Page 18 of Little Death
But I think my favorite is the death moth at the base of his throat.
All I want to do is kiss it, put my tongue to his skin there, and bite down until I can hear his hiss of pain.
Giving in to the impulse, I bend and press my lips to the ink, humming as his throat bobs underneath my mouth. Aiden only allows it for a second before he flips us on the bed, lifting me with a broad palm until he places my head on the pillows. He retrieves the pistol and pushes up to his knees over me. The dull black metal barely reflects any light, but I don’t need to see it to know exactly what he’s capable of.
Aiden seems to drink in the sight of my fear as he draws the barrel of the gun over my skin, his gaze flicking between its progress to my face to drink in my reaction. The metal is cold, with a rough edge, and it leaves thin red lines behind its track over my stomach, up my rib cage, and over the slopes of my breasts. My nipples pinch painfully in response to the stimulation, and his chest heaves as he draws the dull edge over their sensitive peaks.
“Do you like this?” he asks, circling the aching bud.
I fist my hands in the duvet to keep from moving, for fear I’ll jerk, and he’ll pull the trigger accidentally. I don’t think he really would because I doubt it’s even loaded. But the edge of fear is intoxicating, drenching me in conflicting emotions that end up leaving me feeling cross-faded in their aftermath. My hips lift under his weight as he hovers over me, searching for pressure.
“Of course not,” I answer when I remember how to form words. But my response lacks the conviction to make believers out of either of us.
“You like it. I can see your heart racing in your throat. You’re so wet for me, you’re nearly dripping everywhere. You love I push you like this. That I make you a little afraid.”
I’d jerk away, but the gun is at my throat now, and the memory of what he can do to another person as a bolt of fresh fear passes through me. Dammit, and arousal, too. “Aiden,” I whisper, not able to tear my eyes from his. “What are you going to do?”
“Have you figured it out yet?” he asks instead of answering my question. He climbs off the bed, giving me time to contemplate his question, and strips off the rest of his clothes before he kneels between my boneless thighs. As he absentmindedly strokes his cock, letting the head of it bump against my clit, he watches me with heavy-lidded eyes. I hiss out a breath, trying to think clearly through the warring chemical responses happening inside my brain.
“Figured out what?”
“Why I enjoy doing these things to you.” A statement, not a question.
I sneer. “Because you have a screw loose?”
Aiden leans back and picks up the gun again. My heart drops, and he must be able to read it on my face because he’s manic with happiness. “I think we both do. Try again.”
I think of him tilting his head at my suggestion to bet on tonight. How hard he’d been when he was getting me off during the party. The way his eyes had gone soft when I was on my knees for him. “Because I like it when you scare me.” If it weren’t nearly pitch black in the room, if I weren’t drawn so taut with the need to come and he weren’t so…him, nothing could have pulled those words out of me.
I reach up and tug him by the neck with one hand until he’s close. With the other, I arrange the hand holding the gun until it’s pressed against my weeping cunt. I may like it when he scares me, but after all that’s happened tonight, I know he likes it when I don’t back down. “Now you promised me orgasms. Are you going to give them to me, Aiden, or were you lying to me?”
CHAPTEREIGHT
The cold metal slips inside me, the barest advancement, yet all my focus is centered on where it invades my body. Heavier than what I'm used to, less yielding, and significantly colder. It makes me hyperaware of how hot my skin is against its surface. Aiden grunts as he watches it slide in, then shoulders his way between my spread thighs for a closer view. One arm cups around my hip and braces underneath my ass as he slowly slides the barrel of the gun deeper.
Without the mask obscuring his face, there’s no hiding the obsessive mania in his expression. “This is how you want me to make you come first? You want me to fuck you with my gun? I was wrong. You’re not a good girl at all, are you? You’re a very, very bad girl.” His mouth hovers over my clit as he whispers the taunt at the shadowy space between my thighs.
I honestly hadn't thought it through when I'd teased him by putting the gun between my legs. All I could think about was punishing him like he was punishing me. Shocking him. My mom always told me that my constant need to prove other people wrong would get me into trouble one day, but I never thought it would be this much trouble.
“I don't think I can—” I start before he fuses his mouth to my clit and takes up a steady rhythm, thrusting in and out as much as the short barrel will allow. He proves me a liar as his tongue flicks back and forth over my center, and stars explode behind my eyes. My inner muscles clamp around the unforgiving metal, and he doesn’t stop. The receding orgasm builds back with a vengeance and quickly rolls into a second, pulling tortured sounds from my chest.
When I come to, he’s licking the shiny wetness from his lips, chasing every remnant like its something he’s savoring. He lifts a wicked eyebrow. “You don’t think you can what… come? Now who’s the liar?”
“I hate you.”
A chuckle. “Is that what you were screaming?”
Before I can scramble for a smart retort, he’s gripping my hips and jerking me down the bed until my ass is against his thighs. With his right hand, he lines up the head of his cock—when the fuck did he put on a condom?—and then he’s pushing in, stretching me to the boundaries of pain, and he’s barely even inside me.
“Aiden,” I whisper. Maybe I do scream it. It wouldn’t surprise me.
“I love it when you call me that.”
The look on his face… I can’t parse it. Can’t ascribe meaning to it through the maelstrom of sensations. Him driving inside me, the gun at the periphery of my awareness, the way this is so wrong but feels so fucking right. Is it tenderness in the infinitesimal upward curve of his lips? No, it can’t be. Maybe it’s humor. Derision. That would be more in line with the absolute hell he’s put me through tonight. Like he’s aware of some big joke I don’t understand.
He thumbs my lower lip, the digit pushing inside until I taste his skin. I bite down, and the curve of his lips deepens at my show of aggression. His obvious delight makes me want to cover him in bruises. I’ve never been like this with anyone else. What is it about him that pulls these feelings out of me?
“Suck on it,” he murmurs hoarsely.
