Page 25

Cat

“ W hy do we have to climb to the top?” I complained, clinging to Madde’s back as he trudged up a dark hill in Death’s domain.

He turned to give me a sulky look. “I promised you the best view in the whole domain, and my lioness gets what she wants.”

I couldn’t remember asking for that, but it didn’t matter.

I tightened my arms around him, my thighs on either side of his waist, and tucked my face into his shoulder, pulling his honeyed scent deep into my senses.

A weight fell away when it settled, when the bright, larger than life presence of him settled in my soul.

“The view’s pretty enough from here,” I protested, but Madde kept climbing, refusing to let me down even though I could walk.

He didn’t stop until we reached the top, and though he should have been out of breath and exhausted, it was excitement on his face as she swung me around to his chest. I squeaked at the sudden motion, clinging to his neck.

Madde laughed and kissed me, his hands cupping my ass to keep me from falling.

Keeping me safe, the way he said I always kept him safe.

“I thought we were here for the view,” I murmured between kisses, arching against him when he took command of the kiss, making my head spin with greedy, possessive sucks.

My lips tingled and I eagerly opened to him, a deep clench in my belly when he immediately took advantage of it to claim me, consume me, own me.

“You’re here for the view,” he replied, husky and deep, almost a growl. “So hold onto my shoulders and keep your eye on the mountains, my lioness.”

“What—”

I caught my breath when he slid me down his body. The moment my feet connected with the sloped ground, he dropped to his knees and lifted the long, purple dress I wore.

“Madde,” I hissed, staring at the hill around us—the tallest in all the domain—and the mountains across the valley below us, jagged and beautiful, piercing the soft pink sky.

And my Madness kneeling in supplication, the soft light gilding his red hair, the high planes of his cheeks, the enticing curves of his mouth, the adoring obsession in his cashmere eyes.

“Eyes on the view, my lioness,” he said with enough steel to be a command.

I shuddered and forced my gaze away, focusing on the streaks of pink in the sky, the soft clouds whisking across the tops of the mountains.

Madde was right; this was the best view in the whole domain.

But I wished I could look down at him as he kissed a slow, meandering trail up my inner thigh.

“This is my favourite thing in the whole world,” he groaned, scattering kisses across the sensitive seam of my thigh.

“My pussy?” I asked with a soft laugh, my fingers flexing with the urge to touch him.

“Kneeling for you,” he corrected with a kiss to my clit that made me jerk, a flash of heat and sensation coursing through my body.

“Oh.”

A soft wind stole my gasp, dancing through my hair, stroking my suddenly sensitive skin where the dress bared my shoulders, my arms, and my legs where Madde had rucked up the gauzy fabric.

His tongue glided from my entrance to my clit once, reserved, patient—and then he devoured me with all the unrestrained furore of a madman. I caught my breath, trapping my bottom lip between my teeth as sensations assaulted me from all angles.

Madde wasn’t one to pace himself, to build me up slowly.

He ate me desperately, and so frantically that my head began to spin, my breaths turning sharp.

I sank my fingers into his soft hair and gripped tightly, needing something to hold onto as he let out a steady rumble of moans and indulgent noises.

I dragged my stare from the mountains to my darkness, admiring the sight of my fingers twisted in his hair, the flush on his freckled cheeks, the sheen across his dark eyes as he devoured me.

A loud protest left me when he removed the heat and suction of his mouth. “Madde—”

His eyes met mine and narrowed with warning. “I told you to watch the view.”

“But I want to watch you,” I confessed breathlessly, the cool brush of the wind across my shoulders making me shudder.

The dress scooped low across my shoulders, baring more of me than I’d usually like, 1 but I loved the chill, and I loved the way Madde’s eyes fixed to my curves before following them up my throat to my face, a flash of obsession lighting them from the inside.

“I understand completely,” he replied huskily. “I never want to take my eyes off you. Or my hands. Or my mouth.”

“Madde, please.”

He was taunting me now. I throbbed with sharp, insistent demand, so needy that arousal dripped from me. Madde darted out his tongue so the drop landed on his tongue, and swallowed it with a groan. The sight, the sound, the sheer eroticism of the act, drove me right to the edge.

“Please,” I repeated, and threw my head back when Madde’s sharp, flicking tongue returned to my core.

“God—” When he circled his tongue and wrapped his lips around my aching clit, I was gone.

My eyes slammed shut. My breathing cut off as volts of sheer, electric pleasure charged every nerve ending, until my whole body was alive with it.

I grabbed his shoulder when my knees weakened, but Madde was already wrapping his arms around the backs of my thighs, keeping me upright, keeping my pussy moulded to his mouth.

“Oh, god,” I hissed, my eyes flashing open when he kept eating me. “Madde, I can’t come again so soon.”

His low growl argued with that. His insistent tongue promised I could, and would, right now.

I tightened my fingers in his hair, bowing over him as the second orgasm hit with enough force to ruin me. I didn’t care about the view he’d carried me up a hill to see; I only cared about Madness and his unwavering hold on my body and his relentless mouth.

When he kissed my pussy and dropped back a few inches to look up at me, when I remembered how to engage my brain-to-mouth impulses, I breathed, “I love you, Madde.”

He pressed an arch of kisses around my pussy, making me smile at the infatuated way he burned every kiss into my skin. “I love you, too, my Cat. You need to come home, I hate it here without you.”

“I will,” I promised, stroking hair back from his forehead. “Promise.”

He rose in a rush, catching me around the waist and crushing his mouth to mine. He tasted of honey and devotion and me. I framed his face with my hands and pressed myself flush to his body, deepening the kiss until he was groaning and panting into my mouth.

I’d just reached between us for his cock when the dream tore away. I was alone in my bed.

With a guttural scream of frustration, I whipped the covers back and threw myself out of bed, dressing in a rush of anger. I barely paid any attention to the clothes I dragged onto my body.

Anger and hurt and deep, aching longing for my men pushed me out of the bedroom, and I fully intended to grab Cruelty and demand her tell me where Death was—

No, not Death. She’d never had Death. She had him. Alfie. The charming, cheeky, curly-haired man who’d made those masquerades bearable.

I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he was mine, and Cruelty didn’t get to play games with him. She didn’t get to keep him from me.

The moment I stepped into the hall, all my plans ground to a halt, and my anger skipped a beat.

Fairy lights had been strung in great swags along the walls, swaths of gold silk and silver velvet tangled around them.

I followed the line of the fabric with my eyes, not sure if it was a guide rope that would lead me out of the darkness or a velvet arrow pointing into hell. Probably the latter.

At the end of the hall stood a tall, looming statue.

“Motherfucker,” I hissed, grinding my teeth. It was made of the same alabaster as the statues she’d arrayed in Old Ford House, and a golden mask made of laurel leaves perched on the statue’s cheekbones.

I couldn’t help but notice the dress and mask hanging from a hook by the window.

Pure black fabric was cut in an elegant sheath, but when I picked it up, gritting my teeth, it was backless except for a spinal cord made entirely of gilded bones.

The mask matched, a flimsy construction of what looked like finger bones.

My stomach dropped.

Cruelty had thrown another masquerade ball, right here in Darkmore.