Page 34 of Where the Dark Knelt (Worshipped by Darkness #1)

A scream ripped out of my throat before I could stop it, loud enough to scatter the gulls sleeping on the cliffs above us.

My body recoiled so violently that the seams of my dress tore under the force of my own panic.

I clawed at the fabric, yanking it over my head and throwing it aside onto the sand, shivering in disgust and horror.

My hands went immediately to my white cotton bra, fumbling to rip it away from my chest, needing the vile creature off me, but I froze mid-motion.

I saw his face. The wicked, triumphant grin curling his lips. The faint, muffled laugh rumbling in his chest as he watched me in wide-eyed terror.

And realization dawned through my horror, leaving only humiliation burning in its place.

It was a joke.

A stupid, cruel, childish joke. A play on words. He knew. He knew my greatest phobia, and he used it against me, just to watch me fall apart in his arms.

Tears stung my eyes, mixing with the salt of the ocean breeze. I turned away from him, wrapping my arms around my half-naked chest, trembling with anger, shame, and betrayal.

“You…” I glared up at him, fury and embarrassment burning my cheeks. I reached for my dress where it lay in the sand, but he was faster. He snatched it up in one fluid movement, holding it high above his head where I couldn’t reach no matter how desperately I jumped.

“Give it back!” I hissed, jumping again, but his eyes weren’t on my face. They dropped, hungry and amused, to my bouncing tits. His smile widened into something feral, and he snorted softly. “Well, you see, my ashpetal… I did undress you with words.”

“Yes, you are—!” I started to growl, but before I could finish, his strong hands moved with a blur.

He caught my waist and pulled me forward, forcing a startled gasp from my throat as he lowered me down onto the cold sand, laying me back on top of my own dress.

The icy grains scraped against my skin, sending an involuntary shiver up my spine, but then his body pressed down over mine.

Heat. His warmth flooded into me, washing away the cold, seeping into my veins like sweet poison.

Without thinking, I locked my legs around his hips, clutching him tighter to me, desperate for his warmth, his weight, his strength.

“I promised I’d undress you with words, and so I did,” he whispered smugly against my lips, his breath hot and smelling faintly of iron and roses.

“I don’t…” The words broke off in a ragged sigh as his mouth descended on mine again.

His forked tongue slid past my lips, coiling against my own, tasting me, claiming me.

A moan tore itself from my throat despite my trembling attempts to hold it back.

He moved to kiss along my jaw, trailing lower to my neck, his tongue flicking over my racing pulse.

Gods… why was my body betraying me like this?

Why did I start to writhe beneath him like a desperate thing, feeling the hard length of him pressing urgently against my thigh through his pants?

“How I want…” he groaned against my skin, his voice cracking with dark hunger, “…to taste you.”

My breath caught in my chest. My body arched helplessly into his touch as he kissed lower, down over my collarbones, my ribs, the sensitive plane of my stomach. He reached the edge of my panties and paused, lifting his head to look up at me, his eyes glowing a dark, wicked green in the moonlight.

“Do you… want this?” he asked, his voice trembling with restraint, though every taut muscle in his body vibrated with primal need.

“Yes…” The word slipped out before I could stop it. It wasn’t even a conscious thought, my brain had shut down entirely, leaving only my body and its desperate, traitorous hunger. I felt my sanity flicker and vanish like a candle snuffed out by the wind. God forgive me…

He smirked, and in one swift, fluid motion, he hooked his teeth into the thin band of my panties, dragging them down my legs with a growl. When they slipped off my ankles, he tucked them neatly into his inner shirt pocket.

I jerked up onto my elbows, eyes wide with indignation and humiliation. “Why — why did you take them?!” I whispered fiercely, reaching for him, but he only laid me down again, pressing his lips to mine in a softer, gentler kiss this time. Almost tender.

“You don’t want your pretty little wet panties getting covered in sand, do you?” he murmured against my lips, smirking when he felt me shiver at his words. “Relax… okay…?”

“But I…” I tried to speak, to protest, but his weight and warmth and scent swallowed my resistance. My mind screamed No, no, no, but my body… my treacherous body… it screamed Yes.

“Stop resisting yourself,” he whispered, voice deep and velvet-soft, wrapping around me like a chain.

He grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head in the sand, leaning down so that my chest pressed flush to his, my nipples grazing the heated skin of his torso.

I could feel the furious pounding of his heart against mine, and something inside me broke under that sound.

“Do what your body and soul want,” he whispered, kissing me so gently I thought I would cry. “Pleasure is not a vice. It’s a gift… Just between you and me… I won’t tell anyone…”

My clitoris pulsed in frenzied time with the pounding rhythm of our conjoined hearts, a needy ache throbbing between my thighs as he began his sensual descent.

His lips blazed a trail of fire along the column of my neck, each kiss searing my skin like the brand of a lover’s mark.

He paused to lavish attention upon each mole dotting my body, a worshipful tribute to every unique beauty mark that mapped my flesh.

As he settled between my parted thighs, his strong hands gripped the soft skin, fingers sinking into the tender flesh with an almost bruising force.

The reddening imprints he left behind were a badge of possession, a tangible reminder of his claim upon my body.

I should have cared, should have protested the violence of his touch, but I could not.

Trapped in the throes of my own desire, I could only marvel at the erotic sight of him poised at the apex of my thighs, his golden hair glinting in the flickering moonlight.

“I can no longer resist you,” I confessed, my voice a breathless whisper, a surrender I could not take back.

“You’re not like any man I’ve ever known, Desmond.

You’re... you’re a god among men, a deity of flesh and blood and sinful, beautiful temptation, you are like a dream…

” My fingers reached out to thread through his silken locks, a gesture of reverence and longing.

Was it another erotic dream of mine? I was not sure. .

Unable to resist the allure of the chains, I allowed my hand to wander down the length of his torso, seeking out the links that led to his throbbing, aching cock in his trousers.

As my fingers closed around the cool metal, I felt a thrill of anticipation, a desperate need to bring us both to the edge of ecstasy in unison.

He smiled then, a wicked, knowing curve of his lips that sent fresh waves of heat coursing through my veins.

With a cunning tug, he pulled the chain, and I felt the first electric jolt of his tongue against my most sensitive flesh.

The forked tongue stroked and teased, circling and flicking, stoking the inferno building within me.

His eyes, ablaze with lust and unbridled desire, sparkled with a dark joy as he worked to unravel the last threads of my control.

I was lost, drowning in a sea of sensation, my body and soul laid bare before the man who had ensnared me in his powerful hands.

“Oh my God, Desmond...” I breathed out, my voice a husky whisper as I struggled to concentrate on the exquisite movements of his tongue against my aching flesh.

He seemed to have an uncanny, almost supernatural talent for stoking the fires of my desire, his mouth and tongue working in perfect, preternatural harmony to drive me to the brink of ecstasy.

Each languid lick, each teasing flick, was a masterstroke designed to unravel the last frayed threads of my control.

My body trembled on the precipice, my soul already ascending to the heavens as he pushed me closer to a shattering climax with every pass of his wickedly talented tongue. I could feel it building, the pressure coiling tighter and tighter in my core, threatening to consume me utterly.

“God is not here, Eveline... my dear...” he murmured between licks, his voice a low, sinful rasp that sent fresh waves of heat crashing through me.

“Just me... just me...” And with those words, he sealed his lips around the entrance to my dripping pussy, plunging his tongue deep into my fluttering depths.

A ragged cry tore from my throat as he began to thrust his tongue in and out, fucking me with the slick, sinful muscle in a rhythm designed to drive me mad with lust. At the same time, his thumb found my throbbing, engorged clit, circling and rubbing the sensitive nub with a maddeningly playful touch.

The dual assault on my senses was too much to bear, and I could feel my body tensing, my inner walls clenching down on his invading tongue as I hurtled towards my release.

“Ah... you’re right,” I gasped out, my fingers fisting in his hair, holding him to me as if my life depended on it.

“It’s just you and me... and our secret.

..” And in that moment, I knew I would do anything, say anything, to shatter in his arms, to surrender myself completely to the darkest recesses of my desire.