Page 41 of An Unexpected Ascension (A War Between Worlds #1)

The Angel

He accompanies me down the stairs and to the West Wing of Lucifer’s manor, pausing at my door.

“I’ll just?—”

“I’m going to need your help,”

I cut him off.

“With my dress.”

“Okay.”

I lead him into my room, shutting the door behind us. Stopping before my bed, I grab hold of the wooden bed post, turning my back to Lynx. With steady fingers and nothing but his heavy breathing, he drags the zipper of my dress down. The purple fabric pools at my bare feet, leaving me in nothing but black lace and the daggers strapped to my thighs. His featherlight touch vanishes as his footsteps retreat.

“Wait.”

I stop him.

Spinning, he faces me, looking over the harsh black fabric against my pale skin. His gaze stops just above my pelvis and by the way his brows are knitting together, I know what he’s thinking.

“Don’t.”

I swallow.

“Don’t think about it.”

He snaps his stare back up to mine.

“Think about what?”

“Don’t think about that night. Forget it ever happened.”

He steps closer.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to look at me like that. Like I’m damaged.”

“Aren’t you? Isn’t that how you look at yourself, Angel?”

My heart sinks.

“I wish you never saw that,”

I whisper.

“I wish you never did that.”

He closes the distance between us, cupping my face in his hands.

“But I understand it.”

I fight the tears stinging my eyes and the lump in my throat.

“How can you?”

“Because if I were you, I probably would have done the same.”

I stare at him, at the pain etched in the features of his beautiful face. That pain he holds for me, the woman who’s related to the man that murdered his sister.

“You can kiss me now.”

The corners of his mouth quirk up in a smirk.

“Oh, can I?”

I nod, nibbling my lower lip between my teeth. My fists grip the lapels of his suit jacket to hold me steady. The anticipation of his mouth against mine nearly knocks me over.

He lowers his face.

“One of these days you’re going to kiss me, Angel. You’re going to kiss me of your own free will and you’re going to love every second of it. You’re going to kiss me because you fucking want to. Until then, I don’t mind being the aggressor.”

I don’t bother denying any of it as his lips crash into mine. Like a bomb finally detonating, his taste explodes against my tongue and his fingers thread through my hair anchoring me to him.

Though our mouths are the only parts of us caught in worship, I feel him everywhere. On my skin, caressing my swollen breasts, playing with the heat between my thighs. His kiss is consuming, rivaling the hottest pits in Hell.

“Fuck me.”

The heat of his mouth evades mine as he pulls away, his fist wrapped in the hair at the back of my head.

“You’re drunk.”

“So what? That didn’t stop you the first time.”

“No, but it’s stopping me now.”

He steps backward, putting space between us.

A frown mars my face as he distances himself.

“Why?”

He combs an inked hand through his hair, sighing heavily as if the idea of walking away from this is the hardest thing he’ll ever have to do.

“Because you’ll regret it in the morning and I’m tired of you hating yourself.”

I take a step toward him.

“I’ll always hate myself, Lynx, but it won’t be because of you.”

A slow smile creeps up on his face. He continues moving backward – not for the door, but the chair near the hearth in my room. With each step he takes, I take one too.

“I won’t lie. I like the sound of that. At least the part where I won’t be the cause.”

He lowers himself seamlessly into the purple velvet chair before shrugging off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt. He tosses them to the ground, then pulls me toward him by my hips. He kisses the bone protruding from each one while he unsheathes the blade from my left thigh.

“As for hating yourself, well I guess I’ll just have to love you for the both of us right now.”

“If you... love me—”

I swallow the words down.

“—then please, don’t be gentle. I need to feel something. Anything other than gentle.”

With a tantalizing stare, he slips the blade between the fabric of my panties and my skin, ripping it in one brutal yank. The black lace falls to the floor at my feet, and I kick it away.

My skin pebbles against the sharp tip of the dagger as he trails it slowly from my mound up the center of my stomach and to the fabric of my brazier, quickly ridding me of that too.

Standing naked before him, my nipples pebble beneath his gaze.

“Take off my belt.”

With eager fingers, I unfasten the leather from the gold metal prong, tugging the belt from the loops in his slacks. It hits the floor with a clank.

“Now, my pants.”

I obey, sliding them past his raised hips until they pool at his ankles. He kicks them off along with his shoes and sits in the velvet chair in his black undershorts.

“Keep going, Angel.”

I do and my mouth waters at the sight of his naked body on full display. Black ink caresses every contour of his body. From his legs up to his neck. It’s like the darkness from Hell has wrapped its shadows along his flesh and stayed there, seeping deep into his soul.

Sitting on my knees, I stare up at him from between his thighs. Amusement glitters back at me swirling between a navy-blue sea.

“Stand up and lay over my lap.”

“What?”

“Now.”

He barks, his tone deep and demanding.

I straighten on my feet, then lean over his lap with my stomach and chest resting on his thick, muscular thighs. A loud slapping noise echoes through the room as his hand comes down, striking my ass.

“Fuck!”

I squeak, the suddenness of the assault eliciting a shocked curse.

In response, he shoves three fingers into my mouth and down my throat until I’m gagging. Drool leaks out of the corners of my mouth just like the tears now trickling down my face.

“Don’t make a fucking sound. You’re going to take everything I have to give you like a good little angel, got it?”

I nod, and he spanks me again, the force of his hand against me shoving me forward on his lap. All I can do is whimper and take it, just like he demanded.

That rough palm of his rains down on the sensitive flesh of my ass until it’s raw and angry. Every inch of me he’s touched feels like I've been seared by a flame, my skin feverishly hot. Then he stops.

I wait.

Six, seven, eight...

Counting the seconds that tick by with nothing but his fingers stretching my throat, I begin to wonder if he’s done with me. If he’s changed his mind, but by the count of ten, my scream is fighting past the intrusion in my mouth.

With his other hand, he forces two fingers into my center, slipping in easily with the slickness of my arousal. He fucks into me with those fingers of his, relentlessly summoning an all-consuming orgasm. I can feel myself dripping, spilling down the insides of my thighs.

The pressure inside my lower belly builds until it’s nearly painful. My core heats with an unbearable fire ready to sear my entire body. Those familiar tingles begin in my toes, numbing my legs, tickling my stomach.

It becomes so overwhelming, and I prepare to burst into a million pieces until he yanks his fingers from within me, both ends utterly empty.

I pant, finally taking a full, unobstructed breath.

“Wha—”

“Oh, Angel. Did I say you could speak?”

he tuts, clucking his tongue seductively.

“No, but why did you stop?”

He chuckles.

“Clearly you don’t know what it means to shut the fuck up and take it, do you?”

He fists the hair at the back of my head, pulling me to stand.

“I guess you’re about to learn.”

Lynx positions me so I’m standing between his thighs and facing away from him.

“Bite this,”

he orders, handing over one of my daggers.

Hesitantly, I take it, placing the blade between my teeth, careful not to slice my tongue. Then, the palm of his hand splays against my middle back, silently urging me to bend over. I do, obeying him, folding nearly in half.

A stinging pain starts at the fleshy part of my right ass cheek, the other dagger in his hand. With slow, particular movements, he carves into me, taking his time. I can feel a sticky wetness start to trickle, dripping down my curves and onto the back of my thigh.

My teeth clamp down even harder, nearly cracking against the metal as he continues. My eyes burn with tears, but I asked for this. I wanted this. Do want this. So, I let him carve me up just as I had done to myself.

“Beautiful,”

he murmurs, rubbing his fingers through the blood now pooling from the wound.

I feel him stand behind me before he spins me around to face the chair. He maneuvers my arms to rest against the seat cushion and kicks my legs apart. With the same fingers he’s coated in my blood, he eases them into me. Only, not the part of me he’s claimed time and time again.

With the dagger still clenched between my teeth, I groan. Between the pressure of him spreading that piece of me that’s never been touched and my stinging flesh, I’m struck dizzy. I don’t know whether to cry or be grateful.

He pushes slowly, not one finger, but two. The intrusion is uncomfortable and burns just like the wound on my ass, but he keeps pumping ever so slowly. Even through the whimpers and tears and groans.

“Does this hurt, Angel?”

Devil, save me.

It does. It hurts so fucking bad.

I nod.

“When you speak without permission, you get punished. Do you understand?”

I let out a muffled sob and it breaks over the blade between my lips. The blade that’s now cutting into the corners of my mouth, drawing little pebbles of blood, but I still nod.

“You’re being so good right now, Angel. Taking your punishment. You stretch so nicely for me, almost like your body wants more. Do you want more?”

He adds another finger without waiting for a response and I lose my breath. Every muscle in my body stiffens and I accommodate more of him than I thought physically possible.

I shake my head, the movements choppy as his fingers demand every bit of my attention.

“No? You don’t want more?”

He stops pumping his fingers, leaving them deeply inside of me.

“You don’t want to come?”

I whine, nodding now.

“Well, which is it?”

He takes the dagger from my mouth, dropping it to the floor and waits for me to answer.

“I want to come.”

“That’s what I thought. Stand up.”

“I-I can’t.”

“Why not?”

My body shudders, shivers rolling through me.

“You’re still inside of me.”

“Then let me help you.”

He wraps his fist in my hair and pulls the upper half of my body until I’m flush against his chest. My back arches and I gasp, the movement forcing me to clench around his fingers. I feel so uncomfortably full I want to cry.

“Wrap your arms around my neck. You’re going to want to hold on.”

I reach behind me, doing just as he ordered and he slides his other hand over my belly, continuing south. Sparks of unbelievable pleasure ignite through me as he massages me exactly where I need him to. He rubs and circles and strums until I’m writhing against him and screaming in blissful agony. All the while he viciously pumps with his other hand.

The combination is lethal. It’s confusing. It’s torturously magnificent.

I feel like the very act belongs in Hell.

Stars burst before my eyes, the room swaying and swirling as all the blood rushes from my head. I’m twitching against him as his fingers draw forth a maddening orgasm. As a scream barrels past my lips, Lynx withdraws his fingers. Relief settles over me at the emptiness, but it’s short lived as he spins me around to face him. He lifts me beneath the thighs, allowing me to wrap my legs around his waist.

In the same moment he sits, I sink down on him, but he doesn’t move. He looks over me, the tears covering my face, the blood seeping at the corners of my lips, the saliva covering my chest.

His thumbs brush over my nipples as his tongue laps at the corners of my mouth, which he ends with a simple kiss.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,”

I whisper, wondering if I am in fact okay.

“Here.”

He hands me the dagger from the floor next to us.

My hands tremble as I take it, aftershocks of my orgasm still shivering through me.

“No.”

I shake my head as he wraps his hand around mine and brings the blade to his chest.

“No, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s only fair.”

In slow strokes, he carves two letters over his heart, drawing deep a crimson rivulet traveling down his pec.

“Why?”

I wonder as I stare at my initials now cut into the demon’s flesh.

“To match yours.”

“You carved my initials in my own ass?”

He chuckles, dropping the dagger once more.

“No, Briar. I carved my initials into your ass.”

I swallow, suddenly overcome with emotion I can’t even put into words.

“Hermes or Lynx?”

“Lynx of course. Lynx Cromwell. LC right on your ass.”

He smiles triumphantly and my heart nearly bursts at the sight. The feeling almost as intense as the orgasm he just gave me. Almost as insane as the one he’s about to give me. With a brutal force, he slams his mouth against mine, devouring me as he works his hips. He thrusts up into me and as I moan, he swallows it whole.

Calloused fingers dig into my hips, holding me in place as he fucks me so roughly the sound of our skin slapping together sings over his grunts and my panting. He wraps his hand around the back of my head and pulls me close, our lips touching for only a moment and losing connection with the animalistic way he pounds into me.

“Fuck, you’re perfect. I could do this for eternity, Briar.”

A strangled cry echoes in the room, and my head falls back as he hits that sweet spot inside of me. He fucks me like he’s a priest exercising all my demons and I’m ready to surrender. His body, a prayer purging the darkness that claims my soul, clearing it for lighter things. Perhaps things like...

“I lov?—”

His hand covers my mouth.

“Don’t say those words to me right now, Briar. I want you to fucking mean them, not because I’m making you come.”

He doesn’t allow me to respond as he finishes me off, tearing apart everything inside my soul, shattering me to pieces before putting them back together again. He groans, low and heady, and the sound is everything I need to let go.

I scream his name as I pulse around him, my walls holding onto him so tightly I can feel the twinge in his cock as he spills himself inside of me.

He wraps his arms around me, cradling my body to his chest as he moves down to the floor. I stare up into his eyes, his fingers brushing a strand of hair away from my forehead as he rocks back and forth in a gentle rhythm.

“I love every moment we spend joint together, but can I fuck you how I think you deserve to be fucked now?”

“Is that even physically possible?”

“Very much so.”

He smiles proudly.

Smirking, I nod.

“Then by all means.”