PART THREE
Flames
‘How can you become new if you haven’t first become ashes?’
—Friedrich Nietszche
the dream, her heart racing as thunder rumbled in the sky outside. She hated thunderstorms. As a child, they had scared her, and as an adult, they reminded her of the night she had lost her most precious gift—her son.
She had been close to eighteen when one of the men in the club had impregnated her, and though the child had been the result of a rape, it had been hers. She had spent months connecting to him, loving him, talking to him, and accepting that he would never know her. The night she had gone into labor, there had been a storm, and after hours of unimaginable pain, he had come screaming into the world.
The doctor had cleaned him up and swaddled him for her to feed, but she hadn’t. She had only seen the storm, known that most of the people on the grounds would be under shelter, and she had run.
Run straight into the arms of the man who would change both their lives.
After that night, she had never expected to see him again. But less than a week later, he had showed up at her work.
And again.
And again.
Until he became a fixture in her life, an anchor in the hurricane, a rock against the waves. Until he started leaving a trail of bodies of everyone who tried to hurt her. Until he claimed all the broken pieces of hers as his own.
She wondered why she had dreamed of their first meeting tonight. It could have been the storm, or the fact that he’d talked about Xander for the fist time, or the fact that he’d held her like he had that night. Whatever it was, need, pure, unadulterated need, overpowered her.
Unable to stand it any longer, she moved on silent feel to the door, going out and to the guest room, her heart pounding, but telling her it was right, the same instinct that had made her trust him all those years ago telling her to do it again.
Close to his door, she inhaled deeply and opened it, just needing to take a peek if he was asleep.
He was.
Arm thrown behind his head, another on his stomach, eyes closed and face restful.
Hesitating on the threshold, she simply watched him, the need inside her a turmoil.
Quietly, without making a sound, she tiptoed into the room, going around his bed, her eyes on his face in the light from the outside.
This man, as dark and dangerous and defective as he was, was hers.
She leaned down slowly, pressing her lips to his for a second, feeling his breaths on her face as his soft mouth against hers, before she pulled back.
She turned to leave, right as a hand ensnared her wrist in a steely grip, making her heart pound as she looked to find him wide awake, his eyes alert, intense, heavy on hers.
He waited patiently for her to break the silence, and finding the courage from somewhere deep within her, she did.
‘Make me yours.’
He was up from the bed, tipping her into his arms in one fluid move like he’d been waiting for her, taking her to the master bedroom as she gripped his shoulders.
The room remained dark, only the little moonlight coming in through the glass doors lighting up the space.
Drunk on the dream, the emotions from the last few days, hell the last few years, she tilted her head to look at him in the moonlight—her dark devil who owned her soul.
“I was reading a book yesterday,” she whispered in the space between them, not knowing any finesse to say it any better. “The man in the story found the woman and said he would make love to her.” She swallowed. “Will you make love to me tonight?”
She knew he could see the earnestness in her eyes, the hunger for this affection in her face, the desire for this intimacy in her voice. He set her on her feet.
“What did the man do to make love to her?” he murmured, taking a step forward as she took one back.
She looked into his eyes, those mismatched eyes that had held her captive since the first time she saw them, and gave voice to the deepest desire of her heart.
“He touched her soul.”
He took a hold of her jaw, pulling her up until she stood on her toes, his lips a hair-breadth from her. She didn’t know if he didn’t close the distance between them because he’d never kissed or because he never wanted to, but she waited. They just breathed each other in for a long moment, before he leaned forward and brushed their lips together in the lightest of kisses, so light the sensation made her strain higher to get more.
“If we do this,” he said quietly against her mouth, “I will be your last everything. You choose this, you choose everything I am, every twisted, deranged, obsessed part of me. You choose this, and I will never fucking let you go. Do you understand?”
Her eyes fluttered close. “I do.”
Before the last word was out from her lips, his mouth slashed down over hers.
Mint. Coffee. Him.
She strained her toes to take her as high as she could go, her hands clinging to the width of his shoulders, one of his hands on her jaw, another on her hip, holding her upright. He pulled back, his eyes dark, the pupil of the light one blown as he gave her a heated look, before he dove in again, picking her up with one hand and turning so her back rested against the closet door. She wrapped her legs around him, grinding against the rock-hard bulge in his sweatpants as he devoured her. The taste of him exploded on her mouth, and she opened hers.
Tentatively, she swirled her tongue against his.
And the most unexpected thing happened.
He shuddered.
A full body, uncontrolled shudder.
She pulled back to find his eyes on her, a slightly unhinged look in them that she’d never seen before as he demanded, “Do that again.”
Feeling her heart pulsing through her entire body, her nipples stiffened to tight points against his chest, just separated by a thin fabric, she pressed herself closer to him, gliding her hand into his hair and tugged him into her.
She ran her tongue over his lips and he pulled her into his mouth, sucking on it in a way that had her pussy throbbing against his cock, her body beginning to writhe with sensations, a blaze of fire spreading inside her.
They stood there for a long time, kissing, testing, tasting, learning each other’s mouths. He shuddered again when their tongues glided over each other, and she felt the jolt of it straight between her legs, knowing it was she who was responsible for such visceral responses from him. Their first and second and third kisses merged into one as he held her up, taking, owning, claiming every inch of her mouth.
Still kissing her, he moved, and suddenly, she found herself lying on her back on the bed.
He pulled away from her mouth. “Trust me still?” he asked, and she gulped, before she gave a nod.
His lips twitched. “Do as I say and you’ll get a gift.”
God, she loved it when he said that.
Putting one hand on the bed by her side and another under her waist, he single-handedly pulled her up the bed, until her head rested on the pillow. He hopped down from the bed with agility, pushing his pants down, his cock springing out, the piercings glinting in the moonlight.
“Hands above your head,” he instructed her, and she complied, curious to see what he had in mind. “Don’t move.”
With those words, he walked out of the room.
Lyla stared at the ceiling, then turned to look at the darkness outside, waiting for him to return. Minutes passed. She became aware of the way her breasts thrust up in this position, her nipples pointed out prominently, her stomach exposed, her pussy weeping in her shorts.
“Dainn,” she called out after what felt like eternity, and he didn’t come.
Whimpering in need, she writhed on the bed but didn’t pull her hands down, wanting whatever gift he had in mind.
After a long time, he entered again, his eyes warming at finding her in the same position. “Good girl.”
Something within her preened under the praise.
“When we are together, you trust me. In here, you let go completely,” he told her, tracing her mouth with his thumb. “This will get intense for you, and you will tell me to stop. But I won’t stop. I’ll push you. Are you okay with that?”
Her pussy clenched at the thought, the thought of her begging him to stop and him going on anyway. “Why do I want this?” she asked, trying to understand. “I shouldn’t.”
“Because you know you’re safe here.”
The words, his words, stated in the most factual of tones while he watched her made her pause. He was right. She wanted to beg, to be taken completely, because she knew she was safe. She knew that he wouldn’t hurt her. It was the fantasy of it, the idea, the liberation.
At her acceptance, taking a hold of her camisole, he ripped it down the middle, the sound loud in the room, escalating her heartbeats. He pulled the scrap of fabric up her raised hands and tied a knot, leaving one long end hanging.
Her heart began to pound, bondage never something that had brought her anything but anxiety. ‘I don’t have good experience being tied up.’
‘I know.’
Looking at him, she bit her lower lip, slightly apprehensive, mostly aroused. He pulled her shorts down, throwing them away, leaving her naked on the bed.
“Spread your legs.”
She did without hesitation, loving the way he looked at her with intense possession and incredible heat. He traced her opening with his middle finger. “So wet. So needy. Do you want my cock, little flamma?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Dainn.”
His finger entered her, and she clenched around him. It had been too long since she’d cum, and her body was primed, ready for it. He moved his fingers inside her expertly, scissoring to stretch her out for his cock, his thumb strumming her clit, sending wetness gushing out from her.
She cried out as he added a third finger, her hands unable to move.
“You remember the first time I touched this pussy?” he asked, cupping her firmly.
“Y…yes,” she exhaled in a shaky breath. It had been after he had sliced people open in the maze. He had found her, looked upon her body, and cupped her just like that with his gloved hand.
“What did you feel then?” The words kissed by seduction fell upon her ears.
“Scared, confused… excited,” she recalled.
“Are you scared, confused now?”
“A little.”
“Good.”
Within moments, with his eyes on her body and his fingers inside her, she could feel the heat cresting, rising and rising and rising, hurtling her toward a glorious climax.
But his hand stopped.
She cried out as he removed his hand, both in anger and surprise, and realized he had climbed on the bed to get between her legs instead. She split them open as far as she could, eager and willing and more ready for a man than she had ever been.
His cock looked scary in the moonlight, and the idea of having it, of finally having him, thrilled her.
The tip of his cock kissed her pussy lips, the coolness of the piercing a huge contrast to the heat of him, and she writhed her hips, her walls clenching emptily, needing him to fill her. Her hands locked above her head, her hips held down by his palm, the lack of movement only sent more heat spiraling inside her. He stayed still, and she rotated her hips, trying to get him to slip inside, one of his hands pushed her immobile, his eyes taking all of her in.
The wait was killing her.
“Fuck me,” she begged, not caring that the desperation in her voice far exceeded any before.
His lips twitched. “I thought you wanted me to touch your soul?”
The amusement in his tone pushed her frustration higher. “Fucking rip it at this point. Just move, please.”
He didn’t, teasing her, toying with her, and a sob escaped her chest, tears of sheer need, sheer frustration, of having satisfaction so close but unable to get it.
“Another man wouldn’t have made me wait so long,” she taunted him, knowing she was playing with fire but knowing no other way to trigger him. He was possessive of her, and that was the only point she could think of.
He let her hip go and took a hold of his cock, slapping it against her clit in punishment for her words, and the sensation made her slicker than she was. She was primed, absolutely primed, so swollen with need she could feel herself throbbing.
“Another man wouldn’t have had you so wet with need you drench the bed.” His low words filled the space between them. “You’re needy for me.”
“I am,” she admitted. “I need you, Dainn. I need you so much. All of you. Please. Take me. Claim me. Own me.”
With a slight rumbling sound, he pressed his thumb to her clit.
And then he pushed in.
Right as she began to come.
Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, a sensation like nothing, nothing, before shaking her entire body, the pressure of his entry and the rippling of her walls and his thumb on her clit shooting her arousal higher, drawing out her orgasm to a point it felt endless.
He was thick and long and heavy, slowly easing inside her, the jewelry on his cock sliding in over tissues she didn’t even know she had, eliciting sensations from every single inch of her swollen pussy until it felt on fire. She was gasping, stunned at the feeling of this, at the feeling of him, unable to believe that he’d done this just so he could give her this experience and make himself feel like her first.
With the way she was stretched and the way she was stimulated, nothing could have compared to it.
She looked at his eyes, seeing his gaze on the place he entered her body, his piercing-covered cock slowly disappearing into her little pussy until he was all the way in, throbbing inside her, and god, she throbbed with him. Hands tied above her head, impaled by him, she felt owned, taken, possessed, and she loved every second of it, loving the surrender of herself to the claim of him, loving the way he fit her.
He held still as she came down from her orgasm, letting her walls adjust to him.
And then he moved.
A noise more animal than human escaped her chest, her eyes clenching shut at the intense sensation straddling between pleasure and pain. He echoed the noise with his own low growl, one hand on the headboard holding one end of the torn camisole that tied her hands, the other on her clit, rubbing and rubbing and intensifying the sensation to too much.
It was too much.
She couldn’t take it.
“No,” she mewled, trying to move her hands, but it was locked in place. He didn’t stop, pulling out so slowly she felt every tissue moved by him and his titanium, a spot inside her being pushed by one of piercings in a way that made stars explode behind her eyes. A fire started from the point, spreading out through her blood, her muscles, her entire body lit up like a supernova until it built and built and built and exploded.
She heard herself screaming until she couldn’t, the sensation so intense her muscles began to spasm, her heart thundering, her spine arching up until she thought her back would break.
She came down, barely, before he thrust inside her again, hard, continuously rubbing her clit, and she began to beg.
“Too much, it’s too much, please, oh god, Dainn please… stop, no, no, too much…” it became gibberish as the supernova exploded again, leaving her a shaking mess while he continued to thrust in and out of her, hard, steady, deep, so deep it was almost painful but oh so good.
“One more, flamma,” she heard him say. “Give me one more.”
She shook her head vigorously, knowing she would die if she came again. It was too intense, too much.
No. Yes. No.
But she had surrendered, and he commanded her body, finding dark places within her she’d never explored before, owning them, taking them, telling her it was okay for her to have them.
Her eyes clenched shut as he took over her body, and she shook, never having felt so much sensation through a body she had hated.
A whirring noise from somewhere above broke through her daze, making her open her eyes slowly.
And she froze.
A small section of the ceiling retracted, leaving behind nothing but clear glass, a graveyard of stars glittering beyond in the sky.
She watched in wonder as he moved inside her, finding his own release, and a tear escaped her eye, rolling down the side of her head as he came.
She stared up, her arousal and emotions mixing together until she couldn’t discern one from the other.
After a lifetime of looking at cracked ceilings and peeling paint while pieces of her were ripped from her, he had given her a ceiling of beautiful stars and slowly put the pieces back together again.
He had touched her soul.
