward, but I’m only given an inch of leeway before I’m met with resistance and Lucan clicks his tongue.
What’s the rush, little nightmare?
I can only manage a whimper when his smirk is practically a living thing inside me.
How badly do you want to touch yourself right now?
You know how badly. A helpless plea, I already know.
I do, but I want to drag it out, he counters. If I can’t touch you. If I can’t taste you. If I can’t use my own fingers and lips and tongue. If all I have is time with you like this, then I’ll make the most of it.
Now I’m wetting my own finger. Just placing it on the pad of my tongue, closing my lips around it, like it’s of my own volition. Which, I realize, it kind of is. Anything he’s commanding me to do, I could easily overpower. He can’t manipulate me into doing anything I don’t want to do.
It all lies in how freely I open myself to him. And I want this. Full trust with him in a place where I can’t trust anyone else. A slice of pleasure after all that physical and emotional pain I just had to endure.
Let’s go back to the beginning, baby, he says, removing my finger from my mouth and trailing it along the chain of the necklace. When you were teasing me.
I wasn’t meaning to… I trail off when my hand reaches my breast.
Lucan groans, a low rumble in my head that I feel below my belly button.
You’ve been teasing me for months, though.
My thumb and index finger roll my nipple, pinch.
My eyes flutter closed, my head falls back.
I’m lost in the sensations of pleasure twining down my body, connecting between my legs.
This is more than I’ve hoped for, wondered about, always questioning if I was lacking something.
Nothing in my past has ever felt this good—and he hasn’t even touched me.
It all started with that goddamn mirror, he growls.
My mind wrestles for control, so I can snap back, That mirror you demanded I find.
And that mouth that always talks back, Lucan chuckles. My eyes are forced open. But admit it. You needed that mirror as much as I did. Didn’t you like what you saw? Look at you.
I don’t just look. I stare down at myself. The way my curves dip and valley, rise and peak. The way the water casts the light across my skin. Both of my hands now caress my breasts at Lucan’s insistence. The pulse between my legs has grown so strong that it aches.
There’s this gnawing acceptance of myself that society has demanded I never face.
I’m not supposed to think of myself as beautiful, because they don’t want me to believe I’m worthy of more.
But underneath my heavy cloak and simple clothes, this has been there the whole time.
Unappreciated. I look like I was made for pleasure, like I was made to be worshipped.
You were, he replies. For me. By me.
A low moan slips out of my mouth, bliss and frustration mixed together. I try to ease the fire by clamping my thighs together, but my knees widen an inch instead.
Lucan, I start to protest, but I’m only met with his brewing satisfaction.
You can’t lie to me, he teases. My right hand drops to my belly button, my middle finger circling around it with the slightest touch.
Not right now. I can feel how much you like this.
And fuck, if I don’t love this so much more.
When you get out of that godforsaken place, I’m going to make you pay for this.
I’m going to make you pay for this, I argue, watching my hand drop mere centimeters from where I’m craving friction only for it to travel back north. I’m simultaneously aching and fascinated by how much I secretly love it. I didn’t know sex could be like this.
And all of a sudden, I pause, overcoming Lucan’s control with nothing more than a moment of hesitation on my part.
Sex shouldn’t be like this. I technically have an assigned partner back at home, and even though we broke it off months ago in secret, surely this level of intense pleasure is wrong… even if it feels so right. If anyone found out that I’m—
No one will find out, Lucan says firmly, though he doesn’t try to regain control of my movements yet. Your pleasure—what we’re doing here—it’s not wrong. But it’s between you and me. Nobody else. Just our little secret.
Our secret, I whisper back in a haze. Because this part of me is for Lucan and Lucan only—the position I’m in, the lust for more that I’ve always suppressed, the hidden thoughts he coaxes out.
It’s terrifying and freeing all at the same time.
I want it all, he says, gently starting to guide both of my hands down the curves of my hips again.
A path of goosebumps bursts out across my skin as my fingers go down my outer thighs and up my inner thighs.
Your good, your bad. Every part I’ll hoard and protect, and no one else will know, because you’re mine, Saskia. You always have been.
His. I like the sounds of that, because it means that he can be mine, too.
And at that thought, I relinquish all my control to the Monster with a gasp. My hands move further and further down, and finally, my hand dips between my legs.
The burn ignites as two of my fingers press and circle once. My legs widen, and immediately, I’m trying to press harder, circle faster, but Lucan keeps me at a slow pace.
One of my fingers enters me slowly, pressing against the exact spot that I always search for and stealing the breath from my lungs in surprised pleasure.
Do you forget I’m inside your head? Lucan teases, as he sets the perfect pace and rhythm.
I know exactly what you need. I can read every thought, every memory, desire, wish.
A flame licks up my spine as I arch my back, and my moan echoes off the marble.
Lucan brings my left hand up to play with my pebbled nipple.
I know what you want before you want it. Now close those eyes.
Obeying, my head falls back and another moan, louder this time, reverberates around the room. The water splashes slightly when he has me add another finger and the pace increases.
Lucan’s right. He does know exactly what I want before I try to manifest it, exactly how I’ll respond to something before I do.
So wet, Lucan murmurs. So tight. So perfect. No one has ever spoken to me like this, but I’m immersed, so turned on by every word. The things I would do for you to be in front of me, to actually be inside you, to feel you come around me… unspeakable fucking things, baby.
I’m so close, and it’s almost as if his voice alone could bring me to the edge.
“Lucan,” I moan desperately out loud, the loudest I ever have. My breath is ragged, my legs shake, and I’m falling.
As if into him. He’s surrounding me, filling me, my presence and his merging as one.
If this is what it’s like with a partner you choose yourself, I may just never come up for air.