Page 13 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
Ashen inhales deeply as his tongue drags across my opening. He licks upward through my folds until he stops at my clit, kissing the swollen bundle of nerves. He swirls and teases with feathery strokes. Even when I tilt my head back and close my eyes, I still feel his gaze, heavy and hot on my face. Little by little, he increases the pressure of his tongue and the heat of his kisses, still keeping his circles and serpentines gentle like a slow caress, letting out a sigh of contentment against my flesh. He presses down on my stomach when I start to squirm with the swells of pleasure that carry me closer to the edge of the world.
“Ashen…” I moan and pull against my bonds when he pushes one finger into my opening and then another. Ashen’s free hand flows up my body until he reaches my chest. He traces the shape of the crescent moon on my mated mark, the reverence of his touch igniting sparks beneath my skin. “God, Ashen…”
Ashen continues the strokes of his fingers, adding a third and curling them inward as he looks across my body. “I can’t hear you, vampire…” He holds onto my eyes and withdraws his fingers and I whimper with the loss of his touch. He presses his palm onto my mark as he drags his glistening fingers through the blood that slips down his neck from my bite.
“What are you up to, demon?” I whisper, my heart drowning nearly every sound with heavy beats. Knots twist and coil low in my belly, an ache that begs to be soothed.
“Just a hunch.” Ashen flashes a sinful smile before lowering his mouth to my sex once more. His eyes stay fused to mine as his slow, languid kisses heat my sensitive flesh. And then he pushes his bloodied fingers back in.
The effect is shattering.
Every stroke of Ashen’s touch is an eruption of tingling warmth. It stokes my aching pleasure to the point of a desperate, painful need for release. It sparks and heats and climbs through my body, knotting my muscles, stealing my breath. It wrenches tears from the corners of my eyes. An anguished cry escapes my throat as I pull against the ties that bind me.
“Do you want me to stop, vampire?” Ashen asks. His voice sounds far away through the heartbeats pulsing deep behind my ears.
“Fuckno. Donotstop…” I open my eyes just long enough to see his wicked smile before his mouth descends on my flesh once more. Those slow, hot kisses, those fingers that paint me with his magic, it’s only a moment before every cell in my body seems to disintegrate. Time deconstructs into fragments as small and elusive as stardust. I fall into pleasure. It’s brighter and hotter than anything I’ve ever known. It burns me up from the inside. It sears my heart and my lungs and rains colored sparks before my eyes.
I don’t know how long it is before Ashen has my jaw in a gentle grip. I open my eyes and he’s hovering above me, his prideful look scarred by a seam of concern.
“All right, vampire?”
His voice is muffled by my heart thrumming painfully in my head. I nod, though he doesn’t look convinced.
“You sure?”
“More,” I whisper. I’m already insatiable for this new sensation, as though Ashen’s awoken a dormant beast that never knew it was starved. My lungs and heart protest, but they can shut the fuck up.
“What my Queen wants, she will have,” Ashen says as he smiles. I look on with predatory interest as his hand rises to his neck to smear through the sticky, drying blood. He watches the longing erupt on my face as he grips his cock with his bloody hand before sliding into me. The tingling burst of pleasure brightens once more as my body welcomes him in. The blood heightens my awareness of even the smallest motion, and with little more than a few strokes of his cock I’m writhing as though possessed.
“You should be glad I’m tied up, Reaper,” I manage, my voice breathless and strained.
“Really? Why is that? Aside from the obvious benefits, of course.”
“Because I’d be biting my finger and shoving it up your ass faster than you could saybutthole.”
Ashen warms what little space remains between us with a vibrant laugh. I would die a hundred times to hear it, to feel it tinge the edges of my mated mark with the essence of joy. “You say that as though you think I would complain. I wouldn’t.”
“Duly noted,” I grit out as he thrusts into me. But I don’t have time to do anything more than shelve that idea for the future, because my mind is ebbing away in this river of desire. It flows from me and leaves only sensation behind. Ashen’s hands on my skin, that’s the last thing I truly think about. They leave an impression that sinks into my flesh and grips my heart. I think I could live five thousand more years and his touch would still set me aflame.
With thoughts of fire and time, I descend into a lake of longing so consuming that I drown in it. Ashen says sweet and dark and devious things in my ear but I don’t make out a single one. I only feel his breath and the kisses and nips he pours on my neck. My face is flooded with his scent as it mixes with my own. A vibration shakes my veins with every slide and thrust of his cock. At some point, I don’t even know when, he releases me from the bedpost and loops my bound wrists over his head. I’m straddling him as he kneels on the bed, riding him toward our release.
“Kneeling for your Queen.” My words come from some ether as I grind on Ashen’s sex, rubbing my clit at the perfect angle that has my walls clenching around his cock.
“You have always brought me to my knees, my vampire. And you always will. You have me forever.” Ashen looks into my eyes with crimson flame that moves as fluid as water in the confines of his pupils. My heart shatters like an exploding star, unable to contain everything I feel as he kisses me. My orgasm tears my nerves apart, shredding them into filaments of light. I whimper a desperate moan of ecstasy against Ashen’s lips as he shudders and pulses and spills within me.
It takes a long moment of sitting wrapped in one another for us to recover enough breath to move. Ashen pulls my wrists over his head and settles my arms between our chests, our skin glistening with sweat in the dim light as he unties the knot and casts the silken strand to the floor. He kisses my wrists, his eyes fused to mine, then shifts me from his lap as he slips off the bed to retrieve a towel and ceramic pitcher of water and some clothes from a scarred sideboard at the edge of the room. He cleans my face first and then between my legs, taking his time with gentle, reverential strokes of the soft towel. When he’s done, he turns me over to lie on my front.
“There’s barely anything left, Lu,” he says as he runs a finger down the puckered skin on my shoulder where the ax slid into flesh and bone.
“Mmmhmm,” is the most I can manage for a groggy response as a fresh, damp towel cleans the dried blood from my skin.
A gentle kiss warms the remnants of the wound. “My remarkable vampire,” he whispers.
It’s the last thing I hear before I fall asleep.
And it seems like just a blink before I wake to a salvo of chaos.
CHAPTER5
