by Maria Luis
“Five.”
Without thought, I begin shrugging out of the robe.
“Four,” he husks.
The silk slips to my elbows to reveal my cotton tank top. Bending my arms, I try to rip at the fabric and tear it free, but the binds around my wrists curtail all further effort. Gritting my teeth, I smother a frustrated groan.
And then I beg, just as he wanted: “Help me.”
Damien doesn’t need further encouragement. But any expectation of him loosening the knot goes up in flames when he plucks the thin strap of my tank top between two fingers, his knuckles grazing my skin, and pulls.
The fabric tears in half, down the middle, leaving me in nothing but silk and bandages.
I’m naked.
Completely and utterly naked.
My mouth goes dry. “You just . . . you just—”
“Three,” comes the tick of the clock, even as his hands find my hips and squeeze. And while I can’t see him, I know that he’s studying the pink blisters that dart across my collarbone like a constellation of devastation. Stars formed by fire rather than an accumulation of gas and dust.
Broken. Defeated. And still standing.
Always.
Lifting my gaze, wishing I could meet his, I reach out.
“Two.”
My fingers find the waistband of his trousers and then the metal tab. Pulse racing, I pop the button free and slide my thumb down the length of his zipper—and his cock—in a blatant tease that has him swaying closer.
I smile, slowly.
Harness the darkness.
He should have specified if we had boundaries.
With hands still bound by silk, I drop to my knees and kneel before him. My hands go to his right thigh for balance and my tongue to the tab of his trousers. Then, with my teeth biting the metal, I tug it down.
“Fuck. Fuck, Rowena.”
Hands find the back of my head, careful of my scars, and I don’t need my vision to know that I’ve rattled the unpredictable Mad Priest. He grunts beneath his breath and holds me to him with such possession that even if I wanted to stand up and walk away, there’d be no chance in doing so.
I glance upward. “Tell me what you want.”
At his own words thrown back at him, he swallows audibly and chokes back a curse.
Swaying forward, I part the fabric of his trousers and recall the sensation of him rocking against me. I lick my lips, dragging my teeth over the fullness of my bottom one, just to make him sweat. He does, releasing a hoarse groan that sounds like music to my ears.
“Give me the words, Damien,” I say on a low murmur, my lips nearly kissing his sheathed cock, “beg for me.”
He hisses from between gritted teeth. “You’re a goddamn she-wolf.”
Whatever I might have said next is lost as he clamps his hands under my armpits and hauls me from the stone floor. The silk robe flutters when he lowers me to the altar, his finger coming to my shoulder, away from my wounds, to push me down until the marble is cool against my back.
I hear denim scraping over skin and then feel his hands on my wrists.
Shock registers a moment before I ask, “You’re untying me?”
“I want you free.”
I bite down on my lip, hiding a smile. “And so the hero reemerges.”
“No,” he replies on a short, rough laugh, “no, he doesn’t.”
And then he loops the sash behind my neck, like he’s making the beginnings of a proper tie, before fisting both ends of the silk in one hand above my head. He pulls on the sash, and I rise, spine arching. He releases, and I sink to the altar.
A sacrifice.
His sacrifice.
My heart thuds against my ribcage and I strain my neck, testing the new silk restraint at my nape, and then there’s nothing but him—Damien.
His hand on my right leg, bending it so that my foot hits the edge of the altar. His fingers dipping between my legs to sink deep into my pussy. One finger, then two. He curls his fingers, and a tremble shatters through me. Then I feel the silk go taut, lifting me upward, so that I’m forced to plant my hands down on either side of my hips.
“Last chance to run,” comes his dark rasp, his fingers leaving me empty and aching when he pulls them free.
“Even if I do, you’ll chase me.”
“To the ends of the earth,” he vows.
Darkness clamps down on my lungs, squeezing, and then he’s there, the length of him brazen against the inside of my thigh, then at my entrance. The tension in the silk sash goes slack, until I’m hovering just above the altar, a veritable buffet for Damien’s hungry gaze.
Take me, I want to tell him. Please, please now.
Need unfurls in my veins and I move my hands, finding the hard balls of his bare shoulders, and—
He thrusts deep, plunging in to the hilt.
I cry out his name.
“Fuck,” he grunts, his hips stilling immediately. “Rowena, fuck, you’re so tight.”
He’s bigger than I anticipated, and I squirm beneath him, hips churning, nails clawing down his back. The silk sash catches the weight of my head even as I arch my spine and bite back a sob.
Good God, I’ve been impaled.
“How long has it been.”
I grit my teeth and breathe through my nose. “Just move.”
He slides out, slowly, until only the tip of his cock remains within me. “How long, Rowena.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I twist my head to the side. “Don’t ask this of me.”
“Tell me.”
Embarrassment is a poison, and its toxin licks at the flames of my desire. There’s no shame in admitting the truth: I made a decision to reclaim what I’d lost. Only, I never expected my celibacy to last as long as it did. I never expected the distrust I had for men to turn to fear, so that every graze of a masculine finger, whether sexual or not, left me chilled to the bone.
I was once the big, bad wolf. And then I became terrified of my own shadow.
Until now.
Until him.
“Ten years,” I whisper. “It would have been four, but I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t go through with it.”
A slow, heavy breath is expelled above me. “Do you trust me?”
The answer should be no.
I’ve hunted this man across London. I had orders to kill him. Just hours ago, he came to take his own revenge. We’re enemies that have found each other on the same side of a war. And while the answer should be no, all I hear from my lips is “Yes.”
“Then hold on to me, and don’t let go.”
He starts with tiny pulses of his hips that barely bury him inside me. But each smooth retraction of his cock steals my breath. Again, he pulses. Again, I fight for air.
The silk sash tugs upward, and I follow the silent command blindly.
Soft lips kiss my neck. He thrusts a little harder. Another kiss, this one on my jaw, followed swiftly by a second thrust that plunges deeper. It’s a calculated onslaught designed to make me lose my mind, and holy hell, he’s succeeding.
“Yes.” Wanting leverage of my own, I plant one hand on the marble and hook my leg around his waist. “Yes.”
Against my calf, the muscles of his arse flex with every roll of his hips. I gasp, then feel Damien’s mouth brush my earlobe. He nips the sensitive flesh, tugging on my earlobe. Growls low in his throat when I squeeze around his cock and throw my head back, heedless of the silk.
It’s the only invitation he needs.
He doesn’t take me. No, he bloody well devours me.
His cock plunges deep and his free hand grips my hip, fingers biting down on the soft flesh like he relishes the feel of me. He holds me steady, refusing to let me wriggle myself away from his punishing thrusts. One deep, two shallow, two deep, three shallow, three deep, and so on, until sweat sticks to my skin and I’m begging for him all over again.
“Please. Oh, God, Damien. Please.”
I hear the slick glide of his cock pulling out
before he rocks forward, pressing deep. My toes curl, heels digging into his lower spine. I hear his satisfied purr and, like the addict that I’ve quickly become, I succumb to the desperate, clawing need to churn my hips and meet him thrust for thrust.
“Fuck me, Rowena,” he bites off, dragging me down on top of his cock so hard that I hear him, hear us. “That’s right. Yes. Use me.”
The silk restraint slips free as Damien’s hand takes its place. He holds me captive, drawing me closer. His forehead touches mine and the heat of his ragged breath teases my lips with every exhale. He’s consuming me again, inhaling me without actually kissing, never closing that last remaining gap. Both of my legs go around his waist, and the angle—
“Like that,” I whimper, clinging tight to his shoulders, “just like that. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He reaches a hand between us and touches my clit—and I lose the last thread of sanity.
Sobbing, I turn my head from his and let my temple hit his shoulder. My hips move restlessly, sinking down every time that he thrusts upwards. We meet as one, the slap of our skin painfully erotic in the chapel.
I’m dying.
A slow unraveling that starts with his hard cock and segues to the calloused finger that rubs over my clit in tiny, aching circles and ends with his roughened, “Come on me. Fuck, I need to feel you.”
I don’t want the moment to end.
I don’t want to ever stop spinning.
And yet even now I feel the tightening in my core. Feel the way that I quiver with every brush of his finger on my clit. Delicate, feathery caresses that make me pant and want and moan.
Damien’s thrusts quicken, the carefully set pace demolishing on his next breath. He’s losing control, fucking me harder, faster, and then he roars, “Now, Rowena, come now!” and I come with a cry that ravages my throat. With a tight, pained groan that shakes the very foundation of my being, Damien pulls out of me not even a second later. Hot jets of come hit my inner thighs, an instant reminder that we were reckless, wanton.
A lifetime of loneliness and then him, the Mad Priest.
The villain.
The enemy.
The god refusing to don the crown of the hero.
My heart hammers in my chest. I should say something. Tell him that I’m on the pill, although I’m not, or that we shouldn’t do this again, although the thought of never doing so leaves me feeling strangely frantic. There are so many things that I should say to clear the air but all I manage is his name.
“What?” he rasps, his hand finding mine when I touch his face. “Tell me.”
“I lied earlier.”
A small, pregnant pause. Then, gruffly, “In what way?”
I offer him a tremulous smile. “I mourned for you, Damien Godwin. For a moment, when no one could see me, I mourned for you.”
24
Damien
The living can’t be mourned.
They can be forgotten or despised, and sometimes, if the person in question is particularly lucky, he might even be loved—but mourning is reserved for the departed. And I’m not dead.
Which doesn’t explain why Rowena’s words have haunted me for hours.
She has haunted me for hours.
I chased her because there was no other choice but to catch her. Stripped her naked because I needed, for once in my goddamned life, to be flesh on flesh—no barriers held, no pretenses made. And I took her on the altar because if I was going to break a vow, then I planned to savor every bloody second of my reckoning.
Unrepentant bastard that I am, I want to take her again.
Fuck her again.
Make her come on my cock again.
Like a thief stealing into the dark crevices of my mind, the early morning sun creeps in between the gap in the curtains. Blinded, I tear my gaze away from the window to look again at the shared wall that separates me from Rowena.
Guy would tell me to keep my prick in my trousers.
Saxon, pre-Isla Quinn, would remind me not to forget about the mission.
I have no idea what Saxon post-Isla Quinn would say—probably something about chasing rainbows and choosing happiness and fuck Holyrood until our dying breath. Especially the last one, if our tense conversation last night is anything to go by.
With my wrists propped on my bent knees, and my shoulders pressed against the side of the bed, I lean my head back against the mattress and close my eyes. Familiar exhaustion lingers on the periphery, a traitorous beast prepared to sink its claws into me and claim me permanently, if I let it.
I mourned for you, Damien Godwin.
Fucking hell.
Lifting my ass off the floor, I snatch Mum’s necklace from my back pocket and hold it up at eye-level. The silver links glint under the rays of sunlight. Every night, she would carefully unclasp the hook and set it on her bedside table. And she’d stare at it, this faraway look in her blue eyes that troubled me, even at six years old.
She always wound it around her fist when she struck.
Then she would sob for hours, her shoulders shaking so hard that I used to wonder if a person could die from sadness. Nowadays, I know better. Now, I know the grip misery can have on a soul; how the darkness, like I told Rowena, can own every piece of you until there’s nothing left to even scrape together.
I wind the chain between my fingers, running my thumb over the links. “Why was this so—”
A scream shatters the quiet.
Feminine. Bone-chilling. Rowena.
Shoving the necklace back into my pocket, I snatch my blade from its ankle holster and launch to my feet. Another scream, this one sounding strangled. No, terrified. I’m out the door in under three seconds. A hard glance down the hall reveals Hugh Coney stepping out from his bedroom as well.
His gaze falls to the knife.
I beat back the snarl that rises in my throat and give him my back. I shimmy the doorknob. Locked, as it should be. Unless someone else took inspiration from me and climbed the trellis. The thought turns my blood to ice. With all my strength, I ram my shoulder against the wood.
The door concedes with a battered whine.
When my eyes slowly adjust to the darkness within, I finally understand what it’s like to mourn the living—because there, on that bed, Rowena Carrigan looks like she’s in the throes of death.
The heavy comforter has been kicked to the floor and pillows hang precariously on the edge of the mattress. The sheets wrap around her knees like a noose. A whimper dredges to the surface, sounding nothing like the ones she breathed in my ear last night and every bit afraid of whatever hunts her in her dreams.
Closing the door behind me, I set the blade down on a small table and monitor the weight of my steps as I approach her. On nights that Guy stays—stayed—at the Palace, I could hear his screams from the other side of the medieval manor while he slept. I made the mistake of waking him only once, years ago, and found myself on my back with a knife pressed to my throat.
Keeping my voice to a low hum, I utter Rowena’s name.
Her hands twitch, her chin straining upward.
Slowly, I reach for the sheets tangled around her bare legs and loosen them with a gentle pull. I pull again, and again, steeling myself against the sound of her cries and her whimpers as I work to get her free.
“No.” She kicks her feet. “No, no. Help!”
She’s as imprisoned in sleep as I am by life.
Broken, kindred souls.
The acknowledgment burns within me. This, I would spare her, if I could. The chains, the shackles that never slacken no matter how you try to shake them free. The fear that follows, like the reaper stalking its next victim, until you’re frozen, paralyzed, and know that the end is near.
I toss the sheet to the floor.
Dropping one knee to the mattress, I reach for her clenched hand. She fights against me. “Rowena, love, you’re free now.” Behind trembling lids, her eyes jerk right and left. A tiny gasp inflates her chest, and, clasped
within mine, her fist tightens then unfurls like she’s battling a war known to no one but her. “I would chase it for you,” I rasp, my gaze moving over her face. “If I could, I would chase—”
She comes awake with a sharp cry, her hand jerking free from mine as she scrabbles up the bed to press her back against the headboard. “Who’s there?” Her eyes dart left then right, searching the shadows. “Please. Please, tell me who’s there?”
Pressure caves in on my chest.
Last night, I stormed this room and kept to the darkness, never revealing myself until I could smell the fear on her. Because I wanted her scared. Because as I fell from the Palace’s roof, all the anger and rage had unleashed within me, until I could have decimated all of London without a single trace of remorse.
It would be so easy to do the same now.
The Mad Priest would capitalize on the trepidation raking her expression. But the little boy who once hid beneath a rickety kitchen table, away from his mum, can’t find it in himself to bring this woman any more pain.
Even villains have their limits.
The pressure deepens, carving a space where my heart ought to be. I feel hollow, gutted. “It’s me.”
Me, the man you sought to kill.
Me, the man you mourned.
“It’s only me,” I repeat, gruffly.
Like I’ve flicked a switch, the tension in her shoulders deflates as she whispers my name. Bringing her knees to her chest, she wraps trembling arms around her bent legs. Against the headboard like that, she looks small and vulnerable. Too damned innocent for the life that she’s lived.
“Can you . . .” She rubs her lips together like her mouth is parched. “Can you please open the curtains? It’s probably silly, considering everything, but I—”
“I have you, Rowena.”
Pushing up from the mattress, I cross the room and sling the drapes wide. The sun scatters within, flooding the bedroom with natural light. When I turn back around, it’s only to find her unmoved on the bed.
“Do you believe in karma?” she asks quietly, her fingers tightly knotted around her bent knees. “No . . . no, karma isn’t the right word.”
I approach her on silent feet. “What’s the right word, then?”