And as terrified as I am to crawl back beneath him, there is a peace in it. I want to peel myself down to the bones and show him every overlooked wound; every shadowed corner; every tender vulnerability.
Niko moves slowly up my body like he’s committing it to memory. My heart aches at the thought, because the same feeling is etched into my bones—that this is all a dream. One that will be stolen just as all beautiful things are.
The ribbon at my mouth tugs my gaze back to his.
“Do you know how terrible it has been?”
I freeze.
“To have fantasized about this every night since I faced you in the Crocodile and not be able to do a damn thing about it?” he purrs, caressing the crease of my upper thighs with his thumbs.Soclose to where I need him, but not nearly close enough. “You were a vision tied up in my ribbons, I could think of nothing else.”
Niko brushes a soft finger over my clit. A deep laugh rolls from his chest as I squirm, my moan muffled against the ribbon he’s stuffed into my mouth. His gaze is hot and dangerous, trailing after where his hands roam with fervor; where his ribbons slide up the expanse of my legs, curve around my ass, dance up my spine until my entire body is bound in them.
He hums in approval. “My imagination didn’t even come close to the sight of you entirely bare but for my magic.”
Another finger brushes lightly over my soaking core. Another moan trapped behind a ribbon of death.
When Niko finally lifts his gaze back to mine, what I see in the depths of the obsidian should terrify me—unadulterated obsession. Instead, decadent warmth floods through me as he turns me gently onto my back and lays down beside me. I feel boneless, like my body’s been molded by his hands. Blood rushes at the surface of my skin, amplifying even the slightest touch to a dizzying decadence.
His hand drifts leisurely down the plane of my stomach to gently cup my core. He drinks in the responding arch of my hips, the part of my mouth, the flicker of my lashes. I nearly purrbeneath his attention, like I could come without him touching me at all—simply from the high of being held in that obsidian gaze.
I whimper as Niko trails his fingers slowly over my center, circling the apex with slow intention. Since the moment we met, everything has been a furious whirlwind. Each touch has been a fight against time, against the universe, a devouring fit between the few moments we’ve been granted.
Now, though, Niko takes his time melting me beneath his touch like he believes in the eternity he’s promised. And here beside him, wrapped safely in the relief of his death, I believe it, too.
He begins a soft rhythm that has me writhing against him in search of more friction. I arch against him, burying my head in the warmth of his chest as the pleasure builds. Slowly, and then all at once, as he leans over to slip my breast into his mouth, and I tumble over the edge with a sharp cry.
Everything tightens, my body bowing off the mattress as pleasure spills through me. Niko holds me tighter, never taking his eyes from me as he works me through my crest. When it subsides, I strain against his bindings, desperate to get beneath him. To give him something as beautiful as he just gave me—something other than pain.
It has been too long since I’ve lost myself in the revelry of him inside me, and suddenly, waiting another moment feels entirely unbearable.
Niko has other plans, leaving my side to skate back down my body. He kneels before me, his ribbons spreading my legs wide, baring me to him entirely. Newfound heat flushes my skin, an alluring mixture of humiliation and excitement. Without breaking his gaze, he leans down and buries his tongue inside me. I moan around the gag, my head swimming with the feel of his wicked smile as my hips buck toward his mouth.
I’m already so sensitive, the vestiges of my last orgasm still lingering as he deftly builds the next one. The ribbon at my mouth loosens, freeing my moans. Niko’s growl of approval at the sound of them vibrates through me, and I think I’ll come apart at the seams.
The pleasure of his mouth edged with the pain of his death is nearly too much to bear. It crashes against me like a wave, and star above, I want to drown. I throw my head back, as another climax tears through me.
My heart races roughshod in my chest as I thrash against Niko’s ribbons. Shockwaves of pain radiate from every point of contact as he keeps me firmly in place, challenge sparking in the fathomless depths of his eyes. He grins sinfully, and I begin to shake my head. “Niko, please…”
I don’t even know what it is I’m begging for, desperate both for reprieve and for more.
The Carrion King only cocks an arrogant brow, and tightens his ribbons.
“I can’t—” I half-gasp, half-moan, as he presses a long finger into me.
“You can,” he laughs darkly. “And you will.”
Another finger, and his eyes flare possessively as I nearly come apart again. Everything is so sensitive, it almost hurts—like one more brush of my skin will shatter me entirely. My eyes roll, my head dropping back onto the mattress as Niko begins a steady rhythm.
“Look at me, Willa.” The quiet command of a king, and I follow it like he reigns over me. “I’ve spent an entire year without the warmth of your cunt,” he purrs. “And now, you’re going to give me every—” A thrust. “—single—” And another. “—thing you’ve denied me. You don’t get to decide when that debt is paid.”
His fingers curve to hit the sensitive spot inside me. “I do,” he growls as I buck wildly. “I told you…your pleasure ismine.And you’re not even close to giving me what I’m owed.”
The merciless edge of his words sends my heart leaping into my throat. Niko may not fault me for sending him away, but I was a fool to believe his understanding was something soft. He is death, and death is a covetous monster. It demands repayment for that which was stolen; repayment for everything that should have been his all along.
I gave myself to him the moment I decided to stay in Letum. And in my grief and hurt, I’d forgotten what that meant.
Now, he means to remind me, and star above, he does it fucking well. I’m entirely out of my mind as he wrings another climax from me, reduced solely to the impulses and responses of my body. Sweaty, desperate, writhing.More, more, more.
