Page 28 of Below the Shadow of the City
CHAPTER 28
I pad across the laundry room, now a well worn path to get to Maddox’s place. Quickly we have formed this rhythm, and the laundry room serves us better as a bridge between our two worlds as opposed to a utilitarian space for chores.
There’s a romantic nostalgia in the space now. Tromping down the stairs makes me think of the hurried love confession I’d given him when the weight of keeping my emotions buried was too much to bear. When I pass the third washer from the right I can only think of how he lifted me on top of it and parted my legs with his tongue with such tact I thought he was a trained professional. As I approach the doorframe I envision his silhouette casually leaning against it. It’s stupid that checkered linoleum and rusting appliances in a mildew infested room make me swell with warmth in a way that cobblestone streets and waterfront parks never have. Maybe that’s what it is to be in love, you can find big romantic emotions tucked away into the smallest, most mundane things.
I smooth out the wrinkles in the vintage velvet dress I’ve picked for the night. He’s taking me to dinner at one of his alleged favorite places, right down the street from his apartment. I’ve gotten the grand tour of his neighborhood by way of restaurants. Our outings are always in his realm. Something about dating someone who lives in an underground society built for monsters and fae makes it tough to casually get dinner at New York’s hottest restaurants. I’ve promised to bring him takeout from all of them, if anything just to prove to him I’m right about most of them being vastly overrated.
I walk through the dark and damp corridor towards the elevator to his building. It’s a labyrinth of dark cinder blocks, and I’d gotten lost entirely the first few times I visited without him leading the way. My boots echo in the hall as I count the doorways until I reach the correct entrance.
Suddenly, a force stops me. It reaches around my shoulders and holds me firmly in place. Claws dig into my skin and I forget how to breathe. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone, or anything, else down here. I catch my breath and without a millisecond of hesitation, I scream. Loudly.
A rough hand covers my mouth to stop it and claws brush against my cheek. Fear floods every vein. Then, a familiar scent wafts into my nostrils while the assailant’s other arm spins me around. Maddox is standing in front of me, biting his lip trying to not laugh out loud. He lowers his hand from my face and I playfully smack him in the chest. My hands do little against his broad muscles stretched underneath a black long sleeve shirt.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole!” My voice echoes down the empty hallway.
“I wanted to surprise you?” He shrugs with a stifled chuckle.
I gently smack him again, “you scared the shit out of me! I thought I was about to get kidnapped or killed!”
“Now, you know I would never let that happen,” his voice lowers .
“Right, because the only horrible creature lurking down here is you .”
He replies with an eye roll, and in silence grabs both my shoulders again and pulls me in for a kiss. Work has been busy, it’s been days since I’ve been able to see him. And god, he’s ravenous. He’s practically inhaling me. I manage to wrap my arms around his waist while our mouths mingle. His fangs brush against my cheeks while his diaphragm rumbles.
My purse slides off my shoulder onto the ground and he pushes me against the wall behind me. Our bodies are pressed together and heat radiates off of him.
“I could rip that dress clean off you right now,” he growls into my clavicle. His claw traces up under my skirt and I immediately clench. There’s a heat spreading between my legs, even his lightest touch causes me to completely come undone.
“Absolutely not this one,” I shakily exhale. “It's one of my favorites.”
“You expect me to be a gentleman when you look like this?” His hand grips my waist, each of his fingers holds me in a vice grip. It’s safe, familiar now.
“I expect you to at least take me out to dinner before devouring me yourself,” I reply. He relents and pulls back with a huff. I place a hand on each side of his face and pull him in for a final prolonged kiss.
Once we part, our eyes meet and a crooked smile spreads across his face. “Then dinner you shall have. But you know, sometimes I have these more…primal…instincts. Things that generations out of the forests have tamped down that our bodies haven’t forgotten completely.” He looms above me, a strand of my hair is curled around his index finger and loops around his claw.
“Oh?” I raise a brow at him, there’s a heat blooming between us, I feel a pressure from between his legs pressing into my hip. I wrap my hands around his waist and pull him closer to me, a few layers of fabric separate us.
“Right now, Sigrid, you’re prey. And I really do desperately need to sink my teeth into you,” I tremble a bit with fear, he notices my eyes widen and extends a wink. I visibly soften, and a sly smile spreads across my face.
“I need you to do what any good prey does.” He speaks and runs his tongue across his teeth, lingering on his gleaming white fangs.
“And what’s that?” I tease.
He wraps his hand around my neck and pulls me in closely, my heartbeat quickens as I feel his hot breath creep up my chin and across my hairline. I’m taking short shallow breaths.
“ Run ,” he growls into my earlobe, and I act on instinct.
I take off down the hallway, towards his side of the building. It’s long, there are plenty of alcoves and doorways to slip through. I can hide away unnoticed. That is, if I’m fast enough. My heeled boots aren’t necessarily the ideal running shoe, and their clacking makes my location all the more obvious.
My heart races, instinctual fear and arousal meld together in an intoxicating cocktail coursing through my limbs. I duck into a hallway, one I’d never noticed before, and a shadow runs past. It’s a regular Scooby-Doo villain scene. I pause for a moment and catch my breath.
There’s a flash of movement from the corner of my eye, one I recognize. My mind flickers to the memory of him looming in the alleyway, if only I’d known then how invigorating it would feel to be chased by that creature. The little light that shone down the hall is blocked by a massive figure. Just beyond where I stand it fades into the darkness.
I have two choices, relent, or risk whatever lies beyond. He and I are having a brief standoff, and it’s clear what my answer is. I sprint off into the dark. A growl echoes down the hallway and reverberates across the cinderblock walls and into my chest. His footsteps grow closer, and my legs are growing heavier. There’s a swipe at my dress, I barely escape his grasp.
“Rip it and I’ll fucking kill you before you can get even a taste of my skin,” I breathlessly shout over my shoulder.
“I’d like to see you try,” he laughs as he bounds after me. “It might be best for both of us then if you take it off.”
I slow my running and duck into another alcove to slide my dress over my torso. I cast it off behind me and wince at the thought of it landing in a murky puddle or becoming a home for a family of spiders. It’s cold down here, not as chilly as the November air outside, but certainly not warm enough to prance around in only a bra and underwear.
The heat of the chase and the thrill of him almost literally nipping at my heels quickly warms me.
My shoulders are jerked back in a swift motion as I slow down. Thick leathery palms grip my skin and pull me towards the beast I’ve been running from. A satisfied growl emanates from Maddox’s chest now that he’s caught his prey.
He wraps his arms around me from behind and pulls me up against his soft chest. I realize his shirt has also disappeared in the thrill of the chase.
“You gave up all too easily,” he snarls into my ear, it trickles down my spine and settles in my core. My heart is still pounding, I’m shaking from the cold, but the heat of his body is quickly putting that to rest.
“I can only outrun a predator for so long,” I pant. He grips tighter and kisses up and down my neck. Every time his lips meet my skin or a fang brushes against a goosebump my legs tremble. The deep rumbling in his chest grows louder the more kisses he gives. He’s devouring me. He works his way across my body, hot ragged breaths spread across my clavicle and down my sternum.
“Off,” he moans .
“What?” My heart rate is through the roof.
“Your bra,” he says brusquely. “I need you to take it off.” My trembling fingers clumsily unclasp the hooks in back and it drops unceremoniously to the ground. He grabs my hips and spins me until I’m facing the wall and he’s behind me.
“So…perfect,” he says with a pained whimper. The way it slips out of him sounds like it’s from a much lesser creature, as if I was captured in a forest by him and he had only learned English from hunters passing through. My body beside his brings out the animal in him, and it’s intoxicating. I squirm a bit underneath him pinning me against the wall.
“We don’t have time for me to knot you, even though I really, really want to,” he grumbles. “But I will be fucking you.”
He spreads my legs apart with a forceful swift motion I haven’t seen from him before.
Growls escape his mouth uncontrollably as he pulls his claw along in a line across my thigh. “In fact, he continues. “I’m going to fuck you just like my ancestors did, quick, and rough, and let my inner animal take over. You have to tell me that’s what you want, Sigrid”
Oh. Oh my god. I didn’t think that I’d want to be ravished by the beast like this. Holy shit, though, him saying it has swiftly changed my mind.
“Maddox,” I exhale, my voice is weaker than I’d expected, “yes. Fuck yes.”
“If you change your mind, you need to tell me, and I’ll stop immediately,” he says sternly. In a motion I can’t quite perceive, he shifts. Physically, nothing changes. Nothing major, at least. I notice his brows lower, his eyes grow dark, and his body feels like it becomes more imposing despite his height not changing. I know sweet, silly, dorky Maddox is still there, lingering below. But whoever this is, is really, really fucking hot.
He doesn’t speak. It’s only grunts, and growls, and needy moans that come out of him. Typically I love him talking to me, I love his voice punctuating his thrusts and telling me what I do to him as he fucks me. I don’t have words coming from him now yet I still know exactly how mad I drive him.
Maddox’s cock slides into me in a coarse motion that could best be described as him rutting me. I’m completely aroused, despite the sharpness of the entrance he slides in smoothly as I intake a short breath. He moves fast, and his balls slap against my skin as he thrusts.
His mouth encases my shoulder, and sudden, sharp pain explodes in me. His teeth don’t completely break the skin, but the idea of him marking me in such a manner is so fucking erotic.
I cry out for him, keeping myself from speaking any real words as well. Normally he’s so tender and gentle with me. His claws now dig deep into my shoulders and the idea of him creating indents in my skin is absolutely sending me over the edge. He pulls out, growls, and he thrusts again. He repeats this until he finishes inside me with an aggressive roar.
I come immediately after he does in a ragged, shaking, sobbing, manner. I’m far more spent than he’d made me before and I wonder if this creature was always lurking within him. I love how regular Maddox makes me feel. I just certainly wouldn’t mind if this monster came out every so often. And from the lazy satisfied smile he’s giving me, I sense he feels similarly.
“Do you know where we are?” I laugh as I push myself off of the cinderblock wall, our coordinated breathing slowing steadily. He eases back up and looks at our surroundings. We’re at the dead end of a long, dimly lit corridor. Not necessarily the most romantic of settings.
“Why, does it scare you being trapped here with me?” He snarls and drags a claw along the scratches he made and the pink throbbing bite marks .
I sputter a laugh and punch at his chest, “of course not, I just don’t know if my legs will stop feeling like they’re made of jelly to walk all that way.”
“Oh, well, I can fix that.” He sweeps his arm behind my knees and picks me up in a smooth motion. He carries me as we pick up our discarded clothes, and all the way back to the elevator.