His words rain over me, and I preen beneath them, languishing beneath the approving weight of his gaze he slides back into me. This time, I hollow my cheeks, flattening my tongue along the underside of his length. I relish the way he shudders in response; the way he rakes his fingers through hisown hair and then through mine, like he is too undone to keep them still.
Like only the flimsiest tether holds him back from ruining me entirely.
The ribbon at my throat tightens, shortening my breath as Niko increases his rhythm. With each thrust, he hits the back of my throat, the sound wanton and wet.
“That’s it, Darling,” he purrs, watching how my lashes flutter with every thrust with careful intent; watching how I squirm in search of friction to ease the growing ache at my core. “Let me see those pretty tears.”
His praise is warm against my skin, sinking to the ice of my bones beneath. I pull him deeper into my mouth, and somehow, it still isn’t deep enough—I need more.
And Niko, who sees me better than anyone ever has, knows. He grips my hair, pulling my mouth further onto him until tears gather at my lashes and arousal drips down my thighs. He sets an unrelenting rhythm, and I revel in the ruin of his pleasure. With each stroke, the mask of the Carrion King slips a little further.
The wild flutter of his lashes, the guttural groans; the dig of his fingers into my scalp. Niko is always so intentional in his appearance, from first the moment I glimpsed him unraveled, I recognized it for the rare secret it was. He armors himself in a curated exterior, and though I’m the one on my knees, there is a heady power in being the only one he allows to peer behind it. His messiness; his primal ferocity—of everyone in every world, they only belong to me.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
With each thrust, Niko grows wilder. Sweat beads on his forehead as his hips piston forward, a guttural moan vibrating through him. His praise washes over me like a baptism, his words both wicked and adoring, and I come alive in their thrall.
When he pulls out of my mouth, I hardly have time to catch my breath before he’s lifting me from my knees to place me on the ledge of the deep stone surrounding the spring. He kisses me with feverish abandon, his tongue dancing with mine. I claw at the buttons of his shirt, while he yanks up the hem of my dress. Body pinned between the hard rock and the sculpted planes of his chest, I can only throw my head back with a moan as he buries himself deep inside me.
The breath of relief on his lips is my undoing, like even the fractional moments we were parted were entirely unbearable.
And star above, I feel the same in my bones as he stretches me, my core tightening around him like my body is determined to never let him go; determined to bury him so deeply inside me, I no longer feel the sharp edges of myself—the jagged pieces shaped by grief and anger and regret.
“More, Niko,” I breathe, half out of my mind with need, my skin glistening with sweat. “I need more.”
More of his pain. More of his pleasure. More ofallof it.
I want him branded onto my fucking skin; for him to rearrange my bones and reorder the very beat of my heart.
Niko’s answering laugh skates wickedly over my skin, the sound both mocking and lethal. He leans into me with his full weight, and I nearly come apart at the feral possession written along the honed lines of his jaw.
His fingers wander down my body, tracing the curve of my breast. Over the soft plane of my stomach and down to circle my clit so gently, I shiver. “Mmm,” he hums. “I love when you’re greedy. When you demand all that you’re owed.” His eyes darken as he leans in to lick the half-dried tears from my cheeks. “It’s never enough, is it?”
The utterance seems more for himself than me, but I nod anyway, writhing and desperate for more. He meets my gaze with reverence, with patience—with hunger and worship. Areassurance that no matter how far I need to fall into the darkness to shatter my numbness, he will be the anchor to guide me through.
A ribbon lashes like a whip over my thigh. I cry out, writhing wildly beneath him as he brushes his thumb once more over my aching center. Heat radiates from the lash, pain and pleasure spilling through me in equal measure, a flood offeeling.It is a release and a reckoning, and I want to sob as everything I’ve buried rushes over me.
The shame, the pain, the regret. The love, the pleasure, the want.
For the first time in my life, I let myself feel all of it.
“Fuck, Willa,” Niko breathes. “You’re squeezing me so tight.”
I whimper at his words, and then again, as he brings another lash down across the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. The pressure of his thumb is now a consistent rhythm that sends my thoughts scattering into oblivion. Another lash, and I’m clenching around him as he thrusts into me, the pleasure and the pain each heightening the other until all I can do is gasp his name over and over.
One more lash, and I pray to the star above it will leave a mark, no matter that it’s impossible. A permanent claiming, an eternal reminder, so if the universe ever succeeds in tearing us apart again, there will be no question who I belong to. My pain, my pleasure. My wrecked heart, my weary soul. All of it has always beenhis.
Niko fucks me with newfound fervor, his gaze never straying from mine. I’d only wanted him to take, but somehow, the taking always feels likegiving.Giving me back myself when I am lost in the shadows; grounding me in pain, lifting me up in pleasure.
“You are mine,” Niko snarls, before claiming my mouth, his tongue savagely dancing along mine. “Mine to love, and mine to hurt. Do you understand me, Willa? You don’t get to hurtyourself any longer. The pain isn’t yours anymore, because everything in you belongs to me.”
My breath catches at his words; at how well he understands me and how carefully he keeps me together.
“Say it,” he commands, angling himself so that stars bloom behind my eyes. “Now.”
“It’s yours. It’s all yours, Niko,” I breathe, pain and pleasure radiating over me, through me, in alternating waves. “I won’t punish myself anymore.”
The ribbon at my throat loosens and fresh air barrels into my lungs. I give myself over to the obsidian depths of him and in them, I find adytum. Pleasure spills through me like a cleansing flood, as I come apart in the safety of the Carrion King’s arms.
