Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
I moaned and shivered. “Stop.”
He didn’t reply. Standing upright, he grabbed a lever to the left, and I screamed as the cross flipped upside down.
Blood rushed to my head as my view switched.
Upside down, gravity grabbed my hair, my breasts, my mind.
The shackles around my ankles kept me upright, cutting into my skin.
He groaned as his gaze locked onto my spread and exposed centre. “Damn. I’d hope your mouth would line up with my cock. Sucking me would’ve definitely shut you up.” He sighed. “Ah well, I have other ways.”
I’d never felt so vulnerable as he ran his nose along the trimmed black hair between my legs then stuck his tongue inside me from above.
Not a lick.
Not a lave.
A takeover.
I didn’t scream this time, I choked.
My entire body went to explode—
He stopped.
Tears rolled from my eyes, falling the wrong way, soaking into my hair. “Hen…”
“Don’t,” he barked. “Until you say my name correctly, you don’t get to come.”
Breathing hard, Henri left me upside down as he strode across the snuffbox and grabbed a sharp little knife from the rack housing all manner of awful implements.
I hovered in that nondescript magical place, hyper aware of his every move.
I lost all track of where we were and why and how and became nothing more than a river of need.
He returned with a tiny jewel-handled dagger. Flicking a look at Victor, he grabbed his discarded jeans on the floor and grabbed the vial from his pocket. “How many scars am I allowed?”
Victor paused mid-thrust, his hips plastered against Rachel’s. It took a moment for his mind to catch up. “However many you want. Now shut the fuck up. I’m busy.” He resumed his rock.
Henri fisted his two toys.
I trembled as he marched back toward me.
I waited for him to flip me the right way up.
To whisper to stay calm. That he hadn’t lost himself.
But he merely latched his mouth on my pussy again.
Every nerve ending arrowed right where he punished me.
My entire system fritzed and fried.
The lashes on my back braided with the pleasure between my legs, and I lost myself completely.
Overwhelming.
Encompassing.
Tears sprang.
I sobbed as he ate me out. I shuddered as his teeth scraped my clit. I scrambled and screamed as he drove me straight toward that lacerating climax only to stop as the first ripple of release worked its way through my entire body.
He laughed cruelly and pressed the sweetest kiss on the paper-thin skin of my inner thigh. “Not yet, little nightmare. I mean to make you bleed first.”
His left hand landed on my thigh, stroking me in the exact spot where his own leg wore the permanent reminder of where he’d tried to take his own life.
I shivered as he pressed a kiss there, then replaced his lips with the dagger. “Don’t move.”
Every part of me tensed as he added pressure to the blade.
My skin resisted.
Pain intensified.
The dagger won.
I cried out as he cut me.
Too many feelings at once.
Too many sensations.
I couldn’t keep track of them all.
They all spiralled into one ball of fire, and blood, and need.
“Three lines. Just three.” Dragging the dagger over my skin, he sliced me with a steady, focused hand. Blood trickled, rolling hotly toward my hipbone. The first line scrambled my every thought. The second shoved me straight into spiritual salvation. And the third…it scribed me with everything I shouldn’t want…building, building, building.
I strained in my bonds, scratchy and achy and going out of my mind.
Henri let out a savage snarl as he licked up my blood. His tongue flat and heavy, licking me clean with every long swipe.
I pulsed in time to the blood throbbing in my punishments.
I trembled.
I ached.
I’d never felt this way. This unbound. This honest. This free.
Tossing the knife away, he fisted the vial and yanked out the small cork.
Without a word, he sprinkled sapphire dust on the three lines—two vertical, one horizontal—sealing up the wound with glimmering blue, coagulating with the red of my blood.
Victor wasn’t the first to do such a thing.
In my studies, I’d come across many indigenous people who used gemstone dust to harness the properties of the stone and alter their physical capabilities. Victor was right that gemstones were antibacterial, antiseptic, and often used in healing modalities.
The thought of forever having sapphires in my skin? It intrigued me. Perhaps I’d inherit the metaphysical properties of the blue stone and gain wisdom, intuition, and spiritual insight.
Or maybe it would do nothing more than brand me with Henri’s mark—
Sudden wetness.
Aggressive heat.
My thoughts scrambled as Henri’s tongue dipped inside me again.
The three stinging lines on my thigh faded. The punishment from the whip meant nothing.
His tongue was everything. Deep and worshipping, addictive and all-consuming.
I groaned as a flush of sick, sick desire made my entire body contract.
“Christ, you have no idea what this is doing to me.” His voice sounded utterly inhuman. “Your blood. Your taste. I can’t wait any longer. I can’t fucking do this.”