by Maria Luis
It’s sensual, painfully erotic.
His hips rock gently against my mouth and the noises he makes sound wrenched from his soul. I’m warm from the sun and burning from him, and I can’t stop myself from following the descent of my hand as it sinks to the root. I pepper open-mouthed kisses over his cock and moan when he gruffly utters my name. My palm skims north, feeling a ridged vein that I stop to lap with attention before twisting my hand around the crown.
And then I do it all over again, bringing him deeper into my mouth, nearly preening when his hands begin to tremble. He smooths a palm over my head, breathing, “Oh, fucking hell, Rowena, it feels so good.”
I’ve never . . . Oh, God, I never thought it could be like this.
It’s need and want that has me clutching his arse, my fingers digging into the muscle. It’s a desire to make it last that has me monitoring the pace of his thrusts, so that I pull back when he tries to wrest away control, only to swirl my tongue over the head of his cock when he finally relents and cedes power back to me.
Whatever line we’ve drawn is now blurred by the tread of our feet running in the sand.
He curses my name, and my knees press together in response. I’m going to come. If I don’t finish him off quick, I’m going to come before I’ve even let him orgasm once. I pull back long enough to whisper, “Take what you want.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
With one hand cradling the back of my skull, Damien feeds his cock back into my mouth and begins to pump. A slow retraction, where he rubs the damp crown over my lips, once, twice, before plunging deep. My eyes water and my throat knits closed, and then I hear him growl, “Wrap your hand around me.”
The tips of my fingers touch as I grip his base, and the calloused hand on my neck retreats again to my head. I’m ashamed of how wantonly I whimper with every thrust that he gives me, but not ashamed enough to stop myself from slipping my free hand between my thighs to satisfy the growing ache.
“Yes,” he growls, “fuck yes.”
I know he sees that I’m touching myself, my finger wet, my clit even wetter. And I paint a portrait of him in return: his dark head thrown back, the veins in his neck throbbing to match the way his corded forearms flex to hold me still as he fucks my mouth.
It’s messy.
It’s beautiful.
It’s a slow ruination of us both and I don’t regret a thing.
When I come with a cry, I choke on his length, and he releases the deepest, most delicious moan I’ve ever heard. “I’m going to come,” he warns, his voice guttural. “You’ve got to pull back, Rowena . . . Jesus, pull back.”
I don’t.
Damien orgasms with a roar, and, for the first time in my life, I give all of myself to a man. I suck him down, and lap him up, and when his legs give out and he pulls me over his prone frame on the rug, I allow my limbs to tangle with his.
If this is ruin, then I’ll gladly die happy.
26
Damien
Thin pink scars stretch across Rowena’s bare back. They expand and contract with her every breath, and no matter how she tries to angle her arms to reapply a fresh bandage, she can’t finish the job.
And I can’t tear my gaze away.
Those wounds were red and bleeding when I pulled her from the moat. Even hours later, when I extracted the glass myself, there was no telling how Rowena managed to escape Buckingham Palace with her life. She should have died right alongside the queen.
“Let me,” I husk.
She freezes with her arms clamped awkwardly behind her then peers over her shoulder at me. “You weren’t so kind the last time around.”
“Should I apologize?”
Her mouth pulls to one side. “I don’t know, Damien. Do you feel bad?”
No.
Yes.
Skimming a hand down the back of my neck, I rest my palm over my nape and squeeze tight. Do I feel bad? After a lifetime in Holyrood, my relationship with pain is . . . complicated. I expect it because I’ve been the one to suffer a hundred times over. The same goes for every Holyrood agent. We’ve all been hurt. But none of us can claim innocence—we’re thieves in the night, snatching anti-loyalist lives with just another mental tally on the chalkboard.
Pain has its place in the world, its purpose, and I . . . “Apologizing for something I believed in seems insincere.”
Dark brows furrow over the bridge of her nose. “And you feel differently now?”
“I feel . . .” At the expectant expression on her face, my hand drops to my side. Heat scalds my cheeks and I lower my gaze to the bandage she’s holding, where her thumb worries the latex edge. A quick glance at the tight set of her shoulders tells me she’s actually holding her breath, waiting for my answer.
Her uncertainty in me is a punch to the gut.
When did I become the man who trades only in the currency of violence? When did I become the Mad Priest, when the moniker alone makes my skin fucking crawl?
Deep down, I can pinpoint the exact day, hour, minute—and I despise myself for it.
Carrigan’s men stabbed me and along with my blood spilled out my conscience. It ran in rivulets over the pavement. Morals, gone. Ethics, destroyed. I started the day as one man and ended it as another. And the half-dead man who left the alley behind Christ Church Spitalfields didn’t care, one way or another, who he hurt in his quest for vengeance.
Rowena included.
Something that feels like embarrassment propels me forward. I duck my head, cutting eye contact that’s already severely one-sided. Nine days ago, I stood over the exam table and ran my gaze over her blistered body, and I felt . . . nothing. Nothing but rage. Nothing but vindication that she practically landed on my doorstep to do with as I wished.
Blind. Ruined. Mine.
The heat on my face spreads south to squeeze the air from my lungs. I’ve been no better to her than Mum was to me—the only difference being that whereas I once hid to make myself invisible, Rowena Carrigan has claws that draw blood the moment she’s threatened. A she-wolf who will bend to no one, even when she’s backed into a corner and left to fight for her life.
Swallowing tightly, I touch my fingers to the bandage, to take it from her, but she yanks it out of reach. “Do you feel bad?”
“Ashamed,” I admit, my voice hoarse. “I feel ashamed.”
When her violet eyes lower, black lashes casting twin shadows over her cheeks, I feel downright condemned. “Rowena,” I start, only to clamp my mouth shut when she turns around and presents me with the slope of her naked back.
Salvation.
I taste it on my tongue, foreign and holy.
Bowing her head, Rowena thrusts the bandage over one shoulder. “Apology accepted,” she says, “because I have no doubt that if our roles were reversed, I probably would have castrated you first and asked questions later.”
I give a short bark of laughter. “Would you have at least taken pity and sterilized the knife first?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Godwin. Someone once told me that self-pity isn’t a good look.”
Jesus, this woman.
Plucking the bandage from her fingers, I shake my head with the ghost of a grin on my lips. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a twisted sense of humor?”
“Generally speaking,” she drawls, “people tend to find out when it’s already too late.”
I want to taste that sharp mouth of hers.
A new addiction to devour. A new flavor to learn. The thought of crushing Rowena to me and lowering my mouth to hers feels as dangerous, as forbidden, as the cigarettes I continue to smoke, knowing all the while that I’m damning myself with every inhale.
My fingers curl around the bandage, the latex edges crinkling.
Don’t do it, Godwin.
Sweet, fucking temptation.
When she hums my name, I force myself to look away from her profile to the expanse of her back. Up close, with sunlight streaming in from the window, the gr
avity of the scarring is undeniable. The affected skin is textured, raised. With every intake of breath, they ripple like water tucked away behind a shard of glass.
“You lived,” I say, carefully fitting the fresh bandage over her back, “when so many others didn’t. How?”
She doesn’t ask me to elaborate.
With her head still bent, she waits until I’ve finished and then reaches for a new shirt from one of the wardrobe’s many hangers. “I ran.”
I feel one side of my mouth curl. “A habit of yours.”
“It comes in handy. Sometimes handsome men even catch me.” Snapping up a pair of denim trousers from where she slung them over the wooden door, she adds, quietly, “It was my nightmare come to life. Windows were shattering and the smoke was so thick that I could have choked on it. But I didn’t hear a single scream. It felt like . . . I had this sixth sense that, for the first time in my life, I was running in the wrong direction.”
“You didn’t think to leave Margaret behind and save yourself?”
She tugs her trousers up the curve of her thighs, all while vehemently shaking her head. “I’m loyal to a fault.” She gives a low laugh. “Foolishly loyal, even. It’s what I thought as I was running toward Margaret’s apartments. But I couldn’t not save her. I keep such a small group of friends—just Mags and . . . and well, there was Ian.”
Ian, who tried to strangle Isla, only to end up strangled and dead in return.
Lifting a hand, I scrub my palm over my jaw. “You have the people in this house, don’t you? The doctor? Gregory?” My molars grind together as I bite off, “And Hugh.”
Buttoning her trousers, Rowena leans back against the closed door of the wardrobe. Her violet gaze is unerringly astute. “I pay their wages, Damien. I appreciate them all, and I treat them like family, but we aren’t friends.”
I narrow my eyes. “You pay their wages.”
On a slow nod, she replies, “I do, yes.”
“How?”
“The usual way, I guess.” The blasé shrug she gives me reeks of unspoken secrets. “I have their IBAN numbers and I deposit money into their accounts like the rest of the—”
“How, Rowena?” Despite the fact that she can’t see me, I gesture toward the bedroom. “How do you afford this house and their wages and—Jesus.” I rake my fingers through my hair. Only last night, they stormed the Palace. The drawbridge being down worked in their favor, but even if that hadn’t been the case . . . “And the weapons,” I growl. “The lot of them had grenades, which don’t come cheap.”
Her jaw works side to side as she drums her fingers against the wardrobe. “I don’t feel comfortable saying so.”
“You don’t feel comfortable? Rowena, you just had your mouth on my—”
“Don’t you dare say it.”
“—cock,” I finish, gritting out the word. “I think we’ve reached the point where being comfortable is second-only to our good mate transparency.”
She presses a hand to her ear then hastily nods her head like she’s heard something. “Oh,” she murmurs sweetly, “that was our good mate transparency ringing to say that you’re a bloody hypocrite, Damien Godwin.” Her arms fold over her breasts. Clearly worked up, she jabs a finger in my direction a second later. “Confess, you said, so I did. But now you’re wanting more of my secrets while revealing none of your own.”
I don’t deny it.
Can’t deny it when I’m standing less than an arm’s width away with my mother’s necklace buried in my back pocket—a necklace that I ripped from her dead body.
“Then ask me something,” I tell Rowena. “I’ll answer, and then you tell me how it is that you afford everything.”
“I’ve half a mind to make you pinky promise.”
Laughter climbs my throat when I notice that she’s grinning. “Only you, Rowena Carrigan, would think that a pinky promise with me would mean a damned thing.”
“Are you saying that I can’t trust your word?”
“I’m saying that you should know better.”
“If you’re trying to convince me to keep my silence, you’re doing a bang-up job of it.”
“Then let me shut up before you change your mind completely.”
With a nod to allow that the battle lines have been drawn, she closes the wardrobe behind her and carefully picks her way through the room until she’s perched against her desk, her legs crossed at the ankles. “You have an accent.”
My brows lift in surprise. “I don’t.”
“You do,” she retorts swiftly with a tilt of her head. “I noticed it the first time that you spoke in Dr. Matthews’ OR. It’s so soft, honestly, almost indetectable, but I once spent an insane amount of time schmoozing with politicians from all over the world—I can recognize an accent when I hear one.”
“And Guy? Did you hear one from him?”
“A little but his is even fainter than yours.”
She watches, and she listens.
Didn’t she tell me that only days ago? At the time, it seemed particularly dramatic—only now, I have a gut feeling that she wasn’t exaggerating at all. Fucking hell. It’s unnerving to be confronted with someone who’s so eerily like myself. If I were to wave right now, I half-expect her hand to come up instinctively and wave on back.
“I lived . . . we lived in Paris.”
A frown tugs at her mouth. “Holyrood allowed you to leave?”
“In theory, no.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“It means that we were exiled.”
I utter the words matter-of-factly, but still, they send her jaw flapping open. “Exiled,” she repeats on a hushed murmur, “the lot of you were exiled? Is that a thing that still happens nowadays? One minute everything’s going brilliantly and then surprise!” Her hands clap together. “You’re banished, just like that?”
Not just like that.
I don’t remember every detail in the days leading up to when we were sent to France. But I do remember Mum crying hysterically and Guy, at only twelve, trying his best to calm her down. I remember Jayme Paul standing in the middle of our cramped Whitechapel flat with his cap clutched in one hand and the other rooted firmly on Saxon’s shoulder while he informed us that, for our safety, it was best if we left England until Holyrood could make sure that whoever attacked Pa wouldn’t come for us next.
Pain and fear followed us across the Channel.
The City of Love broke me irreversibly. Saxon, too, after the butcher cut his mouth and left him forever scarred. If Guy suffered during those five years, more so than the rest of us, at any rate, he’s never said a word. Then again, his midnight screams lead me to believe that he probably did.
Aware that Rowena is still waiting for an answer, I give her the unvarnished truth: “Henry Godwin was my father.”
Her expression instantly falls. “Oh, Damien.”
It’s all she says, but really, is there anything else that needs to be said? We were sent to Paris because Paul wanted us Godwins away from the Crown while he assumed Pa’s place in Holyrood. Four generations of Godwins in power and then Paul saw an opportunity and he snatched it with both hands.
I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same.
“No one’s ever mentioned me having an accent,” I go on, as smooth as I can, “but if you hear anything at all, it must be what little I’ve kept of Paris.” Even though I’d give just about anything to have retained nothing of that city at all. “It’s your turn, Rowena.”
Her sightless gaze slips down to the thick rug. “I told you that I can’t cast stones—I meant it, Damien. I really meant it.”
Voice low, I murmur, “Tell me.”
Her fingers tighten around her upper arms. “After I stopped . . . working for my father, I found myself at a crossroads. I was only twenty-three but I felt ancient here”—she briefly presses a hand to her chest—“and, more than anything, I was a realist. Dreams were for good people, honest people. And I was, admittedly, quite adep
t at doing nothing but spreading my legs.”
Those words, her words, are ones I’d uttered in her ear while pressing her up against a glass window at the Palace. Arrogant. Patronizing. Crude. Any lingering trace of salvation dissolves on my tongue. “Rowena, I was an ass. I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” she interjects firmly, shaking her head, “no, you were right. And I recognized it even then. England . . . the whole country was already taking a turn for the worse and I had nothing but this house. I inherited it when Mum died and I could have sold it. Sometimes I wonder if I should have sold it, but the satisfaction I felt knowing that Father couldn’t take it away from me . . . it was worth every bit of hardship.”
Bloodthirsty thing.
I want to kiss her even more for it.
“Did you live here?” I ask.
She laughs. “No, I leased the flat that your man Hamish brought me to the other day, the one in Hurlingham. Realist. Pragmatist. It’s all the same, isn’t it? I couldn’t bear to part with Holly Village but leasing it would at least keep me afloat.”
One glance around the elegant room around us is confirmation that, at some point, Rowena managed to do a whole lot more than just keep herself afloat. The sleigh bed alone must have cost a fortune. Bringing my gaze back to Rowena, I watch as she lifts a hand to her head, only to hover her palm above her skull.
A nervous tic that she tries to cover up by tugging on one ear.
“You did something else,” I say, eyeing that hand on its trajectory back down to her side. “You might as well just spit it out.”
Her shoulders square off. “I had information.”
The implication of that one statement is enough to rock me back on my heels. “Jesus, Rowena,” I breathe. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I set up a private forum under an anonymous name.” Her chin hikes up, as if daring me to find fault with a decision she made ten years ago. “It turns out that that the old adage is true: it’s better to smile to your enemies than it is to frown at your friends.”
