Claimed.
Bound to me in every way that matters.
Paired.
“You’re walking too fast,” she whisper-laughs, her giggle breathless in a way that has nothing to do with the distance.
I glance back at her, at the flush rising on her chest, working its way like reddened fingers clawing their way towards her throat, at the hunger blooming slow and dangerous in her eyes.
“I’ve waited long enough,” I murmur, dragging her along behind me faster.
We round a corner where the noise fades completely, swallowed by thick stone and eerie silence. The door I was aiming for waits ahead, carved obsidian, etched with symbols that glimmer like trapped starlight when the torches flicker.
No one will follow us here.
They wouldn’t dare.
This room is only for the night of a Pairing, for the couple, nobody enters this room unless they are already Paired, and only then to set it up for the next Pairing ceremony.
I push the door open and pull her inside, not knowing what to expect.
The room is dim, lit only by a ring of black candles, their flames flickering. The walls are curtained, draped in heavy, rich fabrics. Windows, if there are any, covered, there are mirrors, huge floor-to-ceiling length, baroque gold to go with the deep reds of soft furniture pieces dotted around the space. Benches and chaise longues, armchairs, stools. And a rack in the far corner filled with paddles and whips, chains and cuffs, shackles and ropes.
Shadows pool across the floor, velvet-soft, reaching for her as though welcoming their new mistress.
Nellie steps into them without fear, her fingers still tangled in mine, her pulse jumping beneath the fragile skin of her wrist. She turns to me, my feet still just on the outside of the circle, and she breathes in this deep breath, like it’s the first one she’s taken in a long, long time. It’s as though she can breathe. Finally.
I’m on her in an instant, my mouth attacking hers, tongue plunging between her lips like it’s tasting her for the first time. Her hands grip my shoulders, shoving my open shirt down my arms, peeling it off, over my hands. Her teeth clash with my own, as she pushes her hands down the back of my slacks, fingers gripping my buttocks with bruising attention.
“Billy,” she breathes, kissing the word into my mouth like my name holds the highest sort of power.
I grip her dress between my fists, tearing the delicate black silk straight down the middle, her perky tits spilling free. My eyes are on her brand, pausing our kiss long enough for her to draw back, glance down to her chest to see my thumb roving over the top of it.
“You don’t understand what this means to me,” I confess, my eyes rolling up, unto her pretty ash-brown ones, the shade of the room making them appear black.
“It means to you, what it means to me,” she says slowly, lifting her chin, her palms sliding up my back, her hands turning for her fingers to grip tight to my back.
She swallows, trying to drag me closer, our fronts colliding, but I hold my stance, keeping the distance between us.
“What? What does it mean to you, Little Lamb?” I sweep hair back from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear, the large black headband she wears pinning it back.
She looks down, shyness painting a blush in her cheeks.
“Nells,” I prompt, huffing a short laugh through my nose. “Don’t make me force it out of you.” I lift a brow as she lifts her chin, peering up at me with the entire night sky in her eyes.
She lifts a brow too, matching my expression, and then it softens, her gaze drooping before she lifts those fluttering lashes back up to me.
“What does it mean, Nellie?” I ask again, my hands combing back through her hair, tangling in the lengthy ends, pulling gently, forcing her head back to meet my gaze.
She stops trembling for the first time tonight, blood still on her hands, her cheek, her throat, chest, all of it dry and flaking. I want to ask her how she feels. That I’m sorry about what she had to do. But in this moment, I say nothing, waiting. I don’t think I need to do any of those things. Everything I want to tell her she already knows. Deep down. She knows. In the same way that I know too. All of the unspoken things between us, I feel them in my bones.
“Everything,” she finally says, a strong whisper, an unwavering answer.
My hands are shoving down her dress, the delicate fabric tearing further, edges fraying as I ram it down over her hips, the material pooling around her feet on the floor. Her hands are attacking my trouser button, the metal teeth of the zipper jerking as she yanks it down, pushing the fabric down.
My hands in her hair, I raise them up, high over her head, fingers still knotted in the ends of her long dark strands, I twist her hair, using it to turn her around, her back to me. And then I’m digging my knee into the centre of her spine, manoeuvring her down onto all fours, gripping her hair like reins as I drop into a kneel between her thighs.
I enter her without any repositioning, yanking on her hair, her neck arching far back, her eyes lifted as high as they can to try and see me.
