Page 71 of To Free a Soul
For a human, at least.
“I’ve barely been able to focus with everything that’s happened.”
It sounded like an excuse to evade the discussion.
A growl rumbled from him. “I don’t understand what your problem is. I don’t see how my lack of physical perception has upset you. Why does it matter?”
Just his words sent her heart racing, and it throbbed in his mind from all around him. Cupping her hands against her stomach, she drew her shoulders inwards as she kept her gaze averted.
“It just does,” she answered in a small voice.
Weldir placed his hand around her knee and drew it upwards, trying to coax her like he usually could; the lithe muscles of her thighs were sensitive and easy to stimulate.
“But you found pleasure in it. You enjoyed it.”
She slapped his hand away with both of her own. “Because I am not entertainment!” she yelled, scrunching her face at him in anger. “Because my desire is not for your amusement. I don’t want to be leered at, pitied, like my arousal is a fucking joke!”
Weldir snapped his fangs, creating a sharp, clipping noise as he shot forward. “When have I ever led you to believe such a thing?”
“All of it was a lie! A performance that you took part in formysake!”
“I did not lie, female!”
“I thought we weresharingsomething. It doesn’t matter that you told me and I misunderstood. It was obvious that I didn’t know, and I’m so embarrassed by my own actions, by my behaviour because... because I was trying to...” Her eyelids crinkled as liquid welled along her lash line. She bit her bottomlip, unable to spit it out, then covered her face and shook her head in her palms. “Just... I don’t think I can do it with someone who can’t evenfeelit. It makes me feel pathetic. Like I’m forcing you to do something you feel nothing for.”
A deep, dark chuckle rumbled from him. “That is where you are very wrong.”
She lowered her hands to reveal her tear-stained cheeks. “But you said–”
Weldir curled his fingers under her chin and pulled her forward. Her neck stretched as he put them face to face until her nose was close to brushing his own.
“Entertainment? Amusement? Myenjoymentof it isn’t that shallow. And forcing me?” Weldir tsked and dipped his head in a way that made it clear he’d drawn his gaze down her body. “In what way do you have control over anything I do? I do things becauseIwant to.”
“Then what reason do you have for doing it?” she snapped without pulling away. Instead, her nose scrunched in anger, and he found it cute that she thought she could be scary. “I’m not desperate or pathetic enough to be... to bepity fucked!”
The snarl that tore out of him was rather beastly, even for him. He gripped her jaw a little tighter and bared his fangs.
“BecauseIlike it!” Weldir roared. “Because the way you tremble when you come stirs me in ways I cannot fathom.” He pushed his thumb up to shove her head to the side, exposing her neck to him. “Because when you’re close, your heart’s rhythm is so erratic that it pulses from you like an erotic drum and fills my realm entirely. And your little pants... your breaths, so shallow and cute, always come out in raspy, long draws when you’re about to moan. I know every inch of your body and how it twitches, how it shivers, and how it dips under any caress.”
Weldir drew his clawed thumb down her pulsing jugular, hating that it was rapid for the wrong reason. Yet, like herbody remembered his touch, the side of her neck prickled with goosebumps.
“Admittedly, I began this simply because it was something you desired, with little care for it, but that changed.” When he drew his thumb up, and she gave a shiver at his claw tickling her skin, he perceived pressure across his face – as if he might have grinned at howhonesther body was. “Your body is such a lusty thing. I may not be able to feel pleasure, but I experience it through you. In the way your eyes grow soft and dazed, or how you stretch into my touch for more without meaning to.”
Weldir released her gently, supporting her chin as it lowered to a comfortable position. He pulled back and dipped his head once more to show her he was looking down her body, and his gaze fell on her soft, generous breasts. Her nipples had hardened through her dress, giving away that she was aroused by his words, even if her slack-jawed expression didn’t.
“I may not be able to feel desire, or your touch, or the warmth of your body, but I experience it within my mind.” He shot his gaze up to greet her puzzled stare. “And my mind is rather perverted, little human.” Then he purposefully dabbed his tongue at the seam of his lips seductively, like he’d seen some humans do. “And I very much enjoy watching you.”
For once, he liked her silence.
She wasn’t arguing with him, wasn’t shouting at him. She was stunned speechless.
Had she not desired to leave last time, I would’ve told her all this.He hadn’t wanted her to think she was alone in all this, but she refused to speak with him, and Weldir refused to have this conversation alone in his darkness.I would have told her because... I tire of hiding it.
He hadn’t wanted to lose those moments of bonding with her. Each time, no matter how small it was, he felt they werebreaching the distance between them. He grew more infatuated, and she seemed to soften towards him.
Enough to stay for prolonged periods in his realm.
Enough to remain at his side, rather than scorning him and running away.
