The end of the narrow tunnel came into view, the gray of an area growing brighter by the second. Trevor stepped ahead faster, and the connection between them broke. Danica pulled her hand back, curling her fingers into a fist before she dropped it to her side.
Trevor ducked in first, but Danica slipped in right after to a cavern far smaller than the last one. The light came from lichen and moss that glowed silver and clung to surrounding slate stone.
Danica stood still for a moment, soaking in the room. Round. Almost perfectly round, like the space had been carved out with an ice cream scoop, and a silence pulsed through the place.
What stood out the most was a lack of exit.
Danica sucked in a sharp breath. “Well, fuck me sideways,” the curse came out a moment later. “Don’t suppose there’s a magic button to push in here to levitate out?” Even as the jokes spilled from her lips, her chest squeezed tight and panic descended.
Trevor staggered forward, one step, then another, and he lifted his hand for a moment as he seemed to grasp the air, like he tried to pluck a solution from it.
Danica took a step forward across the cool floor to stand beside him, but the moment her gaze flickered his way, her heart twisted.
His eyes normally crinkled with a casual grin or glowed with the serious aura he projected, but right now, they were wide and filled with terror. His anxiousness flooded the air, this buzzing, frayed thing. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but he may as well have had a forcefield with the way his shoulders squared.
“Trev,” she said, keeping her voice level, despite the jig her own heart performed. At first, he didn’t look her way, staring straight out to the opposite end of the cave, frozen in his own mind. Frozen in the past. Danica swallowed, hard. Of course he’d have a problem with this. For years, he had suffered the same fate she was fighting to avoid.
“Trevor Arceneaux,” Danica tried again, this time lacing her words with steel. He looked her way, but his haunted eyes sucked the breath from her lungs. The man always appeared impermeable, skating on the same slick surface she had. However, the past had its way of leaving permanent marks.
She took one step closer to him, and then another, her motions slow and deliberate. Even as he stared at her, he wasn’t here. He wasn’t in the cavern with her but launched back to the horrors of his past. If she didn’t pull him out of this, they wouldn’t be going anywhere. Her chest squeezed tight. Not like they had somewhere else to escape.
Danica reached out to thread her fingers through his. She half-expected him to rear back or lash out at her, but instead his hand curled around hers. “Let’s sit for a beat,” she said, taking deliberate steps toward the other side of the cave. “We can figure out a plan, talk a little smack on Alberich.” She led him forward to where the lichen glimmered along the side of this impenetrable cavern. She crouched, tugging him with her, and together they sat on the smooth ground. Danica stretched out her legs, but she hadn’t pulled her hand from Trevor’s, as if the connection helped her as much as it helped him.
His breaths came faster, but the panic in his gaze subsided, replaced by a desperation she’d grown far too familiar with. His mouth formed a thin line, and she was certain the past still held him in manacles. Right now wasn’t the time to confront that bullshit.
However, one thing would command his attention.
Trevor never asked her—out of anyone she’d met, he understood the need to keep the past secret—but his eyes always questioned. Always searched. She sucked in a sharp breath and stared at the mirror she clung to, as if the reflection mocked her.
“You know, it’s just been my sister and I since we came of age in the Courts,” Danica started, casting a brief glance to Trevor. He still hadn’t responded, and he didn’t look her way, but the light squeeze to her hand gave all the indication she needed. “Lenora was the sort of gorgeous to attract suitors and interest before she ever should’ve, and I could charm my way through a crowd, so neither of us had ever worried. However, our parents were as hungry as the Blackmores.”
“Court tends to bring out the worst in people,” Trevor murmured, the first words he’d voiced since they entered. The warm timbre of his voice rolled through her like honey, a relief she hadn’t known she needed.
“My parents decided to arrange our marriages for us, because let’s face it, we can be far behind humans on that front. They wanted the bargaining chips to guarantee our social success, and we were too young to break out on our own.” Danica’s heart clenched tight when she looked up at the cavern ceiling, unable to focus on the way Trevor might react. Unable to deal with the judgement of having ever been small or vulnerable.
“I’m guessing you escaped,” Trevor responded. Good, he was engaged, which meant he might begin to ground himself. All it took was ripping her scars wide open. She could stop now and should—except she didn’t.
“Not at first,” Danica continued. “Lenora didn’t want to go, and there was no way I’d leave without my sister. So, they introduced us to the haggard gentlemen we were meant to wed the moment they could sell us off. Monsters in the truest sense of the word, both of them. And I planned our escape, whether Lenora wanted to or not. But … I was too late.”
The moonlight had dripped into the room back then, shining over the pale face of her sister as she walked in. Her dress was torn, bruises the color of nebulas across her arms, around her wrists.
Lenora’s eyes, those beautiful, luminous things that reflected the sunlit skies had darkened.
She had failed. She failed her sister once, and she swore, never again.
Trevor’s thumb swept across her wrist at the pulse point, drawing her to the present. Her eyes burned, and she hated herself for the weakness. Danica forced an unsteady breath in.
As if the cork had been popped after far too long, the words kept flowing from her. “I took Lenora away that night. We barely had enough to survive on, plus our parents cut us off once they found us missing. So, we took odd jobs and lived amongst the humans, doing anything we could to survive. Lenora worked as a dancer while I ended up fast-talking my way into enough circles until I found funding for my Talent Agency. However, that’s what got me into this mess in the first place, since Alberich’s now coming to collect.”
Too fast. She’d divulged too much too fast. Danica gasped in a breath, the vulnerable prickle across her skin causing her to glare into the floor beneath them. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Trevor. Otherworld be damned, she didn’t want pity.
Those long fingertips, the ones she had dirty daydreams about, brushed along her chin. Danica looked up at him. Trevor didn’t say anything, but his eyes glowed with a hearthfire understanding that scorched right through her. His breathing evened, and his hand no longer trembled.
Danica’s chest hollowed, as if someone clawed at her insides and scooped them out. They should be looking around for an escape, a distraction, anything. However, she could as much tear herself from Trevor’s gaze as she could escape a hurricane.
The weight of what descended between them sent a new flush prickling through her, and part of her begged to run. But she had nowhere to go. Danica remained here with the weight of her past by the side of the one man who might understand, and she found she wanted him to.
“You did enough,” was all he said, his fingers stroking her chin. He stared at her with a wonder she didn’t deserve.
Her throat tightened, and tears pricked at her eyes.
Trevor leaned in, mere inches between them. The heat from before returned as strong as ever, but this time the fire strengthened into an inferno she couldn’t escape from. Not like she wanted to.
Danica closed the space between them and kissed him.
Chapter Thirteen
Trevor had lived a long time, but he hadn’t dared believe he’d ever see the stripped down and unplugged version of Danica Maslanka. The woman behind the false smiles and fast words had a depth etched on her bones from all she’d survived. Her loyalty migh
t belong to her sister above all, but he couldn’t help but admire the ferocious strength of it. She was like Ky in that aspect, their devotion a trait he’d learned to appreciate after years without a single soul in his corner.
When her green eyes darkened, her breath hitched, and she looked his way, he couldn’t help but close the distance between them. No words could express his admiration for what the woman had survived and how her words, her confession, touched something deep inside he’d buried away. She’d reached out when he needed her the most to rescue him from the memories that froze him from top to bottom, the ones that twisted his insides like a car wreck.
He’d leaned closer, needing to connect in whatever way he could.
Danica moved in first.
The moment her lips brushed his, Trevor’s libido sparked to life and thoughts of their surroundings and their current predicament were forgotten. All that existed was the two of them. His fingers wove through her tousled brown hair, the strands out of place for once. Even with the water they’d swum through, cave dust already re-collected on their bare feet and printed into their clothes, yet the scent of lime and lemongrass still clung to her. His mouth watered as he deepened their kiss, slipping his tongue into her mouth.
He stroked it into her with each kiss, as a low moan rumbled from the back of her throat. His grip on her hair tightened, the strands dried and soft against his palm.
Danica wound her one arm around his neck while she pressed her other hand to his chest, the heat reaching him through the still-damp layer of fabric. His cock stiffened at the way she crashed against his mouth again and again, filled with the same hunger.
The first time they’d come together, the collision had been a flame flashing bright they both thought would flicker out. However, what burned between them now held weight. This grew into a mounting bonfire with no end in sight. She gasped for breath, and he closed his mouth around hers a moment after, as they surrendered to the endless game of back and forth between them.
Danica’s fingers slipped to the buttons of his shirt, and she flicked them down one by one.
Trevor shrugged out of his shirt, and he tugged at the hem of her dress to slip it up and over. Her bra followed suit a second later, and he swallowed hard. The sight of her bare breasts and perky pink nipples illuminated by the silver lichen dosed him with such intense lust he wanted to slam her to the ground and take her now.
Danica licked her swollen lips, and he couldn’t help but watch the trace of her tongue, mesmerized. Their eyes met, and gravity descended between them.
This wasn’t a quick bathroom fuck to get rid of some excess desire. Whatever unfolded between them here and now, this was real. Trevor wanted her like he’d never allowed himself to want anything before.
Her fingers traveled down his flat chest, and Danica took her time tracing each ridge, each dip and divot as they dropped lower, and lower. Her mouth quirked in a half-smile, and when she looked up at him again, pure wickedness flashed in her eyes. She gave him a light push to the chest. He rolled with the motion, sliding onto his back, elbows crooked to prop himself up.
“Perfect view from here,” he murmured, his gaze traveling up and down. A mere scrap of fabric kept her from being entirely nude. He cracked a grin, with a glance to her panties. “It’d be even better if I took those off with my teeth.”
A light blush skated across her cheeks, and she leaned overtop him. Her fingers snapped open the button of his jeans, and the snick of the zipper echoed through the cavern. He sucked in a sharp breath once he caught the intent in her gaze. Trevor shimmied the pants down, kicking them off to the side.
Danica prowled to him, zeroing in on his stiff length which lay stark between them. His throat dried. The sight of her had his cock pulsing. She hovered overtop it, her pink mouth mesmerizing. She dipped down to lick the tip. The moment her tongue touched his cock, he may as well have been struck by lightning. Danica trailed her tongue along the length, tasting him, exploring him with a torturous attention to detail. His hands balled into fists by his side, and his breaths came out faster.
Once her hot mouth wrapped around his erection, all other thoughts obliterated from his mind, and a moan slipped from him. She worked him at a rhythm that had him surrendering to the bliss that rolled all the way through. His balls tightened as she bobbed up and down on his length, strands of her hair slipping to her shoulders, and those pink lips the stuff of his fantasies. Her gorgeous breasts moved with each stroke down, and his breath came out in pants all too fast. The tightness coiled in him, reaching the point of pain. He was going to blow if she went any longer.
Trevor reached down and stroked his fingers through her hair, tugging back. “If I’m given the choice, I’d rather come inside you, cher.”
Danica pulled off of him with a pop, her mouth glistening. “Too bad, I was just starting to have fun.” Her green eyes gleamed like sin.
He reached out to wrap his hand around her neck, guiding her forward over his body. Trevor needed to capture her mouth, now. She slid against him, wearing that stupid scrap of fabric. He snagged the elastic and pulled it down with a snap. His hand slid in place of the flimsy scrap a moment later, and he salivated at her soaked folds. Trevor slipped two fingers inside her and leaned forward to press his lips against hers.
Danica let out a shuddering breath against his mouth, one that traveled right to his cock. He pumped his finger insides her tight pussy as he continued to kiss her, enjoying how she melted against him. The tips of her nipples brushed against his chest, and the sensation made him want to drive deep inside her, to feel her tight heat around him.
Her breath came out in rasps as he drove his fingers in faster, and her core clenched around them. Trevor drowned in the honeyed taste of her mouth, the weight of her pressed against him, the fact she was gloriously real and here with him. He wasn’t trapped alone.
“You bastard, just fuck me,” Danica murmured against his mouth between gasps while he continued to drive into her.
A grin spread on his lips when he pulled back from kissing her. His erection grew painful, pulsing to the point of distraction. “You sure?” he responded. “I could keep doing this all day.”
“And I could slit your throat,” Danica muttered before her breath caught in her throat, and her thighs clenched around his hand. Her lashes fluttered shut for a moment, and a flush stained her cheeks as she lapsed to silence. Her core pulsed around his fingers when she came, the look of bliss on her face something he wanted stamped into his memories. A deep laugh rumbled in his chest as he slid his fingers out of her.
Danica opened her eyes again, a satisfied breath escaping her lips, one that thrummed like pride inside his chest. She moved with deliberateness when she rested her palms on either side of him and lined her dripping core with his cock. The air tensed between them as she met his eyes again. They faced each other, freed from their masks. Their time in the cavern had scraped them both raw, and at last, he witnessed the woman beneath her slick smiles and the charms of her trade. She was breathtaking.
Trevor slipped a hand through her hair and leaned up to kiss her. As their lips met, she lowered herself onto his length, inch by excruciating inch. She glided across his cock like silk, and the moment she slid to the base, a guttural groan escaped him. Her heat squeezed him tight, and he thought he might lose his mind.
His hands settled on her hips, and he began to rock forward. Her muscular thighs brushed against his, and they clashed together at every stroke, the skin to skin pushing him closer and closer. He and Danica found a rhythm fast, a constant chase and retreat as they thrust together and pulled back. Each glide into her caused his balls to tighten and his breath to hitch in his throat. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and he tensed his hold around her perfect hips, ones he wanted to sink his teeth into.
The hard floor pressed into his back, and the stones scraped skin while they rocked back and forth, faster and faster with the rhythm they found. They moved as naturally as his fingers to g
uitar strings. The way her core pulsed around him as she squeezed him tight with every thrust brought him closer to the edge.
Trevor tilted to the side, bringing her with him. They rolled across the ground, almost colliding with the wall until Danica lay flat on her back. The sight of her there beneath him, her breasts rising and falling with her shallow breaths, that pink, fuckable mouth open, and her green eyes glazed with lust had him panting with desire. He pinned her wrists on either side of her as he adjusted their position, his thighs closing in around hers.
“Trev, I’m close,” Danica murmured, the words breathy.
He nodded and began to pump inside her, thrusting harder and faster than before. Moans came from her lips as he continued to chase the pulsing in his veins, his chest, his cock, until need pounded in him like rolling thunder. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he ignored the bite of the stone against his knees while he rammed into her again and again and again.
Her cries reverberated around the cavern, and his breaths echoed in response, sweat prickling across his forehead. Droplets glided down his back, tickling as he rocked into her harder and harder with every thrust. His jaw clenched. The need grew unbearable as he reached the precipice. Danica’s clit smacked against his skin when he rammed in to the hilt.
A sharp cry came from her, and her core thrummed around him. He continued driving into her as her head tilted back, eyes closed and a mesmerizing expression on her face as she came. The sight of her and the way her pussy pulsed around his length brought him over the edge with her.
His gaze flashed brilliant white, and his cock kicked as he spilled out inside of her. Trevor’s limbs shook in the wake of his orgasm, even though his grip around her wrists never loosened. He sagged forward to collapse on top of her, crushing his mouth to hers. Their sweaty skin was slick as they pressed against each other. He kissed her in a lazy, languorous way while the bliss of his release reverberated through his body.
Hypnotizing Beat Page 11
