Page 30 of Ashen Souls

The denial scraped down my spine like a blade. His thumb slowed to a torturous crawl, trapping me in that excruciating space right before the drop. I dug my nails into his corded forearm. “Daeren… please…”

He offered no mercy, only that unblinking stare. “Patience.”

He forced my thighs wider, not looking down as he shifted, keeping my gaze locked even as he lowered his head.

The first flat stroke of his tongue was a wet, scalding shock. I jerked against the sheets, but his massive hands clamped down hard on my hips, shackling my pelvis in place. He didn't let me retreat. He repeated the slide with ruthless slowness before his mouth fully devoured me.

He was a glutton, lapping and sucking my flesh while his fingers thrust back inside, finding the exact angle that wrecked me completely.

My thighs spasmed. My hands tangled in the thick, dark strands of his hair, gripping his skull to hold his mouth against me, terrified the bastard might stop again.

He didn't. He drove the suction harder, the friction of his tongue unforgiving. He held me suspended over the edge for one agonizing second—and then shoved me into the abyss.

The climax detonated through me, obliterating the chamber. I didn't hold back the scream. It broke from my throat, a shattered sound that chanted his name like a profane prayer into the shadows.

He didn't let me come down. Before the first wave receded, he caught the aftershocks and sucked hard, forcing me straight into a second peak.

“Look at you,” he murmured, the vibration of his rumble echoing against my trembling thigh. “Melting right under my fucking tongue, offering yourself to the darkness like a devoted little sacrifice.”

When the final tremor bled out of my muscles, I collapsed into the pillows. My lungs worked in shallow hitches.

He tore his mouth away from my center and began a slow crawl back up the length of my body, his fingers still thrusting inside my pulsing cunt. Moans spilled from me, and he answered them with deep exhales.

He forced my jaw open and kissed me. His tongue invaded my mouth, carrying the taste of my own arousal.

“Swallow it. You’ve never tasted yourself before.”

I obeyed him. He kept kissing me until my lips felt bruised; his fingers still moving inside me. Then he broke the kiss, sliding his tongue over my ear.

“Tell me, Aveline, how does it feel to come for the first time in your whole life?” he whispered.

Fuck, how could he possibly know that?

“Next time, you will discover how little of my cruelty you have truly experienced. You will beg me for destruction and I will grant it.”

He was still there…

…and then he wasn't.

My hands, which a second ago were tangled in his hair, clenched around nothing but empty air.

Normality felt like a paper-thin delusion. I pressed my tongue to my bruised lower lip, chasing the pathetic hope that I’d still taste smoke. But the air was sterile and empty.

No Daeren.

Yet the echo of his voice remained, clawed into the silence.

Next time.

10

Ilay paralyzed, sinking into the mattress, my nails gouging into the sheets.

The illusion shattered, slamming me back into a body that was still bruised and aching. My ribs gave a protesting throb with every breath, but the shivers racking my limbs had nothing to do with the crash.

Between my thighs, I was soaked.

The aftershocks of a climax I had supposedly conjured in my sleep still rippled through me.