Scarred (Never After #2)(69)

Fear.

There’s only been one thing I’ve longed for in this world, and it’s at my fingertips, the crown so close I can almost reach out and place it on my head.

But now there’s her.

And everything else pales in comparison. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her by my side. She is everything. And if she’s hurting, I will torture the people who caused it until they beg me to let them die.

I cup one of her breasts in the palm of my hand, feeling her soft skin mold beneath my grip. Her nipples are hard, pebbling beneath the thin material of her torn nightgown, and my mouth waters, demanding that I lean down and have a taste for myself. So I do.

“Tristan,” she moans, her fingers tugging at the strands of my hair until the root stings.

My teeth sink into her skin and she yelps, her hips lifting until she’s pressed against my groin, making my cock jerk from the friction. I release her nipple with a pop and move off of her, smirking.

“Where are you going?” she complains. “Come back.”

I ignore her pleas and walk to the nightstand, grabbing a thick candle off its base and heading back toward the bed. She’s watching me, her forehead scrunched, and her cheeks flushed red, as she sprawls out against cream silk sheets, her black hair splayed wildly around her.

My footsteps falter as I take her in, nude and aroused, her body high and sensitive from the roller coaster of emotions she’s no doubt already gone through today. A lesser woman would have broken. Yet here she is, acknowledging her pain and letting it mold her instead.

She’s breathtaking. I want to fuck her until she breaks; breed her until my cum oozes from her pores and every person knows who it is she belongs to.

I reach for her ankle, dragging her down to the edge of the bed, placing the candle on the ground next to my side.

She shrieks, her long legs kicking at my chest, and I smirk, delight filling my veins that my smart-mouthed witch is still alive and well. My grasp tightens and I tsk at her, fingers dancing along the front of her shin, over the top of her knee, and to the inside of her thigh.

And then I pinch.

Her eyes flutter and her mouth parts.

“I think you like pain with your pleasure, don’t you, little doe?” I tilt my head, trying to keep myself from pouncing on top of her and burying my face in her pussy.

“You don’t know what I like,” she bites back, her eyes flashing.

I let out a soft laugh, my hand smoothing over the reddened area from where I smarted her skin. “We both know you’ll take whatever I give you, ma petite menteuse.”

Grabbing the hem of my shirt, I lift it over my head, the air hitting my skin and causing a slight chill. Or maybe that’s her eyes soaking up my body like its water, flicking from the artwork detailed along my upper arms, to where they cover the front of my chest.

Together we rule, divided we fall. She mouths the phrase as she reads my tattoo, and it sends a shot straight to my dick, wanting to know what it would feel like if she spelled the words out with her tongue.

I roll my tunic in my hands, folding it over. “And when you’re on the edge of oblivion…” Her eyes close when I lay the fabric on top of them, my fingers slipping behind her curls to wrap it around her skull until she’s blind. I bend until our lips brush, reaching down with my hand and grabbing the candle, a shot of desire flying through me when the flame grazes my skin. “It’s my name that will be screaming from those pretty little lips.”

I raise the candle above her forearm, tilting my hand until the melted wax trickles from where it pools beneath the flame, drizzling onto the perfect cream of her skin.

“Oh,” she gasps. Her mouth parts as she jerks her arm back, but I grab her wrist, bringing it up to my mouth and blowing, watching as it hardens to a cast on her skin.

“Tristan,” she whispers.

“Do you like how it feels?” I ask, running my fingers through the cooling liquid. “I know you do. I bet, if I reached down right now, your perfect little snatch would be crying for me. Begging for something to fill it. Wouldn’t it, filthy girl?”

Moving to the top of her arm now, I repeat the action, the white wax pouring onto her skin as my other hand slips from her collarbone, down the length of her torso, until I’m brushing against soft curls. “Do you know how badly I’ve ached to touch you?”

I lean down, no longer able to resist the urge to have her taste in my mouth, and lave kisses along the middle of her belly, tilting the candle as I do, pouring a long line of paraffin to trace the places I’ve just marked with my lips.

She moans, her back arching off the bed as her legs clench together, her thighs pressing my hand between them. I force them back apart, my fingers gripping her inner thigh. “Keep them open. I want to see your pretty cunt as it swells and begs me to let it come.”

Her breathing falters, but her body relaxes, and her legs fall open wider than they were before. The sight of her pussy glistening and ripe makes my balls tighten and heat coil around my spine.

She’s surprisingly noncombative in this setting, and it pleases me. My hand slips from her thigh, running over the hardened wax and up to her throat, squeezing until I feel her heartbeat beneath my fingers. “Such a good girl.”

She licks her lips, and I move the candle to her collarbone, watching her reaction as I dribble the hot liquid onto her skin, moving my hand so it creates lines of wax along her chest, over the pink of her nipples, and down the line of her stomach, pooling in her belly button.