The Darkest Pleasure (Lords of the Underworld #3)(60)

What if he had no need for pain? What if Danika were here, sucking him deep into her mouth?

"Yes, yes," he chanted. Her sunshine hair would spill over his legs; perhaps he would see the pink tip of her tongue laving the thick head of his penis. He might feel the light scrape of her teeth every time she descended, taking him to the back of her throat.

Would she like the taste of him?

Maybe she would take him in her mouth while he licked and sucked her. Another moan escaped him. She would be wet, wet for him and him alone. Her taste would be like the ambrosia he blended into his wine.

She would drip with desire. For me, only me.

For us, the demon snapped, raging inside his mind.

Reyes clenched his teeth. For me. Never us. You are the reason I cannot have her.

I didn't open the box, now did I?

Reyes gave the knife yet another twist, and the tip sliced the bone in two, driving straight into another muscle. At the moment of penetration, a climax ripped through him. He roared loud and long, his muscles contracting, hot seed jetting from him and blending with his blood. Both scalded his skin, like battery acid on silk.

Only when the last surge ended did he lose his last bit of strength and sag, completely depleted. His arms fell to his sides, lifeless. He was panting, could taste metal in his mouth. During orgasm, he'd bitten the inside of his cheek.

Can't stay here. Have to clean up before someone finds me. Slowly his eyelids cracked open, golden light seeping into his consciousness. He needed to find Torin and - His thoughts skidded to a sickened halt.

Danika stood in the bathroom's doorway, staring down at him in horror.

DANIKA DIDN'T KNOW HOW to assimilate what she'd just witnessed. That was what Reyes needed to experience pleasure? Before, part of her had thought she could maybe give him what he craved. But he hadn't just cut skin. He'd cut veins, muscle and even bone. There was so much blood, a seemingly never-ending river pooling and congealing around him.

Now he was looking at her through hooded eyes, lips grim, a crimson splatter on his chin. "What are you doing here?" Cold, no emotion.

"I fo-followed you," she managed to get out. "I - I - " She was shaking so badly, and her throat kept trying to close around a surge of bile.

Had other women hurt him like this? Pleasured him like that? The thought disturbed her, but not as it should have. She didn't like the thought of other women meeting his needs. She didn't like the thought of other women doing something to him that she had not done - or perhaps could not do.

Reyes lumbered to his feet, swayed. His thigh gushed. She thought she saw the severed bone underneath the muscle and couldn't glance away. Her gaze was held captive and tracked every drop that spilled. His penis rose proudly, still thick and full, smeared with desire and blood, the heavy weight of his testicles drawn tight underneath.

Even possessed as he was by the demon of Pain, she didn't understand how he could find release in so brutal a deed.

"Look at me," he barked.

"I am." A broken whisper.

"At my face." He jerked up his pants and fastened them.

The action released her from the trancelike state. Gradually she dragged her gaze up his body. His navel was surrounded by the faintest dusting of hair - how had she missed it before? - and his stomach was roped with hard lines of muscle, a testament to his inhuman strength.

"The Darkest Pleasure"

Her tremors increased the closer she got to his face. A shadow beard dusted his jaw, hardening the angles of his face, making him appear all the more dangerous.

He was scowling at her, his lips peeled back from his teeth. His nostrils flared as he inhaled. "I told you to stay in my room."

His eyes, normally polished onyx, were tinted red. Glowing. Pulsing. She gulped. "I couldn't, I didn't - "

"Go!"

"Don't talk to me like that. Got it?"

"Leave. Please." A whisper.

As he stood there, panting, angry, bloody as if he'd just returned from a war, she lost her...whatever it was she'd been feeling. Disgust? Confusion? Shock? I want to paint him like this, she thought. He was a thing of beauty. Dark, a combination of cinnamon and honey, with eyes like an eclipsed sun - a person didn't know whether to stare, blind to all else, or look quickly away.

What intrigued her most, however, was his tattoo. That butterfly, with its wings spread in midflight, half consuming his chest and neck, seemed to be watching her, beckoning her closer. It had always been ominous and harsh, almost evil, and yet it now appeared...gentle. The colored skin was glittering, a mix of ruby, onyx and sapphire. The usually sharp-tipped, forged-of-steel wings were somehow softened.

I've seen this before, she thought. I've painted this before. Hadn't she? There was something unerringly familiar about it, though not enough to jog her mind completely. Maybe it was the fact that she'd seen a few of the other warriors' tattoos. Each man had worn the mark in a different location and each had been a different color. Maddox was branded on his back, Lucien on his chest. Aeron, she thought with a shudder, all over.

Danika found herself reaching out, arm shaking, desperate to feel Reyes's brand, to know the texture and the temperature. Hot and raised? Or cold and smooth?

He jolted backward, slamming into the wall, his arms spread to hold himself up. The sink jostled, the soap slipping and falling to the floor. Thump. "Do not touch me, Danika."