Page 56 of Nidev and Lyric

“What?” he murmured on her mouth.

“Just… I can’t… it’s your sister.”

His fingers carefully tugged her face toward him, kissing her deeper and scattering the mess inside her. “We will do this in phases,” he announced. “But you can’t look till I say.”

“Okay. But what…in phases?”

“My marks in your flesh. The one over your heart will be the first.” He angled his head while kissing her perfectly. “When I was old enough, I got my sister out of that place and brought her to my home in Florance Italy. I hired full time nurses to care for her, certain I could mend some of the damage.”

“Can you… untie me?” she whispered. “I really need to touch you.”

He pulled back, leaving her quaking and drowning. “Not yet,” he announced with no regret, picking up a needle with a wooden handle on the end of it. He wiped the tip and dipped it in the small glass dish of ink. “Fifteen more minutes.”

She resisted the urge to look down at her chest where his fingers stretched the tender, inflamed skin. She studied his perfect face, focused on the job. The prick of the needle barely made her flinch that time. “And did you?” she asked, needing to know. “Did you mend some of the damage?”

He turned and dipped the needle again. “No,” he said, his tone void of any emotion. “Did you know your voice produces a peculiar frequency when you express physical pain?”

He brought the needle back to her chest as her heart raced and ached for him. “I… was told that,” she murmured, clenching when he poked.

“Who told you this?” he casually wondered, dipping the tip again. But it was there, in the back of his tone. His obsession.

“My teacher of course,” she said, her hunger for his obsession bringing a curling heat in her womb. It mixed with her need to climb inside him and learn every dark, painful secret so she could try with all her power to heal it if she could.

“Lore,” he muttered, sounding disgusted as he poked more ink into her skin. “I think it’s time you’ve graduated from that prick’s class, don’t you?” He tapped his needle in the ink and returned to her chest.

Her smile vanished when she realized he wasn’t joking. “Then… who will teach me?”

His eyes rose and locked on hers. God, they were so much more breathtaking up close. “Is that a proposal I hear behind that question, Doo-nie?”

Her smile came and his gaze lowered to it, making her realize it was another serious question. “Yes,” she said, not needing to think about that.

He returned to her chest, stretching her skin and making his poke. “I suppose I can fit you in for private lessons.”

Her heart galloped at that news, not even caring if he knew how to teach her. She remembered what he said about the frequency, wondering. “How does… that pain frequency affect you?”

“In a very unhealthy way,” he murmured, pressing the needle into her skin.

She gasped, the pulse between her legs getting harder to ignore. “You… like it?”

“Like,” he repeated, as if the term was severely lacking.

Then she realized what he meant. “So… unhealthy for me?”

“Definitely not you, Doo-nie,” he muttered, like he was growing impatient with her.

She scoffed lightly. “Are you angry I can’t read your mind about everything you say?”

“Yes,” he said, tone firm, like it was something she was fully capable of doing and was intentionally not.

“Well, I can’t read minds,” she defended in a gaspy sputter, while realizing what he meant now. He liked the soundof her pain but would never cause it for his own pleasure. But… “How exactly do you like it?”

This got his intense gaze on her mouth followed by a soft kiss. He pulled back and stared at her. “How do you think I like it?”

The question was genuine and testing. She fought to hold his stare, hold her courage under the weight of the answer. “Like…a perv?”

His smile was devastating and stole her breath. Then his kiss finished her off. “Not a perv, Doo-nie. A psychopath.”

She let out embarrassing sounds that amounted to gibber-gasms. “Well, I’m flattered.”

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