Page 38 of That Sik Luv

Her voice is quiet but filled with a confidence I wasn’t expecting. I still in place, absorbing her words. She’s speaking to me in my language now, reading through the riddles, the cryptic code. Understanding.

My mouth meets her collarbone, and I bite down on it between my teeth. I fight the urge to mark her with my bite, loosening my jaw, and tipping my head up to hers, a few strands of my hair falling onto my forehead.

Down the hall, the faintest of candles illuminates the curves beneath her silver dress. Her chest shudders beneath my forearm as she grasps for her breast. My brows lower as I look down at the edge of her dress, the silver fabric dipping between the beautiful, shadowed mounds of plump flesh. Her hand dips into the dress, rousing her breast, exposing more of her, and a deep growl leaves my throat.

Withdrawing her hand from the dress, I see the metal skeleton key I gave her in the closet.

A slow grin creeps across my face. She brought it.

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” I recite, taking the key out of her trembling fingers.

“What’s this for?” she asks, her worried voice vibrating against my palm. “What’s the test you’re giving me?”

She’s anxious about the trust she’s putting in my hands. She should be. Nothing about this will be soft or tender. Breaking my doll will only rebuild her into the beast she’s bound to become.

“A baptism,” I say, grabbing the hand that was in Saint’s. “To erase the purification they’ve doused you in by making you a woman of strength, owning your sexuality; your freedom,” I continue, before standing straight again.

I grab her dangling hand, bringing the back of it to my mouth. As always, the need to cleanse the mark of anyone else off of her, necessary. I drag my tongue along her hand, tasting her sweet skin against my tastebuds.

She shivers again at the sensation, and I see her thighs close tighter beneath her dress, knowing the wetness pooling there. That sweet, thick honey her body makes just for me.

I’m bound to break. I can only hold back for so long. This need to immerse myself in her scent, her delicious arousal, is driving me to the brink of insanity. The need to have her coated in me; cum dripping down her face, blending with the tears and smears of mascara.

I stick the key into the door behind her, clicking it open. The rush of the crimes we are about to commit flood me as the realization hits.

She seeks the fire.

Briony Strait is fanning the flame.

She’s willing herself to burn beneath the only man she’ll ever want to serve and obey. The one who will worship her in ways that make her God flush with fury.

Chapter twenty-one

New Chains

Walkingintotheroom,I’m openly embracing chaos and transgressions unknown.

I can’t seem to stay away from him, just as he can’t seem to stay away from me. We appear to be polar opposites, differing colors stretched apart on the spectrum, reaching for the other. He’s the dark to my light as I am the color to his achromatic gloom.

Aero is unlike anyone I’ve ever encountered. He appears to live in a world of his own morals. A life of calculated destruction.

He’s mysterious and entirely too intriguing. A man without a face, who’s found me and claimed me as his own little doll, tucking me beneath his wing of protection. The feelings he gives me are unexpected. Lustful thoughts chase me in his presence, and his rough aggressiveness does nothing to deter me from him, only leaving me wondering what this man could possibly do next.

Desire is a dangerous web, entangling me in this unrelenting need for more.

“First, I’m going to need you to pull your dress up over your knees,” his deep voice instructs as he locks the door behind him.

A dim corner lamp lights a fraction of the room, which I’m assuming is some sort of office by the bookshelves lining the walls and the large desk behind me. The light illuminates an oversized globe like a half-moon on the other side of the desk; the shadows taking half of the ghostly-looking planet with it.

I blow air through my lips, unsure of what’s transpiring. I’m very inexperienced when it comes to anything relating to men. Curiosity had me wondering about the sensations below the waist, tempted to explore those feelings on my own, but I’ve successfully kept my temptations at bay the way they have taught me.

The sexually immoral person sins against their own body, they tell us. But indecent thoughts have plagued me long enough, and the idea of exploring something that seems so natural to the core of who I am is begging for release.

A small desk lamp flips on near the door, and I squint my eyes at the sudden increase in light. I gain my focus, seeing Aero has slipped his mask back over his face again. I run the length of him with my eyes, taking in his height and the edge of that black rose tattoo that’s peeking out of the top of his button-up shirt, wondering about the art covering the rest of him. He walks forward a step, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, exposing his throat and a wedge of his firm, inked-covered chest beneath it.

The sight sets my nerves on fire as he steps up, towering over me.

“I don’t ask twice, Briony. Something you’ll learn soon enough.” His hand comes up and grabs a strand of hair hanging near my cheek. Twirling it around his finger twice, he curls it into his palm, gripping it roughly until my head pulls forward and my eyes water from the sting of pain. “I’m an impatient man.”

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