Page 17 of Bewitched by the Phantom (The Bewitching Hour #6)

Chapter

Sixteen

A t some point, the rest of the band returns to the apartment and Erik leaves.

My guitar is now sporting new strings and is perfectly tuned.

Part of me misses the way his guitar had felt in my hands, but that’s silly.

Cynthia has been with me for years and it’s one of my most prized possessions.

My Phantom had helped me get it when my old guitar had gotten cracked by a drunk asshole at a bar trying to hit his friend over the head with it.

He’d knocked his friend out in the process.

But after holding Erik’s guitar, it felt more familiar than Cynthia does. Weird.

Ted gathers all of us an hour later. They’d apparently searched for Trixie more and there’s still no sign of her so they’d filed a missing person report.

Her band is super worried, but Ted convinces them to stay for the competition because, “Trixie would have wanted that.” I think that’s a terrible solution when their friend is missing, but though we’d all told them that, they decide to stay.

I’m sitting in the general area where most people hang out. I’m not the only one here. Plenty of people use this space to eat and talk and just do their own thing. I pull out my phone and open the chat to Phantom.

Are you ever going to tell me who you are? I hit send and wait.

After a few seconds, the little bubbles pop up. I wait, watching them carefully, before his answer comes through.

What are you willing to do to know me?

My fingers fly over my screen. Anything.

A voice memo comes through and I click play. He’s humming a melody low in his throat in the voice message. It’s a new one, pretty, seductive. I play it again when it ends, and then again, before I’m quickly scribbling down the notes so I don’t lose them.

Write us a song. Perhaps I’ll sing it with you , he sends after the voice memo.

“What are you doing?”

I nearly jump out of my skin. I was so engrossed in my scribbling that I didn’t even notice Raoul appear beside me. Looking up at him, I scowl.

“I’m writing. Why?”

“Who is that you’re texting?” he asks.

I tuck my phone away immediately. “That’s not any of your business. I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but?—”

“I heard he was in your room,” Raoul says, watching me carefully.

“So what if he was?” I growl.

He straightens. “Did you fuck him?”

Part of me starts to deny it, mostly because it’s the truth but also because I don’t particularly want the rumors to fly. They’re already flying after our performance. But the other part of me, the one that likes to stir shit, makes the decision before the rational side can.

“Maybe I did,” I spit. “Maybe I’ve been fucking him this whole time. Maybe I scream his name while his tongue dances over my clit. Is that what you want to hear, Raoul? Is that what you’re looking for?”

His face flushes in anger. “You’re an asshole.”

“Takes one to know one,” I fire back. “Stop asking questions you don’t wanna know the answer to. And figure out this overbearing asshole schtick you’ve got going on. It’s not cute.”

“I care about you,” he tries.

“You have a shit way of showing it,” I grind out. “Just leave me alone.”

He hesitates. “Chris?—”

“I said leave me alone,” I snarl. “Go away.”

He turns on his heel and storms away, his pretty blond hair flying behind him. Good. Maybe he’ll get the fucking hint.

“If you’re going to tell people I licked you, you should at least let me do it so I know how you really taste.”

I whirl, my face already turning red in embarrassment when I find Erik standing behind me. “What?”

“Don’t worry. I made sure to make a face at him when you said it so it would really hit home,” he teases, grinning down at me.

I bark out a laugh and shake my head. “Thanks for that. Sorry about him. He’s being an asshole.”

Erik shrugs and takes a seat. “He thinks he’s protecting you from the big bad wolf. I can’t fault him for that.”

“And are you?” I ask, watching him carefully.

“Am I what? The big bad wolf?” His eyes crinkle. “Maybe I am. I certainly would like to eat you up.”

I roll my eyes but my blush doesn’t go away. “Yeah, I get the point.”

“Do you?” he purrs. When I don’t answer, he holds out his hand to me. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

He runs his tongue along his teeth. “Trust me, angel.”

I shouldn’t. The conversation leading up to this may be a bad indicator that I’m about to do something I could regret. But he looks so carefree right now, so teasing, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it. Maybe fooling around will ease the yearning.

Slowly, I slip my hand into his and let him pull me to my feet. The way he leads me through the room feels like a lord leading a lady to her doom, but also her heaven. He watches me carefully the whole time, like I’m something worth looking at, like he can’t get enough of me.

So when he leads me to an old storage room full of dust and old chairs, I’m super confused. Part of the room is dark where a lightbulb is burnt out, but otherwise, it’s a very plain and normal room.

“Um . . . Erik?” I ask, glancing at him. “What are we doing here?”

He locks the door behind us and turns to face me. “Take your pants off.”

I freeze. “I . . . You can’t tell me what to do.”

The slow smile that curls his lips would melt even the coldest ice cube. It certainly works overtime on me.

“Would you prefer it if you were giving the orders?” he purrs. “Would you have me on my knees for you?”

He stalks toward me, his eyes hooded with desire. When he reaches me, he starts to sing low and deep in his throat. The words float over my skin, sending shivers through my body.

“ I saw you strung like a silver wire, tuned to tremble, built to burn. Every glance, a loaded choir, begging me to take a turn, ” he croons, his fingers reaching out to stroke along my arms, trailing up, caressing, until I find myself leaning back against him.

“ Whisper low, I’ll match your rhythm, sink in slow beneath your skin ,” he rasps in my ear, his lisp against my neck. “ I don’t need to ask permission. You’ve already let me in. ”

“Oh, god,” I groan as his hand strokes up my side and over to under my breast. His thumb brushes my flesh there, driving me insane.

His dark chuckle against my skin sends me into overdrive as his hand start to trail lower, to the waistband of my jeans.

He continues to sing a concert for only me, his voice like electricity across my skin.

His words wash over me, until I’m desperate for him, until I’m clenching my fists at my sides to keep from ravishing him.

“ Strike the chord, I’ll follow under, your pulse, my lightning, your breath, my thunder.

One note deeper, don’t look down. We’re past the point of turning ‘round .” His hand dips beneath my waistband and strokes down, his fingers testing my wetness.

When he finds me dripping, his words become a little more choked, a little rougher.

“ Kiss me once in minor key, then drown me in your melody. We’re not alive, we’re not alone, just flesh and fire and undertone . ”

I turn my head as his fingers stroke around my clit and he immediately kisses me, his lips moving over mine, claiming me so thoroughly, I don’t remember why I was protesting something like this happening.

I lose all sense of logic. I lose all sense of anything outside of this man serenading me and his hand stroking through my wetness.

All I know is that I want him. And if that’s in a dusty room like this, I don’t give a single fuck.

I’m kicking off my slippers before I’m conscious of making the decision. His fingers stroke me, before pressing deeper and circling my entrance.

“I should have taken you to my room,” he groans against my lips.

“Too late,” I growl back. “We’re doing this.”

The growl that comes from his lips should be terrifying as I reach back and stroke his hardness through his pants.

Instead, it only makes me want him more.

When he reaches up and roughly grabs me around the neck with his other hand, I don’t even care.

He could strangle me right here and I’d still ask him for more.

“You deserve to be worshiped,” he groans.

“So, worship me,” I fire back.

The breath he draws in is shaky, but then he’s jerking his hand out of my pants and reaching for the fastening.

I do my best to help him, shoving my pants down and kicking them off.

I reach for his but he steps back just out of reach before shoving me backwards against the edge of a table coated with dust. It covers my hands as I brace myself on it.

“You owe me a taste,” he snarls at me, before kneeling. He shoves my legs open around his shoulders and gets a good look at how wet I am for him. The sound in his throat is feral as he leans forward. “Sing my name, angel. Feed me.”

I throw my head back with the first touch of his tongue to my core, my hand spearing into his hair and holding on for dear life. The shadows in the room seem to close in on us as he strokes me with his tongue.

“Erik,” I groan, and a soft glow comes from where he dips between my legs.

He moans in pleasure. “Feed me, angel. Let me feast on the sound of your voice saying my name.”

Weird way to put it, but I’m too far gone at this point, my body wound so tight from his expert movements that I lack all thought except, “obey.”

“Erik,” I say again. “Oh, god. Oh, fuck. Erik!”

He presses in deeper against my core and my legs begin to shake. His tongue twists and turns, rolls against my clit, until I can’t contain myself. I shatter against his lips, crying out in pleasure, lost in an ecstasy that he drags out.

He pulls away and stands, looming over me as he leans forward to capture my lips. I can taste myself there, along with something else. Something ancient. Something dark.

“You belong to me,” he growls against my lips. “As I belong to you.”

“I need you,” I rasp, reaching for his t-shirt. “Please.”

He hesitates. “This isn’t the place I imagined this moment in.”

“I don’t care. The important parts are here.”

“Like what?” he asks.

“You. Me.” I reach down and stroke him through his pants again. “This.”

He laughs. “I don’t think you’re prepared for the monster I become when I’m fucking, angel. My hunger can’t be sated so simply. And you? I’ve hungered for you for centuries.”

I don’t even question it anymore. It’s just Erik. “Please.”

“You don’t have to beg, angel,” he breathes. “I’d do anything you’d ask of me.”

“Then why aren’t you fucking me?” I growl, looking him in the eyes.

His expression darkens. “You want to be fucked? You want everyone to know the rumors are true?” He grabs at my shirt and jerks it up over my head, leaving me completely naked before he cups my breast. “You want me to make you scream loud enough they could put it in a song?”

“Yes,” I hiss. “Yes, to all of it.”

“No,” he snarls. “I’ll record your cries myself. They’re mine!”

He slams his lips against mine again, his hand going to the fastening of his pants and freeing his cock.

I reach for him, curling my hand around the vaguely rough texture of him.

I go to pull away, to look down, but he stops me, forcing the kiss longer.

He jerks me to the edge of the table, dust covering my body, as he pins me beneath him.

It’s exactly where I want to be, my legs spread around him.

I’m desperate for him to fill me, to claim me, and tomorrow, we can go back to being rivals. Right now, I just need him.

“It’s been so long since I’ve slipped inside this wet cunt,” he groans, just before he slides inside with a heavy groan.

That’s where all the nice Erik dies.

The moment he’s inside me, stretching me wide while I moan out his name is the same moment he loses all sense of humanity. The snarls and growls that come from his lips as he begins to fuck me hard would scare a normal person. Not me though. Not when he’s making me feel like this.

I scream his name, desperate for the way he slams inside me, claiming me so thoroughly, I don’t think sex will ever be the same.

His lips are as brutal as his hips are, wringing every bit of pleasure from me, as he fucks me in a dusty, forgotten room.

He inhales my sound, like he’s literally feeding on it, and when I open my eyes to look at his face, that same glow emanates from his throat as he thrusts in and out of me.

“Sing for me, angel,” he growls, his words garbled and monstrous.

With each cry from my lips, the glow brightens. Still, I clutch at his shoulders, unafraid.

“Tell me,” he snarls. “Tell me that you’ve waited for me.”

“I’ve waited for you,” I cry out.

He jerks out of me and flips me, pressing me into the dust where I know I’m about to leave a really raunchy print behind.

“Tell me how long,” he snarls as he slams back inside me, bottoming out before repeating the action.

The new position has him hitting a different part of me, one that has my eyes rolling back in my head.

“Long,” I grind out. It’s the best I’ve got right now.

His hand wraps around my throat and drags me up, forcing my back to bow until his lips are at my ear. “Eighteen ninety-four,” he snarls. “I’ve waited for you since then.”

I don’t get a chance to be confused. He fucks me like a mad man and I shatter, exploding around him as he claims me so brutally, I realize he’d been honest about the monster he becomes.

He glows behind me as I scream, his own savage snarl mixing with my voice and harmonizing with mine until his cock starts to jump inside me, his own release dragging another from me before I’ve even finished the first one.

I’m panting hard, my pussy throbbing with pleasure, as he pulls out of me and jerks his pants up. He immediately reaches for me, picking me up like I weight nothing, cradling me against his chest.

“My angel of music,” he breathes against my hair. “I’ll give you the world at your feet.”

I pat his chest. “That’s nice,” I muse, exhausted, content. “I’ll settle for a repeat of that tomorrow after rehearsal.”

He chuckles. “Aren’t we supposed to be rivals?”

“I’ll make sure to cuss you out before we fuck,” I tease.

When I look up at him, the shadows seem to cling a little too strangely to his shoulders, but I don’t even care.

Bitches will put up with a lot of weirdness for dick like that.

It’s me.

I’m bitches.

Fuck, I’m in trouble.