Page 45 of Arrow

He pressed two fingers into my mouth, and I sucked until they hit the back of my throat. He didn’t flinch, didn’t soften. “Then worship pain.”

I bit him. He yanked my head back, and for a moment, I almost felt it, the dizzy let go, the whiteout people wrote poems about. But I clung to the ledge, letting the humiliation twist inside me until it almost made me warm.

Zephyr’s palm cracked across my ass cheek, heat flaring bright, and all of La Lune Noire was just breath and flesh and the wet sound of couples touching themselves as they watched him fuck me with his fingers and his tongue. He knew just how far to push me before letting me come all over his hand.

When it was time to grant me my release, he thrust his fingers inside me so deep I had to bite my arm to stifle my screams.

At the end, Zephyr wrapped me in the white robe again, cupped my jaw in his tattooed hand, and met my eyes with a single, wordless nod of permission. The house lights flared back to their dim haze, the crowd in the nave and balconies already hunting for their next fix.

My heartbeat thudded, ragged and wild, as Zephyr led me offstage and through the velvet-curtained back hallway. Somewhere along the way, he stopped and pressed a hand to my sternum, halting me. His other hand, still sticky from me, reached for a towel and wiped away the sweat and spit with careful, almost tender swipes.

In the dressing room, the high collapsed into a low, sweet, spinning drop that left me shivering and giddy. I wanted vodka, a shower, another round—anything to erase the memory of Arrow’s voice.

I stared at myself in the smeared gilt mirror, the mascara streaks and the bite marks flaring fresh across my shoulder. I watched the aftershocks sweep through my body and realized that when I was married to Arrow, I’d never get to choose this—my ruin—again.

A soft knock. Isadora, because she always knew when to appear. She glided in with her cane and her plum silk kimono.

“You’re wanted in the cathedral, darling,” she cooed, but even I could hear the tremor in her voice.

“Why?”

“You have a visitor.”

“Who is it?”

“Mr. Romanov is waiting.”

His name vibrated under my ribs.

Fuck.

I peeled off the robe and shrugged into a see-through white T-shirt and black skirt, still braless. Raking eyeliner across my lids, I smeared gloss over my mouth, and stared at my reflection until it became something that could pass for unbothered. I contemplated running out the back door, but decided I’d rather stand toe-to-toe with my betrothed.

Arrow stood just past the confessionals, beneath a chandelier that looked like an exploded beehive. His hands were in his coat pockets, but he wasn’t trying to camouflage the weapon outline at his waist.

No tie tonight.

Just the same storm-gray suit, unbuttoned to show the sharp lines of his throat and a flash of black tattoo at his sternum, crawling up his neck.

The crowd instinctively parted around him. Even the kink veterans recognized a predator in its purest form.

Instead of approaching, he waited—eyes on me and nothing else.

Matching his lethality stride for stride, I cut through the thickets of gazes and the haze of cigarette smoke. He sized up my approach and, for one poisonous moment, I thought he might devour me right there—tattooed hands, perfect teeth, and every longing that lived inside my hate pressed flat against a velvet altar.

But the sadist offered me his arm—the oldest trick in the book—a noose disguised as gallantry.

I ignored him and brushed past.

He caught my wrist, fingers curling like handcuffs around my pulse.

“Nice show, Echo.”

The way he said my stage name was an insult and a benediction. I felt heat rising to my cheeks and hated myself for the reaction.

“Thank you,” I smiled with all my teeth, and his grip tightened. “Fuck off,” I snapped, yanking my arm back.

“Suits you,” he said. “All that noise, and nothing real behind it.”