I should have fought harder. Should have screamed, clawed and torn at him until I had nothing left. But I didn’t. Maybe because I knew it would never matter. He would take what he wanted regardless; the monster always wins.
Yet now… now as his tongue wreaked havoc inside me, as he tormented me with slow, languid strokes, unravelling me in ways I didn’t understand… my body betrayed me. Welcomed him.
I hated myself for it.
Hated the way my thighs trembled, the heat pooling in my gut, the traitorous pulse of pleasure that coiled tighter, tighter until I wanted to scream, to sob, and to scratch my skin open just to purge the shame from my veins.
“This pussy is mine to fuck, to lick and tame in whatever way I please. When I say bend, you will spread your legs and invite my cock like a good little wife.” Every word scraped against my heated core. I saw blur, darkness and everything I was not supposed to. My body had become accustomed to him. Opening for him and inviting him. I’d never felt this way before. Never.
A sharp nip against my sensitive flesh had me jerking, hands gripping the sheets like a lifeline, and I screamed into the pillow. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. It was too much. This pain and pleasure.
Bastard. Sadist. Depraved, insatiable devil.
And yet, as his tongue plunged deeper, forcing another gasp from my lips, I realised something horrible. I wasn’t thinking of the man he killed. I wasn’t thinking of anything at all. I was drowning in fact… completely, utterly and endlessly like the waves outside. Colliding on the shore, knowing that was the endpoint.
Another electric sensation rippled through me, and before I knew it, I was clutching the sheets tighter, my vision blurred, and I released. It was humiliating how he chuckled and leaptlike a hungry animal, licking me down there where Adrian never had.
Tears accumulated in my eyes as the strength in my arms failed and I fell face-first on the bed, panting and trembling. What… what had I just done? I came undone in the hands of my captor.
I wished the earth would split and swallow me whole. I wished I could disappear into the sheets, into the darkness, into nothingness… anything to escape reality and his satisfied grey eyes.
A firm grip tangled in my hair, forcing my head up, making me face the truth I so desperately wanted to deny. His hot breath ghosted over my skin. “That was the sweetest sound you’ve ever made, Dolcezza.”
Shame crawled up my spine, and my lips trembled, parted, but no words came. What was left to say? He had stripped me of everything… my pride, my defiance and my grief… until there was only this unbearable and aching guilt and need.
I hated him for making me crave what should disgust me.
For making my body betray me in the worst way possible.
“You’re trembling.” He brushed his fingers down my spine, making me arch my back unconsciously. “Was it too much, or not enough?”
The wicked, darkly amused tone irked me.
I clenched my teeth, digging my nails into the sheets. But the sensation of his mouth on me still lingered, burned intomy skin, seared into my very bones. My traitorous pulse is still thrumming between my legs.
“Nothing to say?” he murmured, tracing the curve of my hip. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty now. Because that would be a damn shame, little wife.”
I squeezed my eyes. Damn him. I hated how he could read me like an open book while I had to struggle to even know his name. But he didn’t stop there; his fingers parted my core, gently running along my parted folds. I could feel the slickness, and that disgusted me.
He chuckled, kissing the back of my neck. “He’s dead, Dolcezza. You can mourn him, but he’ll never be the one to make you come. That honour belongs to me.”
A sob crawled up my throat, but I refused to cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Take Me
Zagreus smirked wickedly, taking in my trembling form and the tears threatening to spill from my eyes. By the sensations of his body against mine, I could tell he saw the internal struggle written all over my face - the guilt, the shame, the confusing mix of revulsion and reluctant desire. It only served to fuel his twisted lust.
I wanted to shove him away. To scream and fight, but my body betrayed me with every shudder and touch.
He leaned in, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear as he spoke in a low, cruelly amused tone. “I can see the wheels turning in that pretty little head of yours, Dolcezza. You're trying to hate me, trying to cling to some semblance of loyalty to that pathetic excuse of a man. But your body... your body knows the truth.”
To punctuate his words, he slid a finger inside my slick heat, pumping it slowly, teasingly. A dark chuckle rumbled in his chest as I unknowingly clenched around the intrusion.
My breath stuttered, and shame curled in my gut like a living, breathing thing.
Not like this. No.
