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Chapter Thirty-One

B riony

“I’m not,” I say, yanking up the sleeves of my cardigan. “See, no markings. I don’t know what you saw in that vision, but either it was wrong or you misinterpreted it. Maybe the girl you saw wasn’t me.”

“I know what I saw. There was no mistaking it. You had the markings on your arms and we had matching ones on ours.”

“And do you have those markings on your skin now?” I ask. He scowls at me. “Show me.” I jerk my chin.

Reluctantly, he rolls back the cuffs of his shirt and turns his arms over, showing me the soft skin of his wrists. I can see the delicate bones that connect there, the green and blue veins that run through to his hands, but no markings. The skin is clear. Just like it’s always been .

“Nothing,” I say. A flatness transcends through my body, dragging my shoulders down. Disappointment.

What the hell?

I don’t even want to be their thrall, let alone their fated mate. Tied to them until the end of our days. Sure, Beaufort is hot and he makes my body feel things it shouldn’t, but half the time I don’t know if I even like the guy.

Then there’s the other half …

He leans across the table and captures my hand in his, stroking his thumb over the tender inside of my wrist.

“In the vision, the marking is right here. And it’s the most incredible, the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”

I swallow. My emotions are all a tangle. I don’t know whether to believe him. He could be lying. He could be lying to himself. The visions may be nothing but hallucinations.

Shadow magic is such an incredible thing – so peculiar, so strange. Pushing the boundaries of reality and sanity. I bet there are more than one shadow weavers who skirt close to madness.

Henrietta Smyte for starters.

Beaufort leans down even further and presses his mouth to my wrist next, kissing me there.

“Your pulse is racing,” he murmurs.

“Unfortunately, you seem to have that effect on me.”

“Unfortunately?” he says, grazing my wrist with his teeth next.

“Beaufort, do we even like each other?”

“I like you a lot,” he growls. “But I’d like it even more if you sat on my face.”

Desire shivers over my skin. Something I don’t miss.

“Dray hasn’t stopped talking about how good you taste, little thrall,” he whispers. He licks my wrist, demonstrating just how skilled and enthusiastic he’d be with his tongue, sending a pulse beating between my legs. “I need to taste you.”

“And what if I want to taste you?” I say, my voice trembling with desire.

He lifts his head, and his gaze, burning with fire, meets mine. “Fuck,” he mutters, then smirks. “I think there’s a way both of our wishes can come true.”

The next thing I know, I’m being yanked to my feet and led upstairs.

I could complain. We never made it past the first course and the food was delicious. But, damn it, I’m way more hungry for this, especially when I know it’s something I won’t be able to consume for the next twenty-eight days.

Twenty-eight . That hadn’t sounded so long when he said it earlier. Now it seems like an eternity.

Upstairs, he leads me inside his bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind us, before stalking towards me like I am prey and he is the hunter. I pace backwards until the back of my legs hit the bed, and then, he’s pushing me down onto the mattress, his hungry mouth on mine.

I take a grip of his shirt and drag him down with me and then we’re pulling at each other’s clothes, only pausing in our kisses to lift my sweater over my head.

Then I’m in nothing but my bra and my panties. And for the first time ever, I peer down at them and cringe.

Linny, the bitch, even destroyed all my underwear in that rampage through my room.

I’m stuck with a few pairs Clare gifted me as well as a bra that didn’t fit her very well.

I may be small and lean but Clare is even smaller with cute boobs.

Which means everything is a little tight, my breasts pretty much spilling out of the bra.

This doesn’t seem to be a problem for Beaufort though. The silver of his eyes morph into the dark gray of storm clouds. He takes ahold of my wrists, gripping right where fated mate markings would be if I had any, and pins my arms over my head.

Then he takes the cup of my bra in his teeth and yanks it away, releasing my tit right into his mouth.

With his wet tongue, he circles the sensitive skin of my nipple and they crinkle and harden between his lips. He groans and sucks on them and oh stars, it feels divine. So divine, I can’t help but lift my hips and grind against him.

“Needy little thing,” he murmurs, nibbling at my nipple next, before turning his attention to my other breast. I squirm underneath him, attempting to pull my arms free so that I can wrap them around him. But he holds them down.

“I want to come,” I moan.

“Well, you’re going to have to wait,” he says. He trails his kisses down from my breast, over my ribs and to my stomach. He halts here and peers up at me, smirk on his face.

I scowl right back at him.

“Fuck, you have no idea how hard those disapproving looks of yours make me, little one. You wanna come?”

I want to tell him to go fuck himself. But as I’d much rather he fucked me, I nod.

“Then be a good girl, for once.”

Shadow magic races from his hands and coils around my wrists, holding them in place as he releases the grip of his hands.

He kisses lower, and my pulse races even faster, my breath coming in expectant pants.

When he reaches the top of my panties, he grips them in his teeth and slides his fingers under the hem, then slides them down, his mouth follows with them, kissing over my mound and my curls, down my thighs, over my knees and my calves, and right the way to my toes.

I’m getting wetter with every moment, the pulse between my legs becoming more urgent.

“Beaufort!” I protest, as he takes his time kissing the tip of every toe.

“You kept me waiting for this, remember, sweetheart. It’s only fair I have my revenge.”

“Kept you waiting how?”

“Three fucking weeks!” he says, before parting my thighs and staring right down at my pussy.

I should be squirming with embarrassment. I’ve seen my pussy in a hand mirror. It is not exactly a work of art – although I have no idea if other girl’s look any better. Beaufort actually groans like someone’s plunged a knife straight into his gut, like he’s gazing down at something exquisite.

“Fuck, I love how pink and swollen and wet you are for me. Such a fucking good girl.” He licks his lips. “And good girls get to come!”

“Too fucking right!” I mutter, which makes him chuckle.

He’s still chuckling as he throws my legs over his shoulders and nestles his face into my pussy, kissing me passionately like he just kissed my mouth.

It’s intense, my core tightening and my fingers clawing at the bed covers.

“Beaufort!” I cry out as he sucks my clit into his mouth and goes right on sucking.

My core tightens even more, my legs shaking around his head, and shivers of something beginning to build in my body.

I’m on the cusp of it, the feeling building and building towards its summit, my spine arching and then …

He fucking stops !

“No!” I scream, rubbing my pussy unashamedly against his mouth, chasing that friction and that feeling. “No!” I scream, as I collapse back down on the mattress, unsatisfied and seriously pissed off. “Why did you stop?”

“It’s called edging, sweetheart, and it’s the best sort of torture there is!”

He plants an innocent peck of a kiss against my clit, that in itself enough to have me trembling again, and then he licks at me – slow, gentle licks at first, becoming faster and harder over time until he’s flicking at me with force and all that tension crescendos again, lifting me right up to the end.

“Please don’t stop,” I beg him, “please don’t stop this time!”

But Beaufort Lincoln is not one to take orders and so once again he leaves me hanging.

“No!” I screech, thrashing about on the bed, trying to release my hands to finish the job myself. “You’re such an asshole.”

“I always used to get in trouble for playing with my food,” he says, absentmindedly, eyes fixed on my pussy, stroking his fingers over my thighs. “You’re dripping now, sweetheart, so wet it’s untrue. I’ve never seen a girl this wet before.”

My hands may be restrained, but my legs aren’t and I manage to kick him for that.

“Do not talk about other girls when your head is buried between my legs.”

“How can I make it up to you? Like this?” He licks me again, like he did before. “Or this?” He kisses my clit, pressing it between his lips. “Or this?” He sucks me right up into his mouth.

“All of it!” I pant, my body covered in a fine sheen of sweat and the sheet beneath me damp with my arousal and his spit.

This time he does as I say. He gives me everything, kisses and licks, flicks, and sucks, twirling around my clit one minute and fucking my pussy with his tongue the next.

This time, when the pressure builds, he doesn’t pull away, he lets it build and build and build until I’m crashing over the edge into ecstasy itself.

“Oh stars,” I mutter, as I sail away somewhere heavenly, tingles racing across my body and my pussy contracting in waves. I hang there suspended for several long seconds and then my body jolts with the aftershocks.

The shadows at my wrists race away and Beaufort flops down on the bed beside me, wiping at the wetness on his face and licking his lips like he just gorged on chocolate mousse.

“Good?” he asks, tweaking at my nipple.

I’m still catching my breath. I have no words.

He massages my breast. “Ready to go again?”

“What?!” I cry, but he’s already heading down south. This time he lies on his side and rocks me onto mine, lifting my leg so he can access my pussy.

The way he is curled around me, his crotch is positioned right in front of my face, his boxers bulging.

He gives me a lick, then peers down between us. “You going to return the favor this time, sweetheart?”

“You don’t have to …” I start, but never finish, because he’s already licking me.

“Got to make up for all those lost days,” he says like a man on a mission.

I lower his boxers and his cock springs eagerly out, hard and erect and already dribbling pre-come.

I lean in closer, licking his head like he is licking me .

It seems only fair to return some of the torture – or edging as he called it.

Except, I don’t have as much self control as him. I never thought I’d like to do this. But I like the way he tastes, the way he smells, how big he feels in my hand. I want him in my mouth.

I wrap my lips around his head and suck, running my fist up and down his shaft as he circles my clit.

My brain struggles to know where to focus; on the dick in my mouth or the tongue in my pussy. It flits back and forth and I’m so turned on, I know I’ll come again with little effort.

“Sweetheart,” Beaufort groans, “don’t stop.”

I jolt, realizing that’s exactly what I’d been doing, too lost in the sensations he’s creating through my body, too in love with the way he’s worshipping my pussy.

I concentrate with more focus on returning the pleasure.

Swirling my tongue around his head one minute, then sucking him far back into my throat the next.

He throbs against my tongue, hips jerking.

He moans against my clit and I come a second time, sucking down hard on him and moaning myself as the pleasure ricochets around my body.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he grunts, coming right into my mouth. I gulp him down and his cock jerks in my mouth and then he rolls away, his soft cock, slipping from my mouth with a pop.

“Shit,” he says, lying on his back, hands combing through his long hair. “Shit!”

I scramble up onto my knees and peer down into his handsome face.

He smiles up at me and it’s more genuine, than ever before. Even a little shy .

“Fuck, we are going to have a lot of fun tonight, sweetheart.”

“We have,” I agree.

He pushes up onto his elbows.

“ Have ?” he says.

“This was …” I bite my lip. Hot? Dirty? Sexy? Better than anything I could ever have imagined? But I have a baby dragon waiting for me in my room. I can’t stay any longer. I already feel like a bad person. Neglecting a baby for this.

I cringe.

“You saying you didn’t enjoy it?” he scoffs with disbelief.

He is such an arrogant jerk and why is that so incredibly hot?

I need to leave before it becomes impossible to.

“I have to go.”

“No you don’t. You can stay the night.” He reaches for my hand. “I want you to stay the night, little thrall. In my bed.”

I shake my head. “I want to,” I say. “I really do.” I sigh as my gaze travels down his sinful body. “But I can’t.”

“Why?”

I reach for my discarded sweater and tug it over my head.

“I can’t tell you.” I look at him earnestly because for once, I’d like it if our time together didn’t descend into an argument.

“But can you trust me for once and not push this.” He doesn’t look convinced.

“Please Beaufort.” I lean forward on my hands and knees and kiss his mouth. “Please.”

“Okay,” he says, although it’s obvious he’s not happy about it. “As long as it’s nothing that’s going to land you in trouble. ”

“Of course not,” I say, looking away so he can’t read the lie on my face.

He lies on his bed, watching as I hunt around the room for my remaining pieces of clothing.

“Kiss me again before you leave,” he tells me, once I’m dressed.

I pad back to the bed and he sits up, embracing me in his arms and kissing me – this time slow and longingly like he wants to imprint the kiss in my memory.

“Be careful,” he says, “and if anything happens–”

“It won’t,” I tell him.

But I guess he doesn’t trust me completely, because when I’m back in my room, I find the collar tucked into the pocket of my skirt.