Tease Me (Teased and Broken Book 1)

by Ashley Black

  “Yes,” I heard myself answer quietly.

  “Well my family’s was ravens. It was also our family crest,” he muttered, and his eyes dropped from mine, his lips turning down slightly at the corners, his whole body stiffened for a moment, and then relaxed as his cheeks puffed out momentarily as he exhaled.

  “Your family had a crest?” I heard the judgment in my voice.

  His brow arched at me. “You sound surprised? Who did you think my family were? A bunch of uneducated hicks?”

  “Well… yes,” I admitted shamefully, and spread my hands helplessly before me as he continued to paint my face with his blackened finger.

  “Hmmmm.” He didn’t sound pleased, but not entirely pissed off either.

  “I actually come from very old money. Not that I think it makes me shit gold or piss rainbows.”

  “Right.” I couldn’t help but smile at that.

  “And as if that wasn’t enough,” he continued bitterly, “my family got all of the townfolk to sign over their money in their wills to the Darkos.” He paused, dipping his finger back into the burnt-out wood again and starting making some dramatic sweeping motions along my brow line, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “I have tried to give it back to the surviving families, but they won’t accept money from a warlock. They’re delusional and incredibly stupid. They believe the money is cursed.”

  “So you as the surviving Darko got all their money?” I was mortified.

  Thorn paused, finger pressed to the outer tip of my right eyebrow; he was breathing hard. This was obviously incredibly difficult for him to talk about. I was gratified and beyond flattered he was choosing to do that with me.

  He rifled in the elaborate picnic basket and held up an antique hand mirror. “My Grandmother’s,” he said softly. “Check you out, Raven Goddess.”

  I peered warily at my reflection in the glass, seeing the area below and above my ice blue eyes had been blackened, and tiny little lines trailed down to the top of my cheek bones like fractured eyelashes. There was a pattern along my brow bone sweeping upward to my temples – I looked like a tragic attempt at a rather misguided bird creature. I was still uncertain of what we were doing here. He had mentioned that he actually wanted to see his family. All of me didn’t want to really know what that meant right now. Out here, alone with an insane person and his army of witch haters. Not my finest moment.

  I had long abandoned my glass of red, because I felt my mind turning to a warm senseless puddle of yearning, with my most base and basic urges and fixations threatening to leak. I didn’t mind tipsy. But blind drunk had always been a truly maddening and awful experience for me. I didn’t try to visit that place often. I was, as Aaron affectionately, and Brett (my heart cracked a little), not so affectionately, called me, ‘a functional drunk,’ but that didn’t mean I wanted to risk losing my wits entirely in front of this man whom I was only just now realizing as the coldest of reality set in, I didn’t really know Thorn at all.

  “Lovely,” I said to my reflection. I didn’t sound at all convinced.

  “Here, put this on,” he gently urged, and pushed a black raven’s head feathered head piece on me.

  “Why?” I asked, not taking it from him.

  He sighed regretfully, smiling sadly down at it. His hands shook on this beautiful, fine, and yet freakish thing. “It’s part of the ritual.”

  I shivered and wriggled away from him. “What the fuck?”

  Thorn threw back his head and laughed long and hard at me, intensely amused by my unease. My Mother always insisted a man who laughed at another woman’s genuine sense of unease was a ‘get out of there fucking quick job’. I was starting to feel every part of that sentiment right now. I felt naked which was stupid because I was wearing only lingerie after all, but I felt so irretrievably stripped bare, out here without my phone.

  I was furious, but bit my lip and awaited his explanation.

  “I just said I want to see my family;, they are, of course, all dead. I dress as a raven to honor their memory and that of our line. It is a rather beautiful walk. The forest is a very magical place.” His eyes lingered on my face.

  “Will you paint my face likewise?”

  I nodded, and his large hands lifted me onto his lap. Oh no. I straddled him awkwardly, feeling my thighs jump at the sensation of him between my legs; the man was still hard, even with wet cold briefs on. I tried not to show my reaction as I bent around him and scooped up some of the soot from the fire he had just extinguished, and playfully began to paint his already dramatic eyes up with it.

  I tried to be gentle, and felt him shiver beneath my touch. I avoided looking directly into his eyes, even though I felt them heating my face, drawing a blush into my cheeks. He wriggled a little beneath me, and lifted his hips ever so slightly so he let me know his magnificent cock was most definitely alive and throbbing. A moan strangled and collapsed in on itself in my throat, and I ended up grunting. I saw him smirk at that.

  I took my art very seriously as I gave painstaking deliberation and attention to ensuring he had the best blackened eyes ever to be achieved by an unskilled makeup artist. I ever so carefully mimicked the fractured eyelash look that trailed down to the sharp planes of his cheekbones. When I was done, we simply stared into each other’s eyes, and his hips occasionally moved, and pressed his thickness right between my heated lips – I was no longer cold down there with the blistering hot Thornton Darko beneath.

  “You need to stop doing that,” I threatened as I reluctantly slid off his lap.

  “Why?” he asked, looking perplexed, a cute look for him.

  “Because we will never get to see that beautiful forest, and…” My voice fell to a whisper. “Your family.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question?” he reproached sounding amused.

  “Because I might insist that you do that nice little hip flick thing you’ve been doing, and tease me with the press of that fat cock of yours against my pussy all night,” I shot back.

  He cut me open with his smile. It was beautiful. There was no arrogance or smugness in it. He was, I realized, happy. I liked him happy. After all, he had endured in his life, and even tonight with that crazy ass fan of his, he deserved to be happy. I wanted to make him happy. I saw it as necessary as breathing, even writing; this was a big call for me.

  Shit. I was so lost in him. This was embarrassing. When had this happened exactly?

  I shivered.

  “Are you cold?” He sounded concerned, and he offered me a black glittering drink from the emerald decanter. “This should warm you up.”

  He poured his own drink and huddled closer to me, pulling the blanket tighter around us. Without the fire, it was freezing now.

  I sniffed the contents of the drink; it smelt delicious, I could make out blackberries, vodka, and something sort of musty but not altogether unpleasant-smelling. My gaze slid from it to the abandoned raven headdress with its black proud feathers standing tall. I felt a pang, wishing I had my phone to take a photo of us. It would make an amazing cover for one of my books, I decided.

  “What is this?” I asked, as I knocked it back without awaiting an answer.

  Because. Drunk.

  “Holy shit!” Thorn freaked when I did that. “Are you serious right now? That is how you drink something so precious?!”

  I shrugged, feeling my body suddenly flare with warmth. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about it warming you up,” I slurred.

  Thorn groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of them?”

  “One of what now?” I asked, blinking at him in confusion.

  “An alcoholic,” he said softly, sadness twisting his beautiful face in regret. “I couldn’t go through it again, Elena. Andrea … she become violent when she was drunk.”

  My mind flickered with an image of his back full of those scars. “Did Andrea mess up your back?” I asked.

  He glared at me, then slowly shook his head. “No.”

  “Then who?”


  “Me,” he offered, his face shadowed with shame.

  I touched his wrist, and he flinched away from me, still lingering over the drink. His beautiful mouth slid over the rim of the glass of whatever the fuck it was - he hadn’t exactly answered me yet. Shit. Probably should get an answer to that. Again… not a priority. Because… drunk.

  “Why would you do that?” I asked, horrified.

  “I whip my back. It’s a ritual for me. I do it to atone for my family’s sins. What they did…”He shuddered. “To all of those innocents.” He was shaking, but he would not let me touch him; I couldn’t reach him, his eyes shone briefly with tears, and then just as quickly, they were dry as he angrily wiped them with his fists. “It’s how I am able to live with myself.”

  I would have groaned but the man had struck me momentarily senseless. Self flagellation - of course, made perfect sense! I closed my eyes for a moment, and the image of his scarred back flickered against my lids. My eyes snapped open as a wave of outrage summoned the words.

  “Thorn, that is ridiculous!” I protested loudly. Shit. I sounded as if I was yelling. I hadn’t intended to yell. “You were a child when it happened. What the fuck could you have done? Seriously?” My heart was breaking for him and his madness.

  A storm rolled in over his beauty and enhanced it. Damn him, anger only seemed to make me a little more intense looking than I already was, and that be scary for a lot of folk. Brett called it my ‘kill switch engage’ look. Brett. Fuck Brett. Don’t think of Brett! I ordered myself sternly. Not here. Not now, with Thorn’s heart and psyche bleeding before me on the sand.

  “Demon child,” he corrected.

  “Fuck that!” I huffed, outraged. “Let go of labels. Take your own advice. You tell people all the time not to allow idiots to define them.”

  He smiled bitterly at that. “Thank you,” he said finally, and then took a longer gulp of the strange black drink, and then frowned and hissed at it.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, because I assumed one did not hiss at their drink if something wasn’t very, very wrong with it.

  “This has been mixed stronger than I requested.” His lower lip trembled, making the ring on his chin shimmer. He looked deeply disturbed.

  “Yeah, I noticed you still haven’t told me what the fuck this is.” I shook the emerald decanter.

  “It will allow us to actually see my family,” he said quite seriously, his lips lifting in a wry smile. “I want for you to meet them.”

  Fourteen

  Run away! Run away! Unbidden, I heard Aaron’s voice explode into my mind, and I blinked against his visceral outrage.

  “I drink this,” he took the emerald decanter from me, “so that I am able to connect with their energy trace and see them.”

  “And yet you haven’t really answered me,” I muttered, feeling my gaze scurry away from his; he was too frightening to look at directly right now.

  “It is a mild hallucinogenic tonic,” he answered.

  My gaze snapped right back to his.

  “And you are saying that this-” I threw my empty glass at his chest hard. He just watched it hit his nipple with the silver piece of metal in it, and then bounce senselessly to the sand. Shit. I was getting violent and yes… I was too intoxicated and now, thanks to Thorn and his manipulative ways, drug fucked. “-has been mixed stronger than you requested?” I was struggling to keep my voice even.

  “I am sorry, Elena,” he murmured, and he did sound truly sorry. “I will find out who did this and have them executed.”

  I couldn’t even smile at that. I believed him.

  “So, is this going to be a date rape thing?” I fixed him with a glare as I slowly inched away from him, and cast my gaze desperately about the beach. My hammered and soon-to-be drug-addled brain was trying to find the safest place to hide until morning. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. What an idiot Elena!

  “No!” His voice sounded thicker, slurred, I noted. Shit. The drug was taking effect on him, too. His pupils were flickering madly at me. He looked perfectly horrified by my suggestion. “No, Elena! No, I would never ever do that. I am truly sorry about this. I will take you home.” He staggered unsteadily to his feet, and held his hand out to me.

  I shook my head. “Just leave me alone.” Tears were now sliding down my face. Shit. I couldn’t stop them. They kept coming. My shoulders were shaking. I was moving to a place beyond terrified right now.

  “I am not going to leave you out here alone,” he snapped. “The person who did this is not a friend of mine or yours, by the way. I worry at what they will do to you if they find you.”

  Shit. He had a point.

  “I am not leaving you here,” Thorn insisted, his jaw trembling, dark green eyes flaring in defiance. “You are too important to me, Elena.”

  I wrapped my arms around my legs. “I’ll take my chances here. You go. I’ll hide some place. Your people won’t find me.”

  “They could be watching us right now,” Thorn disagreed, casting an uneasy glance over his shoulder.

  “Well…” I drawled, frustrated. “You’re their King, right? Order them to not hurt or harm me.”

  “It seems my word is worth little to someone at least,” he sighed. ”The person who mixed our drinks tonight Elena. I cannot trust they are not out there right now… “

  “You sound android!” I declared.

  Thorn arched a brow at me. “Don’t you mean paranoid?”

  “Nope. You’re clearly a fucking robot. I meant android!”

  Thorn’s face took on a ‘don’t fuck with me’ expression.

  “Right,” he said, his mouth flexed into a grimace. “That’s it, you leave me with no choice.”

  I screamed when he swooped down on me, a blur of mayhem and insanity, and felt myself being lifted. I landed with a thud over his shoulder, and I spluttered in my shock as he ran up the beach. This again, I thought to myself. This is how he dealt with resistance and defiance to to the imposition of his will. I’ll just throw the person over the shoulder and run? Sweet Jesus, I would never understand this man. Again, having myself hanging off of him like a deadweight did not deter his blistering speed. His large hand gripped my ass protectively, while the other wrapped decisively around my rather naked waist. He had quickly ascended an embankment, and by the time he entered the forest, I was oddly calm. Whether it was the drug casting its hideous spell over me, or I had simply gone into a state of shock, I wasn’t entirely certain why. But I felt unbothered.

  Eventually, he stopped in a clearing, puffing in exertion, and deposited me on the ground.

  I stared up at him.

  He did not look at me as he placed the bird mask thing over my head so its beak and feather finery covered half of my forehead, and tied the ribbon securely at the back of my head holding the thing in place. I did not resist him this time. I was too numb, and now oddly mesmerized. I felt a blanket being wrapped around my shoulders, then he took the ends and tied them together around my neck, so the blanket fluttered around me like a cape. I felt my arms rise up to grip it protectively.

  He then affixed his own raven headdress. It was… magnificent. It was possibly the most beautifully dark and fucked up thing I had ever seen. Half a wing with a hole in it to allow him to see, covered his right eye, otherwise like mine, it only covered half of his forehead, not the entire face. The black feathers stood tall and imposing at the top of the thing, and the raven eyes looked real as they stared straight into my soul, out the other side and back again.

  I shuddered.

  “Are you afraid?” he slurred.

  “Yes,” I admitted. My tongue felt thick.

  “I understand.”

  I am afraid of you right now, I thought, but did not speak it. I couldn’t fully trust what I was thinking or feeling right now.

  “I’m sorry about my antics before,” he muttered. “But you are everything. I cannot lose you to a misunderstanding that can be cleared up in the light of day.”

&nb
sp; “Misunderstanding?” I asked.

  “Some of my people-” Thorn started.

  I noted how he stressed “some”, but ignored it.

  “-think you are trying to kill me. I need to clear that shit up.”

  I nodded. “Yes. That is probably important. But what are we doing here right now, Thorn?” I pointed to my raven headdress. “How does this work?”

  “Fuck you Elena!” Thorn roared.

  “What?” I cried, but he turned from me and punched a tree.

  I laughed out loud. Sweet Jesus! I always had the most inappropriate responses when I was freaked out. Laughing at a highly agitated, insane and drug fucked man was probably not the best one.

  He was shaking as he stared at his scratched-up, bleeding knuckles.

  I had no sympathy. He was acting like a Neanderthal. But even still, he did sound oddly genuine and mortified at our predicament. Me more drug-fucked than him, but he was equally inept right… oh…What the what now? I felt an unexpected flare of heat between my legs, and I was suddenly, unexpectedly buzzing from head to fucking toe. I had never ever felt so stuffed full of arousal. Great. Was this an effect? My belly roared in desire.

  Then I noticed he was stalking away from me.

  “Thorn!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “I am going to visit my family,” he called over his shoulder. “Come or don’t. I don’t give a shit. Seeing as you think so little of me right now.” Pain – it hit me in waves and dampened the arousal I felt for a moment.

  I stared after his quite naked retreating back, with that proud black feathered headpiece, and then became acutely aware that every single tree in this freaking wood felt like it had one of his witch-hating army lurking behind it.

  Fuck that. I cautiously followed him.

  He was cursing under his breath as he stalked ahead of me.

  I hung back, then raised a shaking hand to my mouth when he entered a larger clearing with at least fifty grave stones. He moved up to three of them, and barefoot I picked my way over pine needles and slippery moss covered rocks to take a peek at them.