Page 44 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

He pulled on my upper arms. “Lean back.”

“Why?” I was not exposing myself to him. Even though I did sometimes dream of him looming above me. Inside me.

“I have said it before, but I will say it once more. I do not repeat myself.” He splayed his palms on my stomach and tugged. I lost my hold on my knees and my back hit his chest with a thump, the coat of water clinging to our bodies, gluing us together. “Let this be your next lesson. When I give you an order, you follow.”

“In your dreams,” I sneered, struggling to get up. A bathtub full of water didn’t give you much purchase.

“Relax, and this will not take long. I am only here to make my promise true.”

“Who says I want it?” First, I needed to know what he was talking about. We hadn’t agreed on anything.

He remained silent, and I thrashed, spilling half the water on the floor in clear puddles, the glossy surface sparkling in the dimlight from above the sink—the single source of illumination I’d chosen to turn on.

“I can wait,” he stated as a set-in-stone fact.

Shortly, my core began to ache from exertion, and I surrendered to the fatigue with an exasperated huff. Often it was easier to give in and wait out them exploring your body in the ways they hungered for and couldn’t get anywhere else. And you were free to leave immediately after. Or, in this case, I hoped Gedeon would remove himself from the bathtub and, even more hopefully, out of my room.

I crossed my arms and my bent legs to pretend I had any shreds of decency. “Do your worst.”

He chuckled. “You do not want that, little death.”

What was up with all the names here? I was anything but little. At least the death part was true. I would become his death if he didn’t let me go.

His warm breath served as the sole warning before his lips lowered below my ear and trailed down the column of my neck.

My head tipped to the side. I could withstand whatever he wished to do to me. After trading countlessfavorswith citizens of Ilasall, sex—and my body—had ceased holding value to me. The quicker I gave in, the faster things were over. And if I could remotely enjoy their groping, then why shouldn’t I take that morsel of pleasure?

As my thighs clenched in anticipation of his bites, like that time in the forest, his kisses persisted in staying light and gentle, teasing and promising more. He cupped my pussy and stilled, not doing anything more but softly nipping up and down my neck and shoulder.

Frustrated, I wriggled. If he was intent on torturing me, he better made it good. Because otherwise, what was the reason for him to delay taking what he wanted?

“So impatient,” he murmured. “But do not worry. You will come today. You will scream. And you will pass out with me on your mind after.” He nibbled on my earlobe. “I will make it hurt, Kali.” To emphasize his words, he tweaked my nipple and sank his teeth below my jaw.

The sudden ripple of pain rushed to between my legs, and I clutched his jean-clad thighs, scrunching up the rough and soaked-through material.

He twisted my nipple harder as he set new bruises along the older, still healing ones along the juncture of my neck and shoulder. If it wasn’t for the water filling the bathtub, it would be the juices gushing out of my pussy.

“Has anyone ever made you come?” He set steady, circular motions around my clit. I didn’t reply, too focused on the sensation swirling low in my pelvis, and he pinched it. “Answer me.”

I writhed in his grasp from the sting. “Y— Yes.”

“Do not lie to me.” Cold air assaulted my pulsing nipple as he released it. He traced concentric circles around the other, and I lost myself in the expectation of the upcoming mixture of pain and pleasure. “Your own fingers do not count.”

“They d?—”

He reached for something on the sparkling marble tiles, invisible to me due to my position, and more water slashed over the edge as he lowered back. The next moment, cool metal glided between my breasts. The serrated knife drifting down my front didn’t slice me, but the idea was clear as day and my traitorous pussy throbbed, coercing my admission to come out. “No one but you.”

“‘No one but I’ what? Finish your sentence.” He brushed directly over my clit once, twice, thrice, and I dug my nails into his thighs as the first convulsions rolled over me. A sudden burning pain above my left hip broke that rising, rising?—

I fell, the world around me dissolving and drowning me together with it.

But it wasn’t the end of my torment.

“Another one, then.” His arm around my waist held me immobile as his fingers plunged inside me. I clenched around them repeatedly while his thumb continued stroking my clit unrelentingly.

“Enough. I ca—” The second orgasm hit me like a brick, my legs tensing up, my back arching and my head falling on his shoulder, and I half-screamed for him to stop torturing me as shock waves surged through my body.

“I’m waiting.” Curling his fingers inside, he explored my inner wall until he found the spot that made me forget the bathtub, him, my life he’d stolen, the cage of my room, everything but the peak rushing at me, rushing, rushing, rushing, closer and closer, and crashing with the vicious force of a storm’s wind ravaging the land in its path, incinerating the seams holding my being together and flooding me with ecstasy.