Page 70 of Married to the Devil

His words are scratches against glass. A melancholy memory of future regrets and a path I don’t want to trek but yearn for all the same.

It’s not Stella’s rosy nipples and pussy that pulls me in this time. There’s no denying that the moment I break, it’s for Remy Stoneheart and his taunting.

“You don’t sound very sorry,” I say, and when he grins, I kiss him, surprising the both of us.

Instead of freezing in the moment like I do, he takes my shaky melody and builds on it, adding teeth and texture and the chill of the metal in his lip. He tastes like midnight promises, future hurt, but not an ounce of regret.

He pulls me away from the piano keys even as my fingers itch to share another part of my soul with these two. I break the kiss to say that I’ve changed my mind, but there’s a hunger in the air that halts the words in my throat.

“If you won’t play, then perhaps it’s time for your punishment,” Stoneheart says, his claws tickling the back of my neck before he takes my hair in an unforgiving grip and pulls thepiano key cover down. The sound a soft slam to punctuate the statement.

“Punishment?” Stella asks, her voice sounds a little raw, but her cheeks are flushed.

“Yes, sweet wife. He put you in danger.”

“Stoneheart—” She cuts off on his glare, but I can hardly track the interaction.

The grip on my hairhurts. My heart races, and the mix of reactions in my body are intense and disorienting.

But the sensation also distills inconvenient facts.

Stoneheart is right. I won’t be leaving this relationship with any part of myself unscathed.

And I need what he’s offering.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Please.”

Stoneheart’s face shifts, taking on an avid light, but when he speaks, the words are soft, and he strokes my cheek with the sharp edge of his talon. “Beautiful demon who needs to shatter, I’ll take care with you.”

He turns toward Stella. “You were left wanting in the car. I have a present.”

The hand not in my hair slides down my body, pressing against my cock. The appendage only grows harder as he increases the pull on my scalp. His eyes snap back to me, and I know he’s noticed.

I swallow at the beat of silence. Stoneheart increases the tension of my hair to a level of pain that is just before damage, and I gasp, my cock jerking at our position.

“Were you aware that you enjoy pain?” His voice is serious now. He eases his grip and assumes the role of directing us. It’s the same role he claimed with the seduction in the library too. Inviting, but calculated. Treating this experience as something that requires care and exacting actions.

Giving over the responsibility of my actions is as intoxicating as the pleasures he offers.

He waits for me to formulate my answer. My cheeks burn.

“A little when I’m stressed. Never with someone else.”

Stoneheart stills. “Ever outside of a sexual context?”

I struggle to answer because it’s not something someone admits to. Working out until pain takes away the constant buzzing in my mind, snapping a rubber band on my wrist, holding my breath underwater until my lungs scream at me.

I have the systems in place in my life to keep me from getting to the point of craving something more destructive than that.

“Ben,” Stoneheart growls when I don’t answer, and the rumble of the sound moves through my body. Stella gasps, obviously as affected as I am.

“Sometimes,” I confess. “But nothing damaging.”

“You will come to me for pain,” he decrees as if it’s an order that I’ll be following for the rest of my life rather than until this ill-planned arrangement ends.

I can’t give him that promise.

“You said you had a present for me,” Stella says when I don’t immediately agree to Stoneheart’s demand. Even as her words are sassy, her eyes are soft with understanding.

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