by Jenica Saren
I couldn't stand it, not just the pain, but the conflicting feelings, the overwhelming complexity of both sensations. "My dad," I whispered. The words were so quiet, so low, that even with Eliam's superior hearing, I wasn't sure that he'd heard them.
To my dismay, he did.
He pulled back away from me, but didn't move or relinquish his grip on my arms. "What?" He asked, his voice silent and void of emotion.
"My dad. The scars came from him."
His eyes changed then, transforming his entire face into something I didn't recognise. There was sadness at first, unimaginable sadness that looked wrong in its entirety on his face. But then, there was pure, unadulterated fury. There was no other word to describe the white-hot rage that shone in his eyes like a warning shot fired from a gun.
"Why?" His voice was cold, hard. As much disdain as he may have initially held for me, I was glad that it never seemed to be quite at this level.
"My question," I muttered, one lone tear escaping the corner of my eye like the traitor it was. I wanted to be cold, emotionless, strong. I wanted to see the situation and feel nothing but rage.
Instead, I was left feeling like that same little girl, left bleeding into a puddle on the cold, stone floor with my white dress turned crimson and skin turned porcelain. I was left trembling internally as the imagined sound of a whip cracked through my mind and threatened to split my skull with the sharp, thunderous sound.
Eliam cupped my cheek, maybe a little roughly, but it was clear that he was only just keeping his anger in check as his pupils dilated and undilated rapidly. "Why, Ria?" He asked me again, softly this time.
I wanted to tell him, I wanted to tell them all and finally let someone into the cruel darkness that lived in the back of my mind. The way that Eliam was looking at me, the way that his attitude changed and became that of someone who was wholly concerned for me... It wasn't how he treated me, how he felt about me.
The way he was acting was surely nothing short of pity.
On the flip side, I didn't think that there was any going back from the words that had already been spoken, released into the world as my truth. And when you couldn't go back, maybe it was best to get it over with and move forward or move on.
"Why did Lillith leave?" I asked finally.
This time, he didn't seem to be bothered by my use of the seventh Sin's name. That was a plus. "She didn't want the life that we were given," he answered quietly. "She wanted to grow old and have a family, she didn't want to be Lust, she didn't want any of it. In the end, she didn't even want us."
My heart broke for him, for all of the guys. She was a member of their family and she left them all. But why just leave? If she couldn't change anything, it didn't make sense for her to leave behind the family she already had, even she couldn't grow old with them.
The tension in the air was palpable, so much so that I could extend my hand and grab a fistful of it and bottle it up. But it was clear that neither of us were done yet. On the plus side, I wasn't in pain because of our contact anymore.
"Why would your father do that to you?" He wasted no time taking his turn, not even allowing me time to form a response. That was probably the point.
Following his example, I tried not to think as I replied. "He a pastor. He said the devil was in me, so he..." I trailed off and shook my head, trying to expel the memories and focus on the facts. "He tried to bleed the devil out of me while leaving me in the cellar to pray him away."
Eliam was visibly shaking by the time I'd finished. I had told him more than he had asked, but it spared me another question. All I had to do was focus on not focusing. Easy enough, right?
Not so much, but I'd give it my best shot.
"Were any of you in a relationship with Lillith?"
"No, we were family above all else," he answered automatically, almost robotically. It didn't seem like he was exactly telling me the truth, and I wasn't exposing my painful past without some equivalent restitution.
"Tell me the truth," I whispered earnestly, staring into the shimmering, violet depths of his downright gorgeous and terrifying eyes.
His eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch at me and it was easy to tell that he wasn't appreciating my retaliated sentiment. "I wanted to be," he finally admitted, never once taking that intense stare off of me.
"How long did he do that to you?" He didn't even have to elaborate on who he was referring to. Our game of extreme sado-masochism was still going and neither one of us were letting up any time soon.
"Until I was seventeen," I told him. "When I ran away and never looked back."
His expression turned thoughtful as he held my gaze. "It looks to me like you're doing a lot of looking back."
Fucking ouch.
He wasn't wrong. In a way, remembering was still looking back. Letting the pain of the memories dictate how much I let people in was still looking back. Allowing it to have any amount of control or power over me was still looking back.
Talk about a hard pill to swallow.
"Did you love her? Lillith?"
Eliam was silent for a long time, deliberating his answer. "Yes, I do," he said, his voice strong and sure.
Do. Present tense.
My heart fell past the pit of my stomach down an endless rabbit hole, one that no number of strange potions or mushrooms, grinning cats or talking cards would be able to help me out of. He still loved her. And while I was sad for me, I was also sad for him, because it didn't look like she planned on coming back around any time soon.
"Where does your hallucination fall in this story?"
"She came to me after a particularly bad night. She kept me sane and didn't let me give up. My inner self became sort of my guiding star," I explained, grateful for a little reprieve from the other questions. "She wasn't why I came here, but she's what made me decide to stay."
His lips curved up at the corners in a small smile and I wanted nothing more than to smile back. "Remind me to thank her someday, then."
I'll admit that I was a little stunned. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was happy that I was with them, that I literally fell face first into their lives and fucked everything up. But did I know better? Every single day that I was around him, Eliam challenged my opinions and my perception of his personality. I hadn't counted out the idea that he might have even been bipolar.
"What was she like?" I had no idea where the question had come from, but the second I asked, I found myself desperate to know.
His small smile didn't waver. "In some ways, a lot like you. You're both strong but vulnerable, yearning and determined, selfish yet giving, and fierce without being rough around the edges," he explained quietly. "Your eyes are even the same. But her hair was a vibrant red that most women would kill for. It's like fire to your molten gold."
He released one of my wrists and fingered a strand of my hair, staring at it with something like wonder.
"You think I'm strong?" I whispered, unable to help myself. My eyes threatened to betray me with their tears again.
Eliam's gaze travelled back to my eyes and made me melt. "Of course I do, even more so now than ever," he said certainly. Those violet eyes staring past what he could actually see and straight into my soul felt more intense than ever at that moment. "Any more questions for me? Or is it my turn?"
Whatever came over me, it had nothing to do with common sense. Common sense tried to remind me that I was cursed or hexed, or whatever. It tried to talk me down from a metaphorical ledge that would only end in very tangible, real pain.
And I didn't fucking care.
17 Ria
With my free hand, the one he'd only just released, I wrapped it around the back of his neck and pulled him to me so hard that I narrowly avoided crashing my teeth against his in a move that spelt doom in every romantic gesture ever.
There was no reason for me to worry, though. Because, the second our lips met, we melded seamlessly, effortlessly. I was floating in the middle of a storm, my body wanting to writ
he from the pain and the heat of our kiss chasing it all away. Maybe we had misunderstood the goddess and her words of wisdom.
Maybe it wasn't my magic that needed to become stronger than my inner self's. Maybe it was just my will.
Whatever the proper interpretation, my will was to get this obnoxious, asshole-ish, gorgeous Sin out of his pants and into mine.
Eliam's hand that wasn't still holding mine by my head slid down my side and cupped the curve of my hip, pulling the lower half of my body closer to him.
I moaned appreciatively against his mouth and he took the opportunity offered up before him on a silver platter. His tongue teased my lips and then my tongue, coaxing it and demanding that it come and play. I was in no position to refuse, nor would I want to.
The pain bubbled inside me and I tried to mentally bat it away. When that didn't work, I started to feel defeated and tried to push him back as a strangled sound rose up in my throat.
Eliam didn't let me go or back off, though. Instead, he nipped at my bottom lip hard enough that I could taste the tiny bead of blood. I didn't cry out as I expected I would, but immediately became focused on the task at hand once more, the pain he gave me offering a brief reprieve from the other kind.
I wasn't sure how he knew that would help or if he actually knew it at all and was just being a kinky bastard, but I wasn't going to complain.
When he felt me relax into him again, he slid his hand under the hem of my shirt, never once breaking our kiss. His hand found my bare breast and gently ran his thumb over my nipple.
"Oh fuck," I hissed, pulling back a minuscule amount.
Another wave of pain started to hit me and I tensed right before Eliam pinched my nipple with just enough force to make me whimper. Just like that, another wave was at the back of my mind.
As he teased me, wave after wave would come, then wave after wave would be driven away by another pain caused by his skilful hands or mouth. It continued on and on for what felt like an eternity, so long that I felt as though my body may actually burst from the high that our newest little game was giving me.
"Eliam..." I panted as he nipped my ear in the wake of another wave. "Please."
He pretended that he hadn't heard me, choosing instead to fully lift my shirt up to my chin while he admired me. He had seen me naked or mostly so on more than one occasion, but he still stared at my body with a heat in his eyes that made me swoon, looking at them as though it was the very first time he had done so.
"Mmmm? Please, what?"
"I will definitely not call you daddy," I quipped, unable to help myself.
"Oh?" Eliam challenged. "Then what will you do, then?"
The question caught me off guard - me, the person that literally worked in the sex business for several years. "Anything," I found myself saying.
"And what do you want in return?" He teased, enjoying watching me squirm.
I didn't feel humiliated, but I was embarrassed. I was trying to think too hard about it, but I already knew better than that, or I should have. "Fuck me," I replied coyly. "Fuck me hard, E."
His grin, however cocky it was, lit up his entire face. Eliam loved control. It was now my choice to decide how much control I would let him have.
In my current state of mind, I was willing to let him have all of it if he would just keep doing that thing where he chased the pain away so that I could enjoy the hell out of the ride.
As if sensing my thoughts - or maybe I'd projected them - and liking what he heard, his head dipped to my chest as he took one of my little pink buds into his mouth and swirled around it with the tip of his tongue.
I arched my back, pressing myself further into him and against him, revelling in the thrilling sensation of lightning crackling in my blood at his masterful touch. I wanted more, so much more. I wanted to be closer.
I moved the hand that was still pinned beside my head, signalling that I wanted it to be free. Eliam complied, relinquishing his grip in favour of cupping the breast that wasn't occupied by that wonderful mouth of his.
Back arching, toes curling, I lifted
My body craved his touch, yearned for it. It felt as though someone else was living in my body for the moment, leaving me feeling detached and in absolute bliss. All the back and forth banter, the fried nerves, the doubt and insecurity - it may not have been what I called me, but it was what I needed to start truly finding my place in the world.
As of that moment, my world consisted of one face, one voice, one body. It was one man that repeatedly stripped me bare to the bone so that I could be picked up and put back together again.
Eliam wasn't soft or nurturing, but he was infallible and generous with what he had. He didn't shower me with praise, but he showered me with support. He never held my hand and told me everything would be alright, but he forced me to rethink what I knew and face the truth. He was an unsteady cadence that helped to keep me marching on, even when I wanted nothing more than to give up and lie down.
Caught up as I was in my sappy thoughts and frazzled emotions, I couldn't resist reaching into that beautiful hair of his and running my fingers through it.
He groaned appreciatively and I shivered in response as I continued combing my hands through his silky locks. I was mesmerised by his hair, almost as much as I was with him in that moment. Even as I kept molesting his head, I let my gaze drift to his face, his lips, his cheekbones, his violet eyes that were trained on me, staring like he was only just seeing me for the very first time.
Suddenly, he sat up, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me with him.
I squeaked in surprise as he rose from the couch and I had to wrap my legs around his waist to keep from falling. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for him, I'd still had a good grip on his hair when he startled me by moving. If it affected him or hurt, though, he didn't show it. He obviously had a single objective in mind as he carried me up the stairs.
Just enjoying the ride, however fun it was, felt awkward as fuck. To entertain myself, I trailed tiny kisses from his collarbone to his chiselled jaw and back again, changing it up with the occasional nip or lick as he continued to climb the steps with me attached to him like some kind of adorable parasite.
Before I knew it, he was using his foot to push open a door - the door to his bedroom. Despite my shock, I felt a thrill run through me and made a mental note to investigate when we were done.
Eliam all but tossed me on his bed, towering posts looming over me and the smoothest comforter ever underneath me. Probably for all the wrong reasons, since I mostly wanted to feel the softness of the blanket over my entire body, I began wriggling out of my pants while Eliam blinked at me like I'd grown a second head.
Once my pants were on the floor, discarded and already forgotten, I started lazily trying to remove my shirt without sitting up. Eliam sighed in exasperation and leaned over to help me remove the offending article.
Turns out, my decision was totally justified.
The blanket was unbelievably soft and with my skin already hypersensitive with arousal, it felt as though I was enveloped in a tiny slice of heaven. That made me think...
"E, is heaven real?" I asked curiously.
He snorted out a laugh that I didn't see because my eyes were closed as I revelled in the luxury that was this blanket.
"Want to find out?" He asked coyly in response.
At that, I opened my eyes and peeked at him. My eyes widened and I scrambled to sit up, damn near foaming at the mouth. At some point during my blanket vacation, Eliam had stripped off his clothes and was standing before the edge of the bed in all of his bare, chiselled glory.
I fell back against the bed with my arms spread and closed my eyes once more. "Fuck. Yes."
He needed no further encouragement as the bed dipped with his weight. As he approached, he spread my legs apart like he was opening a delicate, closed blossom and slid between my thighs.
My core clenched as I waited in anticipation, the liquid heat pooling below felt borderl
ine volcanic. He slicked one finger over my entrance and I moaned as his touch sent waves of electricity through my body. I felt ignited, on fire.
Him repositioning my thighs by his hips was the only warning I received as he slammed into me with a force that nearly choked me, eliciting a garbled cry of both pleasure and pain.
"Fuck," he hissed, halting as he buried himself to the hilt inside me. "You're so fucking tight."
I could only imagine a whimper in response, stars dancing before my closed eyes. Just when they started to clear, he began moving inside of me and I was sure that I was going to spontaneously combust.
His exceptional length drove into me again and again, increasing slightly in intensity as he went.
"Look at me," he commanded.
Without thought, my eyes sprung open and I stared at him in wonder and awe. He was more exceptional and gorgeous than I ever recalled him being before this moment. His face and body were glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, his eyes wild and intense, his hair mussed and in more disarray than normal.
He's so fucking gorgeous. I thought as I admired him and tried to commit his image to memory.
"So are you," he whispered to me.
Oops. I'd either said that out loud or projected it. Either way, I wasn't about to complain about the compliment or take back my own thoughts. It was true: he was a gorgeous man if I had ever seen one.
His gaze burned into me as my climax approached, seizing me up like a tightly wound spring preparing to launch. When it did finally reach me, my body trembled with its might. I felt myself clench around him, earning me a brilliant, animalistic growl that pushed me further and further over the edge.
I felt like I was spiralling down in the best way, my body consumed in heat as a raging inferno sparked to life in and around me. My nails dug into the taut skin of his back and I was rewarded with another growl, this one dangerous and enticing.