Page 39 of Currency in Flesh

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lady Cora’s low voice drifted across the chamber, seeming to slide through the twining sounds of bubbling water and echo on stone.

I leaned back, hair pooling on the smooth rock behind me. “Just considering if I deserve the pit now.” I smiled, but it wasn’t a true smile, and she knew it.

“Because of him?” she asked incredulously. “Pet, he deserved every second and then some.”

“I know, but I don’t think that matters. The issue isn’t if he deserved it or not, it’s how easy it was for me to do. Ilikedcausing him pain.”

She was silent, and I turned toward her, wondering what her expression would be. Her lips were pressed together and there was a tiny furrow between her brows. She didn’t understand, which made sense. The entirety of her role was to dole out justice. There was no need for morality in her, and though there was no need for it in me anymore either, I still felt strange about how quickly I had lost my humanity. I had told her that I could see her soul, I could see her gentleness, but could she see mine? Was there any left?

“You are wondering if you are a bad person,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

I nodded, letting my eyes fall closed again. “I am.”

The water lapped at my chest, small waves rippling through the pool as she stepped in. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt her approach. Smooth skin slid over mine as she placed a knee to one side and shifted over me, straddling my thick thighs beneath the water. At this, I raised my head. She was looking down at me with an expression I struggled to place. She wasnude, and her pert breasts were only inches from my mouth. I bent forward, lips parting to take one nipple between them. Her hips rolled gently, a request.

Something felt different between us. This felt tender, and it terrified me. I ran my tongue around the peak of her breast and her answering moan hummed through her chest. My hands found her narrow waist, and my palms splayed across her lower back possessively. I pulled her closer, sucking harder, wanting another one of those gentle, buzzing sounds against my tongue. She rocked, and I wanted her to move like that against my mouth. I dropped my hands, cupping her ass and trying to push her up without letting go of her nipple, but she just chuckled and ground into my plush flesh again.

“Come up here,” I said in a hoarse, needy voice, at last releasing her breast. “Let me please you.”

“You do, blossom,” she replied. It was so quiet I thought I might have imagined it. But then she moved with more intention, chasing sensation in a way that felt thoroughly unfair. I whined, and she reached down to grab a fistful of my hair, clicking her tongue at me. “No, Grace. Have you forgotten how this works?”

“Yes,” I answered, mischievous. “Remind me.”

She bent down, lips grazing the arch of my ear. “Do you want your Lady Cora, or Your Highness?”

It felt like a test.Do you want me, or just want to fuck me?The words weren’t spoken, even in my thoughts, but the weight of the question hung between us.

And I, a coward, chose the safe route. “Your Highness.”

Her hand tightened in my hair, and she wrenched my head back. “As you wish,” she said, voice returning to the commanding growl I had come to know well. One of her legs came up, and she stood without loosening her grip. She glared down at me without a trace of softness, and I wondered if I had chosen incorrectly. She bracketed my face with her knees,moving toward me so all I could see was the smooth line of her thighs and the deep rosy shade of her pussy. “I suppose you will make a sufficient throne,” she said. “Do not disappoint me.”

She dropped down onto me hard, pushing my jaw back with the force of it. All at once, my mouth was coated in the taste of her, impossibly slick and faintly sweet. She tasted like the mineral laced salt of the spring, the tang of unripe fruit. Her flesh parted around my tongue and I pressed it up and into her, desperate for more. Her hips moved in a slow rhythm, using my tongue and positioning her clit against my top lip so that each time she moved, it pressed against just the right spot. I tried to tilt my head so I could breathe through my nose, but her hand in my hair pulled me into her, burying my nose in her soft skin and blocking my only hope of air.

I could feel my lungs beginning to burn, and my heartbeat quickened. Maybe she didn’t realize that I couldn’t breathe. I pushed more firmly, making it very clear I was struggling against her hold. She didn’t loosen her grip.

“You want to breathe, daffodil?” she asked. Her voice was rough and cruel. “You can breathe when I am finished.” My hands came up to claw at her thighs. “You asked for this.”

My eyes went wide, staring up at her torso, her chin, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her head was thrown back, panting toward the ceiling as she rolled her hips, quickening with every breath. I couldn’t help but squirm, my head moving side to side searching for air and finding only more slick skin. My vision began to darken around the edges, pinpricks of light sparkling in my periphery. Faster, and faster she moved. I cried out, but it was muffled by her pussy, tears spilled from my eyes and ran back into my hair. My palms slapped her legs weakly. I was going to pass out.

Her movements grew slightly erratic, and she pressed down so hard against my mouth that I felt my teeth break through the thin layer of skin. The metallic bite of blood slipped in,swirling with the taste of her arousal and the looming dark of unconsciousness. My tongue was still inside of her, and I plunged it as deeply as I could, feeling the ridges of her cunt even as my mind began to slip into the space between waking and dreams.

And then she was coming. Bucking against my mouth, her climax sent a flood of hot wetness surging down my throat and I choked on her come, thrashing my head and flailing my arms in a last desperate attempt to free myself. My lungs inhaled, finding no air, and everything went black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Reality came into focus slowly. Light played over my eyelids and I struggled to lift them, unsure if I was dreaming or not. I rolled onto my side and felt plush velvet against my cheek. When at last I opened my eyes, I was in Lady Cora’s bed, alone.

I didn’t remember how I got here, and it took a few moments for the events at the springs to filter back into my thoughts.She fucked me unconscious.

Sitting up, I glanced around the room, but I appeared to be alone. I was still nude, but I was clean and my hair was dry and soft. A black dressing robe was flung over the back of a chair, and I grabbed it and slipped my arms into it as I stomped through toward the door.

But it wasn’t there.

“What the fuck?” I shouted, hoping she was paying attention. “Let me out!” I waited, but nothing changed, the room was still cool and silent and I was still alone.

Lady Cora didn’t appear for hours. The wall shimmered,and she stepped through. I got to my feet with a sound like a snarl. “What the fuck?”

She continued through the room breezily, not pausing as she passed. Her charcoal blouse was tucked into a fitted black pencil skirt that came to her calves, and a black line ran up the back of her nylons. Her arms were streaked with blood and a few tendrils of her hair had come loose from her high, tight ponytail to hang limp beside her face. Running her palms down her arms, a couple inches from her skin, she made the red smears vanish as though they were never there. Rather than fixing her hair, she pulled it down, shaking her head to dry and smooth the pale ivory strands. Her clean fingers wrapped around a wine glass, and she poured herself some sparkling red Coteaux Champenois. It was only after she had finished the glass and poured another that she turned my direction.

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