Page 34 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
Any other night he would give me that arrogant half smile. He would invite me into his bed with complete unconcern, as if women climb in every night instead of never.
“Okay.” It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do, keeping my hands against the mattress.
He could make a joke of this submission, but he’s strangely grave. “Thank you.”
Then he presses his mouth to my core, making me squirm and scream. His tongue knows every magic secret place on my body; his lips guide the way. His teeth glance my tender spots, making fear spark behind my eyelids. My body bows up toward him; it squirms away. I’m a puppet, his talented fingers my string. And God, he pulls and pulls.
A sheen of sweat covers me. Between my legs it’s slick from my own juices and his mouth. It’s indecent, the way I’m spread out. Unthinkable, the way I want to stay here.
When he pulls away for the millionth time, I make a frustrated sound.
From his knowing laugh I can tell he’s doing it on purpose. Deprivation. Torture. A physical ache so real and so acute my body squirms and pants even when he’s not touching me. Especially then.
“Please, Damon.” The words burst out of me, shaming me. There’s no such thing as dignity beneath his mouth and hands and benevolent gaze.
“You can leave anytime,” he says, challenge in his tone.
He wants me to run away, to undo the deal I made with him, the very devil. That he would help Avery for the price of my body. Probably this was his plan all along, as he watched me take off my T-shirt. When he waited for me to fumble with the bra clasp. He knew he would make me burn. That he’d make me beg.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise, breathless.
“Good,” he murmurs, lowering his mouth to my stomach and down, down. “Because now I’ve had a taste. If you run, I’ll chase you.”
His mouth descends on me again, licking deep inside me, his tongue so soft it hurts. It’s suffering, being made to lie open and vulnerable while he’s coated in armor. The clothes don’t matter now. His armor comes from his tattoos and his scars. It comes from the way he controls my body, moving me, pleasuring me, bending me to his will.
He finds my clit with his eyes closed in pleasure, as if he prefers to move by touch rather than sight. He makes me jump. “Too much,” I gasp.
It seems to be the signal he was waiting for, because he does it again. And again. The point of his tongue sweeping circles around my clit, tighter and tighter. Spiraling toward the center until I’m beyond begging, past words. There’s only the urgent rhythm of my body, humping his mouth upward in a desperate plea for friction, for release, for anything.
His finger pushes inside me, then another, twisting in a way that makes me pant. There’s not enough air in the large room, in the Den, only smoke and sounds and twisted promises.
His touch is enough to make my body crazy, but it’s his eyes that I need.
When his midnight eyes watch me, I come apart. Wild pulses. Muscles clenching and pulsing so hard it hurts. My whole body overtaken, but my gaze never leaves his. It feels like giving something to him, spilling pleasure out like I’ll never be able to find it again. The boundaries so blurred I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to build them back up again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the aftermath the air is moist and salt, an ocean made of our bodies, a sky made from panting breaths. I’ve imagined sex a hundred thousand times—all of them with Damon Scott. My dreams came up with equations, the things he would do to me, the things he would take.
My dreams could never come up with this.
I’m blind in these deep waters. Not helpless. I reach for him, feeling along burning skin and clenching muscles. When I find the right place, his whole body shudders. The sound of his gasped breath embeds itself inside me, fitting into some place with its exact shape.
He grasps my wrist hard enough to make me squeak. “No, Penny.”
For a moment I struggle with him, tugging at my hand as if I have a chance of dislodging him. As if I’m the one calling the shots right now. Only when I give up does he gently push my hand away.
My throat swells. “Did I do it wrong?”
An uneven laugh. “Are you capable of doing things wrong? That’s something I’d like to see.”
“Then why can’t I touch you?”
“Because that isn’t what I want from you.”
This is a game. I knew that. I thought I knew that… but somehow there’s an ache in my chest. There’s more at stake than my body. My heart.
