Page 57 of The Royal Street Witch
“I know you feel it. Your blood is pumping like a tidal wave right now, I can hear it, can smell it. You love me.”
“Bastian, stop.” And fuck, I want to hold him, I want to kiss him, but the only thing that can touch is the graze of a pinky and that’s our reality. We can never truly be together so why should I let go? Give him all of me? To only have it ripped away and one of us end up dead?
He grabs me, his hand pulling my head to his shoulder, his nose inhaling my hair.
“Bastian,” I whisper, looking through the window to see if we’ve been caught. No eyes are on us and he wants more and this is so dangerous. Coming here was the worst idea.
Bastian pulls from me and looks in my eyes. “Follow me wherever I go. Do you understand?” It’s so unusual for Bastian to be so commanding, but when he is, I listen. Something inside of me has to, it wants to.
“Yes,” I whisper, and he turns in front of me, opening the door, and we walk inside. Bastian claps his hands, scanning the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have the special honor, the privilege tonight, to witness something that will dazzle not just one of your senses, but all of your senses as we pass out a round of vodka cranberries.” He nods to the bartender, and she immediately starts reaching for glasses, lining them up along the bar.
“And to accompany those drinks, on the piano to give you an eargasm, my brother, Cassius Delacroix.” Bastian raises his hand to his brother, who shoots up from his barstool, a detested look upon his face. “Cassius, please do us the honor of gracing us with your talents.”
My heart thumps, not knowing where Bastian is going with this, but there’s an ulterior motive—I just don’t know what it is.
Cassius begrudgingly walks to the piano stool and sits upon it, his nostrils flared.
“Gather around, everyone. You’ll want the full experience.”
I see how the girls look at Bastian and Cassius, how their faces speak to their friends with no words.
Cassius strikes the piano, demanding attention, and all eyes are on him except Bastian’s; his are on me. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me through the opened door of the bathroom while Cassius pounds on the piano keys, a song I don’t recognize but reverberates down my spine.
Inside the bathroom, Bastian pushes me up against the counter, lifting my ass to sit on the porcelain sink. Those soft, cold hands rise from the counter, up my waist, up my breast until they reach my throat, and then his fingers wrap around my neck and I can hardly breathe. Lips brush my ear as his waist slides between my thighs, a hand crawling up my inner thigh, stroking the outside of my panties.
I cover his hand on my neck with my own while the other pulls on his belt, unbuttoning his pants. He swats my hand away and then returns his hand to my thighs and then kisses me, kisses me so hard, my head swims, pushed against the mirror, the sound of the music and people just outside the door making this so dangerous, yet so thrilling and…painful.
Because Bastian and I can never openly be in New Orleans, and the witch that never cries wants to cry. I want him so badly, not just in this moment but in every moment, and I never thought I would be willing to give myself up to a man, let alone a vampire.
His fingers pull my panties aside and stroke me and our eyes lock, his hand pressing into my neck in a fucked up, sexy way. “Say it,” he whispers in my ear. “Say that you love me, too.”
Tears well in my eyes, his cold hands almost warming around my throat, that feeling I swore I would never feel stirring inside of me. “What is love anyway? People like me and you, we don’t love.”
“Say it,” he commands because he knows the truth and his finger is inside of me, sliding up and down, and I almost want him to press harder on my throat, let me pass out from the ecstasy, let me fall into darkness.
“What is love?” I whisper, the pleasure of his touch building inside of me, a tear forming in my eye, and I can’t even use magic to will it away and I surprisingly don’t want to.
As if he knows I’m almost broken, just shards of glass in human form, he pulls his bared teeth to my ear, his fang brushes the lobe, and he whispers, “You and I. This. We are love. Let fucking go, Aster.” His finger strokes harder against me and my hips rise to meet him as my legs tense and the tear slides down and he sees it. Eyes widening at the sight of my tear, Bastian’s tongue slides from his mouth and presses to my cheek, softly and slowly licking my tear away. I shudder, my chest heaving, and lift my mouth to his tongue, taking it in my own with a need so grave I could crumble to pieces.
“Fine,” I whisper, breaking away from his mouth, his aventurines piercing mine as I tensely grab the back of his neck, pulling his forehead to mine. “I love you. I love you, okay? I fucking love the fuck out of you.”
He groans, as more tears spill from my eyes. He pulls on his dick and I widen my legs, ready for him, all of him. Fuck any vampires on the other side of this door. Fuck the witches that will kill me. We will get the fuck out of here and we will be, because we are in love.
Bastian slams into me, and I cry out, so he crushes his lips against mine, muffling my moans. He fucks me on the bathroom sink and whispers in my ear, “That’s what I thought.”
And I lose myself right then and there, the admission of love I’ve denied him, denied myself set free as he brings me to climax. The raw emotion inside my heart aligning with the pleasure in my body and I do it, I let go and my body shakes while he finishes inside me. And we just stay like that for what feels like hours, something freed inside of us, something bigger than us.
Once our clothes are straightened and I wipe the lipstick from Bastian’s mouth as he wipes the tears from my eyes, we exit the bathroom just as Cassius’s performance winds down. He stands from his piano stool with an embattled look on his face, one I can’t entirely read, but there’s no doubt that he saw us leaving the bathroom together. I pull my hair behind my ear, looking up to Bastian one more time before parting through the crowd, making my way down the stairs and out of Comey’s.
I AM IN LOVE. THERE’Sa lightness inside me—a freedom with just accepting what it is. I think of the men I considered pathetic, the ones vying for my attention, the ones that would have broken my heart a thousand times over if I gave it to them. I have laughed in handsome faces after requests for a dance, and blown smoke in the eyes of the men I ordered out of my bed once the sun broke through my curtains. I have no regrets for the love I denied myself before because they couldn’t compare to the all-consuming love I feel now, the avalanche of emotions that have poured from me since I said that I loved him too. Confessing my affection has opened a floodgate and I am notherand though I love Mother, I can be proud that I didn’t allow myself to be used.
I remember my mother’s lovers, their lanky bodies walking down the hallway, their tighty whities illuminating the hall. I’ve seen the tears of a shattered obsession more times than I can count and I hardened myself for so long, but not anymore. I don’t know what lies ahead of us, but for the first time in my life, I am hopeful.
It’s not easy for me to just jump in, arms wide open to what is in front of me. But two weeks isn’t that long a time in the scheme of things, so I beg my brain to grant my heart the clemency to enjoy this time that Bastian and I are getting together because I’m also lying to my best friend.
I tell Chantal one last lie, the lie that I am spending two weeks near the Mississippi Delta, working hard on my spell work and becoming a better witch before I make a decision about a child. Once I texted her, she found it hard to believe, but I explained how lost I was and she agreed that, yes, I haven’t been myself, so she texted her blessing.
