Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3)

by Laura Thalassa

He squeezes my jaw a little tighter. “I’m not one of your weak-willed clients. I don’t want your posturing. I want the raw, angry woman who tried to kill me. The same woman who saved me.”

  My throat works. “I … don’t have a lot of experience being genuine,” I admit. I lost my virginity at The Painted Angel. I’ve only ever done this professionally.

  “And I don’t have a lot of experience being human,” Famine says, “but right now both of us are going to fucking try.”

  I don’t even have a moment to look shocked before the Reaper’s lips crash against mine once more, his mouth somehow both angry and hungry.

  And then, like the tide, I’m dragged under.

  Everywhere he touches, my skin feels alive. His leg comes between my thighs, pressing against my core as he kisses me. At the sensation, I gasp into his mouth.

  I realize being genuine isn’t so hard after all. Not when you throb for the person devouring you.

  My hands are in his hair, his silky, fine hair, and I’m lost in him.

  At some point, he moves us away from the wall and carries me out of the dining room, past the thick knot of plants that have overtaken the estate’s main room. The Reaper kicks open the door to the courtyard, and then we’re outside.

  The warm night air brushes against my skin. All around us, I can hear nocturnal creatures calling to one another, unaware that there’s an apocalypse going on in their midst.

  I know I should wait to disrobe the horseman until we reach his room, but—maybe it’s the alcohol or the sexual tension, or fuck, maybe it’s simply the fact that this man actually knows how to work his lips—I don’t know, I’m simply impatient.

  I reach for Famine’s armor, my hands meeting the hard metal of his breastplate. He lets my body slip through his hands so that he can grab the low-cut collar of my filmy dress—

  Riiiip. He tears it clean down the middle, exposing me almost completely.

  I guess I’m not the only one impatient.

  I give the Reaper and his armor a hopeless look. “Well, that’s just not fair.”

  A low laugh slips out of him, and it pulls a shiver from me.

  With deft fingers he unfastens his armor, shucking it off piece by piece. Once he’s down to his shirt and pants, my lips are back on his, my bare flesh pressed against the black fabric still covering him.

  I pull at it while I kiss him, and together the two of us hurriedly remove the last of his clothing.

  Famine pulls me in close, and I revel in the feel of his naked skin against mine. He’s so much taller than me that he has to lift me up to better kiss me. My hands go to his shoulders, then slide to his biceps—

  “Wait, wait,” I say, breaking off the kiss. “Put me down.”

  The Reaper’s eyes are hazy, but he does as I say. Rather than staying in his arms, I back away from him.

  His gaze narrows, and some of the desire clouding it now vanishes.

  “What is it now?” he asks.

  “I want to look at you,” I say.

  “You want to look at me,” he repeats tonelessly.

  My gaze sweeps over him, from that beautiful, wicked face that I’ve all but memorized to the less familiar parts of his body. His shoulders are pleasingly wide, and then there’s those glowing tattoos that ring his neck and upper chest like some sort of thick necklace. The pale light of them illuminates the plants around us.

  My gaze moves lower, over a muscled torso that God just gave him because for whatever reason Famine has to go around looking like a babe while he kills us all. His torso tapers off to a slim waist and—

  This is a well-endowed man.

  “Well?” he says. “Is your primitive human brain satisfied?” he says.

  I flash him a wolfish smile, approaching him once more. “You’re really pretty,” I say.

  “Pretty?” he says derisively.

  I walk into his arms. “It’s a compliment.”

  He grimaces at that.

  The horseman scoops me up and carries me forward. But rather than taking me to his rooms, a few steps later the Reaper sets me down on the moist earth. He spreads my legs so that he can kneel between them, his gaze moving over my own body.

  Without giving me any sort of indication, Famine leans forward and presses a kiss to my lower abdomen. From there, his lips skim up my belly. His mouth pauses at the scars on my stomach, the ones his men gave me.

  “Forgive me,” he says, so softly I almost miss it.

  I swallow. I hadn’t thought the horseman would regret any action of his.

  My eyes find his. “It’s in the past.”

  He sits up a little, placing a hand on my scars even as he searches my face. “I think you are remarkably brave,” he says, “and your compassion is uncommon and admirable. I owe you my life twice over, and that is no little thing.

  “And, for what it’s worth,” he adds, “you’re also pretty. Excessively so.”

  I feel my face heat from all the praise. “Why are you telling me this?”

  His eyes are steady on mine. “Because you are human and I imagine you like compliments far more than I do. And for whatever insufferable reason I want to give you many.”

  My heart begins to pound loudly.

  “Now,” he says, a sly smile curving along his lips as he drapes himself over me, “enough of this.”

  He punctuates the thought by recapturing my lips. His mouth is demanding and everything about the kiss feels intimate.

  I wrap my legs around him. He’s hard and ready, but rather than jumping right to sex, he begins to move down my body, placing kisses as he goes.

  His hands move to my breasts, his thumbs running over my nipples.

  I gasp out a sound as Famine moves lower and lower—past my belly button, past my pelvis …

  He stops kissing me long enough to spread my legs wide open. I think he’s just looking and admiring me the same way that I was admiring him earlier, but then he leans in to my pussy—

  Fuck, wait.

  I catch him by the hair. “You shouldn’t—you shouldn’t do that,” I say, my voice breathless.

  Oh God, I need to tell him about the grittier parts of having sex with a former prostitute. This could be a deal breaker.

  “Why not.” It’s not even a question. My words have clearly not even begun to persuade him. He begins to dip down again.

  “Wait!” I rush out, stopping him once more.

  “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly shy?” He looks vastly amused at that thought.

  Amused and impatient.

  For a man who has zero respect for sex, he’s sure eager to have some.

  I swallow.

  Oh God, how am I supposed to address this? Most of my clients just know.

  “I’ve been with a lot of people,” I say.

  He just raises his eyebrows, like he doesn’t see the relevancy. “And?”

  I lick my lips, my heart thundering.

  “I don’t know … what sort of … diseases I might have.”

  I’ve had bouts of various ailments. Nothing that has stuck around, but sometimes with these things, vanished doesn’t necessarily mean gone.

  Famine’s fingers drum against my skin, and my heart is in my throat.

  “So, you’re worried that I’ll catch something from you?” he says, scrutinizing me.

  My pride lay in shambles on the floor, but I nod, feeling very, very young and inadequate. I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

  Famine’s fingers dig in. “That is oddly … touching of you to worry about me, but for the love of your vengeful God, can I please kiss your pussy now?” Even as he speaks, he leans back in and I have to catch him again by the hair.

  He sighs, even as he tilts his face to me. “What now?”

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” I ask—because I’m not sure that he does.

  “I cannot catch diseases,” the Reaper says. “Now, will you unhand me?”

  He can’t catch diseases.

  He can�
�t catch diseases.

  I release his hair.

  Famine rests his forearms on my inner thighs. “Thank you,” he says.

  And then he leans in and gives me a very different kind of kiss.

  Chapter 36

  Holy Mother of …

  I nearly levitate off the ground.

  It’s been so long since anyone’s lips have touched my pussy, I’d nearly forgotten the sharp, almost painfully sensitive sensation that came with it.

  Famine’s mouth moves over my outer lips, all but devouring me.

  I try to stifle a moan. It slips out anyway.

  In response, I feel him smile against me.

  Oh my God.

  I stare dazedly above me at the dark sky, trying to remember how Famine and I got here, with his face pressed against my core.

  We were supposed to be enemies, right?

  I don’t think enemies do this …

  His tongue slips inside me, and I let out a yelp. My heart is thundering, and thank goodness it’s beginning to drizzle because this situation is starting to make me sweat.

  Famine’s hands glide over my thighs as his lips work against me, and I think he’s taking in the feel of me—all of me. But then his mouth finds its way to my clit—

  I jerk away from him—or at least I try to. His hands turn into manacles, pinning me in place.

  “Unless you want things to get very interesting, I suggest you stop squirming,” he says.

  I pause to eye the Reaper. “Things could get more interesting than this?” I say breathlessly. I mean, a horseman of the apocalypse is going down on me.

  Famine responds by nipping my clit, and holy shit. I squirm—I squirm like my life depends on it.

  The Reaper breaks away. “I do so hate following through on threats,” he says.

  The liar. He loves that shit.

  The ground around us begins to tremble.

  “What’s going on?” I say, distracted from Famine’s ministrations. I begin to sit up, and the horseman pushes me back down.

  He flashes me a wicked smile. “You have always been too curious for your own good, haven’t you?” he clucks his tongue. “Naughty human.”

  I stare at him, completely confused, when out of the corner of my eye, something moves.

  Before I can register what it is, I scream.

  And then it touches me!

  “What the fuck!” I nearly slip out of Famine’s hold because your girl here learned her lesson last night: I’m not sticking around to wait for bad shit to happen to me.

  Famine laughs, then pins me back down, even as that thing wraps around my wrist; a moment later another shadowy object slips around my other wrist. And that’s when I realize it’s the Reaper’s plants.

  He literally grew plants to hold me in place.

  Famine continues to laugh from where he lounges between my legs. “Did you really think I was going to do this the human way?”

  Seeming to punctuate his words, another two vines wrap themselves around my ankles.

  Oh this is so messed up.

  “Are you seriously using your plants to keep me from moving?” I say.

  His only response is another nip to my clit. Again I try to move away from the almost excruciating burst of pleasure, but this time I’m held in place.

  By freaking shrubbery.

  This might be the weirdest situation ever, and I’ve been in a lot of weird situations.

  “You are a kinky freak,” I tell him.

  “Shhh …” Famine says, his voice vibrating against my core.

  “A kinky control freak,” I amend.

  He presses another kiss to me just as he slips a finger inside me.

  Sweet Jesus.

  Now that I’m unable to escape, Famine mercilessly moves his mouth on and off my clit in an absolutely maddening way, all while he fingers me.

  This is way too much all at once, but pinned in place as I am, I can’t get away.

  “Famine—Famine—” I pant, “Please—please—please …”

  He adds another finger inside me and—

  I arch into him, letting out a breathless scream as a violent orgasm rips through me. It stretches on and on, and the Reaper’s mouth is on me the entire time.

  Even once my orgasm is over, he hasn’t relinquished his hold.

  “Stop—stop!” I beg. “Please.” I’m shaking from my climax. I don’t think I can take much more.

  Reluctantly, he pushes himself away, moving up my body until our torsos are flush with one another.

  I feel his cock pressed hard against my thigh, and I think he’s going to slip it in, now that I’m as wet as the Atlantic, but instead he chooses to just stare down at me, drinking in my expression.

  He brushes back my hair. “Are you going to behave?”

  “What are you even talking about?” I say, my voice still breathless.

  Tilting his head, he studies my expression some more. “Hmmm,” he taps the side of my cheek as he thinks, “perhaps I should torment you more. I do so love tormenting you …” He begins to move back down me.

  “Wait—wait!” Good God.

  He pauses, his gaze sliding back to me.

  “I want to touch you too.”

  Famine wasn’t moving before, but now he seems to go utterly still. I can see him hesitate, and I have no clue what would cause a fully aroused man to mull over a woman begging to touch him.

  Then, wordlessly, he lets those vined monstrosities relinquish their hold on me.

  I sit up, rolling my wrists as Famine seems to retreat. He doesn’t lounge back the way he usually does, expecting people to serve him. If anything, he seems a bit remote, as though he can’t quite bring himself to ask this of me.

  The horseman’s not used to this. He’s used to taking what he wants, and he’s used to being taken from, but allowing someone to give him something without any underlying motive? That appears to take some effort.

  I prowl forward, moving over to where he’s kneeling. Gently, I rest my hands on his shoulders.

  “Lay down,” I say softly.

  The man who bends to no one now follows my orders without complaint, though his eyes stare at me a bit distrustfully.

  I slide my hands over his thighs, smiling a little when his muscles tense beneath my touch.

  “Loosen up, this is going to be fun,” I say, massaging his legs a bit.

  I move between his legs, kneeling before his cock. I can feel the dirt slipping off my hair and down my neck. This feels a whole lot more primal than what I’m used to. But in this case, different is good.

  Famine’s dick is tantalizingly close, and for a moment I let the tension stretch out.

  My gaze meets the Reaper’s, and the air is practically crackling with his nerves.

  I lean in, my hot breath fanning over his erection. In reaction, it jerks.

  I smile.

  “Little flower, based on the look you’re giving me, I feel like I should be worrie—”

  Before he can finish the thought, I wrap my mouth around him, my hand moving to the base of his cock.

  Famine hisses out a breath.

  I don’t give him a moment to recover. My mouth begins to work him, up and down, up and down.

  He lets out a moan that is sexy as hell.

  Famine was right of course. He should be worried. I’m going to make him reconsider sex. Wholly and completely.

  He’s going to be mine once I’m finished with him.

  I use every trick I have on him, from swirling my tongue around the sensitive head of his cock, to cupping his balls, to even pressing a finger into his ass—the last one of which causes him to jerk against me.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ,” he swears, “what sort of witchcraft is this?”

  It’s my turn to ignore him, doubling down on my efforts, my mouth and hand working him.

  In response he groans, his muscles clenching. His hands find their way into my hair, and he grips me like he’s holding on.

 
With my free hand, I cup his balls again.

  His hips buck, and his cock twitches in my mouth. “Dear Lord—you need to stop.”

  Um, ignore.

  “Ana—” His voice roughens, his cock continuing to twitch against me.

  Ignore.

  “If you want things to progress … Jesus … stop …”

  He showed me zero mercy. I’ll return the favor. I continue to glide my mouth over him, my hand pumping the base of his shaft.

  “Fuck, flower—” Famine’s grip tightens in my hair, and then he’s thrusting against me as he begins to orgasm.

  I taste him then, his cum filling my mouth for a moment before slipping down my throat. Over and over he pistons against me, and I wring him dry, working him until he’s gently prying me away.

  “Have mercy,” he says, his hazy eyes meeting mine. His cheeks are flushed and he looks thoroughly fucked.

  Beneath me, his muscles now relax.

  I flash him a very wicked, very proud smile. He actually begged me for mercy. I definitely want to hear those words again.

  And I want to make him feel good all over again, just for the sake of seeing his pleasure.

  I push aside that particular thought.

  He hauls me up to him, then breathes in my ear, “Ho-ly shit.”

  “And to think you could’ve been having this the entire time,” I say tartly.

  There’s a long pause, then Famine lets out a surprised laugh. “Little flower, you are, perhaps, even more devious than I am.”

  His eyes spark with delight. He runs his hand over my back, seeming to enjoy the feel of my skin. But then his touch stops. It moves down a little, then up.

  I stiffen against him, aware of what he’s now noticing for the first time.

  “Ana.”

  My gaze meets his.

  “What are these?” Famine asks, running his fingers over the lines that crisscross my back.

  He’s seen me naked plenty of times, yet he’s never gotten a good look at my back.

  “Scars.”

  “Scars,” he repeats calmly. Too calmly. “From what?”

  I’ve had this conversation more times than I’d like. Most men, bless their hearts, give an honest attempt at pillow talk, even when they’re paying for my services. So they ask questions.

  “The horse whip my aunt was particularly fond of.”

  “This is what your aunt did to you?” he says, aghast.