Page 40 of Grave Devil
My teeth chatter. “S-stop. I can’t do this again. P-please.”
MIA
He towers over me, his eyes glowing in the dark. With only the light from the moon streaming in between us, I am horrified. Shaking. Near death.
He wraps an icy hand around my throat while unzipping my jeans with the other. “I wish they could hear how loud your heart is beating.”
In the flesh, he’s even more monstrous. Exquisite but terrifying. His antlers stretch out farther, higher than I remember. His chest is muscular, expertly carved as if he were a stone or marble statue in a museum. Each crevice is etched like a hard line, chiseled to perfection and coated in a slight sheen of sweat despite the frosty air.
“Just take what you want and leave. I-I’m tired of fighting.” The truth is, I’m drunk as fuck and restrained to a tree,by an actual tree, so I’m not stupid enough to think I’m getting out of this. I could scream, but no one would hear me.
Bones is at the garage working on his bike, Aries is probably off murdering someone in Hemlock, Draven is back at Blackwell Manor, knee-deep in a cask of gin, and Nox is trapped at Harker Mansion. And I’m out here, alone with the Skelker.
No one is coming to save me. So I might as well give in.
He lifts up my shirt and palms my belly. A rush of heat pours out from him. “But I want to hear you scream for me.” His hand is smooth and soft, a strange surprise. I don’t know why, but I expected his flesh to feel scaly or rough.
“Please. I’m cold. And scared.” A pain sears between my brows. I pinch my eyes shut.
“Not for long, dark one.” He moves closer, nestling his body into mine. His hand trails lower, inching closer to the edge of my panties. But he pauses to press his palm into my belly, pinning me harder against the tree trunk.
Heat floods my body, and a fuzziness fills my veins like a toxin. “What are you doing to me?”
“Relaxing you. But not too much. I want you to feel everything I do to you. And I want you to remember it.” He slips his hand inside my panties and cups my pussy.
I gasp, my breath hitching. “No. Let me go. Please.” Fuck. Tiny little jolts, like bursts of electric shocks, start setting off inside me. Like sparklers at a picnic on Poison Era Day.
“Shhh. Scream or be quiet. But don’t beg. It’s beneath you, dark one. You are too fucking interesting to beg.” The hand he has around my throat tightens.
I gaze up into his amber eyes and wonder if the deer skull is fused to him. Or maybe it’s a mask. Can he take it off? Does he look hideous and grotesque underneath? Or is it his face now? Maybe it’s something the devil does to those who do his bidding…
I can’t help but squirm against his hand. It’s stirring a heat in my core that makes me want to chew off my own arm in protest. “I willnotbe quiet.”
The Skelker grins, but it’s full of malice, jarring in its vulgarity.
And yet I notice how full his lips are.How soft. His gaze follows mine while his tongue flicks out in response. He lickshis lips, showing off the pronged tip. “Yes, it can dothat…And better than those whom you’ve had before.”
“I don’t care,” I lie. He’s not in my head and yet he still seems to know what I’m thinking.
“And yet you throb against me,” he hisses.
Well, fucking move your hand, I want to scream.
But I don’t want to give him what he wants. Especially since he’s not giving me what I want. I flail my wrists in an attempt to free them from the vines. If I can get at least one of them out, I’ll take a swing at him. I just need to aim low so I don’t crack my fist against the deer skull.
The vines pull tighter.
He snickers. “You will go when I let you go, Mia. And not a moment before.”
The cadence in his voice is more melodic out in the open than it was in my head. In my head, he was screaming. Out here he is seducing me, luring me into his trap. Well, he’s already succeeded. I’m caught in his web. And now he’s just toying with his food before he eats it.
“I can feel your heart racing in your cunt. I bet I could make it explode.” He snarls, snapping his teeth in my face as he plunges a bony finger inside me. “I could also kill you in the same ways that set your body alight with need.”
Fuck.
I bite my lip so hard I break the skin. The taste of metal fills my mouth.
He pushes inside without any coaxing.I’m so fucking slick he doesn’t need any help reaching all the way back into my core.
