16. Ash

Chapter Sixteen

ASH

I was scorching, burning from the inside out.

Pain still tingled across my scalp, travelling down my spine until it simmered in my core. I fought the urge to rub against the rough denim pressing up against my clit, the temptation like a tidal wave threatening to drown me.

I had never been in touch with my sexual side. Not really. I had been neglected for most of my formative years, and it gave me a strange impression of the outside world and how people interacted. I was not na?ve. I had seen darker things than others could even imagine. Dark alleys and seedy hiding places often showed off more than you wanted to see. I had never experienced it myself, nor had I ever had the inclination to.

So, why was this man so different?

Why could this man have me sitting on his lap, his fingers in my hair, wanting to moan his name and questioning everything I had ever believed about my own body? It was a traitor and weak, melting at his commands and his dominance. It was chasing simple pleasures and damning the consequences. It—

Lamb shifted, his bulge surging up against my clit, and I groaned. The noise burned its way up my throat, a shiver of pleasure electric over my skin.

“Fuck,” I hissed, dropping my head onto a firm, damp shoulder.

“Ash,” Lamb purred, the vibrations travelling up his shoulder, through my skin, and into my mouth. “Look at me.”

I did not want to. If I looked into those eyes, I knew I would be adding fuel to the fire already burning. He had tempted me much too far already and—

Lamb’s fingers sought my chin, and before I could resist, he had me leaning back, head tipping up and staring into his eyes. His heated brown irises were molten, consuming every inch of attention I had to offer and holding it hostage.

“From this moment on, you can’t look away.” Lamb’s thumb drifted over my soft, wet lips. “I want to see every expression you make. I want to watch you fall apart.”

Oh God .

Just his words alone had my legs trembling against his thighs, and if his fleeting smirk meant anything, he knew it, as well.

“Keep looking at me. Understand?” Lamb punctuated his words with his palms against my ass. His hands were wide and long, and his fingers grazed my centre. I jerked against his hold, but it only made me rub harder against his bulge. I fought not to gasp, my hands jumping to his shoulders, raising the teasing jolt of pleasure.

Lamb’s grasping hold tugged me forward again, rubbing my centre over her jeans. “I need words, Ash,” he growled, his hips pushing up to grind against the movement.

“Yes, I get it. I understand.” The words tumbled out of my mouth, my hips fighting against his hold, seeking more of that sweet friction.

Lamb was cruel. His arms held taut, stopping me dead on his lap, and I swear I saw a smirk creep on his lips as the frustrated growl crawled out of my mouth.

“For both our sakes, I think it’s for the best if I’m in control,” Lamb said.

“Anything else, your highness?” I challenged, pushing once again to climb that mound on his lap and failing when his hands around my ass did not falter. “Perhaps, you should let me—”

Lamb’s tongue filled my mouth, his lips pressed punishingly against mine. My words were swallowed as he tugged and toyed with my muscles, working every ounce of fight I had out of my mouth and into his.

His finger slipped closer, and his touch teased my centre. I was unable to move or do anything about it as it slid around my opening, coating itself in my eager wetness. His free hand around my ass slid up my spine, pressing firm against the small of my back, my hips wedged up between his abs and his dangerous, advancing fingers.

He held my tongue hostage with his kiss, demanding and domineering my head, while his finger rocked dangerously close back and forth over my entrance as my hips flexed beneath his hold. My hands slid from his neck, fingers running through his scalp, tightening on his short hair as frustration built inside.

Lamb was barely touching me, but his tempting was lighting a burning torch in my centre with pure simple need. I squeezed my fingers, earning a dark, rumbling growl from deep within his chest. My nipples scraped against his chest, rock-hard and tingling at the sensation of the noise.

I wanted his finger inside of me, impatient to know how it would feel to have him inside and whether it would bring pain or pleasure.

I had toyed with myself a few times out of curiosity, but I had never felt satisfaction. I had believed for a long time that I was incapable of such things, or maybe I never learnt how to desire it. Either way, I had not been relieved or disappointed. It was just one of many things that were not meant to be for me.

Lamb’s finger scraped against my entrance, just the tip of his wide, thick finger slipping into my centre. It felt strange and foreign, but I did not dislike it. In fact, the frustrated, impatient part of me felt relief at the simple progress, a delighted sigh slipping between our moving lips.

Lamb pulled out, rubbing over my entrance in slow, languid circles before dipping in once again. Over and over, he repeated the process, each time his finger ebbed a little deeper. My hips found his rhythm, and each time he pushed in, my hips shifted back into his touch, captivated by the feeling of him rubbing against my internal walls.

“Lamb,” I breathed, pulling free from his grasp. My lips were throbbing and swollen, but Lamb’s dark eyes followed the traces of my tongue rubbing over them as if he could snatch them back up. “I understand going slow,” I breathed, punctuating my words with Lamb’s finger sliding inside, his rhythm uninterrupted, “but this is a little—”

Cutting off my words, he ejected his finger from my channel. I whimpered, immediately mourning the loss of his finger and the sensation of pleasure. I was pleading and desperate. It was foreign, even from my lips.

I clamped my hand tightly over my face, locking away any other pathetic sounds from escaping.

Lamb, however, had other plans. His large hand wrapped around my wrist, his fingers overlapping around the other side, and he pulled me clean off his lap, standing to his side. I did not understand how I had moved from one space to another so fast, but the cold ate away at my skin.

Rejection burned through my veins, pulled aside so fast and efficiently by a man who seconds ago could not get enough of me. I wrapped my arms around my chest, cradling the burning rising like acid up through my throat.

“Why—”

“Sit down,” Lamb growled, the tempered burning edge to his throat hoarse and gravelled.

I stood straighter, confusion now washing down over me. “You just threw me off, and now you want me back again?” I growled, my upset clear in my tone.

Lamb did not care. He disregarded my words as if I had not said them at all. “Sit back down,” he pressed, his dark eyes not leaving mine. He stared straight through my head, like an arrow through the eye and I was caught like prey.

Was this some game? If it was, I was not interested in playing. He felt good, but I was not one to be toyed with. Never.

“I will not,” I growled.

“ Sit. ” Lamb’s voice dipped deeper, and I would be damned if my legs did not squeeze together, a hot, pounding throb where his finger had teased.

My body, clearly not listening to my brain, stepped closer, my core deciding we were playing hotter and colder, and with each step closer, back into his reach, I burned, and I scorched.

I was nearly panting as my thighs brushed against his, still sitting on his stool, eyes turned upwards to look at mine. Looking down past my small breasts, my nipples pointing out at his face like dousing rods looking for water.

Lamb moved his hands from his sides, gesturing widely to his lap. I moved, slowly and cautiously, like a lion stood staring at me. I felt his gaze hot down my neck as I lifted my leg and—

“No. ” Lamb’s hands snaked out to my waist, his fingers wrapping tight and firmly over each one before he spun me around like I weighed no more than a feather, picking me up and planting me back down on his lap.

But it was different this time.

This time, with his thighs beneath my core, his dick pressed up between the curves of my ass, and his chest pressed into my back, each hard ab drawing lines on either side of my spine, I was facing someone else.

Me.

I had not paid much attention to the big floor-length mirror, its beautiful golden edges and the out-of-place ornate design in such a modern bathroom. But there it stood in its antique glory, and there I sat, ill-suited inside such a beautiful frame.

Condensation crept around the edges, drips of water, like tears, rolling down its surface, warping and twisting small specs of the image reflected on its surface.

“I want you to watch,” Lamb purred in my ear.

More sensitive and aware of his hot breath rolling on my skin, I fought not to wiggle against his lap and drench his jeans in the desire leaking from my centre.

His arm slung around my waist like an anchor, his other slid down over my waist, creeping between my thighs and pulling them open.

I watched, transfixed as my body moved like a puppet, as Lamb adjusted me as he liked.

He leaned me back, my head falling into the nook of his shoulder, the angle tilting my hips so my centre was in full view to both me and him.

I watched with bated breaths as his hand slid lower, fingers reaching out to soothe through my folds. I felt him more than I had before, as if myself and the version of me in the mirror could feel everything as one. Even the sensations of his touch were reflected two-fold.

He moved slowly at first, with delicacy and deliberation in his actions as I watched through the mirror. My earlier impatience and frustration vanished, replaced by a rising anticipation, seeing what he was doing, knowing where he was touching and feeling it all the same was like the slow climb of a rollercoaster.

“Lamb,” I whined, not sure what I wanted or what I was begging for. Lamb seemed to know, though, as if he could read my body like a book, as his other hand holding me still moved down between my thighs, finding my hot, throbbing core, and slid one finger straight in. I moaned as his finger began to pump in and out. His other hand found the tender, desperate bundle of nerves and started to swirl and rub against it.

The pressure began to build, heat and lust tangling in my stomach. My fingers fought against the denim on his thighs, so tight I was no doubt clawing red marks into the skin beneath them, but I did not care. Lamb’s finger began to move faster in and out of me, and I could only focus on the rise growing.

My breaths were short, and I could no longer stop the small whimpers and moans slipping from my lips, nor the buck of my hips with each pleasurable motion.

Still, I stared hard into the reflection, watching his fingers go round and round and inside and out, mesmerised and enraptured with each flex of his fingers shooting a burst of pleasure burning through my body. Watching his finger slide up to the knuckle, disappearing inside of me, amplified the sensations.

Glistening and wet, he slid back out, and as I sought the feeling of him inside, he slid another in. The friction and the burn jerked through my nerves, and I arched into his push. I watched as he pumped back inside, both fingers sliding in and out with impossible ease. I was so tight and stretched, but my body gobbled up each finger with eagerness.

“Lamb,” I panted, feeling that rollercoaster peak and my legs tremble. His forearm kept them pinned wide open, and I wriggled against his hold around my waist. His touch was both too much and too little. I was overwhelmed yet desperate to reach that edge.

“Not yet.” Lamb’s tight, gravelled voice rippled in my ear. He ignored any cry of impatience and continued his steady, tantalising thrusts, building me higher and higher until I swear there was nowhere more I could climb.

“Lamb,” I cried. “ Please .”

I turned my gaze for the first time in the mirror and saw his face. His black abyssal eyes locked tight onto mine. I had learned that Lamb was ice in the dead of winter, but now, at this moment, his eyes burned hotter than the sun in the peak of summer and left a searching scorch wherever they touched.

I could not look away, the raging heat shooting straight to my core, swirling with the rising fire inside. With that all-consuming look, the stare that threatened to swallow me whole, the eyes that saw all of me, I was pushed over that edge.

A silent cry burned up my throat, fire, and heat, and electricity racing across my body, convulsing every nerve and muscle. Pleasure exploded in its wake, soothing the burst of lightning and sucking all the energy from my limbs. My legs dropped down against him, my centre throbbing and sensitive, eyes damp and weight melting into his hard, firm body behind.

My muscles ached and burned somewhere far away as pleasure swam and clouded my mind, like I was riding a high. It felt different from being drunk, but it quietened the thoughts all the same.

This is dangerous …

I had not felt nor noticed Lamb move until I jerked at the cold flannel pressing against my tender lips. He was gentle but thorough as he wiped over my thighs, my folds, and down to the cheeks of my ass. I was not one to be looked after nor pampered, but having little to no energy, nor the will to move, I could not bring myself to care.

I protested as Lamb began to move, his hands supporting my waist as he brought me up to stand, his body following. He stayed enveloped around my back, his hands on me at every moment as he reached for a soft, fluffy towel to drape over my shoulders.

Only then did I turn as the man began to soothe the cotton down over my skin, absorbing every damp drop of sweat, and the small escaping traces of my orgasm that the flannel had missed. I floated on my cloud, not thinking much as I followed Lamb through each action, mesmerised and enraptured by even the smallest and simplest movement.

I watched as his tight, flexing muscles shifted with each movement, large, veined hands careful and precise in their movements. I traced his body from his neck to the large, firm jeans and the dark stain soaking through the front.

My face flushed, and my mind began to rise to clarity as I stared at it, knowing that the true traces of my orgasm were buried into the material of the jeans pointing a salute back at me. His body pressed at the seams, the mountain so tight and firm against the denim.

Before I realised it, I was already reaching towards it, my fingers pinching the metal zipper. Lamb’s travelling hands paused on my skin but did not reach to stop me. I took it as an all-clear before I began to slowly pull down the zipper. I only got an inch or so down when it slipped from my hands, and his erection burst free.

The man was commando. I remembered grinding on his lap and knowing that there had been but a single zipper stopping his erection from rubbing directly into me, had a perverse heat brewing once again at my centre.

His dick was large, and although I had been turned off by the few unsuspecting glimpses of dicks throughout my life, this did the opposite. He was thick, and hard, his veins jutting, and the fact that this was all caused by me … the thought was powerful.

I reached out, hesitant, like I had encountered a creature in the wild. My fingertips grazed the tip, and it jerked in response. I was amused to some degree, letting my fingers cautiously trail over the feverish warmth, feeling each solid ridge beneath the velvety skin. It was a strange and unique body part, and my curiosity grew in leaps and bounds.

My inquisition led me into dangerous territory, however, as I slipped my finger back over the head, the small bead of liquid coating my finger. A growl rose from the depths of Lamb’s chest, and I leapt to attention, having forgotten that the beast had been attached to a human.

Lamb’s eyes were pitch black, his breaths haggard, and his body tightened like rigor iron.

“Are you …?”

“About to fucking explode?” Lamb grumbled, his eyes not leaving mine, his throat swallowing hard between words. “Yeah. Keep touching me like that, and I think I’ll shoot a hole through your hand.”

“Oh,” I breathed, glancing back down at the penis twitching and straining beneath the shaft of skin. “I did not mean to …”

Did not mean to what? Touch him? Toy with him? Tease him?

I might not have had the intention, but seeing him struggle under my control gave me the tiniest, guiltiest shivers of pleasure, and earning another was an opportunity I could not resist.

I reached out again, spurred by my thoughts, wrapping my fingers around his length. Lamb let out a sharp hiss, his hips bucking his dick further into my grip.

“Ash …” Lamb growled, a warning tone riding the wave.

I could not tell if he was warning me to stop or not to.

I chose the latter.

I knew, in theory, what I was doing, and I began to let my hand slide up and down along his shaft in long, languid strokes. Lamb’s hands gripped tight to the white towel still wrapped around my shoulders.

I moved up and down and felt traction with each pull, his skin tugging against mine. I was not moving as smoothly as I liked. I needed moisture. I needed lubrication.

A thought filled my mind, and before I could comprehend what I was doing, I had already slipped my hand loose. A growl confirming my other thought rushed out of his chest, but the moment his eyes moved to my hand and saw what I was doing, he quickly shut up.

My fingers were smaller, and my entrance a little tender from his early touch, but I managed to slip in easily, my own moist wetness coating my fingers in a shiny, slippery coating.

I pulled back, not feeling the same sensations as I had from Lamb, but that mattered little. Instead, I studied his face, his black abyssal eyes focused tightly on my hand as I moved my newly wet fingers towards his cock.

I was not sure I could even hear him breathing as I slid my fingers back around his shaft and smeared myself across him. Satisfied with the shiny sheen I had left behind, I wrapped my hand around him and picked up where I had left off. The new lubrication worked delightfully as I built up a steady rhythm up and down his dick. Each ridge and vein slid beneath my touch, and I got acquainted with each one.

Fascinated by my actions, I had almost forgotten Lamb above me until the towel slipped down my back and dropped to the floor. His free hand slid down over my waist, and he expertly manoeuvred his hands straight back to my core and slipped his fingers inside.

“Lam—“ I gasped, but his voice overtook mine.

“Don’t you dare stop,” he commanded, the vibrato travelling through my ear and straight down to my core, the noise meeting his fingers as he built up a fast, rapid movement to match my own.

I turned back to his dick, an intense struggle to concentrate enough to move my hand while his fingers turned my insides into a burning, tingling inferno.

My legs quivered as if I had not just come a few moments ago, and my wrist ached as I matched his punishing rhythm. My hand rapidly wrenched up and down his shaft as his fingers worked me inside and out, his thumb coming around to the front and finding my tender, swollen clit.

I found myself tipping over the edge, but I fought fiercely not to fall. I worked him harder and faster, and I knew the moment he was about to explode. His breath hissed through his teeth, his hips bucked, and his dick seemed to strain against him before a sharp stream of cum burst out of him.

I had no chance to feel the satisfaction as Lamb pushed a third finger inside and pinched down hard on my clit, throwing me hard and fast over the side.

A loud cry burst from my lips as my hands lunged for his shoulders, holding onto him as I rocked through the fireworks exploding from my vagina and rippling across my body. It was faster and more intense than the first had been, and stars danced across my vision.

I was keenly aware of Lamb’s arms wrapping around my waist, pinning my body against him, as I rode out the waves of pleasure ebbing from within.

My breathing was hard and laborious, but it began to calm as the waves settled and thoughts crawled through the thick, soft blanket of pleasure. I also became keenly aware of the warm, wet sensation between mine and Lamb’s abdomens and knew it was not just sweat.

I arched my back just enough to peer down and see where Lamb had coated himself across my skin, and I, in turn, had coated Lamb back in his own cum.

He did not seem bothered. His head was hung, his breath calmer than my own, and his eyes stared down at my face. His eyes were no longer black, but a honey brown, glistened and calm, as they flittered back and forth across my face.

Lamb reached for the cloth and dunked it into the cool water of the tub. He wiped down his abs but was hesitant before doing my own. He moved the cloth tenderly, making sure not to miss a single piece. The cool water was welcomed against my hot, throbbing core, and I was careful not to lean into his hand, scared to start something else I had no energy to finish.

Lamb guided me, still naked, into the bedroom, where he tugged open the sheets and pulled me in before climbing in tightly beside me.

“What? No cuffs?”

Lamb wrapped his hand over my waist, his fingers absently trailing across the surface of my waist, his head buried into the back of my neck. “Not tonight …” he murmurs, sleepiness lacing his voice.

The man was more spent than I had expected.

He pressed tighter against my back, and soon, I could feel his soft, sleepy breaths against the nape of my neck. He was out.

I was not long behind him.

S treetlights filled the darkness with ambient warmth, and I watched the treeline of the woods bordering the town rock in the chilling autumn breeze. Many had lost their leaves; branches bare as winter crept along the horizon.

I wished I could see them clearer, reminiscent of the woodlands that surrounded much of the British countryside estate I had once called home, but all I could make out in the dark night with my reduced vision was brown blurs speckled amongst the jade winter green of the firs.

A few years ago, perhaps I had been able to make out the closest tree or two, but now they were nothing more than a soft blotch of colour in a dark world.

My memories were similar, and as I sat on the small, cushioned chair, knees tucked to my chest, and eyes wandering the empty darkness, I sifted through the fraying pieces of a dull old world I had once lived in.

I heard a muffled shuffle of the silk sheets, and a few moments later, a supernatural warmth washed over my skin. I knew his eyes had found me. It had only been a few hours, but it was longer than I had slept in a while. It had been peaceful and dreamless, which was even rarer.

I waited a while, listening for his sleep-laced voice, but it never came. Lamb was lurking quietly in the darkness, watching and waiting.

I turned back out to the window, my fingers tracing absently up and down my soft skin and shaved shins, thoughts emerging from their mental recess.

“She was the first one,” I reminisced, feeling a bittersweet smile tug at my lips, “to tell me I was not normal.” I stared down at my feet, rough and calloused from endless walking. I soothed my hand over the top of my feet, tracing the soft veins running beneath the surface.

There was a beat as I trailed to my toes before I heard the metaphorical click.

“Anna?” Lamb probed.

I nodded, unsure whether he could see the motion. “She called me a freak, actually.” I chuckled, the ghost of her words repeating in my ears, as they had done many times. “I could count on one hand the number of times I had ever left the estate. One of those times when I was fourteen, I think. Maybe fifteen? I have never really been sure.”

“Of your age?”

I shrugged, not looking up. “When any record of your birth had been burnt, and there was not a single person nor reason to celebrate your birthday, you lose count pretty fast.”

A pregnant silence followed my comment, and I sensed Lamb was not pleased with my nonchalant answer. I did not care. I had never told my story to anyone before. It sounded more like I was talking about someone else than myself. I had expected to be emotional when I did speak of the past, of my pain and my scars. Instead, I was distant, looking from the outside in at a little girl who had drowned in her dark world because nobody had ever taught her how to breathe.

I heard Lamb’s feet settle on the carpeted floor, but I struggled to track any movement in the dark.

“Anna was the daughter of one of my father’s business associates and, in a strange turn of events, we had been left to each other’s company.”

I could see her standing in front of me, the small, blonde-haired girl wearing makeup too mature for her age, blue eyes piercing with the clarity of an old soul. I wondered what I looked like to her, the dull, lifeless girl she had met that day. I had looked up into her young face and seen her staring straight into my soul from day one, becoming the first pure and bright colour in my otherwise grey world.

“I had met very few people—never another child—but I did not know what to do. It was safe to say my social skills were lacking.” I remembered our meeting; how strange I had felt inside, some concoction of anxiety and excitement I had never felt before. It had been new, exhilarating and confusing all at once. “I did not know what to do, so I did nothing. I must have just stared at her for minutes on end, not saying anything before she finally turned around and asked me what type of freak I was. For her, it was a strange meeting, but for me … it was love at first sight.”

It was as if she were standing before me again. The warm streetlight running over her soft, young features, the slight red of her cheeks, the freckles that had splattered her nose before they had faded over time, and the crook of her brow as she had looked me up and down.

“We became friends. Though, for her, I think it was out of pity. I was so scared I would not see her again, but over the years, I could see her every few months, when the opportunity permitted. I think my father saw it as a way into the company her father ran, one of the many he had predated on in the hopes of taking over. Though it had largely turned into a mistake. Soon, Anna was teaching me what it meant to be a teenage girl—what I was supposed to be doing, supposed to be seeing; how I was feeling and what I wanted. She brought out the girl who had been buried long before she was even born.”

As the warm memories left me, a cool breeze circled back through the room. The autumn air rustled young Anna’s long platinum hair, her eyes regarding me, the new me, the broken. The familiar disappointment and disgust weaved through her features. She would hate me now. Hate what I had become. Hate how far I had fallen.

At least she had never changed. Back then and even now.

I stared back at her, feeling that same weighted emotion from many years ago. No air to breathe, my lungs burning, floundering … drowning.

Young Anna shook her head, her mouth moving, but no words coming out. My eyes burnt, but I knew no tears would form.

“It was my biggest regret … meeting her,” I whispered, my voice weak and tight. “If only I had never known what was out there. Never knew what I was missing. Never knew what I could have. Then maybe I would not have wished for more and … I would not have ruined it all.”

The darkness hugged me tight, its cold claws sinking deeper into my bones. The cold chill settled under my skin, and my anxieties churned. I could hear her voice again, a mix of old and young, past and present, as it echoed in my ears. Echoed the words I had begged for, the words that had daggered my heart, before I allowed it to bleed and decay.

A foreign weight fell over my shoulders, surfacing me from my thoughts. My mind had sunk into its depths. Even looking up at the dark brown eyes, flecks of golden light dancing across their depths, I stared from a mental distance.

“Come on,” Lamb’s deep voice rumbled, his arm sliding beneath my legs and around my back. He lifted me with ease, and this time, I did not fight him. I allowed him to carry me over to the bed, toss back the covers, and lay me down.

He climbed beside me, his warmth trying to break through my chill. I could still hear the ghostly whispers of my past, memories flickering through my mind in broken, mismatched pieces. Of a past that smelled of bitter blood and cold coal, of the neglected fireplace and Anna’s laughter, of my screams of pains, and of her final breaths. Everything that had led me to right here … to right now.

“Everything that I am,” I whispered, unsure if Lamb could hear me any longer, “everything that I have done, and everything I have become, were all the result of my choices. I am responsible for every break, every crack, and every splinter that makes me who I am. My choices are my own, and the consequences are mine to bear. And mine alone.”

Darkness began to take hold, lulling me into a rare second sleep. The same words played over and over in my mind before the nightmares anchored my soul.

My sins belong to me.

And they shall end with me.