Page 41 of Currency in Flesh

My brows pulled together. She had said she couldn’t tell me.

“Tera was the first soul to enter the Underworld under my reign,” she said, throat bobbing as she swallowed. “She was once my friend, but when it came time for her to move on, after her children and grandchildren had long since passed, I couldn’t let her. So I took her memory, I reset the clock, so to speak, and I gave her the cafe to keep her occupied. She didn’t remember me anymore, but she also didn’t wish to leave me,and so it was enough for me to sit amidst the scents of bread and coffee and feel as though I still had someone.”

I reached out and took her hand in mine, and she flinched. “What about the brothers? They’ve been here a long time too, are?—”

She shook her head. “I created the brothers to keep myself in line. They are all—I suppose they are all facets of myself. Charis is duty, he does what should be done. Christos observes, watching the Underworld for…” Her face contorted in a pained grimace. “Cyril keeps them all at arm’s length. He ensures the souls move past the Underworld when it is time. He keeps them from forming bonds that could bring unrest in the meadows. He makes sure they stay away from me.”

“That’s why he was so rude.”

She nodded.

“But you said he wanted to warm your bed, isn’t that, I don’t know, incestuous?”

With a chuckle that didn’t reach her eyes, she shook her head again. “They have been in existence so long that they have become more than what I made them to be. They are their own people now, or as close to people as they could be. But who they are is fundamentally rooted in why I created them, and that can never change.”

“I’m so sorry, Cora.” It was the second time today I had called her by her name, without a title or honorific, and I wondered if she liked it or if she found it patronizing. I didn’t want another thing between us, not even a single word. I wanted her to know I understood.

“You are not disgusted by this? The depths of my selfishness? I have stolen eternity from that woman, and in doing so, stolen all she ever was.”

“I don’t know what your life was like before this,” I said, “but I know people cannot exist in complete loneliness. I was dying, being with Sean. I thought his death would be the onlyfreedom I’d ever find. I have never felt free, Cora, not a single day in my life. All I’ve ever wanted is freedom.”

“I want to give that to you,” she replied. Her fingers trembled slightly in mine. “I took you because I wanted you, and I thought perhaps you might want me eventually, in turn. I recognized that desperate longing in your soul. It’s what I am made from.”

Something in her words snagged on the edges of my mind. I searched my thoughts, trying to figure out what it was, why I felt like she was saying more than she said. But her hand was warm, and her heart was exposed, and I couldn’t stop to ponder what might mean nothing. So I stood, pulled her hand around my waist, and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Her lips were bruising, the force of desperation from behind them propelling her into me like a comet crashing to earth. I could taste her need, her heart, her soul; and I knew in that moment it didn’t matter if I was moral or just, it only mattered that I was hers. Time here was undefined, and I may have existed in the Underworld for weeks or for months, but it simultaneously felt like lifetimes and mere seconds. My memories of my life before this felt like a film I’d seen long ago, the edges beginning to blur as I stepped into the bright light of this future.

Lady Cora’s hands came up to cup my face, one sliding into my hair, fingers pressing into my scalp. She made a small noise, and it set my skin on fire. It was as though accepting how I felt about her, no matter how irrational, had struck a match. We both burned.

“I need you,” I panted, pulling away for one frantic breath.

“You have me, Grace,” she replied before pulling me to her again. Her touch moved from my cheek to my back, my waist, my ass. Her hips pressed toward mine, our bodies begging to becloser. I tugged my dressing robe open, letting it fall from my shoulders, and Lady Cora growled. Her skirt hiked up her thighs as she shoved her knee between my thighs. The heat of her leg warmed me from beneath the paper-thin layer of nylon and arched my back when I felt my wetness on her skin. I reached around her, searching for a zipper or some way to get this goddamn skirt off of her, letting out a frustrated huff of air when my fingers found only fabric.

She laughed, and it was light and sweet, her hand leaving my ass to pull down the hidden zipper at her side. The few seconds where she stepped back to shimmy out of the skirt and her nylons felt like an eternity, but once the clothes were thrown aside, she stood before me in a grey button-up blouse that reached halfway down her thighs. Her hair was wild, platinum strands tucked behind one ear and falling across her face. She looked powerful and vulnerable, like sin and salvation. Her name tumbled from my lips, honorific abandoned as I looked into her incandescent gaze.

“Cora.”

She knelt at my feet, hands sliding up my calves to circle my thighs, and bent to kiss first the left, then the right. My fingers slid through her hair as hers moved up to the generous curves of my ass. A sound of appreciation hummed in her chest while her fingers kneaded my soft flesh. She licked the place where my thighs pressed together, tracing the line up toward my center, and I whimpered. I could feel my skin growing damp with arousal and the caress of her tongue, my body melting into want and need. But what I really wanted, what I really needed, was to touch her.

Disentangling my fingers from her hair, I reached down, tugging gently. “Please,” I pleaded.

She got to her feet, kissing me again slowly before dropping a hand to my hip and guiding me back toward the bed. My thighs hit the plush velvet, and I sat, dropping to my elbowsand scooting back even as she continued to nip at my lower lip. Spreading my legs, I made space for her and my head fell against the tangled sheets. “You are so beautiful, blossom,” she murmured, looking down at me. Her hips were flush with mine, hands splayed on the mattress above my shoulders, and I turned to kiss her forearm. She ground into me, her pubic bone almost sharp where it pressed against the chubby swell of my own mound. Even the tiny tease of sensation it provided was almost too much, and I whined for more.

“So needy,” Lady Cora chuckled as she rolled her hips against me again. “Do you want me to give you what you need?”

I was panting when I replied. “Yes, Cora, yes.”

She moved one hand between my thighs, and I noticed her nails had dulled themselves again as her middle finger slipped between the slick seam of my pussy and over my clit. “Say my name again,” she said with a groan.

Her finger made a circle over my sensitive flesh and a plaintive moan replaced her name on my tongue. I sucked in air like a woman drowning and cried out, “Cora!” just as she did it again.

She shivered, and I felt her body quiver everywhere it was pressed to mine. “The name I had before,” she said breathlessly, “is dead to me. Nothing in this realm or any other has ever sounded more perfect than this one on your lips.” Her finger slid down, toying with the puddle of arousal pooling at my entrance, and she groaned as she pushed it into me. Leaning down so her mouth met mine, she fucked me with quick movements of her wrist, her finger curling up to coax waves of pleasure from me. So quickly, too quickly, I was teetering on the edge of orgasm.

“Not yet,” I begged, “I don’t want to come yet.”

Her answering chuckle was wicked, and she didn’t stop.

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