King Among the Dead (Hell Theory Book 1)
Page 17
He pulled back with an obscene slurp, and, voice rough, said, “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”
She did.
He knelt between her spread legs, sheened with sweat, gleaming in the firelight, a classic portrait of a young god made flesh. She loved the way his chest heaved, the way he was winded. The way he stared at her like she was the only thing worth looking at in the world.
As she watched, he unbuckled his belt. Undid the button and fly of his jeans. The rasp of the zipper seemed to echo off the bookshelves. He wore black boxer-briefs beneath, like the ones he’d had on the night he was stabbed. He pushed them down, and drew out his cock; it bobbed, flushed and leaking at the tip, up toward his bellybutton, swollen and flushed with blood. He hissed when he did it, teeth bared.
He stared down at her as he took himself in hand and gave a few slow, thorough strokes. Passed his thumb over the head and spread pre-come down the length of his shaft, easing the way.
He worked his own cock, and skimmed his other hand up her stomach, back to her breasts. Tweaked one nipple and then the other, squeezing ‘til the little bursts of pain sent bright sparks of pleasure through her gut.
There were so many moments in so many books when the heroine finally got a look at the man’s cock and knew a moment’s panic. He was too big; he wouldn’t fit; it would hurt too much.
Beck was big – bigger even than she’d thought, after the stolen glimpse the night of the bath. Thick even in his own hand. But she wasn’t scared. She didn’t want to shrink back from it – from him.
She watched his hand, and wished it was her own; wished it was her grip he was thrusting lightly into.
He took a deep breath and his hips stilled. He circled the base of his cock with his hand and squeezed; grunted, eyes closing a moment. When he opened them, he reached with both hands for the button of her jeans.
She lifted her hands, intending to make fast work of it, and then shimmy out of them, but he said, “Let me.” His voice was wrecked, and his eyes were dark, and when he licked his lips, she nodded and subsided. Watched, enraptured, as he unfastened them slowly, and pulled the halves back, revealing black panties that matched her bra.
He’d been rough when he touched himself, but was gentle, almost teasing, as he slipped two fingertips beneath the waistband of her panties and petted her curls. Slow, gentle, his gaze fixed on his own hand where it disappeared slowly, slowly, slowly. His fingertips finally found her clit, and the sound she made was high and breathless. The jolt of sensation almost burned it was so acute. It brought the quick heat of tears to her eyes, and she blinked them away, biting her lip to keep quiet, watching.
Just as he watched. He stroked her more firmly, little darts of pleasure that left her chest heaving, wet nipples glistening in the firelight.
“Beck, please…”
With a slow, steady push, he slipped his whole hand down into her panties. Cupped her sex. Parted her wet folds with clever fingers, and found her entrance.
“Look at me,” he said, begged, as he pressed the first finger inside.
His gaze caught hold of hers, speared right through her, as he thrust shallowly in and out, stretching her, making her wetter. His fingers looked so slender, but it didn’t feel that way, inside her – the stretch burned, but in a good way. Made her feel alive, made her feel like a woman, wanted and beautiful.
“God.” He let out a shuddering breath. A muscle leaped in his jaw. “Rosie, God.” He pulled out, and pressed back in with two fingers.
Rose pressed her shoulders back against the rug, and rocked her hips, finding his steady rhythm, matching it. Trying to take him deeper. The tension in her belly was verging on unbearable; she needed this, needed more of it. Chased a relief that only he could give her.
He added a third finger, and gripped his cock again, stroked himself in time with the press and retreat of his fingers in her sex. “I could come. Oh, Christ, I could come just like this,” he said, panting. He pressed deep, and her back arched. “But fuck, I’m not going to.”
He pulled his hand from her panties – she mourned the loss, until he lifted his fingers to his face and sucked them one by one into his mouth, licking her juices from between them; tonguing it from his knuckles.
“Oh my God,” she murmured. Her pulse was thrumming beneath every inch of skin. She knew she had to glow pink; had reached a point where she was too turned on to do much of anything.
But that was okay, because Beck seemed done with drawing things out.
He shuffled back, and gripped her jeans and panties and tugged them down in one go; off her feet and over his shoulder somewhere. He stood only long enough to take care of his own, and then he was crawling back to her, prowling up her body like a big cat, hips settling against hers.
She could feel him now, hard and hot against her thigh. He shifted, and she could feel him against her sex; his cock slid against her wetness and it sent a crack of electricity through her; left her grabbing his shoulders and holding tight, gaze seeking his.
When she found it, his was impossible: impossible to think that he was looking at her this way, finally, that he wanted her so badly he trembled.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her again. Touched her again, fingers spreading her, teasing. And then she felt the head of his cock against her entrance, so much larger than his fingers had been. Blunt, steady pressure, and she stretched, and it burned – but it was a welcome pain. Cherished things didn’t come easy, if at all, in her experience. She wanted him inside her more than she wanted to avoid discomfort.
He pulled back from the kiss a fraction, his lips still brushing hers. “Breathe,” he murmured. “Just breathe, sweetheart.” His voice sounded strange, but sweet, too. He was holding back for her, going so carefully. Gentle nudges, pressing in slow, slow, slow. “It’s alright.” He touched her face, feather-light, and his gaze shifted over her features, a notch between his brows. Worrying. “It’s alright. Tell me to stop.”
Never. In answer, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and her body opened to him. A sudden give. He slid in deeper with a grunt, eyes closing as he tried to keep still. But she smoothed her hands down his arms, encouraging, marveling at the sensation of him going deeper inside her, and his hips gave little involuntary twitches. Deeper, deeper – and then he was there. Fully seated, and it was so much. But it didn’t hurt.
Rose let out a breath that felt punched out of her. She was all filled up, and there was no room – not anywhere inside her – for anything but him.
She reached up to fist his hair, not caring if the wonder and adoration showed naked on her face. Let him see. Let him know how much she wanted this.
His eyes were still screwed shut, lips pulled wide in a grimace. He trembled above her, body vibrating as he held carefully still.
“Beck.” Her own breathing was choppy and open-mouthed, but she managed to trace the tender skin below his eyes with her thumbs. She found a trace of wetness there, and somehow her love swelled greater. “Beck, I don’t want you to stop.” She flexed her thighs on his hips, and tightened around him, where he was buried deep.
His eyes sprang open. His mouth opened on a gasp. His hand slapped down on the rug beside her head, holding him up. “Sweetheart, I can’t wait anymore.”
“Then don’t.”
“God.” He groaned, and cursed – and drew his hips back, and thrust in again. Another retreat, another thrust. Again, again. Slow at first, but powerful, the muscles in his stomach rippling, his teeth clenched tight. Each movement stretched her a little more, like he was making a place for himself inside her, and she could feel the way she was fitted to him, and the way he loved it. Each movement lit up nerves she’d never known existed, and the tension wound tighter and tighter, an exquisite torture that had her straining to meet every thrust.
It was good, it was so good, but she knew there could be more, and she chased after it, clutching at his arms, murmuring low, pleading sounds.
He had less leverage, this way, but she wanted him close; raked her nails down his back and locked her ankles together behind him. He trailed unsteady kisses down her jaw, and buried his face in her throat.
“Rosie.” His hips stuttered. “My sweet Rosie.” He slipped a hand between them, found her clit with his fingers.
Her pleasure crested in a sudden, violent wave. She closed her eyes and let it carry her, clinging to him.
He growled against her throat, and she felt him kicking inside her, a flood of warmth.
It was the most perfect sensation of her life. Better than a good meal, or a hot bath. Better than laughing with Kay, or earning Beck’s praise at the study table.
Better than killing. The heat of his release inside her, as her body pulsed, limp and liquid with pleasure, was better than the heat of freshly-spilled blood.
In the moment, all of it was tangled, and wonderful, and she didn’t ever want to come down from this high.
Their heartbeats throbbed against one another for a long moment, while her sex continued to spasm around his cock. He lifted his head, and his rough, open-mouthed breathing was tired and spent, rather than tight and anticipatory. He looked at her with dilated, pleasure-drunk eyes, and his smile could have lit up the room, brighter than any lamp. He kissed her with a lazy sort of intensity that felt like a claim; a languid stroke of his tongue, a gentle bite at her lower lip.
When he drew back, he murmured, voice gravelly, “I adore you.”
She was too dazed for eloquence. “That’s good. You’re pretty awesome.”
He laughed – not the low chuckles of everyday, but an honest to goodness giggle; he closed his eyes, and laughter shook him, and he even snorted. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Are you okay?” As the laughter died away, and true concern stole into his voice.
“I’m perfect.”
“Hm. Yes, you are.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He hummed, and kissed her. “It should be.”
~*~
He scooped her up like a bride and carried her upstairs. When she made a reach for their clothes, scattered across the rug like windblown leaves, he hefted her up higher against his shoulder and said, “Nope. It can wait.”
“What’s Kay going to think?”
“She’ll be scandalized, naturally. Or pretend to be.” He caught her gaze and winked. “Don’t let her trick you into thinking she’s a prude. It would all be a lie.”
She smiled, and looped her arms around his neck. She was drowsy, now, her eyelids heavy.
This time, when they lay down on the crisp white sheets of his canopied bed, there was no space between them, her head pillowed on his chest, his arm secure around her waist. She fell asleep to the steady metronome of his heartbeat, and dreamed of nothing at all.
The next morning, she and Beck were chopping peppers and onions for a southwest omelet when Kay entered the kitchen, usual cigarette perched on her lip, expression her usual morning blend of tired and crabby. She climbed up onto her usual stool, smoked a moment, then finally said, “If you’re gonna fuck on the rug you could at least pick up after your damn selves.” Her lip curled in disgust.
Rose blushed, but Beck caught her eye and smiled. “How heathenish of us,” he said to Kay, his gaze sparkling, and Rose couldn’t find it in herself to feel too embarrassed.
SEVENTEEN
“Castor’s headquarters is virtually impenetrable,” Beck said, clicking through screens on the massive computer monitor in his study. “Another family tried to launch a full-scale siege of the place about ten years ago, and got wiped off the face of the earth for their troubles. Here it is.” He opened a JPEG file, one that expanded to fill the whole screen, and Rose let out a quiet “damn.”
She wasn’t looking at a house, but at a mansion. Its square, pale stone edifice was bracketed at each side by round turrets with steepled roofs. The roof above the main body of the house was lined with black iron spikes – of the sort used to keep pigeons from landing, but which she knew acted as human deterrents in this case. The dozens of original, leaded-glass windows had been caged with iron bars, and it lent the already-imposing Gothic manor an even more sinister air. Stone gargoyles perched on the ledges, snarling down at the lawn. The photo had been taken at night, but the house’s façade was lit up with security lights: nowhere to hide, no way to sneak in undetected.
He clicked the mouse, and the image shifted: a shot taken father back, this one showing the grounds. The mansion was in the heart of the city, flanked on either side by townhouses, but boasting a sizable lawn circled by a tall iron fence. The gates were massive, and decorated with curling iron Cs in their centers. Two men in black stood stationed just inside them, guns breaking up their otherwise-sleek outlines.
Beck pointed to one. “Castor employed plenty of meathead thugs to fence his product, but his own personal guard is made up of an elite death squad. All of them are fit, most are former military, and all of them are unfailingly loyal.
“Here are cameras.” He pointed them out on the tops of the stone fence posts. “Around the entire perimeter. And here, closer to the house. I’ve never been inside, but it’s apparently full of booby traps and dead ends. Secret passages and hidden elevators. Castor can disappear in a matter of moments, and then you have to deal with his death squad.”
“It’s like a haunted house in there,” Kay said with a shudder. “I was only there once or twice, but that was enough. “The bastard has an honest to God throne, right there in the front hall. It’s where he sits when they drag a traitor up in front of him.” She shuddered again, gaze far away, remembering.
Beck said, “I’ll never be able to get to him directly. Not in his fortress.” He tapped restless fingertips against the desk. “So I’ve been picking his people off. One by one.” He snorted. “I imagine I’m about as pesky as a buzzing fly.”
A frightening thought occurred. “Does he know it’s you? Taking out his dealers?”
Beck didn’t answer.
Kay said, “He’s careful. And Castor has lots of enemies.”
“Like I said: a buzzing fly.” With no small amount of bitterness.
“But the men who came here,” Rose persisted. She felt the urge to go check that the windows and doors were bolted.
He twisted around in his chair to face her, his smile small and tight – but nevertheless reassuring. She didn’t think he could hide anything from her now, and she relaxed beneath his gaze.
“If Castor knew it was me, and wanted me dead, he wouldn’t send those idiots to do the job. I feel sure they were acting on their own – trying to take some initiative in the hopes it would ingratiate them with the boss man.”
“That worked out well for them,” Kay said.
“If they’d told anyone what they’d planned, we would have had another visit by now.” He touched her arm. “It’s alright, darling. Castor doesn’t know.”
She let out a breath, and nodded.
His smile flickered wider, and he turned back to the screen. “I have a map.” He pulled it up, and now she knew what the little flags on it meant.
“You have a hit list, you mean,” Kay said.
“One always expanding,” he said, mildly. “It’s a good thing I’ve got a partner, now.”
Kay snorted. “Yeah, good thing.”
Rose fought not to smile.
~*~
Rose dreamed of the pie safe, its confines stifling and dark, reeking of damp and mildew. She panted, trying unsuccessfully to regulate her breathing. Tabitha had warned her about that once, cracking her ugly laugh, had said that if she breathed too fast she’d use up all the oxygen and suffocate in there. That hadn’t been true at all, because it wasn’t airtight, but the mind had a way of rejected logic in moments like those.
> But then the doors swung open, and a warm tide of blood swirled in around her; lifted her, carried her out into a moonlit night studded with stars – the heavens split with a jagged white scar.
The Rift. She knew that’s what she was seeing, and it didn’t look like it did in old photographs. It looked alive, pulsing brighter and brighter, in the rhythm of a heartbeat. A rhythm she could feel rippling through the blood around her, steady and relentless.
Hands closed over her arms from behind, and she knew they were Beck’s; knew it was his heat and weight that pressed up against her back; his breath against her throat.
She stared up at the Rift, and fell back against him, and fell, and fell, and fell…
She woke, and was on her side, in Beck’s bed, and his weight and heat really were pressing up behind her. The rhythm she’d felt in the dream was his; he ground lightly, absently against her ass, his cock hard, but his movements unhurried. His arm lay across her waist, and his hand massaged her breast, through the cotton of the tank top she wore.
She smiled into the dark. “Are you awake?”
“A little bit.” His voice was drowsy, but very much awake. “I was dreaming.”
She covered the back of his hand with hers, urging him to grip her more firmly. He worked his thumb back and forth over her nipple until it pebbled, and she shivered. “So was I.”
“About roses?”
“About blood.”
He stilled. Pushed up on one arm so he was above her.
Rose turned her head on the pillow so she could look up at him. It was raining, and the light that filtered through the curtain gaps was manufactured, and blue-tinted. A raindrop slithered down the window pane, and its shadow tracked down his face, a silent, black tear. She could see the wet glimmer of his eyes, and his parted lips; flash of his tongue as he wet them.