But Esme…
She didn’t simply come too close to look at them, but to look through them and see me.
And that was the most frightening part of it all—knowing someone still wanted to see the man beneath the monster.
Her fingers trembled as she lifted them to my cheek, as though I’d given her permission to touch the crown jewels—and not the ones below my waist—rather than the dead flesh of my face.
And at the first brush of her fingers, my eyes drifted shut and my entire body shuddered.
The feel of her fingers was warm and soft. Gentle and assessing.
More detailed than her damn laser, I felt the fine sensors on her fingertips capture each bump and valley, every slick flat plane.
She didn’t heal them.
Nothing could fucking heal them—or me.
But, as I sat there, unmoving under the soft exploration of her touch, it was the wounds those scars had left on my heart that began to feel less raw.
“So smooth,” she murmured. “So beautiful.”
My lips twisted with a harsh laugh. “Not beautiful.”
Her fingers slid up into the curls at the edge of my forehead and pulled back roughly, making my eyes shoot open wide only to meet her glare.
Her face inched closer to mine until the tips of our noses practically touched and our hot and heavy breaths fought for control over the oxygen in the small space between us.
“You don’t get to tell me what’s beautiful, Monsieur Gargouille,” she said, her voice thick with sincerity and desire. “Beauty is not in perfection, but rather perception.”
I sucked in a breath.
“And I think you are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” she confessed as her tongue darted over her lower lip.
“Don’t lie to me, Madame Gypsy,” I rasped.
“The most beautiful, obstinate, secretive, frustrating, and sometimes, downright callous man I’ve ever met. Does that ring a bit truer?” she taunted.
The laugh I felt in my chest didn’t even make it out through my lips as hers rose and pressed a long kiss to the seam of where scarred flesh met normal skin in the center of my forehead.
I froze and waited.
Then, she placed another next to it, completely on the right side of my temple now. Her full lips felt so lush and warm against the mangled flesh that I wasn’t sure could feel anything any longer.
“What are you doing, Esme?” I finally asked when her lips drifted down onto the scars over my cheekbone. “Kissing it won’t make it better.”
“Sometimes, it’s not possible to make things better, Quinton, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept what is,” she murmured against me. “Maybe kissing it will make it easier to accept.” My heart pounded against my chest. “Or maybe biting it will,” she teased just as her teeth nipped my skin, and I hissed.
I turned my head, making the descent of her lips almost land on my own if she hadn’t caught herself.
My entire body felt like solid hot stone, burning underneath what was left of my clothes and bandages. I no longer felt the pain in my leg or my side, only the pain of needing her—of needing her for so long and having denied myself.
That was the pain I could stand no longer.
“If you’re going to kiss me, Gypsy, then do it,” I commanded.
Her tongue wet her lips, the reddened pillows parting with a deep breath, and I growled.
“And what if I’m going to kill you?” she murmured, tipping into me, her eyelids growing hooded.
A strained laugh—my last laugh—bubbled through my lips. “Oh, it’s going to kill me either way, Esme. And if I’m going to go, I’d rather do it buried inside you.”
Quinton
The first touch of her lips was just as soft as it had been on my scars.
Just as sweet.
Testing and tasting, we hesitantly savored the moment that was the crack of the gavel announcing our sentence.
Whatever it was between us could no longer be stopped.
And once the sentence was passed, the monsters inside us lunged out for more.
The tip of her tongue pushed against the bars of my lips, and when I let her it, it was to bite and then suck the silken intruder deep into my mouth. She moaned against me, low and guttural, stoking the flames that licked my scar-ridden body for weeks.
Her fingers slid to the sides of my scalp, digging into my hair and pulling her mouth tighter against mine—imprisoning herself to me.
For several long minutes, nothing else mattered except the way our mouths clung and devoured each other. Nothing else mattered except the pure, raw truth our tongues could now taste. There were no secrets left to make desire murky. Only truths to make it free.
Sinking my teeth into her lower lip, I bit down while rubbing the flesh inside my mouth with my tongue, until she whimpered in both pleasure and pain.
Groaning, I tore myself away from her, my head dropping back onto the slab of wood behind my back.
“Are you sure you want this, Esme?” My chest heaved. If she didn’t, she needed to leave now.
“I’ve been sure. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she answered hotly, her teeth biting my chin. “Are you sure, Monsieur Gargouille?”
Growling, I slid my good hand up around the back of her neck, securing my hold on her thick waves. Tipping her head back, I set my mouth to the column of her neck, biting and sucking on the warm olive flesh.
“I’m going to mark you, Gypsy,” I murmured against the purple mark I left on her skin. “Inside and out.”
Her moan sent a hot burst of raw need radiating through my body. I was weak for this. For touch. For her. I needed her more than blood. I needed her life to fill me where I’d gone and bled it dry.
So vulnerable and so strong.
She was like the brightest rainbow, beautiful and elusive. You had to survive the fucking storm in order to get her.
“Take off your clothes,” I commanded, accepting that I’d have to save ripping them off for another time when I hadn’t been recently stabbed.
She sat back and held my gaze as she reached behind her neck.
“Not those,” I growled angrily, seeing she meant to take off her body chain first. “Those stay.”
She arched an eyebrow and slid from the bed in order to be able to strip.
“I’ve heard your jewels chime for weeks now as you’ve come and gone all through my sanctuary,” I rasped as she slid her arms from the tiny sleeves of her shirt. “Now, I’m going to hear them chime as you come all over me.”
She rolled her lower lip between her teeth and moaned, making my dick thicken to the point of exploding.
Reaching under the chain, she slid her top down over her lush, full tits. The warm bronze swells eagerly popping free of the fabric to reveal her dusky brown nipples, both speared with gold bars that tangled in the gold chains that roped over them.
“Fuck,” I growled, wanting to bury myself in her chest. Wanting to bury my cock between her heavy tits and decorate them with ropes of my cum.
She pushed her shirt down over the soft, flat plane of her stomach. My eyes widened slightly to catch the piercing at her belly button that dripped tiny crystal teardrops down over her lower stomach.
Here, her shirt met the elastic of her emerald pants, and with one final push, the last of the fabrics shielding her body from me were gone, revealing the long, tanned lengths of her legs that met in the rich black thatch of night between her thighs.
Never more than now did I believe I belonged in the darkness—in that hot, wet darkness between her thighs.
“So beautiful, Gypsy,” I rasped, drinking in the sight like I never had seen or would see something of such beauty again. A Mediterranean Venus rising up from my sea of shadows.
As she stepped back toward the bed, the chains draped over her body teased her bare skin, covering it with the finest goose bumps and making her nipples pebble even tighter.
Grunting, but with only faint awar
eness of the pain, I pushed myself up straighter, the movement pulling at both my stitches and my dick.
“Be careful.”
My eyes narrowed. “Sit on me,” I commanded. “I need to taste you.”
Her lips folded into a coy smile as she swayed toward me, but instead of climbing back on the bed, she bent down and picked up the scissors.
I watched, my fingers itching to touch her, as she slipped the cool metal of the blade under my shirt sleeve and cut through one side and then the other, pushing the fabric away to bare my chest to her gaze.
When she turned to repeat the action on the remainder of my pants, I captured her wrist and held it prisoner.
“Sit on me or I’ll rip every fucking stitch to make you.”
Desire pooled like molten lava pits in her eyes, heavy and thick with lust. She took one last, longing gaze at my groin, licking her lips at being forced to hold out for my cock.
Obeying my command, she lifted one leg over me, giving me a glimpse of the slickness that made her dark curls glisten with need before gently lowering herself against the bulge in my pants.
I groaned, her generous tits presented like gifts wrapped in chains. Swollen. Aching. Perfect.
She was either my own miracle or my worst sin. Whichever the case, she was mine.
I reached out, hissing as my fingers collided with the soft heat of her skin that was broken by the strands of metal lying against it. My thumbs traced along the underside of her breasts, watching her teeth sink into her lip.
I wanted to savor her, but when she wordlessly arched against me, grinding her hot cunt against my straining cock, a noise escaped me that sounded mostly feral as I filled my palms with her tits and kneaded.
“Q…” she moaned my name and it was like a drug, pushing me to take more.
And more.
And more.
My fingers found the bars that speared through her nipples, pulling and teasing them until she writhed and shuddered with the pleasure and pain they were meant to create.
“Mine,” I growled, like a beast marking his territory.
Sliding my palm up her chest, I hooked my index finger on the top chain that swept across her chest and pulled down until it popped free.
Esme gasped and her eyes peeled open, glancing down before meeting my gaze as I repeated the action with every other chain, freeing her breast for me. Once the left half of her seductive trinket draped brokenly against her back, I plumped her tit in my hand and demanded, “Feed yourself to me.”
Groaning, she placed one hand on my shoulder, far from my wound, and the other on my chest, before bending forward until her nipple brushed against my lips.
Fuck.
She was perfect, so I wanted to savor her.
She was perfect, so I wanted to devour her.
My lips peeled back so my teeth could lock over the gold bar, holding her breast prisoner with the pull of pain while my tongue swirled over the tip of her nipple, brushing against the sensitive nub until she cried out with pleasure.
My other hand teased and tormented her other breast while my mouth clamped down and sucked.
“Oh God…” she panted. “Q…”
I ripped through the chains on her other breast, giving myself the feel of her skin swollen against my palm.
I feasted on her tits until she was gasping, unable to take a whole breath, and the clenching of her needy pussy dripped a pool of desire onto my stomach. Meanwhile, my cock throbbed against the front of my pants, heavy and aching for the release I’d denied it.
The release I’d find inside her hot heaven.
I slid my hand down over her quivering stomach to the thatch of curls decorating her pussy.
I groaned against her breast as my fingers slipped easily through her slick folds, relishing the way she convulsed when I brushed her clit. She was needy and powerless against pleasure. And in this—making her feel this way—I felt more man than monster for the first time in years.
“So hot and wet, Gypsy,” I rumbled against her.
“So empty, Gargoyle,” she replied, shuddering as I sunk two fingers into her. Not anymore.
Fuck.
I tried to convince myself I’d imagined it the night I tasted her—how tight and warm she was. But I hadn’t.
Grunting, I released her nipple with a soft pop and looked up at her.
“Cut the rest off.”
Her eyes, fierce with desire, flared. She whimpered as the instruction forced her to slide her hot cunt off my fingers in order to move to the end of the bed.
The scissors cut through the other leg up to the waist and finished through the small section she’d left intact while dressing my knee.
My jaw clenched as though someone tightened a vise around it, watching her hands pull back the fabric as expertly as she played her damn violin.
I commanded her, yet the truth was I was at her mercy—both because I was injured and because I was in awe.
In awe of her beauty. In awe of her strength. And in awe of the way she looked past the things I thought defined me and found the broken man underneath them all.
A fractured cry escaped my lips as she pushed away the last pieces of my mangled clothes and fastened her hand around the length of my cock that lay thick and pulsing against my stomach.
“Fuck…” The word pushed out through the cell of clenched teeth.
My eyes squeezed shut as her hand played over my length, stroking up to the tip before smearing her finger over the head of my dick, dragging around the drop of moisture that pooled there.
I managed to look—to catch her just as her head dipped down, her tongue wetting her lips as they parted like a woman parched—a woman thirsty for the feel of thick flesh against her tongue and hot cum down her throat.
And the thought alone almost sent me over the edge.
I felt the pull on my stitches but I ignored it as I reached and roughly grabbed her hair, forcing her eyes to mine.
“Don’t,” I growled. “I haven’t been inside a woman in almost five years, Gypsy.” Her eyes bulged in surprise. “So, unless you want me to come down your throat, I wouldn’t put those pouty lips of yours anywhere near my cock right now.”
After what happened… after I healed… I’d been focused on my training—on my work for the Valois. Once I’d fallen into the routine of spying, stealing, and severing off pieces of Méchant’s organization, I’d allowed myself the odd night of pleasure here and there. But even then, even with meetings arranged purely for a fuck’s sake, I stopped wanting to deal with the looks of shock and pity and, sometimes, horror, when they saw my face.
I told myself it didn’t matter.
I relieved myself when it was necessary and focused on my work most waking moments.
Until Esme.
Raising herself up with an almost feline grace, she straddled me once more.
“Five years?” she rasped, planting her hands on my chest.
I filled my hands with her breasts, those damn piercings calling to me like two twin sirens, plumping and kneading them roughly even as she pushed against me for more.
The look in my eyes was the only response she’d get as I demanded, “Touch yourself like you did that night.”
“Q…”
“I want your sweet honey dripping onto my cock before I let her eat her fill.”
She shuddered as I pulled at her nipple piercings with impatience.
Shoving her hand between her thighs, I watched her finger move frantically over her clit until I felt the first hot drops of her cum as it splashed on my aching shaft.
Her other hand curled into my chest the closer she got to her orgasm.
She whimpered, her head tipping back and mouth falling open with pleasure.
Hot desire dripped again onto my cock, and I couldn’t take it any longer.
With a feral growl, I reached down and pulled her hand away, bringing it to my mouth and sucking it clean.
When she looked into my eyes, I asked, “You
want the monster, Gypsy?”
She panted and let her forehead fall to mine. “I want you. I want your teeth. I want your scars. I want your pain. I want your cock. I want it all, and I want it to hurt so good.”
I captured her lips, punishing them and praising them for wanting what no one else did. Dragging my hand through her hair, I forced her head all the way back, giving me not only her neck, but putting her breasts within feasting distance of my mouth.
With my other hand I reached between us and fed the tip of my cock through the damp silk of her curls to the entrance of her wet lips.
“Esme—” I broke off with an animalistic shout and impaled her on my length.
There was no slowness. No mercy. Nothing except the exquisite pleasure of her hot, clenching cunt squeezing around my dick.
The noises she made—a mix of satisfied moans and sultry laughter—inflamed me.
There was always this subtle play for control between us. For secrets. For answers. And for pleasure.
And she’d claimed this round.
Growling, I sank my teeth around her nipple, biting hard around the flesh until she gasped in pain while her pussy clenched in pleasure.
“Are you trying to kill me?”
She speared herself on my cock faster in response. The frantic moves of a woman who knew what she wanted and would do anything for it.
Meanwhile, I took my fill of her body that was in front of me. Twisting and contorting it, not caring about the strain on my stitches as I lost myself against the sweet flesh of her tits.
The slapping sounds between us grew louder. The length of my dick sliding easily up against her womb, coated in the warm film of her desire.
“Fuck.” I wasn’t going to last much longer—not when I was fucking my fantasy.
Reaching between us, my fingers searched for her clit.
She choked out a cry and jerked when my fingers pinched the swollen bud.
“Q—” She broke off as pleasure and pain spasmed across her face.
Tipping her back until she was forced to slide partially up my length, I increased the pressure of my fingers, squeezing that sensitive nub until her body began to convulse, and then I pistoned my hips and drove into her.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 26