Page 43 of Salt in the Wound
He leaned in, dragging his nose through my hair. I shivered.
“I amallwant with you, Isolde. You think that I don’t think about you all the time? That I don’t want your scent all over my bed? You think that I don’t wish I had you under my desk with that serious little mouth available for my relief every morning? That I don’t want your snug cunt whenever I goddamn feel like it? Yes, I want you, and I want you collared, and I want you mine. That should be enough to terrify you, because I would hold nothing back until I’d eaten your very soul. I would hold nothing back until it was written on your skin and scratched into your bones how much I crave you.”
I couldn’t breathe for the thudding of my heart, the slick, needy heat throbbing in my sex. His words were something more than words, some kind of prayer or invocation, some kind of spell, conjuring between us what I had thought was only contained to my dreams. To my darkest and most secret fantasies.
And hewanted me. He wanted me with ferocity, with teeth and bruising greed, and he wanted me to be shockingly, perilouslyhis.
Oh, how I yearned for that. To belong to this brutal devil, to surrender to him. I would never be lonely, never feel unwanted. Never wake up and feel like purpose or service was forever out of reach, because it would be as easy as breathing, as surrendering to him.
I stared up at him, dazed and hungry, my eyes caught by his own.
“And you think your virginity is a hard limit for me?” His laugh was carnivorous. “It wouldn’t have changed my fascination with you one bit if you weren’t a virgin, just so you’re aware. But you’d better believe I’ve thought about nothing else since you agreed to marry me. Nothing but that pretty little cunt, the one that comes just from being punished. How tight it would be, how swollen and slick I could make it before I wedged my way inside.” He bent his mouth to mine, hovering just above my lips, his breath tickling me. “Knowing I was the first person there, the first person to taste it and the first person to fill it. The first person to stretch you to take someone.”
“Then have it,” I whispered. “It’s yours.”
“I like that word on your tongue,” Mark murmured, his lips now ghosting over mine as he spoke. “Yours. I want to taste it there.”
“Then do it,” I begged. I was breathless, desperate. All my plans and strategies erased by the simmering lust crawling through my veins.
No. Not just lust. I didn’t know what to call it, but this was something else, something worse. It was like my soul needed to be fucked as much as my body did, and what that meant about me, about God, I didn’t know. I just knew that I wasn’t going to survive the next few minutes if Mark didn’t kiss me, didn’t take me.
I wanted to be on the other side of that curtain more than I’d wanted anything else ever in my life—andthatwas the most terrifying thing of all.
His tongue traced along my parted lips, dipping inside just enough to lick along the edges of my teeth.
“Please, sir,” I whimpered, not even recognizing my own voice, myself. Thesirthat spilled out as naturally as an exhale. “Make me yours. I’ll be so good for you; I’ll be yours as long as you want—”
His mouth sealed over mine and claimed it. His fingers held my jaw still as his tongue searched out mine and licked, as if he were truly trying to taste the word I’d spoken that he’d liked so much.Yours. Like he could lap it up like wine.
I moaned into the kiss, my skin tight and hot and my pulse kicking everywhere, like I was in a fight, and I needed more and more and more. He nipped at my lower lip, swallowing my gasp, as his other hand took the knife from me and set it next to his scotch.
“I’m glad you like your present, my deadly girl,” he said against my mouth. “Now tell me you remember your safe word.”
“Hyssop.” It sounded like a plea—not to stop, but to keep going. “I’ll say it if I need it, I promise.”
His hand found my hair and threaded through the tresses, and he pulled my head back so that he could look at my face.
“You,” he said, his other hand finding the hem of my respectable skirt and shoving it up to my waist, “are a terrible idea.”
He looked down at where my white cotton panties were exposed and let out a sharp, ragged exhale. “So maybe it’s fitting that I’m a terrible idea too.”
That felt more right than any endearment, any declaration. He was using me to build his empire, and I was using him to build God’s, and somewhere along the way, we’d both come to need whatever this was. However depraved, however wrong, however stupid. We needed it like fire needed oxygen, and now we were burning together.
He let go of my hair and then hauled me up into his arms, carrying me over to the desk and setting me down on the edge. He stepped back and began unbuttoning his suit jacket.
“Spread your legs,” he said, his voice brooking no argument. “And pull your skirt back up. I need to see it.”
There was no mistaking whichithe meant—the object of his obsession. And when I obeyed, the breath that shuddered out of him was worth every agony leading up to this moment, worth every sin and every shame.
“Pull your panties to the side,” he ordered, now stripping off his jacket and tossing it carelessly over the back of a nearby chair. Without it, I could see the impressive tent in his suit trousers. “Hold them there until I’ve looked my fill.”
I quivered as my fingers dropped against my thigh, I was that worked up. And when I curled my fingers around the cotton, I could feel how damp I’d made everything down there. Given the first shiver of cool air over my cunt, I knew it was wet enough tolookwet, and sure enough, Mark gave a punched breath at the sight.
“So pretty,” he said and pressed the heel of his palm to his erection. “So, so pretty.”
He came closer and then knelt on one knee, like a man preparing to propose. Except his ring was already on my finger, and he wasn’t giving any romantic speeches. Instead, he was using his thumbs to brush lightly over the softness of my vulva, using them to spread me apart so that he could look inside.
His nostrils flared, and his jaw was rigid. He almost looked furious: dilated eyes and the parted, hungry lips. “It’s a very good thing I didn’t see this until now,” he told me, not taking his eyes off my pussy. “A good thing for both of us.”
