Page 33 of Currency in Flesh

Despite my effort, a tear slipped down my cheek, but before I could wipe my face, Lady Cora’s thumb swiped it from my skin. Another fell, and again, she brushed her warm fingertip across my cheek. It was impossible to stop what had begun, and I began to cry in earnest. I trembled with shame and worry that I had upset the only person who still cared for me. I truly was alone, and I didn’t want to fuck up the one thing that had made me feel good in the last ten years. “I’m so sorry,” I choked out. The words were shaky and thin. I tried to continue, wanted to explain and apologize for letting my concern turn into something ugly, but Lady Cora’s palm cupped my cheek and lifted my face to hers.

“Blossom…” She looked pained. “I spoke harshly, when I did not need to.” My eyes widened at the unexpected admission. “I have spent lifetimes with only the company of the dead. I have had no companions save for the brothers.” Her nose crinkled slightly and the tiniest smile graced my lips. I have indulged in the flesh, and enjoyed all the many sensations of this body. Still, I am not flesh and blood, I am divinity in its most approachable and acceptable form. I have curled myself into a shape that the youngest souls can accept, and the most wicked of men can fear. When I saw that it pleased you, I considered, for the first time, what it might be like to allow myself…”

She glanced away, looking so very human, and took a deep breath.

“I saw a fire I wanted to kindle, a wrong I wished to right, and selfishly—I kept you. Now, when you have begun to blaze, I condemn the very spark which drew me in.”

“Lady—” I began, but her thumb pressed against my parted lips, quieting my apology.

“There are rules I must abide by, and conditions I cannot share. I do not wish to face you in anger, or to assert dominance rooted in fear. When you flinch and cry before me, I want you wet and wanting. I have very little understanding of what it means to care, but perhaps I can learn.”

I paused, staring ahead without words. What did that mean? Did she want to learnfor me?Or had I somehow illuminated a desired facet of humanity for her? Maybe she wanted to understand the souls better, after so long of being emotionally distanced from them. She reached for me, taking my wrist in her fingers before sliding them down to intertwine our hands.

And then she kissed me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

This kiss was not like the rest. Lady Cora’s tongue was gentle, delicate. She asked for my affection, rather than demanding. I wasn’t sure what to do. It felt unfamiliar. Yet, it felt good, it feltright. So I kissed her back, tipping my chin up and letting my hand cup her warm cheek. She leaned into me with a soft sound that made something tender and unknowable unfurl within my ribs. I drifted forward, pressing into her, and she wrapped her arms around my waist with unexpected ferocity.

“Lady Cora, I?—”

She silenced me with another kiss. I moaned against her mouth, my back arching with desire. I knew I wanted this, wanted her, and I was honored to be giving her whatever it was that she needed in this moment.

But it wasn’t what I wanted.

As though sensing the shift in the air, she straightened her shoulders and pulled me tightly against her chest. My eyes fluttered open to find hers staring back at me, twin shards of bottle-green glass, glowing in the dimlight. “Grace…” My name was a plea on her tongue, and I yearned to give it to her. To give her my name, my soul, my being. I would have given her anything she asked for, she only needed to ask.

She knew it, and with a quick twist of her hand, the glinting silver chain of my collar was wrapped around her palm. “Do you want me to fuck you, blossom?” she asked in a rasping, gravel-rough voice. She dragged me to the edge of the spring, the stone beneath my feet slippery.

“Yes,” I replied, and she jerked her wrist with a sharp ferociousness. “Yes, Your Highness,” I panted.

“Or,” she began, cocking her head to one side. “Do you want to fuckme?”

I nodded, lips parting and mouth watering at the thought of tasting her. God, I wanted it so badly. There was a deeply buried part of me that wanted to claw its way through the soil, to rake its claws across the earth and bare its long-hidden truth for all to see. There was a wicked woman there, who wanted to lose herself in pleasing another, to delight in all the things which were once weaponized against her. She wanted to be used, to be defiled, to be treated like an object—and then be recognized as gold. The clandestine whore shrouded in my shame knew that this time, in this way, at the end of it all, she would be revered.

“Please, Your Highness,” I begged on a breathy moan, “I want to please you.”

“Oh, my lovely girl, you please me so well already. What more could you do to show me praise?” Her hand found its way into my sweat-damp hair, pushing through the tangled curls and waves.

Her raised brow spurred me on, giving me confidence. I didn’t talk like this, nearly never said crass and filthy words, but Iwantedto.

“I wa-want,” I stammered. She gripped my hair more tightly, my scalp searing beneath her strong fingers, the collarseeming to tighten around my neck even as she dropped the chain.

“What do you want, pet? Tell me.”

“I want to please you.” I knew it wasn’t enough. I was stalling, and she knew it too. The silver chain had settled between my breasts and I saw her eyes follow its path.

When she looked back up, she moved so quickly, her palm striking my face with disorienting force. I stumbled, watching in slow-motion how the silver leash whipped through the air between us. The steaming water splashed, droplets flying up and peppering us both as I fell into the spring up to my knees. Righting myself, I braced my hands on the edge of the pool. Bright pain and heady pleasure filled me, and my body promptly responded. I was drenched with wanting, even beneath the heated water.

“Howdo you want to please me? Be specific, Grace, or I’ll give you nothing.” She looked down at me from where her toes met the edge of the pool.

“I want to taste you,” I begged. “I want to feel your wetness on my tongue. I want to drink you in. I want you to come against my mouth and give me every last second of your release.”

She chuckled, and it was low and wicked. “Oh, you liked that, did you? Have you never been with a woman who could squirt?”

My cheeks flushed a deep red, and I broke her gaze, eyes falling to the water. “I’ve never been with a woman at all.”

Lady Cora’s head fell back with a loud, boisterous laugh as she took slow, languid steps into the steaming pool. “You look so mortified! Did you think I was unaware?” she asked, voice teasing. “Darling, I know everything about you. Every single secret, each and every filthy desire. I saw far more than the darkness within you, I reveled in your desperation—your repressed wants and your unrecognized needs. I chose to keepyou because tangled with that darkness was a feverish, ferocious fire. You fuckingburnfor me and I want to watch you combust.”

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