Page 50 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Messy and chaotic, just like us

Val

D elaney gasps, her back arching prettily off the bed, head nearly touching the dark wood headboard. Her perfect skin gives little resistance as I push the sharp needle through.

Her face contorts in the most delectable mixture of pleasure and pain.

I always knew we were perfect for each other, from the very moment I first laid eyes on her.

I can’t wait for when I get to do all the things I only just threatened.

But not until she wants it because she trusts me, because she’s so hungry for me she can’t imagine not taking everything that I can offer and giving me her all in return—rather than out of want to feel hatred for me.

No. I will have every piece of my wife, including her heart. And she is going to give it to me.

“It is difficult,” I croon. Incredibly difficult, might I add. “Not reaching my hand back between your thighs right now. See how much more you want me with your body fully marked by me. You fucking love this.”

Delaney doesn’t respond, not to confirm or deny.

But her cheeks have flushed red. She’s trembling, looking down with open mouthed awe at where my needle has claimed her.

Not much has been more evident in my entire life than the fact that my wife is positively itching for a fuck right now.

From me. I could make her come so easily.

Probably just a few simple strokes of my tongue over her clit.

Maybe a finger or two pushed in deep. Feeling how soft and hot she is from the inside.

But no, I am dedicated.

“Unfortunately, for you, I didn’t spend the whole night personally making your jewelry and the entire day practicing piercing others for the sole purpose that I not maim you only to get distracted now and do just that.”

Impulsive though I may be at times, I am still methodical. Why do something at all, if not to do it well?

“Finish what you started,” my wife breathes. So lascivious and needy. I knew she’d be into this.

I think she might also be enjoying the way I’m refusing to touch her. Ratcheting this painful, sinfully sweet anticipation so tight it’s going to absolutely shatter us when it breaks.

With a smirk, I say, “Finding a way to make me give you what you want anyways.” And instead of leaving the needle hanging out of her body and giving her exactly what she really wants, burying my cock inside of where she’s all warm and wet until we can come against each other once again— fucking finally —I focus.

My hands are steady and sure as I thread the vinculum barbell through Delaney’s nipple and then move on to the other breast to make it match.

She reacts just as well this second time, giving in to the subtle pain of me piercing her nipple as she did with the first. Even offers me a soft little moan that makes my cock throb harder, if that’s even possible.

I answer it with a groan in turn .

It would take an embarrassingly minute amount of effort to relieve my own ache.

Could probably palm my cock right over my pants, stroke hard once or twice, and come all over myself like an untried boy.

I could then take my clothing (ruined because of her) off and smear my cum all over Delaney’s face.

I bet she would like that. She certainly has an awfully ravenous gleam for someone who supposedly despises my existence.

But alas, I resist.

That is not what this is about. Even with how we both crave it.

I sit up to admire her. How beautiful she is. Those silver bars glinting against her pretty pink nipples.

“Fuck, that looks good,” I whisper accidentally.

I hadn’t at all meant to speak my sentiment aloud.

But a sight like this cannot go without praise.

My beautiful wife, hands shackled above her head, her hair an absolute mess from how she writhes for me.

Laid bare for me to do whatever I please—the proof of it glinting in her flesh—while she’s sweaty and red and shaking with desire.

I can feel her trembling beneath my thighs, pinning her waist down.

I really do love her.

“It is going to be sublime,” I whisper, rubbing a thumb against the bottom of her breast. “When I can suck these between my lips. Bite them.” Yes.

Clamp my teeth around those piercings and pull until she’s feral in my arms, begging for more.

Once she’s submitted to us, that is. “Would you like that?”

Delaney nods, slow and deep. “Yes.”

“Probably didn’t work in my favor either, speaking such filth in your ear, knowing that I had not a single intention of following through. ”

Slapping her pussy didn’t help matters much either. The wetness made the echoing clap around her chambers that much louder. The way she jumped.

Fuck.

”I want to give you what you need, ocellus. I really do.” I palm myself over my pants for emphasis.

Delaney observes the action—so hungry, so sensual, I want to pull my cock out and shove it in her mouth, just to make her full.

Fuck her face hard with both hands lost in her hair, pushing her down my length while I thrust into her.

Make her take it all. Make her gag, her throat tight around my cock.

Pull out to come all over those pouty lips. Watch her lick them clean.

Squeezing it tight once, I let my hot cock fall heavy again before I actually do come in my pants. I’m having to actively fight doing so—hard enough it hurts. I don’t let myself look down at her naked body, her pierced nipples, again. If I do, I’m going to explode.

I remember why I’m not allowing myself to give in, gazing into my wife’s face. “How could I deliver? After you told me we wouldn’t stay in each other’s arms when our tension is eased.”

Can’t have that.

She’s speechless. Too overtaken by wanting and sensation. I know that it hurts. It’s hurting me too.

Regardless, it was nice to see her desire and for her to give in to it so fully.

Hear her beg to have me inside of her, especially after the nightmare confrontation about Tabitha’s death last night.

Shockingly, it was worse than Rainah. Another infuriating unforeseeable.

Leave it to Tabitha to manage making my life a living infernum even from the grave.

The unshakeable cunt .

Loath to admit, perhaps Tabitha’s transgressions weren’t quite as grievous as some others.

Delaney’s willingness to let me pin her down, tie her up, and push needles through her body are a fantastic indicator that this is all about to implode. Her rejection is unsustainable. She can’t fight what we are. She was never going to be able to.

Delaney is breathing heavily, an expression of deepest torment written across her face. Stout enough to render her completely speechless. Pained. How terribly unsurprising that she’s not a fan of me playing her own tricks on her.

My own chest rises and falls rapidly, matching hers. Both heave with desire and the intensity of what we’re doing. This whole deranged scenario and the way it has us both raging and hot. The weight of it all hovers between us like an explosive.

There’s still another opportunity for a piercing left.

Delaney knows it as well as I do. Her stare keeps cutting to that third and final vinculum ring.

And I wonder if this is where she will draw the line.

Tell me it’s too much. Finally utter that one little word that she hasn’t at all wanted to say.

Stop .

She’s never asked me to stop before. I pray to the Nocturne that she won’t start now; that this is what it will take; that this may finally be the moment that I can make her see me .

“Some might think I shouldn’t have run with the technicality of you telling me if I came to the manor, you would slit your own throat.

But I know you. I know you . As much as you hate it and don’t want to be understood—least of all by me and give each other power to really make things hurt.

I know why you added that in. Because even though you can’t admit it, not even to yourself, you want me to fight for you like you believe that no one ever has before. ”

But I have fought for her—to the extent that I have begun a personal fucking war with a might that stifles deos . And forever, I will.

Maybe she’ll still reject me. Maybe I should have given her more space. Maybe this is the most inopportune moment to push, but despite Mallin’s urging to not be so aggressive and extreme, it’s time to be honest: I am an aggressive person of extremes. There’s no point in hiding that.

It’s time that I make her understand, whether she wants to or not.

Keeping eye contact, enchanting hazel windows pierce down to the deepest recesses of my soul in the way that only Delaney can, those blue speckles placed throughout like the eyelets decorating a moth’s wings.

She sees me just as much as I see her. She always has. It terrifies her.

A tether pulls between our stares, these threads that bind us beyond our vinculum , unbreakable even in my wife’s refusal to use her voice, to outwardly admit that she knows that I’m right.

We hold each other’s gaze as my hands come to her ribs, stroking her softly as I slide lower down her body, my intention written clear in my face. Waiting. Waiting . Waiting for just the right moment.

I come eye level with her cunt, so swollen and wanting and soaking wet.

Her clit is hard. Ready. Perfect. Mine.

I take my time, cleaning her off, Delaney giving off a soft moan as I touch her. I was right, it’s taking only a few lazy swipes for me to have her on the brink of shattering.

She’s breathing so very hard now, I can hear it loud.

Chaotic and messy, just like us.