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She uses both hands now, twisting slightly at the base while she sucks, her eyes half-lidded, watching me. My hips twitch, but I stay rooted. Watching her. Feeling everything. Letting her do this for me.

To me.

She moans low around me and I feel it, the vibration up the shaft, down to the base, into my spine. It’s too much. It’s not enough. She sinks deeper again, choking a little this time, but she doesn’t stop. She wants it messy. Wants it raw.

I wonder how often she thinks about that night in her room, when my cum was coating her pussy, thick and sticky. How I left her drenched. Saliva drips down the sides of her mouth, catching in the hollow of her collarbone. She moves faster now, one hand pumping, the other pressed to my thigh to anchor herself.

I don’t say a word.

My jaw is tight, legs trembling. It builds, hard and sharp, right behind my eyes. I feel it coiling, violent and inevitable. And still, she doesn’t let up. I grip the wall harder. Try not to shake. Try not to lose it too soon.

But she knows. We both do.

She pulls me deeper one last time, and when I come, it’s like a detonation, my body going rigid, everything unraveling in heat and pressure with a groan I can’t hold back. She takes it all. Doesn’t flinch. Stays right there, lips sealed, eyes locked on me as I fall apart in her mouth.

And when she pulls back, slow and filthy, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand…

I can barely breathe.

She smiles–soft, secret–and rises without a word. And all I can do is lean against the wall, chest rising and falling, cock limp and twitching. Undone.

Still the watcher.

But now, watched back.

23

Arianette

I wake in my bedroom,face smashed in my pillow. My mouth is dry. My head is fogged, but not empty.

The fight. The crypt. The hard pill of Phantom Bliss, turning soft and melting on my tongue. All of those are just embers and echoes. Real but also wisps of a dream. I can still smell the smoke, sweat, and wine. Feel it in the way my body aches, not painfully, not like when I woke up in the cage. This is different, a whispered reminder that I didn’t just survive another night with the Barons. I actuallylivedlast night with them.

Reaching down, I find that my shorts are still ruined. One side barely clinging on, the crotch in shreds. There’s a velvet cloak draped over me. If I had to guess which Baron made the effort, I can’t pick. Maybe neither. Maybe someone took pity on me, not wanting to look at me in the raw morning like this.

My thighs are sticky. The rush is gone, but the memories are sharp in places–Damon on the throne. His hands. The husky sound of his voice. The pressure of his thigh between mine,the hard slickness of his cock thrusting into me and for once, notdenying me pleasure.The way he made me feel like I was a thing worth claiming–not just used.

And then…

Hunter.

Still. Silent. Always watching.

I can still feel the weight of eyes on me as he watched Damon bring me to the brink, my body melting under his touch. The heaviness of his erection in my hand. The salty taste of him in my mouth. I’d taken him all, choking back the thick spurts of cum. It was worth it for the way he never looked away–not once. Not even when he broke.

I should be ashamed. My uncle would be disgusted. The other girls from the Manor, horrified. What I’d done was not how I was raised. It’s not how good girls behaved.

But the biggest question: what would the King think?

I’d come in with a vague plan to make the crypt chasers know the Barons belonged to me, but something different transpired–something dark and feral. I don’t know if it was the drugs, or the girl that gave her tits to Damon to sign, or Bronwyn and the presumption I wasn’t up to the task of taking care of my men. Whatever it was, I walked down that dark staircase one way and woke up this morning someone else.

Someone who wasseen.

For the first time since they stumbled on me standing over Armand with the bloody knife in my hand, Damon saw me. And Hunter?

He letmeseehim.

And me? I said yes to all of it. I gave myself over. To the ritual, the heat, the performance, the power. I liked it. Fuck yeah, I liked it.