I should check for myself, but I’m too focused on what comes next. I set her on the chair and sink to my knees between her spread thighs. Her pussy is drenched and swollen from the machine, from coming so many times. I lick my lips. “Next time you come, you do it while screaming my name.”
10
Aurora
The first drag of Malone’s tongue is agony and heaven, all at the same time. If I could string two thoughts together, I’d be terrified right now. She’s done it again. I am dismantled, a person fractured into a million pieces. The only thing that matters is the way she touches me, what comes next.
My shoulders ache from being cuffed in this position for an extended period of time, but I don’t care. Not with the sight of Malone kneeling between my legs, her elegant hands gripping my thighs to keep me positioned where she wants me.
She’s so strong. Physically. Mentally. She makes me want to crash against her walls again and again, until she breaks… Or I do. I almost welcome the shattering.
Liar.
I crave the shattering.
This is a woman who can outlast me. One who holds herself apart no matter how close she is, no matter what kind of scene we’re participating in. I can’t reach her, and a twisted part of me worships her for it. No other Dominant has been so distant, has made me want them so much. I hate it. I need it.
She parts my pussy with her thumbs and exhales against my clit. “Remember what I said.”
Next time I come, it had better be screaming her name. I swallow hard, and my voice emerges in a croak. “I remember.”
“Good girl.” She closes the last little bit of distance between us and strokes my clit in the exact motion I need to get off. How the hell does she know my body so well already? I don’t understand. It’s something I’ll poke at later, when I’m not on the verge of losing it.
I whimper, but I can’t move with her holding me down like this. The knowledge only drives my need higher. I’m so over-sensitized, pleasure blends into pain and back again. Too much. Not enough. Both at the same time. “Malone, please.”
She hesitates for the barest second and something shifts in her. The careful restraint is gone. She goes after my pussy like she needs this just as much as I do. Her fingers dig into my thighs, forcing my legs wider, forcing me to give her everything.
My body turns weightless for one heartbeat, and then I crash back down to earth, a comet happily free-falling into its inevitable destruction. I think I scream. I can’t be sure. All I can feel is her mouth on me. All I can taste is her name on my lips. “Malone.”
She presses her forehead to my stomach, and I’m dazed enough to wonder if I’m imagining the way her breathing is harsh against my skin. Surely she’s not actually as affected as I am. She isn’t faltering in her path. I shouldn’t be, either.
I hate how weak I am when she touches me.
She finally sits back and runs her hands up my hips and sides, tugging me forward so my weight is no longer on my arms. Malone closes the distance between us as she reaches for the cuffs, bringing us nearly chest to chest. Her mouth is wet from my desire, and her green eyes look more like green flames.
I really, really want to kiss her.
A click and my wrists are free. She guides my arms forward and carefully massages my shoulders. “Pain?”
“No.” I hardly sound like myself. “I’ve been cuffed like that longer with no problem.”
“Not with me.” She moves down my arms, touching me as if she can divine every single ache and twinge. She ends her examination at my wrists, bracketing them with her hands. “And here?”
“I’m fine.” I try to pull away, but she tightens her grip, holding me in place.
Malone traces her thumbs over my inner wrists, her expression going contemplative. “What is it that you want, Aurora?”
I almost blurt out the truth. Sex and endorphins and the aftermath of too many orgasms, and the words nearly spill from my lips at that tiny prompting. I manage to lock myself down at last moment, manage to shove everything down deep. It takes more effort than it should to dredge up my sunny smile. “What more could I want than what I already have?”
Her perfect brows lower, and she squeezes my wrists once, a warning. “You want to be a plaything for the rich and powerful? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, constantly watching your patrons find love and relationships and their forever people while you are constantly left in the rearview mirror.” She laughs, pretty and cruel. “Don’t lie to me. You have too much fire to be content with that.”
She’s not wrong, but I bristle all the same. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.” She releases me and pushes to her feet. “Then again, I suppose I could be wrong. You might be nothing more interesting than a toy to be played with and then discarded.”
It stings. Good lord, it stings. How dare she pull out a layer of pain I very carefully don’t think about? “I have friends and people who care about me.”
“Yes.” Malone snags a small towel from a hook on the wardrobe and wipes her mouth. “And when they’re done having fun with you, they go home with the people they love and leave you in the shadows.”
Against all reason, my throat feels thick, and my eyes start to burn. “I’ve had relationships. Real ones.”
Something goes flinty in her eyes. “I’m aware.” She leans down until our faces are even, until I can’t escape her gaze. “And how did those relationships go? Every single one of them.”
“That’s none of your business.” I shouldn’t have even brought them up. I wouldn’t have if I was thinking clearly.
“I’ll tell you how they went.” She’s unrelenting, her cruelty quiet and cutting deep. “They saw what they wanted to see, what you wanted them to see. The surface shit. They liked the idea that they could have pretty, submissive, sunshine Aurora whenever they wanted. The darling of the Underworld. How long did it take for reality to creep in? How long until they started to resent you for the very thing that drew them in the first place?”
My eyes are burning, but I refuse to break her gaze. “Choosing the wrong partner doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of love.”
“You’re correct.” She tosses the towel into a metal basket near the door. “But it brings me back to my original question: What is it that you really want?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know you or trust you enough to answer that question.” A last ditch effort to drive her off. If she persists, I’m not certain I can keep my secrets buried. A terrifying thought. I need time and space to get my armor back into place before we go another round. At this rate, the entire two weeks won’t end in my revenge being enacted; they’ll end with Malone taking my future the same way she took my past.
She considers me for a long moment before nodding. “I suppose that’s fair.” She grabs a thick blanket and starts to wrap it around me, but I move first, trying to stand so I can grab it from her hands.
My legs don’t hold me. My knees buckle, and I start to crumple.
Malone catches me before I hit the ground. Her expression is downright forbidding as she scoops me into her arms. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I don’t need aftercare.”
“Aurora.”
“Yes?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I blink. Have I ever heard her sound so heated before? I don’t think so. She sinks onto the chair I just vacated with me in her lap and wraps the blanket around me. Malone looks… Well, she looks furious. She glares down at me like she wants to throttle me, and not in a sexy way. “Listen to me closely. You are not in charge of this situation, and you are certainly not in charge of me. You do not get to decide what’s best for you, because I already know what you need.”
I can’t give her that power, Dominant or no. “But—”
She covers my mouth with her hand. It’s a gentle touch, but it shuts me up all the same. Malone glares. “Let me put this another way. What would Hades or Meg—or you—do to a subm
issive that attempts to refuse aftercare they obviously need?”
I really, really don’t want to answer that, but it’s clear that she requires a response. Finally, I wrap my hand around her wrist and nudge her away from my mouth. I lick my lips. “I’d—we’d—tell them that aftercare is a vital part of the process, for both Dominant and submissive, and their instincts aren’t functioning at one hundred percent after a scene.”
She stares at me for a long moment. “Do you think you’re exempt from that?”
“I—”
But she talks right over me. “Are you so superhuman that you don’t need aftercare, Aurora? You’re too experienced to believe that lie.” She pauses, the breathless moment before the sword falls. “Are you that frightened of me?”
“I’m not scared of you.” I speak too quickly, giving myself away.
“Mmm.” Malone settles back into the chair and pulls me with her, tucking my head against her shoulder. I want to fight the closeness, but fighting it is as much as admitting that she’s right about me being scared of her. A neat little trap, which no doubt she’s fully aware of.
We sit like that for a long time. Long enough for the sweat to cool on my body and the shakes from adrenaline letdown to come and go. Long enough for sleepiness to set in. I fight it. It’s enough that I’ve submitted to this care; I’m not going to nap on top of her, too. No matter how tempting the idea, how good it feels to be curled in her lap. Malone is all sharp edges, but somehow she feels just right with her arms wrapped around me.
She finally sighs and releases me. “I have some things to do. Find something to eat. We’ll continue this later.”
I refuse to categorize the weight in my chest as I climb off her on shaking legs and head for the door. I can’t look back. It feels like she’s shattered my very foundations, but the reprieve will be enough to build them back up again. It has to be.
I bypass the kitchen to head to the room that’s mine for the next two weeks. A quick shower gets my head back on straight. The apartment is echoing and empty as I pad to the kitchen and make myself a light snack. Malone’s fridge is stocked up to the brim, which fascinates me despite myself. She seems like the type of person to cut down on any unnecessary tasks, which would include meal-making. Easier to delegate that task to someone else. Maybe she has someone come in and cook for her, though she seems territorial enough that that’s a reach.
After I eat, I do another careful search of the apartment. There’s nothing more to find, and Malone’s locked her bedroom door. I might be able to pick the lock, but I have a feeling she’d know if I was there, so I hold off. Getting impatient right now would be a mistake.
Still…
I’m bored.
In the Underworld, my days and nights are filled to the brim with tasks and scenes and various duties that come with being Meg’s second-in-command. The only time I’m not running from one thing to the next or checking things off my list is when I’m sleeping. I don’t know how to be idle.
Not to mention my body is still riled up from what Malone and I did earlier. I’m not going to be able to calm down until I work off some of this energy.
With that in mind, I dig through my closet of new clothes and find a drawer full of workout clothing. I raise my brows a bit as I eye the selections. Malone is a woman of particular taste, all right. After some consideration, I pull on a pair of shorts that fit me like a second skin and a bra with more straps than strictly necessary, both in black. There are even running shoes in exactly my size. The whole thing would be eerie if I didn’t recognize that this is just how Malone works; preparing for any eventuality.
I don’t want to admire that about her. I sure as hell don’t want to be able to draw lines between her preparedness and her success as a leader. She’s gorgeous and savvy and ruthless and evil, and the latter is the most important thing for me to remember.
I head for the elevator and, after some consideration, push the button Sara did the other night. That must be the security floor, or staff floor, and someone there will be able to point me in the direction of the gym. Malone didn’t tell me I was confined to the apartment, so I don’t see why I can’t explore the tiniest bit.
The elevator doors open to a floor that looks just like so many businesses around town. It’s white on white on white, a stylish front desk sitting in the center with a white, shaded pane of glass behind it, mostly shielding the rest of the room from my gaze. There are spaces on either side to walk past, but one look at the woman manning the desk and I know better than to try without permission.
I smile brightly and head for her. She’s a curvy Black woman with a shaved head and bright-purple lipstick. She’s also got the cold eyes of a killer. I stop just short of touching the desk. “Hi, I’m Aurora. I was hoping you could point me in the direction of the gym.”
She eyes me for a long moment. “Down one more level.”
I wait for some kind of warning not to go farther, but she just stares at me as if she can read my mind. No doubt this place has security cameras in every conceivable location, though I didn’t clock any in Malone’s apartment. I don’t know if that’s incredibly reckless of her or simply an indication that she doesn’t need her security team in order to protect herself. Somehow, I can’t help thinking it’s the latter.
I keep my smile in place as I back into the elevator and wave. “Thanks!”
On the next floor down, I find a tall white woman waiting. She jerks her chin at me. “This way.”
I was barely in that elevator for twenty seconds after talking to the woman upstairs. Allecto would be hard-pressed to match a time response like this to adapt to someone’s movements. I follow the woman through a door and down a long hallway. She motions to a few of the doors we pass, rattling off what they lead to. Pool. Sauna. Locker room. Racquetball court. At the end, there are three doors. She glances at me. “Weight room, general fitness, or sparring?”
I had fully intended to jump on a treadmill and run for a bit, but the option of sparring perks me up. You shouldn’t. I shouldn’t…but I want to. “I have no one to spar with.”
The woman gives a slow smile. “Not yet.” She leads the way through the third door and into a large room with thick, blue mats and an honest-to-god boxing ring. She catches my look, and her grin widens. “Most of us like to have this sort of thing in our regular lineup.”
“I see.” Except I’m not seeing anything but the pair of people moving around the middle mat, almost too fast to follow. I recognize the tall Maori person with their long, black hair braided back and tattoos covering both arms. Sara.
The other is Malone.
11
Malone
I catch sight of Ivy walking through the door, Aurora behind her, and almost get Sara’s massive fist to my face for my distraction. I throw myself back, but even then I can feel the air displacement from their strike. Sara really isn’t capable of pulling their punches, which is part of the reason I prefer sparring with them. It keeps me sharp.
Or it would if Aurora hadn’t just walked into this room.
I go on the defensive, moving around the mat, dodging Sara’s attacks, so I can get a look at Aurora. Foolish. In a real fight, it’d likely mean my death. Knowing that doesn’t stop me. She’s wearing a cute little outfit that shows off her body, and I recognize it as one of the ones I purchased for her before this assignation started. Why is she here?
I duck under Sara’s next attack and come up quickly, using all my strength to drive my fist into their stomach. Sara’s breath releases in an agonized groan, but it’s not enough to put them on the floor. No, they’re made of tougher stuff than that.
“We have guests.”
Sara nods, but they curse a bit under their breath. “I almost had you.”
“Yes, you did.” There are many reasons why Sara is my second-in-command; their deadliness in a number of arenas ranks high on that list.
I stride to where Aurora and Ivy stand and accept a towel from Ivy to wipe my fa
ce. “What are you doing here?”
Aurora is looking at me like she simultaneously wants to knock me on my ass and devour me whole. “You’re fast.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She shrugs. “I have too much pent-up energy. I need to run it off somehow.”
“Then obviously I haven’t done my job correctly,” I murmur.
She looks away. “She said there would be people to spar with.” She jerks her thumb at Ivy. “I don’t see anyone else.”
“Shift change was two hours ago. Most of them have finished up and gone home.” Why am I telling her this? I should send her back to the penthouse, or at least to another room. I suspect I’m not going to be able to concentrate properly with her here, and that’s a recipe for a black eye when sparring with Sara. I have absolutely no intention of walking around with a marked face because I was distracted when I shouldn’t have been. “Go find somewhere else to run off that energy.” I motion to Ivy.
“Do you only spar with Sara?”
I stop short. “What?”
Aurora finally looks at me, a stubborn set to her expression. “Do you only spar with Sara?”
“Aurora,” I say her name slowly. “I know you’re a masochist, but this is not a scene and I have no desire to harm you.”
“Malone.” She matches my tone and yanks a hair tie off her wrist to pull her hair back. “Maybe I’m the one who will hurt you.”
Who is this woman? I’ve spent far too long studying her, to the point where it borders on inappropriate. Distraction does not begin to describe Aurora. She’s a blazing light in any room she walks into. I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t have the desire to bottle it up and keep it for myself. But this? I don’t have the information to respond appropriately to this. I’ve only ever seen her in the club.
It never really occurred to me that she’d have hobbies outside the Underworld. Or that it would matter. After all, we become our truest selves in that place. All the polite masks are removed and there’s only base need. No right way, no shame, no rules but consent. I know Aurora right down to her core.
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