Page 77 of The Heartless One
“What I meant was that if anyone was going to punish you, it would be me. I do not give you permission to punish yourself.”
He turned with a gleam in his eye. But still, he did not come to bed. Instead, he leaned against the vanity and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re making it hard for me to atone for my grave error.”
Jessamine rearranged herself. Draping her body over the pillows, she leaned back on her elbows. It put her entire form on display for his gaze to rove over, and she knew how beautiful she looked to him. Because now she’d seen the covetous way he clung to her soul and her past. Her entire future was his, anyway. He just didn’t know how badly she wanted to give it to him.
“Good. I want it to be hard for you.” But her eyes danced down his body to the bar of his cock, which already pressed against his pants. He always looked so handsome in black, and she’d been wanting to tear his clothes off him since the moment she’d put her eyes on him.
He, apparently, had different ideas. “Jessamine. I am making up for what I did. I will not fall under this spell of yours.”
“You should fall under it. You’ve been a very bad god, and I am offering a way for you to make up for it.”
She quirked her brow at him, willing the god in her room to bend to what she wanted. Needed. There was a fissure between the two of them, and she wanted to fill it with burning passion and arduous panting in her ear until they both forgot that they’d been arguing only moments before.
“Jessamine.”
“Come here, Deathless One. I will not beg. But I will make you beg, if that is what you wish.”
She could see the muscles of his arms and chest bunching with need. He seemed to swell, every bit of him, from his shoulders to his cock, all of it suddenly larger than it had been before. His eyes turned into black holes, obsidian darkness staring back at her like a predator from the shadows.
He swallowed hard, his eyes never leaving her, before giving a sharp, stilted nod.
She tilted her head to the side. “You want to beg?”
Another nod. This one accompanied by bared, flashing teeth and a tongue that ran over his lips.
Leaning farther back into the pillows, she slowly spread her legs. Felt the weight of his gaze travel up her long, pale limbs. “Then you may beg to touch me. But only if you really want to.”
He bit his lower lip, those teeth pressing down so hard she was afraid he’d draw blood. “Oh, I definitely do.”
“How badly?”
“There are no words to describe how much I need you.” He prowled toward the end of the bed, an unleashed beast who only barely had control over his own reins. But she knew all she had to do was say a single word and he would freeze.
He put one knee on the bed, then a hand, bracing himself to crawl over her, until she lifted a single foot and planted it on the muscular cap of his shoulder.
“Stop,” she said.
He froze.
“In your shadow realm, you said I have your heart.” His gaze flicked up to hers, and she could see the worry in them.
This was a ragged-edged wound. One that was still bleeding, while all his previous torment had healed in some way or fashion. But his feelings for her still affected him. They still made him ache.
“Say it again,” she said.
“You have more than my heart,” he said, his fist curled so tightly on the sheets that his knuckles were white. “You have every bit of me. Every piece of my heart is yours, every beat of the organ is in your name. You own my body, my heart, and my power.”
She took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring. She’d made him show all his cards. It was only right that she do the same. “I love you. But those words are not strong enough for the connection we have. Love is fragile. Love can be broken. We are bound, you and I. Soul, heart, mind, body, power. All of it. Bound together and woven in a web of pain and ruin. We will destroy all that stands in our way and piece it back together in our own image. This is more than love. It is an obsession, and perhaps a poison that I will never escape. Nor do I ever wish to rid my veins of it.”
He broke free from his frozen state to run his tongue from her ankle against his shoulder up to her knee. He was shaking as he said, “I am begging you, gravesinger.”
“What do you want, Deathless One?”
“You,” he gasped against her skin, pressing his open mouth to the sensitive skin at her knee. “I’ve always fucking wanted you.”
A flare of triumph burned in her chest, and she opened her legs further. “Then have me, god of my soul. Consume me with your darkness and purge your guilt inside of me.”
Elric left their bedroom, gently closing the door behind him so she wouldn’t wake. After the horrible things that had happened in front of her, and the night they’d had, she deserved a long rest this morning.
