Page 28 of Fallen Nocturne

“Defiant to the last,” he murmurs.

Before I can recover, his hand replaces his mouth.

Two fingers press inside me without warning, and the sound that leaves my throat is something between a sob and a moan. My body clamps around him instantly, still swollen and oversensitive from the first release. Every nerve ending screams.

“Too much,” I choke out.

“You stole from me. This is the price.” His voice is impossibly calm for a man whose fingers are curling inside me.

Because he knows. Somehow, impossibly, he knows exactly where to press. That hidden place deep inside that I have searched for with my own fingers on shameful, lonely nights and never once found.

He finds it on the first try.

A broken noise spills from me. My wrists twist inside the shadow bindings and my heels dig into the edge of the altar. Pleasure builds so fast that I cannot separate one wave from the next. It rolls through me in a continuous assault, sharp and relentless. My inner walls clench around his fingers and each time they do, he presses harder against that spot, punishing me with exactly the pressure I need.

“Give me back my seal, Rhianelle.” His thumb circles the swollen bundle of nerves above where his fingers work, and my vision fractures.

I shake my head. Tears stream freely down my temples and into my hair. My jaw aches from clenching. Every muscle in my body is pulled tight enough to snap, yet I cannot bring myself to surrender. Partly because I want to keep the little dragon that looks like Coral.

Mostly because I don’t want him to stop.

“Stubborn,” he murmurs, almost fondly. His fingers curl again and white light bursts behind my eyes.

My back arches so violently that only the shadow restraints keep me on the altar. A scream builds in my chest and rips itself loose, raw and ragged and stripped of every pretense. The orgasm crashes through me in rolling waves, each one harder than the last. My walls seize around his fingers in rhythmic pulses that I cannot control. Tears pour down my face. I am sobbing and trembling and still coming. His hand does not relent until the last aftershock fades and leaves me shattered on the stone.

For one merciful moment I think it’s over. My body is liquid, boneless, and the aftershocks pulse through me in slow, diminishing waves. I try to close my legs and catch my breath.

His tongue returns to my oversensitive flesh and I whimper.

“No, I can’t, I already—”

It is too much. The pleasure has sharp edges now, almost painful. I squirm, trying to close my legs, but the vines and his hand hold me open with embarrassing ease.

“Please,” I beg. My voice breaks on the word.

Tears prick the corners of my eyes from the overwhelming intensity of sensation.

The shadow vines shudder as if they can hear my plea. Something in my begging must have reached them. One by one, the dark tendrils loosen from my wrists and ankles tenderly. They dissolve into smoke and sink back into the floor, leaving my limbs free for the first time since he bound me to the altar.

I almost sob with relief. I can push him away now and end this. My palms press against his shoulders and shove.

He doesn’t move. Not even an inch. My arms tremble with the effort and his mouth never leaves me.

“It was sitting in an empty room in an empty palace. No one was using it,” I manage between ragged breaths. “Please, I can’t—”

His tongue works me relentlessly and pleasure blooms again. Every thrust of his fingers drives against the spot that makes stars explode behind my eyes. His mouth returns to my clit, sucking and licking while his fingers pump in a steady rhythm.

My hands push weakly at his shoulders, his hair, the air between us. None of it matters because he is immovable and relentless. Something inside me is building toward a peak so high I am terrified of what will happen when I fall.

I thrash in his grip but he holds firm, fingers buried deep and tongue unrelenting against the aching center of me.

An overwhelming sensation tears through me harder than the ones before, ripping a cry from my throat so loud it echoes off every mirror in the chamber.

My body convulses around his fingers and my vision whites out. I feel like I’m falling, falling, falling through the altar and the floor and the foundation of this forgotten palace into something vast and dark and endless.

He doesn’t stop.

“Please.” I’m sobbing now, oversensitive to the point of agony. Tears slide down my temples into my hair and my whole body trembles and I can’t take another second. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I stole the seal.”