Page 93 of When Sinners Fall
The pounding of my heart throbs against my ribs, and everything feels connected to the wound on my lower chest - my centre. Pain courses around my body, and the sting of tears hit, but before I let them overwhelm me, Dante is back. His hand is on my skin, rubbing something cooling between my breasts and onto the pulsing skin just beneath. Then his hands trail over my collarbone, down my arms.
“You’re mine, Wren. You’re mine, and I’m yours.”
His arms hoist my legs around his waist, and he rubs the tip of his cock through my folds to my entrance. He forces himself inside, aided by my earlier arousal. The slight moan that slips free is another embarrassment. How can this be what I want after what he’s just done?
He fills me, sliding almost all the way out before surging back in. This time it’s his own groan that sparks pleasure. Fingers grip my hips, and he pulls me to meet him, working in harder and deeper. It’s not fair because the pleasure overrides everything else. The pain slips to the background as my greedy body knows what he’s going to do. He’s going to force me to come.
His rhythm settles, and he’s working me up, hitting against my clit just enough to set me on a spiralling path. The rush of my climax races around my body, wiping out the pain, and I feel that urge, that need for him to fuck me harder – for him to push me over into oblivion.
“You. Are. Mine.” He punctuates his thrusts just as I start to come. My muscles tighten, and my orgasm detonates. “Fuck, yeah.”
Time passes and my breathing slows, but as it does, the pain seeps back in. It’s less raw now. More of a throbbing, burning sensation.
“Dante?” I ask. He shifts and pulls out of me, swirling his tongue over my nipple on the way. “I want to see.”
“You will.”
“Will I like it?” I imagine his tattoo and the uneven lines I created.
“I made it for you. That should be enough for you to love it.” He slips the blindfold free and sets about untying me. My arms wrap around his neck for balance as he loosens my ankles, and I’m a little shaky on my legs when he brings me back down to the ground.
I look over his shoulder and see the glowing fire in the corner. Or rather, a small furnace of embers with an iron stake lying over it. It looks torturous. Dangerous even. I’m not sure I would have agreed if I’d seen it before. I'm almost scared to look down at the mark he's given me, now I know how it was made. And I don't want to think about how he even knows how to do it.
I look at him and the mark on his chest as he stares at the one he just put on me. “We really did this?”
“Yes.” His tongue rolls over his lips as he lifts me and takes me over to the bed in the corner. “You let me, and by giving me that freely, you've marked me, my skin and my heart.”
The soft sheets are a welcome relief from the harsh grain of wood on my skin, and I watch as he lies next to me.
“Are we crazy?” I ask, on the brink of tears.
He reaches for a small tub and pushes his fingers into the ointment to smear it over the mark again. “Who cares, Wren. As long as we’re crazy together.”
EPILOGUE
DRAGON
The cards land in front of me. I’d like to say I give a damn about them. I don’t. Still. I’m too busy watching my Wren Bird in the corner of the room talking to Mariana. They barely know each other, but they need to. They need to gel and find some balance in who they are to each other because, as far as I’m concerned, they’re going to get real comfortable together. They’re on the same team now.
I smile a little as I watch Wren giggling and waving her hand for another shot. They both pick them up, and both down them, with zero fucks given to what’s happening in here. It’s not one of our whore houses. It’s the same place she first found me in. Just a bar that happens to belong to me. One that most of us come to for a little time out from life. Low, moody lights hang low over the tables, and there’s that same sullen, smoky atmosphere I like living in bleeding around the space.
There are parts of my Wren that sit well in here. She oozes that style in some ways – dirty mind, soft curves that walk like they own the world. She could just get on the tables any minute and dance her little black heart out, so we all drool, but the other side of her isn’t anywhere near ready for it. Or me. Mariana will help me with that. She’ll help guide Wren slowly and knows exactly how much she can and can’t say until I decide otherwise. Maybe they can talk about being taken, give each other some comfort in that somehow.
My gaze dips back to the cards, and I play my hand and try focusing. Not easy lately since she's got deeper into my space. I thought about keeping her away from it all – doing as she’d asked, but that isn’t going to work long term. She needs to see this. Learn about it. Learn about me and become part of it, even if she is on the wings. She sure as shit is gonna find out all the details one day. It’ll all come out. The girls, the branding, the cells we hold them in. The migrants we travel across state to use, and the way we steal people’s lives for profit. I’d rather she was eased into that, whether she wants it or not, because it’s coming. One day, when I can’t contain it anymore, or she hears those whispers and puts two and two together, she’ll know exactly what we are – what I am.
They both burst out laughing suddenly. Damn sound lifts these dark corners into something I don’t want to acknowledge around these kinds of guys - happiness. I am, though. It’s like I’m living on cloud nine most of the time with her. She's taken a soul full of death and brutality and somehow started cleaning it. I might be a lethal man, a killer, but when she’s near me, I can’t help but feel lighter than that. It takes me back, you know? Back to a time when it was just me and her and the quiet streets where she lived.
Lining up my cards, I look up and check out every man in here. Not one of them is looking towards Wren, despite the curves and laughter echoing, because they know – loud and fucking clear – that she is mine. No denying it. No disputing it. Doesn’t stop me chuckling at the weakness around me, though, and I end up shaking my head. I’d probably have more respect for someone if they did try looking over there. Not sure how they’re managing not to, in all honesty. Guess they think those curves that belong to me aren’t worth dying for.
They are.
Throwing my hand, almost bored with the game, I get up and wander over to her. She’s damn near crying about something by the time I get there, laughter and tears peeling out of her.
“Tequila is a bad, bad thing,” she slurs, grabbing hold of my arm for balance. “This is your fault, Dante!”
“Mine?”
“Yes. Or maybe hers.” She points at Mariana, who is equally trashed. Not surprising, given the fact that she barely drinks hard liquor. “But then you introduced us, so probably yours.”
