Page 31 of A Wicked Dance of Obsidian and Light (Echoes of Darkness #1)

When we finally reach the bar, Kaiden tells me, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He then turns on his heel, and his big frame slices through the crowd. My eyes follow him as he stops near the door we entered earlier, where Maeve is waiting for him. She places a hand on his chest seductively, and they start talking. They stand so close to one another that they practically share the same breath. My nostrils flare, and my blood simmers as Maeve’s hand sneaks beneath his suit jacket.

I turn around, afraid that if I keep watching them, I’ll probably go over and rip her hair out and then punch Kaiden for letting her touch him after the moment we shared on the dance floor. Needing something to take me off the edge of the chaos I feel brewing inside of me, I stop the passing server and snatch a flamingo pink drink from the tray. My lips touch the rim of the glass when I remember Kaiden’s words cautioning me not to drink anything. I put it down on top of the bar and curse under my breath because I really need a drink.

“Hey, gorgeous,” someone says from behind me. As I turn around I come face to face with a well-built man wearing a jester mask and a royal blue suit. He bends, boxing me in against the bar before whispering in my ear, “You had my attention since the moment you walked in.” His fingers wrap around my wrist tightly. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

A slow smile spreads across my face, and my fingers curl into fists. If I can’t have a drink, maybe leveling this douche canoe will settle the rage bubbling inside my veins. Before I can throat punch the asshole, a big shadow appears, looming over us.

“If you want to keep that arm attached to your body, I strongly suggest you let go of her in the next second,” Kaiden growls loudly.

The stranger lets go of my hand like I’ve burnt him, staggering backward. “Shit, man. We were just going to have some fun. That’s what we’re all here for, right? We’re all sharing—”

“She’s. Mine. And. I. Don’t. Share,” Kaiden snaps, his voice dripping with venom. He pulls me to his side before his arm circles my lower back possessively. “Now disappear before I pull out your lungs for daring to breathe so close to her.”

The man’s eyes bulge out of his head at Kaiden’s words, and he leaves like his ass is on fire, weaving his way through the crowd.

“Let me go,” I hiss while pushing Kaiden away, but he only tightens his hold on me.

He turns to me with a frown, his gaze sweeping over my partially covered face. “What the fuck has gotten into you?”

I catch a whiff of a cloying woman’s perfume. White hot rage burns through me. “Let go of me. You smell like her,” I spew.

A ghost of a smile touches Kaiden’s lips. “Aw, is my angel jealous?”

“Being jealous would mean that I care,” I bite back. “And I don’t.”

Amusement dances in his eyes. “Relax, baby. She was giving me an access card, that’s all.” He pulls on the lapel of his suit jacket, showing me the inside pocket where now sits a rectangular red card with golden edges. “Did you really think that I would let her touch me like that after I kissed you?”

I sniff, and my jaw flexes. “Well, you did look mighty cozy,” I mutter.

Kaiden laughs before shaking his head incredulously, like he’s sharing an inside joke with himself. “If you only knew, Iris. If you only knew.”

His cryptic words leave me puzzled as he guides me toward the door behind the bar. He takes out the crimson card from his pocket and swipes it across the handle. The little red light in the middle of it turns green, and a soft click breaks through the music. Kaiden opens the door. A dimly lit, narrow stairway greets us. The door closes at our back, and I lift the skirt of my dress so I don’t trip on my own legs as we start climbing the stairs. At the top, we reach a long corridor with black-painted walls. People are milling about the room, stopping to watch through the two-way mirrors littered across the walls.

Kaiden takes two drinks from a server’s tray, passes me one, and loops an arm around my shoulder, whispering in my ear, “We’re going to pretend like we belong and stop along the way to look at the scenarios. Then, when it’s time, we’re going to enter one of the rooms.”

“’Kay,” I say, and we continue down the corridor, stopping at the first two-way mirror. On the other side is some sort of a sex dungeon scenario with a woman hanging from a hook in the ceiling. She’s blindfolded, two clamps hanging from her taut nipples, while a man uses a flog to spank her. Another man watches as a woman sucks him off. The wall behind them is full of whips, gags, clamps, and belts. My breath hitches in my throat. Kaiden seems to notice, and his gaze snaps to my parted lips, and then, he observes the way my chest falls rapidly.

“Does this turn you on, Iris?” he purrs in the shell of my ear. I bite my lower lip and give him an almost imperceptible nod, not able to speak at this moment, but he doesn’t miss it. “Then I’ll make sure to remember it.”

We pass a few more scenarios, one with a foursome between vampires on a massive round bed in a red room, another with a woman and two men in a basin infested with sharks. I think she’s a siren. I don’t even want to know how they pulled that one off. There’s also a room with sex swings and another full of mirrors.

As we reach the only empty room at the back, Kaiden places our untouched drinks on a cocktail table and takes out the crimson card again, swiping it just like before over the door handle next to the two-way mirror. The light turns green. He holds it open for me to enter first. A plush, massive, round bed with satin red sheets sits in the middle of the room, and a couch is facing it, pushed back against the reflective surface of the two-way mirror on the wall.

Kaiden wraps his arms around me from behind before bending to whisper in my ear, “Do you trust me?”

I swallow, my stomach a ball of restless energy. “Do I have a choice?”

The door opens, and someone walks inside. The sound of shoes slapping against the floor reverberates in the dead silence of the room. “Ah, good, you’re already here. Get her ready for me,” a man with a commanding voice says.

Kaiden pushes my hair to one side and starts tracing kisses on the column of my neck while his hands palm my breasts over my dress. He starts rubbing my nipples in between his thumbs and forefingers.

My heart is beating so fast against my ribcage I’m surprised my ribs don’t shatter to smithereens. Wetness pools and trickles down the inside of my thighs, and I let out a shaky breath.

“Relax, angel. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Kaiden murmurs in the shell of my ear, only for me to hear.

“Turn around. I want to see,” the same man says, and I guess it’s him, Lucifer’s chancellor. It has to be, right?

Kaiden does just that, whirling me around. Adramelech’s gaze snaps to my face and then sails over my body slowly. He’s beautiful, even with the serpentine mask covering half of his face, the vibrant green scales accentuating the deep umber hue of his skin and his unsettling eyes. They look exactly like a snake’s eyes down to the pupils shaped like crescent moons. He’s sitting on the couch, his legs spread wide with an erection tenting his pants.

“Kneel at her feet and eat her out,” Adramelech demands.

Holy shit!

Is Kaiden really going to do this?

HERE?

My heart beats wildly in my throat, and I’m impossibly aroused at the idea that the people outside can watch us through the two-way mirror.

Shit, shit, shit.

I can’t believe this is going to happen.

Kaiden circles me with sure steps, and his gaze never leaves mine as he kneels at my feet, drapes one of my legs over his shoulder, and parts one of the side slits in my dress. He lets out a sharp curse the moment his eyes find my naked center, then they slam into mine, all fire and brimstone. His hands move upwards on the curves of my hips beneath my dress. His fingers flex, biting into my skin and keeping me upright. I whimper and almost pass out when his tongue sneaks out and licks my slit from my back hole to my clit.

A sexy as fuck sound between a rumble and a low growl leaves Kaiden’s chest as he starts feasting on my pussy like a starved man, his tongue wet and hot against my soaked slit. He starts sucking and biting on my engorged clit. Then, he flattens his tongue against it before licking me in maddening circles. He repeats the cycle again and again and again.

My fingers thread through his hair, and I push him closer to me, desperate for more as I pant and strangled moans of pleasure leave my mouth. My eyes slam shut, and my toes curl at the onslaught of pleasure. I’m flushed everywhere. Sweat dots my forehead and travels between my breasts as lightning seizes every nerve ending in my body.

I’m so close. So close.

Before I get the chance to come, Adramelech says, “That’s enough. Come here.”

Kaiden nips my clit and gives it one more suck before he stands, and I don’t miss the inferno blazing in his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobs hard in his throat, and his expression smolders as he licks his lips, not missing a drop of my arousal.

On shaky legs, I stride to Adramelech with Kaiden at my back and stop in front of him.

With a smirk, he says. “Open my zipper and straddle me.” His gaze flits to Kaiden. “You’re going to fuck her ass while I take her cunt.”

Um, WHAT?!?

I didn’t agree to this. Kaiden touching me is something else. As gorgeous as Adramelech is, I don’t want him. I try to take a step back, but I slam into Kaiden’s hard body and realize there’s no way for me to escape. I really hope Kaiden has a plan because if not, I’m going to kill him.

Kaiden places a hand at my waist and squeezes me reassuringly. I suck in a choppy breath and place one of my trembling knees on one side of Adramelech’s body on the couch and then the other, straddling him. The artery on the side of my throat is fluttering so violently it’s about to burst as I start unzipping Adramelech’s pants and feel his erection throbbing against my hand.

The sound of Kaiden opening his zipper slashes through the air like a loaded gun in the silence before he grabs my hips and lifts my dress at my back.

Adramelech’s eyebrows furrow, and he sneers at me. “What are you waiting for? Take my dick out,” he snaps as he circles my wrist in a punishing grip.

All of a sudden, Kaiden pushes me from behind, plastering me to Adramelech’s chest, and with a swift move, he lodges the needle of the syringe in the side of his neck in a way that can’t be seen from the outside since the couch is pushed against the wall right below the two-way mirror.

Surprise, followed by red-hot anger, flashes in Adramelech’s eyes, but before he gets the chance to do anything, he passes out cold. Kaiden lifts me from Adramelech’s body like I weigh nothing more than a feather, plants me on my feet, and pops off, appearing at the wall farthest from us, placing his hand on its surface. Fire spreads from his open palm, and in a matter of seconds, it engulfs the entirety of the wall.

The acrid smoke is so potent, I start coughing as screams filled with panic erupt alongside the fire alarm, which blares with a high-pitched sound. Sprinklers go off in the room but have zero effect because this is hellfire; it can’t be put out using water.

“Give me a hand?” Kaiden asks as he appears next to the couch, and we both prop Adramelech on our sides with his arms around the napes of our necks like we’re carrying a drunk, dragging his feet across the floor. He’s heavy as fuck, and he’s even taller than Kaiden, but with his weight distributed between us, it’s not that hard to carry him.

The fire spreads toward us, but Kaiden simply flicks his hand, and the fire suddenly stops then sprints in the opposite direction like a live entity. My eyebrows shoot up, and I let a little gasp of surprise at his ability to control hellfire like that. Could it be possible that the Kabal mistook hellfire for illum ? In my mind, that’s the only reasonable explanation.

We get out of the room in the midst of a panic-induced frenzy. People are trampling each other in the narrow corridor to get to the exit. Kaiden tilts his head, pointing to a spot in the black wall, saying, “This way.” He pushes with his shoulder on a concealed door that perfectly blends into the wall, and we go down the flight of stairs quickly to exit at the back of the mansion, facing the sprawling grounds and the garden with a hedge labyrinth at its center.

Kaiden’s Escalade is waiting for us, and it’s already running. We descend the last three steps and amble to the back of the car. Kaiden opens the trunk, and we push Adramelech’s unconscious body inside. My chest bounces as I take huge gulps of fresh air, trying to get as much as I can into my lungs.

My dress is completely soaked and plastered to my body from sweat and water, but now that we’re outside, a chilly breeze makes all the hair on my body stand on end. I watch as Kaiden secures Adramelech’s wrists and ankles with chains that I’m sure must be spelled. He closes the trunk, and we get in the car quickly.

“You okay?” Kaiden asks as he throws the SUV into drive and peels away like a bat out of Hell, rounding the house and speeding through the same gravel driveway he drove through when we arrived.

“Yeah,” I respond and watch the chaos we’re leaving behind. The party attendees are spilling out of the mansion in a panic while the dark flames spread like wildfire under a huge cloud of smoke.

“What happens now?” I inquire after a few beats of silence.

“We’ll get him to the basement in my building, and I’ll torture him for information,” Kaiden replies nonchalantly, his eyes on the road. The frost and detachment in his tone chills me to the bone.

“I want to be there when you question him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good ide—”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion then. As long as you’re questioning him about me, I have every right to be there. And I didn’t just risk my ass for nothing,” I snap.

“Fine,” Kaiden clips out, jaw taut with tension. He rakes a hand through his wet hair to push it back. Fuck me. He looks like one of those models that they purposefully douse with water before a photo shoot. He discarded his suit jacket on the backseat alongside our masks a little while ago, so his white dress shirt displays his perfectly etched chest and abs. As if he wasn’t attractive enough, his tattoos stand out through the see-through fabric. And let’s not even talk about the fact that his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. Theway the veins in his inked forearms snake along the corded muscles is making my mouth water.

I bet I look like a drowned cat next to him.

Ugh.

Trying to keep the dread crawling beneath my skin from sending me directly into the claws of a panic attack, I clear my throat. “So, is Maeve one of your exes?”

“Having an ex would imply that I do relationships. I don’t do relationships, hand-holding, or kissing. Never have.”

“Oh,” I say and swallow. He did those things with me, though. Well, he only grabbed my hand so he could pull me to the dance floor, but it still counts as hand-holding in my mind. Not so sure it counts in his though. Probably not. “So she’s like a fuck buddy or what?” I press, knowing that it will drive me crazy if I don’t get a clear answer from him.

“I don’t do those either.”

I want to ask him what we are, how he defines this…thing between us—if there even is something to define—but I don’t, not knowing if I truly want an answer to that, so I ask instead, “So, what does that mean, that you don’t do kissing? You’ve never kissed someone before?”

Kaiden licks his lips, and the intensity in his eyes as his gaze locks with mine makes my heart skip a beat. “Until you, I have never kissed anyone, so no. You were my first and only kiss.”

Whoa!

My eyebrows shoot up almost to my hairline. That is definitely not the answer I was expecting to get in return. “But why?” I ask stupidly while fumbling with my fingers in my lap. He has got to be lying, right? Does he really want me to believe that in all of his life, he’s never kissed anyone?

He opens his mouth, then closes it as if he changed his mind at the last second. “I never felt the need to kiss anyone else. It always felt too intimate,” he says after a few beats of silence, hiking a shoulder.

His response renders me speechless, so I turn around to look out the window as we cruise through the empty streets of Ashville.

“I need your light to burn me from the inside out, and if only ashes are all that’s left of me, then it will all be worth it because at least I got a taste of Heaven.”

Why can’t I get his words out of my head? Why are they seared into my brain? My chest rises and falls with a choppy inhale as my heart thunders in my ears.

He kissed me.

He kissed me .

He kissed me.

He held me in steadfast arms on a magical night as fireflies danced all around us. He chased my nightmares away as the beat of his heart lulled me to a peaceful sleep. With a single kiss, he set my soul on fire and blew my world to ashes, turning it upside down. And as hard as it is to admit, all of my fears became true because it felt…transcendental.

Now, I don’t know where I stand. What my role in this world is anymore. I think…Fuck, I think I’m starting to have feelings for him. We belong in different worlds. Our paths should have never crossed, but now they seem impossibly intertwined.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

You can’t be with him, Iris!

You can’t have feelings for a demon!

This can’t be happening. It will ruin my life. It’s just lust between us. Yeah, nothing more than lust. I’m reading too much into things. Maybe if I finally give into the temptation, I’ll get it out of my system…get him out of my system. Then, I can move on with my life and forget all about Kaiden. My stomach takes a nosedive at that thought, but I don’t look too much into it. I can’t look too much into it.

So I focus instead on everything else that happened tonight. I never thought I would be into those sort of things…but if I’m being truthful to myself, I more than enjoyed it; I loved it. I wish Adramelech had let me come, at least, because the proximity to Kaiden in the car’s cab is almost too much to handle. Thinking about everything that has happened tonight is making me all hot and bothered, and my nipples harden against the wet fabric of my dress.

Suddenly, Kaiden swerves right into a dark alley and slams the brakes, stopping the car in between two buildings. “What are you doing?” I ask as my eyebrows pull together in confusion. Iwhip my head toward Kaiden. With a gulp, my eyes drop to the death grip his tattooed hands have on the steering wheel. He turns off the headlights.

He’s shrouded in shadows, the rays of moonlight filtering through the windshield, making his eyes gleam. Without a word, he’s on me like a flash. He cages me in against the seat as he pulls the lever and flattens the chair while pushing it back to the max. Using his knee, he parts my thighs, then settles between them. A breathy moan escapes my lips when he starts rolling his erection over my center. He swallows the sound as his lips come crashing down on mine in a scorching kiss that steals the breath in my lungs and ignites a fire in every cell of my body.

With a forceful tug, he rips the thin spaghetti straps of my dress, eliciting a yelp out of me, and pushes down the corset, exposing my breasts. He takes them in each hand, using his thumbs to circle my nipples.

Kaiden pulls away and swallows audibly as his gaze travels the length of my body like a caress. “You’re perfect. So goddamn beautiful.” He dips and sucks one of my nipples into his mouth, teasing and licking before lavishing the other one with the same attention.

My hands come up to hold onto the headrest for dear life as my nails dig into the buttery leather. “Ahhh…so good,” I pant. Back arching, I move my hips furiously, seeking more friction with my center over the bulge in his pants.

The windows fog over, and the air in the cab is thick with lust, mixing with Kaiden’s decadent scent. He fists the skirt of my dress and bunches it at my hips, shoving his palms under my ass cheeks as he slides down my body and kneels in front of the seat, burying his nose in my pussy and inhaling deeply.

“You might smell like heaven,” his voice comes out gruff, thickened by his desire. He spreads me open with his tongue, then spears it inside me. “But you know what you taste like, angel? Like sin. Like fucking mine,” he breathes against my wet heat before he starts licking me like a man possessed. My hips buck and his fingers flex in response. They bite into my flesh as he keeps me against his mouth, not giving me any reprieve from his wicked tongue.

The low growl of his voice rolls over me, and pleasure sieges me as I ride his face, mewls and desperate sounds I have never made before slicing through the air in the cabin. Kaiden slides down a hand, and he pushes two thick fingers inside me as he sucks on my clit.

“Oh, God!” I moan through heavy pants as pain blends with pleasure, the fingers stretching me deliciously. My legs start shaking violently as my toes curl.

“There’s no God, Iris, just me. I’m your God now. Whose knuckles are deep into your sweet pussy?”

“Y-yours, Kaiden. You are.”

“That’s right, love. Now be a good girl and come for me.” He scissors his fingers against my G spot and bites my clit. Hard. Then licks the pain away.

“Fuuuuck,” I cry out as pleasure like I never felt before detonates inside my body. It spreads through me like a lightning storm, frying my nerve endings and obliterating every coherent thought. Kaiden doesn’t stop the onslaught with his fingers against my G spot. The orgasm goes on and on and on. My eyes slam shut as fireworks go off behind my eyelids, and I realize I’m experiencing my first multiple orgasm. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes and run down my cheeks from its intensity. It’s almost too much.

I’m floating somewhere on a cloud with limbs turned to jelly, unable to open my eyes. I feel Kaiden cleaning me up with his tongue. He murmurs something I can’t make out because tiredness pulls me under, and I succumb to it.