Page 68 of Hellbound

“You know what I think, Marian?”

She shook her head, breath bated.

“I think you want to be good, too.” A slick, smooth digit traced tantalizing lines between her thighs, taunting her, shoving her toward release with the barest of touches. She’d never been more turned on. And yet Vale’s fingers were everywhere but where she needed them. “To let me take care of you. To be mine.”

Something thin and smooth looped snugly around her wrists, pulling her arms taut, and she didn’t understand how the sudden binding could trigger a thought-obliterating flood of arousal. She’d never been handled in bed this way before, always in control. It took her desire to new and frightening heights.

More hands—certainly more than two—lifted her hips off her bed and pulled her knees apart—too wide for her to chase the friction she needed. When she tried to clamp them together, something looped around each ankle and splayed her legs open. When a finger teased inside her cunt again, she nearly screamed. The slow drag of that single, long digit inside her sent sparks flying in front of her eyes.

Just when she thought release was hers, he withdrew, leaving her bereft and groaning. Marian hadn’t intended to answer him. But the truth manifested inside her chest like a boulder too heavy to bear alone, and she was nothing more than a quivering pile of need.

“Yes,” she sobbed. “I want to be good. I want—”

More.

“I know.” A soothing rumble. Then a brush of lips and the barest graze of teeth at the base of her spine. A lick of molten heat at her entrance. “You want to come. But not yet.”

Oh god. Was this her new Hell? No, it was too good. Vale was too many places at once. Sensations that ought not to have been possible assailed her, sending her hurtling toward release again. Before she could topple over the edge, Vale withdrew, leaving her gasping and frustrated beyond words. Bound in darkness, all she could do was receive whatever expert attention he deigned to give her, and moan when he took it away. She cursed his name, his black fucking heart.

It was everything she craved and then some. Her climax was so close, and yet miles away as he stroked her cunt like he owned it. He pressed another kiss to the small of her back as he sank another finger into her, this time hitting something so sensitive and perfect that she nearly screamed in shock. Then he abruptly pulled out again, leaving her snarling in frustration as she teetered on the edge of another denied release.

“It’s such a pity.”

Pity?

“You still think you’re dreaming.”

The weight pinning her lifted enough that Marian could finally open her eyes.

Her room was gone. The bed, the floor, the ceiling—all of it. There was only a sea of smoke and shadow and Marian in the middle, surrounded by countless writhing tentacles. Binding her wrists, spreading her legs wide. Caressing her breasts. One resumed stroking her clit with tight, perfect circles. Another slid against her entrance, poised to torment her yet again.

Terror and overwhelming pleasure tore her mind in two.

Then she did scream. Just as she awakened to her empty bedroom and the fading echo of a dark, knowing laugh.

Marian was inspecting the color of her gums in the bathroom mirror when a knock at her front door sounded in tandem with a chime on her phone. The combination of unexpected sounds and the nightmare-induced hangover gave her a start. She scowled down at her lock screen.

VALE:

YOUR BREAKFAST HAS ARRIVED.

Marian’s eyes went wide as her stomach flattened. Oh fuck.

Why were her cheeks on fire? She’d dreamt of Vale before, but those dreams had never gone further than a stolen glance or heated touch. Nor had they been as vivid; she’d written them off as byproducts of whatever demonic allure she assumed he possessed. But last night, he’d kissed her, and then he …

She shook the memory from her head so hard, her neck popped. Wincing, she stumbled through a reply.

MARIAN:

????

VALE:

EAT BEFORE IT GETS COLD.

A slew of responses came to mind, and none expressed anything like gratitude. How dare he send a delivery to her apartment without her permission? How dare he feed her? How dare he … kiss her like he was trying to possess her. That look in his eyes had been too easy to mistake for genuine lust.

Then there was the maddening exchange of information after he’d sewn her up. The callous way he tried to pry into her life. And the first wet dream she’d had in years. And for what? Her arousal fizzled out before she could do anything about it, the weight of reality upon waking crushing all hope for an orgasm. Nothing like a good psychological edging to ruin the day.