Chapter 4

CHAPTER4

Ashen cannot deny me anything.

Especially when I make a demand like that.

“Vampire,” Ashen purrs as I slide my fangs down his neck, just deep enough for tiny beads of blood to rise and meet my tongue. I press my fingertips into his back, trying to release the knots of tension coiled beneath his skin.

“Yes, Reaper?”

“The thought of this sanctuary being ours, of having you in this bed, day after day, it’s enough to drive me mad.”

“Mad in a good way?” I ask, my voice husky and rough as Ashen loosens the tie at my waist. He slowly folds back one edge of the silk robe as though peeling the paper from a carefully wrapped present. He presses a lingering kiss to my mated mark.

“Hmm,” he hums, the vibration of his lips against my breast tightening my exposed nipple. He runs his tongue across the pink nub before taking it between his teeth. He watches me intently as he scrapes his incisors over the delicate skin before letting go, deep red flame rippling in his eyes. “In a way that makes me want to devour you, body and soul.”

Ashen takes more of my breast in his mouth, sucking on the tender flesh, using his other palm on my stomach to keep me pinned to the bed. My fingers run through his short, dark hair, tracing the lines of his tattoos that flow down his neck to cover his shoulders and back and chest. When he lets go, his lips carve a hot path across my sternum then down, leaving a tingling trail from my chest to my belly button. He slides his hand beneath my back to lift me enough to slide the robe off, pulling the tie free before tossing the rest onto the floor. Ashen takes my wrist and meets my eyes.

“Tell me to stop and I will stop. Tell me to slow and I will. Always.”

A slow smile creeps across my face. I push up to my knees, Ashen leaning back to make room so I can kneel on the bed. I press my wrists together and offer them toward the silk tie, drawing my lips between my teeth and widening my eyes in an expression that says please, do continue.

A look of absolute hunger burns beneath Ashen’s smile. He wraps the silk across my wrists and loops it through the center, his movement swift and precise. When he’s finished, there’s a flat knot in the gap between my joined wrists and a tail of silk bunched within Ashen’s fist. “Say the word and I will stop,” he reminds me once more. “Otherwise, I am going to consume you until the sound of you screaming my name shakes the very foundations of this house.”

I give him a sweet, coy little grin before I lean forward to claim his mouth with a searing kiss, and he kisses me back with a fire that matches my own, his tongue diving into my mouth, his free hand gripping my hair. When I break away to press kisses to his jaw his breath stutters. The pace of his heart quickens. His scent comes alive with faint undertones of vanilla and amber. The scents of desire.

I let a gentle breath fan across his neck as I draw close to his ear. “I like your promises in bed, Reaper,” I whisper, giving a soft nip to his earlobe, careful not to touch him with my needle-sharp fangs. “There’s just one little problem.”

“Oh really? And what would that be?”

My fangs strike his neck so fast he doesn’t have time to even tense before the blood is rushing into my mouth, filling me with effervescent heat. I take one long pull and Ashen groans with pain and pleasure, his fist tightening in my hair. When I let go, I lean back to give him a dark, gory smile.

“You hadn’t paid in blood.”

Ashen growls, the flame in his eyes turning black, lit with bright sparks. He lets go of my hair but hauls me up the bed by my bound wrists.

“You play a dangerous game antagonizing a demon, vampire. Especially one nearly blind with lust,” Ashen grits out as he ties the free stretch of the silken line to one of the wooden posts. His hunger ripples beneath my skin, flowing from his mark to mine as though we’re tethered by invisible threads. It’s a need for punishment as much as pleasure. He knows I like to take a little pain as much as he does, and he wants to give whatever I’m willing to take, even if it’s not pretty or tender. He loves me, I know that. He would stop if I told him to, I know that too. But I would be deluding myself to think there’s no demon in the soul of this man. He covets the light because he’s made of shadow. The darkness is in every part of him. Especially in desire.

And we vampires do love to mix a little danger with desire.

“Stay still,” he orders, narrowing his eyes at me until I give him an innocent smile. “And put those fangs away.”

Ashen slides off the mattress and I watch as he lowers his zipper, removing the last of his clothes until he’s standing naked before me, all delicious muscle and dark tattoos and burning fury. He walks to the edge of the bed and grips the base of his erection, a bead of precum glistening on the tip of his cock. His fingers curl around my jaw and he presses his thumb into my mouth, prying it open to check my teeth.

“Good,” Ashen says. His voice is rough, like stones rumbling against one another in turbulent waves. His thumb trails over my lips, his gaze bursting with flame as he follows the movement. Saliva and venom flood the surface of my tongue. “Such a pretty mouth. It will look even prettier wrapped around my cock.”

I give Ashen a wicked, defiant look as I clamp my lips between my teeth. He adores this game, when I straddle the line between insolence and submission. I can see it in his clenched jaw and the muscle that jumps in his cheek. I can feel it in my mark. His pupils roil with a dark flame that consumes all but the thinnest strip of color in his eyes. He presses my cheeks between strong fingers.

“Open up, vampire.” He runs the crown of his cock over my lips. “Tell me you want it.”

I do want it. I want it bad. I want it filling my mouth. I want to taste him on my tongue, to feel him shudder against my lips. To know I’m the one who breaks him apart.

But I’m not telling him shit just yet.

I smile within his grasp.

“Tell me,” he commands.

Red light consumes my pupils as my grin turns wicked. “You didn’t say please.”

Ashen is nearly vibrating with fury and hunger. I might be tied up and at his mercy, but we both know who holds the power here, because he won’t do it. Not unless I say the word.

“Tell me.”

“Or what?”

A slow, wicked smile claims Ashen’s lips. I’m still that puzzle he’s trying to work out. That maze he needs to keep his head in, or he’ll get lost. And he’s just figured out a turn. I can see it in his eyes.

He leans in close. His breath floods my skin. “Not ‘or’. More like ‘and’. Tell me and I will bring you to ecstasy like you have never known. Tell me and I will make you come until you’re too weak to do anything but beg for more.”

I stare at Ashen’s lips, wishing he would press their fire to my cool skin. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want him, and there are moments like this one where it feels like he can never be close enough, even when he’s already touching me. “Well, when you put it that way, Reaper. I want it.”

“Tug twice on your restraints if you need me to slow. Three times if you want to stop.” I nod and Ashen leans back, surveying my face with a look of immense satisfaction. “Good. Now suck like your immortal life depends on it.”

I slide my tongue out and he glides the tip of his erection across it, the salty precum swirling with my sweet venom in a heady taste that makes me flush with longing. I feel my arousal slicken between my legs as I open wide to take Ashen’s length. He slips in slowly, still holding onto the base, his gaze transfixed on the way my lips envelop his girth and my cheeks hollow as I suck him in.

He takes it slow at first, sliding back out to push in again, not too far, keeping his pace languid even when he shudders as I trace the underside of the crown with my tongue. Ashen’s tattooed knuckles graze my cheek before his hand flows into my hair, folding across the back of my head.

“That’s right, my vampire,” he says, guiding the pace as he thrusts deeper and deeper until he hits the back of my throat. My eyes water and I press my thighs together as the ache to have him fill me coils low in my belly. I moan with the rich, salty taste of him on my tongue, the scent of unsmoked tobacco and skin-warmed ink filling my nostrils.

“You may be a queen, but you have the attitude of a demon and the mouth of a goddess,” Ashen whispers. He fucks my mouth, faster, harder, his grip on my hair tighter, pulling the strands with just the right amount of pain. He shudders and I relish the roll of tension from him as he fights himself, trying to hold on to his pleasure. His strokes slow, and he grasps my jaw with a gentle grip, his attention riveted to the slide of his cock in my mouth. “I haven’t given it all to you,” he says, his fingers still tight around the base of his erection. “Can you take it, I wonder?”

A needy moan vibrates through my lips and Ashen hisses with approval. I don’t know, I want to tell him. But I’m damn well gonna try.

“Remember the code if you want me to slow or stop,” he says, caressing my jaw as the crown of his cock slips out past my lips and back in again. His fingers then travel to lace into my hair once more, the hand that was gripping his erection trailing down my neck, laying high on my throat where he can feel me swallow. “Because I am going to give that sweet and wicked mouth of yours everything I’ve got.”

Another whimper of desire rolls from me as Ashen slides his full length across my tongue and into my throat. I swallow, his palm capturing the motion. His head tilts back in ecstasy and he pulls back to do it again, his muscles twitching and trembling.

Ashen thrusts again, and again. His hand grips my hair tighter. The tremor in his muscles spreads. With a growled curse he thrusts a final time and loses himself to desire. Venom mixes with saliva and smears down my chin and I moan around Ashen’s length as it pulses, his cum shooting down my throat. I swallow it all and it tingles within me, igniting that bond that grows stronger between us with every drop of blood and arousal that we share.

When Ashen pulls out of my mouth, he studies my face for a long moment, taking in what must be a bit of a mess with tear-streaked skin and a slick, wet chin and swollen lips. But he looks at me as though he’s never seen anything more beautiful. He runs his thumb beneath my lower lip and clears the cooling saliva away, his eyes darkening with every stroke of his skin across mine.

Ashen gets up onto the mattress and grips my hips, shifting me down closer to the center of the bed. My arms straighten just enough to make my shoulders heat with discomfort. But thoughts of pain quickly evaporate. Ashen pins one of my thighs down with his knee as he grasps the other, opening me wide for his ravenous gaze to caress every inch of my most sensitive flesh.

“I like the thought of you up on that dais with the remnants of us fucking still there on your legs, vampire,” Ashen says as he runs his free palm up the inside of my thigh, his motion slowing when he feels our dried cum on my skin.

“It was one of the few things I could think about, quite honestly. That and the fact I was naked under a thin bit of silk held together by little more than string,” I reply as I give a little tug on the tie that binds me to the post. Ashen’s eyes flick to the movement of my wrists as a low groan rumbles in his chest.

“And now you are the Queen of the Shadow Realm. For the rest of eternity, I will only ever bow to you. Tell me I’m the only one who makes your pussy wet with desire,” he says as he slowly runs a finger across my slit then holds it up to show me how it glistens with my arousal. “Tell me that it will only ever be me.”

“You already know it will only ever be you,” I say as I give a pointed glance down to the mark on his chest, the twin lion heads of the Mace of Nergal shimmering in gold over the edge of the geometric jackal’s face.

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Why?”

The flame dims in Ashen’s eyes until it’s nothing more than banked embers in the shadows of carbon. His hand rests on my thigh, tender and warm. When he looks at me, I can see right into his soul, into the man who coexists with the darkness of a demon. “Because I got the one thing I wanted, even though I knew I didn’t deserve it. I got what I never thought I would have. You. You chose me. And I’ll never grow tired of hearing you say it.”

We fall silent as we look at one another in a moment that seems to soften the air between us. “It will only be you, Ashen. For all time.”

Each word that falls from my mouth enlivens the sparks in the Reaper’s eyes.

“Tell me it’s only my demands that you will obey.”

“Only yours. And only when I feel like it.”

His hand grows hotter on my leg. One side of Ashen’s lips kicks up into a wicked grin. “That’s my Lu.” Ashen leans down and runs his tongue along the inside of my thigh through the stain on my skin, slowing as he gets closer to my center. “Now don’t forget to scream for me, vampire. I have a promise to keep.”

Ashen inhales deeply as his tongue drags across my opening. He licks upward through my folds until he stops at my clit, kissing the swollen bundle of nerves. He swirls and teases with feathery strokes. Even when I tilt my head back and close my eyes, I still feel his gaze, heavy and hot on my face. Little by little, he increases the pressure of his tongue and the heat of his kisses, still keeping his circles and serpentines gentle like a slow caress, letting out a sigh of contentment against my flesh. He presses down on my stomach when I start to squirm with the swells of pleasure that carry me closer to the edge of the world.

“Ashen…” I moan and pull against my bonds when he pushes one finger into my opening and then another. Ashen’s free hand flows up my body until he reaches my chest. He traces the shape of the crescent moon on my mated mark, the reverence of his touch igniting sparks beneath my skin. “God, Ashen…”

Ashen continues the strokes of his fingers, adding a third and curling them inward as he looks across my body. “I can’t hear you, vampire…” He holds onto my eyes and withdraws his fingers and I whimper with the loss of his touch. He presses his palm onto my mark as he drags his glistening fingers through the blood that slips down his neck from my bite.

“What are you up to, demon?” I whisper, my heart drowning nearly every sound with heavy beats. Knots twist and coil low in my belly, an ache that begs to be soothed.

“Just a hunch.” Ashen flashes a sinful smile before lowering his mouth to my sex once more. His eyes stay fused to mine as his slow, languid kisses heat my sensitive flesh. And then he pushes his bloodied fingers back in.

The effect is shattering.

Every stroke of Ashen’s touch is an eruption of tingling warmth. It stokes my aching pleasure to the point of a desperate, painful need for release. It sparks and heats and climbs through my body, knotting my muscles, stealing my breath. It wrenches tears from the corners of my eyes. An anguished cry escapes my throat as I pull against the ties that bind me.

“Do you want me to stop, vampire?” Ashen asks. His voice sounds far away through the heartbeats pulsing deep behind my ears.

“Fuck no. Do not stop…” I open my eyes just long enough to see his wicked smile before his mouth descends on my flesh once more. Those slow, hot kisses, those fingers that paint me with his magic, it’s only a moment before every cell in my body seems to disintegrate. Time deconstructs into fragments as small and elusive as stardust. I fall into pleasure. It’s brighter and hotter than anything I’ve ever known. It burns me up from the inside. It sears my heart and my lungs and rains colored sparks before my eyes.

I don’t know how long it is before Ashen has my jaw in a gentle grip. I open my eyes and he’s hovering above me, his prideful look scarred by a seam of concern.

“All right, vampire?”

His voice is muffled by my heart thrumming painfully in my head. I nod, though he doesn’t look convinced.

“You sure?”

“More,” I whisper. I’m already insatiable for this new sensation, as though Ashen’s awoken a dormant beast that never knew it was starved. My lungs and heart protest, but they can shut the fuck up.

“What my Queen wants, she will have,” Ashen says as he smiles. I look on with predatory interest as his hand rises to his neck to smear through the sticky, drying blood. He watches the longing erupt on my face as he grips his cock with his bloody hand before sliding into me. The tingling burst of pleasure brightens once more as my body welcomes him in. The blood heightens my awareness of even the smallest motion, and with little more than a few strokes of his cock I’m writhing as though possessed.

“You should be glad I’m tied up, Reaper,” I manage, my voice breathless and strained.

“Really? Why is that? Aside from the obvious benefits, of course.”

“Because I’d be biting my finger and shoving it up your ass faster than you could say butthole.”

Ashen warms what little space remains between us with a vibrant laugh. I would die a hundred times to hear it, to feel it tinge the edges of my mated mark with the essence of joy. “You say that as though you think I would complain. I wouldn’t.”

“Duly noted,” I grit out as he thrusts into me. But I don’t have time to do anything more than shelve that idea for the future, because my mind is ebbing away in this river of desire. It flows from me and leaves only sensation behind. Ashen’s hands on my skin, that’s the last thing I truly think about. They leave an impression that sinks into my flesh and grips my heart. I think I could live five thousand more years and his touch would still set me aflame.

With thoughts of fire and time, I descend into a lake of longing so consuming that I drown in it. Ashen says sweet and dark and devious things in my ear but I don’t make out a single one. I only feel his breath and the kisses and nips he pours on my neck. My face is flooded with his scent as it mixes with my own. A vibration shakes my veins with every slide and thrust of his cock. At some point, I don’t even know when, he releases me from the bedpost and loops my bound wrists over his head. I’m straddling him as he kneels on the bed, riding him toward our release.

“Kneeling for your Queen.” My words come from some ether as I grind on Ashen’s sex, rubbing my clit at the perfect angle that has my walls clenching around his cock.

“You have always brought me to my knees, my vampire. And you always will. You have me forever.” Ashen looks into my eyes with crimson flame that moves as fluid as water in the confines of his pupils. My heart shatters like an exploding star, unable to contain everything I feel as he kisses me. My orgasm tears my nerves apart, shredding them into filaments of light. I whimper a desperate moan of ecstasy against Ashen’s lips as he shudders and pulses and spills within me.

It takes a long moment of sitting wrapped in one another for us to recover enough breath to move. Ashen pulls my wrists over his head and settles my arms between our chests, our skin glistening with sweat in the dim light as he unties the knot and casts the silken strand to the floor. He kisses my wrists, his eyes fused to mine, then shifts me from his lap as he slips off the bed to retrieve a towel and ceramic pitcher of water and some clothes from a scarred sideboard at the edge of the room. He cleans my face first and then between my legs, taking his time with gentle, reverential strokes of the soft towel. When he’s done, he turns me over to lie on my front.

“There’s barely anything left, Lu,” he says as he runs a finger down the puckered skin on my shoulder where the ax slid into flesh and bone.

“Mmmhmm,” is the most I can manage for a groggy response as a fresh, damp towel cleans the dried blood from my skin.

A gentle kiss warms the remnants of the wound. “My remarkable vampire,” he whispers.

It’s the last thing I hear before I fall asleep.

And it seems like just a blink before I wake to a salvo of chaos.