21. Nat

21

Nat

poison. If you can get close enough

Arousal consumes me.

It’s excruciating.

He gets to sip free at the pool of my torture and I crave just the slightest taste.

Erinyes do not crave.

We take.

We conquer.

“Nat—”

Sin’s sharp warning is silenced by the rip of my dress. The thigh slit tears three inches higher, and suddenly my lacey scarlet underwear are included in my ensemble.

Instantly, I steal the new slack to sink lower on him, claim him, dizzy with his scent and heat. The steady rise and fall of his chest under my palm.

There’s no one around. No one that matters at least. Just some creatures I’ll kill and a handful I’ll free, but they seem like details or afterthoughts, like buffing an already cut, perfect clarity emerald.

Their voices are fuzzy. Their faces blurred.

It’s the same for the scratch of the weather resistant cushions on my knees, the hum of the crickets, the muggy air sticking to my skin.

The sensations are unfamiliar to me. Unwelcome.

Everything’s a lovely haze.

Except Sin. Eyes like amethyst. Skin like gold, even without the sun, as if his shine is internal.

I like gold.

All I can think as I hover above his lap, tighten my knees on either side of him and slide my hands up over his shoulders and down his biceps, is how I want to see all of it. All the tanned, chiseled body. I want to watch it bunch and roll, tense and strain. Feel it plastered against me.

He’s positively lethal.

And wonderfully beautiful.

Frustratingly so.

His aura gaps to let me in, splits and cradles me, coating me in a sheen of luxurious oil. And I wear it happily, splashing like a duckling with no idea of the consequences.

Not caring.

My forehead dips to his. I pull apart seams on his jacket. We’re so near, his features blur. “Is this okay?”

Words that I think he needs to hear. Words I’ll happily give to get what I want.

Gods, do I want.

Desperately, frantically, obsessively.

I cinch us closer, hike myself higher on the thick ridge of male beneath me, tip him back on the lounge chair. Our noses brush. My hands wander to his abs, my lips linger against his cheek. “You can taste what I’m feeling, right?”

He swallows, powerful jaw working overtime. “Yes.”

“I want to taste you back.”

“You do?”

I nod, excited. “Yes. Everywhere.”

Under his breath, Sin mutters a wry comment to the voices and gets laughs. He stands, prying free of me, igniting red in my vision.

I almost growl at him.

Yell.

But he’s still speaking, staring intently at the overindulged pricks zonked in their chairs, excusing or dismissing or complaining. His tone isn’t the same effortless glide it was. It’s edged like a serrated hunting knife, slashing and hacking.

Lovely. Deep and commanding.

It sings to me the same as gems hidden by soil and stone.

I’m a mess on the heels, stumbling when Sin pulls me to follow him inside. Luckily, his grasp is warm and firm, and I shiver at the rough fold of calluses over mine.

A fighter.

I like that about him.

Evan served coffee. He wore an apron. He didn’t like swords in the house. Put down his foot at guns.

I bet Sin would clutch a knife in his hand while he fucked me.

I squeeze his fingers and an obscene curse escapes his throat. A flash of his features under a chandelier reveals thick smoldering passion in his gaze.

Good.

He throws open one door and moves on to another, pushing me inside after a perfunctory look.

“No bed,” I note as my vision adjusts to the dim lighting. Chairs with high plush arms, a nested side table, a bookshelf collecting dust.

“Last time I had you on a bed, you tried to kill me.”

“Because …” of Evan. The reminder fractures a little something, wrecks the warmth churning through me.

I shove it aside with force.

“Show me how to do it without a bed,” I demand, planting my feet to make the walls stop spinning.

Sin drops his lanky, strong body against the shut door. Smirks.

Green light.

“Teach me.” I’m speaking in a possessed feverish voice, undoing his buttons, body undulating against his. The potent scent of him cascades over me, clove and bourbon and the smallest bit of citrus.

“Look at me,” he says in a haunting tone.

I bite him. Hard. Where his neck meets his shoulder, tasting tendon and muscle.

His hips jolt forward, his thigh ramming between my legs. I think if he kisses me, I’ll come. Nothing more than that. Just his taste.

Cold wind pecks my skin and I groan against it, licking Sin’s abused skin and dragging my tongue against the black of his neck tattoo. “Just—” He doesn’t like commands. I tip my head back, fists knotted in his shirt. “Will you just kiss me already?”

“Godsdammit, Nat.” My chin is captured in his grasp, he pins me steadily to him, stares.

Whatever he sees—tastes—he whimpers, lets go of whatever’s been keeping him from me.

“Nat.”

He sounds deadly, makes the tiny hairs on my arms rise, blasts lighting down my spine and concentrates heat in my core.

Being near him is like tiptoeing on the edge of the River Phlegethon. One loose rock, one slip and I’ll be sucked in by wild reckless currents, and boil alive.

I dive in.

Zeus, I cannonball.

Closing the distance between us, I take his mouth in a desperate bid to breathe, not caring that it doubles the heat, that I’m diving deeper instead of kicking to the surface.

Sin stiffens, warrior’s strength locking muscle and bone, arm snaking around my waist, squeezing, likely imagining a hundred ways to unhand me, but then my tongue touches his.

Faster than even I can sense, he slams me to the door, locks me tight against unhewn wood, and shoves his upper leg between mine. Filthy. Free.

His grip guides my chin for his pleasure, kissing me his way, knee brushing the damp lace over my core.

I’ve never been kissed before. Not like this.

It’s always been me leaning in, me closing the gap, me with the hunger.

Here, in this, Sin leads.

He devours .

His tongue flicks across the edges of my teeth, dashes up in some erotic, enigmatic move I don’t understand, but forms a knot in my lower stomach. My breath stalls, I tangle my fingers in his shirtfront, pulling him into me, closer, harder.

He tastes dark.

Nightshade.

Aconite.

Arsenic.

He tastes like sapphires and broken teeth and I—

I’ve never experienced a feeling like this, a position that feels so right, something that tastes so good. I rock my hips over his knee, seeking relief, trying to quench a thirst that’s endlessly spreading.

“Fuck, Nat.” He makes a low helpless sound again, muscled arms winding around me, as if I’m flame wicking away from him. “Fuck. Fuck .”

I feel the vibration of his throat against my tongue. My fingernails scrape down his scalp, fist tangling in his hair, and I watch my knuckles disappear in his aura as he runs his mouth along the line of my neck.

I clutch at him, his solid shoulders, his abs, the firm muscles of his arm as he bunches the fabric of my skirts into a ball and spreads my thighs over him.

My pulse mimics a rock careening down a ravine. It’s only when I taste sugar on my lip that I realize I’m biting down on my tongue hard enough to draw ichor.

No.

I don’t want this to end.

I push reality away to the far reaches of my mind and strive further for this fantasy.

My leg ends up around his waist and the tear in my gown worsens. With the heels, my position has me less standing and more hanging off him, a feat no other male could handle and Sin does without noticing.

His cheeks are pink, sunset irises glazed. His fingers brush over my wet underwear. A touch and I shudder, sparks blasting my body.

“ Fuck ,“ he moans, stroking through the thin lace.

“Do it.” I squirm against him, a flush starting at my ribcage and splashing up my cheeks. “More,” I growl at the gentle pressure.

I’m writhing, out of control, unrestrained.

His palm abandons my center and finds my throat, forces my head up so I’m looking at him, panting, trembling. “We need to stop—”

There’s not a second between his hiss and my tongue sliding between his lips.

I push a desperate sort of keen into his mouth as his hands dive to raise my thigh further, cupping my ass until there’s empty space between the spike of my heel and the floor. He feeds me one frantic kiss after another, thrusting his tongue, unleashing the intensity of his desire.

My elbows dig into his shoulders. My fingers pull hair as I trade air for ecstasy.

I want this forever and five minutes from now. More tomorrow.

It’s infuriating.

How bright black gleams.

“Please,” I beg, anxious I won’t have enough.

He drops me.

My ankle gives. My ass hits the floor. Sin stumbles backward. Bends over, curses. Coughs.

Choking.

Struggling for breath, staggering. He pounds a fist into his chest.

It’s not fair.

Theia’s phrase. It’s not fair that bakeries close at two. Not fair we can’t bring wine to the park. It’s not fair bodies don’t sink.

Breaking news: Life’s not fair, and you die, and then it’s ruthlessly fair.

Thanks to me.

Alone, on the floor, dread pounds spikes into my bones, adding unmanageable weight to my limbs.

I slacken, curse the River Styx. A headache seizes my forehead.

Next thing I know, Sin’s charging me, lifting me in a bruising grip and hauling me into the door trim. “Is this what you fucking want, sweets? Is it?”

Silver, pure and molten, coats his bottom lip. It glows Divine, creating spindly shadows of his lashes, caves of his eyes.

It’s like I’ve been tossed off a roller coaster mid loop de loop. I’m off balance. Sweaty and regretful and wired.

A horrible giddy feeling floats up, an urge to scream smothered by wicked irony.

It's ichor.

Mine .

Shared with a kiss.

I suck on my tongue, the cut still oozing sweet syrupy poison.

“Nat.” Sin shakes me against the wood. A move that would get another creatures killed.

His aura crawls over me like a toxic fog.

I poisoned him. Didn’t even notice it.

A ragged, scratchy laugh bubbles from my throat. I sag in his hold.

He glares at me, expression twisting and hardening. “Sometimes I just want to …”

“Say it,” I grind out, fingers going numb, arms filled with sand.

He won’t.

It’s difficult to tell people you want to kill them.

Especially after you kiss.

Especially after you kiss them like that .

Shoulders taut, Sin backpedals from me, snarls a foul curse and rips at his hair.

He doesn’t wipe his mouth.

It must scorch. The pain must be unbearable, and he acts as if it’s not there at all.

“You’re high,” he accuses once there’s an entire room between us. “That’s what this is. You’re high. You— stop laughing .”

Am I still?

I cover my mouth, try to stand tall. Accidentally slide to the left, fondling last minute for a dusty sconce to keep me upright.

Sin takes three pounding steps and then he’s here. Clove robbing me of oxygen. In a gravelly voice, between tight forced breaths, he asks, “What have you done, Nat? Who’s dead?”

“Sometimes you just want to what ?” I whisper, tongue suddenly heavy. Migraine punching holes into my brain.

“Sober up.”

I should. But still. “Stop yelling.”

“I’m not fucking happy, Nat.”

“Tell that to the rolling pin behind your zipper.”

He seizes hold of me again, drawing me to even feet, brings his face inches from mine. A sudden cold breeze nips my skin. I bat at it.

“Have you given up on Theia? On saving her? She can rot where she is? Let her die?”

I push against his stomach, but my fingers slip against the hard plane of muscle, weak, useless. The thrall seeps from me slowly, leaving me limp and drained. “Shut up.”

“Am I making you angry, sweetheart? Are you getting mad?”

“Don’t start this,” I warn, words tripping. My heartbeat is in my ears.

“Start what? You’re the one playing tonsil hockey with me instead of giving a shit about her. Your supposed best friend.”

“ Stop . Theia is my priority.”

“Who’d you flay this time, darling? A server look at you wrong, a friend try to hug you and you had to make it rain blood? Fucking Hades.”

I groan into my hands. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“One for fucking one, babe.” He folds strong hands over his elbows like some big macho interrogator and glares down at me. “Who was it?”

I contemplate kicking him in the knee.

Too much work.

“Nicki Ephuous.” Immortal bile. “He wanted to play with the pets.”

He’d snuck into our holding cell with a knife, pointing fingers and issuing sweeping demands with threat of mutilation if we so much as whined. Even if he hadn’t flashed his I’m a Top Tier Terrible Creature card, the terrified reaction of the Nymphs would’ve been enough. His sucking gray aura was a nail in the coffin.

He had to go.

Sin’s eyes sharpen. He retreats a step, hesitates. Clenches his fists. “Nicki? As in Maxine's missing guest? What were you thinking—”

“Relax. They won’t search the rose bushes for a body.”

If they’d even be able to identify him.

“You pushed him out a window?”

Would’ve been easier, but where’s the satisfaction? The rush? “I threw his body over the balcony. He was spurting blood everywhere. It was messy. If you’d given me a weapon, I could’ve spelled my name with his blood spray. That neat. Not so regrettably, I had no choice but to use my hands.”

I flare my skirts up to show the end result of using a dress as a makeshift blood rag.

“Fucking hells,” Sin breathes, staring at the splatter. “I knew I smelled blood, you—”

The door handle at my hip twists.

I lurch from it on wobbly feet as Sin wipes the damning ichor from his lips.

Hands up, head pounding, I spin to fight the intruder, but Sin has another idea. He uses my momentum against me, splaying me over the back of the chair.

The hinges creak.

My skirts are flung over my head, Sin’s hand seals across my mouth. He thrusts aggressively into my backside.

“Oh!” The overly hairy drunk’s voice is deplorable. “Sinis, it’s you. Why Maxine worried,” he tsks himself, lazing in the door while Sin keeps me bent over and muzzled.

“She’s never known how to relax, Varley, you know that,” Sin drawls, thrusting forcefully into me, hold punishing as cool air blasts the back of my thighs.

I hiss, opening my mouth to curse him to the depths of Tartarus.

Two fingers tasting of ichor and salt shove into my mouth.

Another thrust.

The rolling pin’s there, concealed behind his fly, but from the angle Varley’s watching, it appears Sin’s only take advantage of his prize. And he got the idea from me.

Furious, I thrash at him, clit throbbing, humiliation roaring as his hand spreads flat on the base of my spine and shoves. He thrusts and—

There .

The press of his zipper against my underwear, selected by him, soaked because of him, euphoria sparks.

I stop breathing.

My chest prickles with heat, my eyes burn.

I throw an arm above my head to stop him and end up flailing. Moaning at the slow grind of his rigid cock against me.

“This room’s off limits,” Varley says, despite his own intrusion.

Another thrust, and I pulse under the pressure, clenching and panting, radiating pleasure. Everything within me tightens, my toes losing their hold on the floor.

“We’ll be on our way,” Sin assures, lazy, slurring, ramming his hips into me, fingers hooked roughly in my teeth.

I squeeze my eyes closed and imagine a partner like this.

Unlike Evan.

A partner nearly as formidable as me.

Fierce, skilled, powerful, utterly dominant.

With gold skin, and sharp teeth and big, grabbing hands. I imagine his cock pushing into me, his hands stroking me, hips snapping as he taunts me. Are you still going to kill me? Still hate me? Lips hot against my cheek, laughing, breathing heavily, sweat and spice and the same desperate look he gave me in the pouring rain.

Adoration.

Obsession.

My adrenaline spikes as a rush of sensations ripples through me. I give in, shove my hips back into him. He thrusts again, punishing, angry still.

I don’t care.

I’m on the verge of coming, racing for my deepest desire, needing it, so close to it.

The door clicks tight and everything stops.

Suddenly, I’m upright, twisted around. Alone.

Sin is across the room, heaving, his expression livid.

I swipe the hair from my face and the drool off my chin, vibrating at the loss of him. “I should’ve bitten you.”

“But you didn’t.” His lips kick up in an irritating half smile, but he doesn’t stop looking at my mouth. “You could’ve, but you didn’t.”

“I will if you ever do it again.”

Laughing like he doesn’t believe me, he wipes a last dribble of ichor from the side of his mouth. His lip is raw and open, blistered from me and my attempt to poison him.

Is it an attempt if you’re not aware you’re doing it?

Something flares in his gaze, and it’s not fair that he can taste what I’m feeling, understand how close I was to coming even in my shitty hungover state, and all I get is a swirl in his aura, a bad deed adding to the bunch.

The lie. His lying to Varley shades the black more evenly. It hurts knowing it was my doing, for my protection.

I struggle to my full height, wondering how many times he’s darkened his aura for another’s protection or someone else’s mistake. What color it’d be if factors like that mattered.

“We’ve leaving,” he orders.

I can’t argue. The pounding is too hard in my head to comprehend it.

I shuffle to the door, rejected, deflated.

The evening is a total loss.

Until I see it.

When he thinks I’m not looking, Sin licks the thumb that touched my wet underwear and then takes the two fingers he crammed in my mouth—slathered in ichor, probably burning his flesh—into his own mouth and sucks.