She glares at me. “What’s wrong with bubbles? They’re safe and no one hurts you when you’re in them.”
“They’re a delusion that will disappear sooner or later. All you’ll be left with is more suffering.”
“I’ll deal with that when it happens.”
“Or you can deal with it now instead of hiding.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m fine.”
I retrieve my phone, open the camera, then place it in front of her face. “Does that look like someone who’s fine?”
Her lips part and tremble and a fresh wave of tears gather in her fake eyes. I hate that she changed the color, that I can barely see a glimpse of the ethereal blue I stared into that first time I met her.
The blue that tells a mystic story without her having to say a word.
She pushes the phone away and stares to the side. When she speaks, her voice is so low, it’s almost unintelligible. “Sometimes, hiding is the only option people like me have. So let me be.”
I drop her glasses in my pocket and place one hand on the wall by her head, then grab her by the throat with the other one and lean into her. “See, that’s the problem. I can’t.”
Her breath hitches as my chest is glued to hers until we’re both feeling the booming of heartbeats and the skyrocketing pulse.
Until we’re both trapped in the present moment.
“What are you doing—”
Her words are cut off when I lower my head and lick her tears. I drink the salty taste and her anguish, fear, and anxiety. I take it all, my tongue sucking at her scorching hot cheeks, then her nose and her chin, and I finish with her mouth.
My lips brush against hers and I lick them, nibble on them, reveling in each of her shudders, tremors, and small moans, and then I’m thrusting my tongue into her mouth.
The same tongue that tasted her tears is now making her drink them, too, feed on them from me.
My hold tightens on her throat as I kiss her slow at first, then hard and fast and so out of control that she’s gasping in my mouth.
She’s wheezing for air, her fingers holding on to my jacket with everything in her might, and when I open my eyes to stare into hers, they’re closed.
Her head is tilted back and she’s letting me ravish her, my tongue feasting on hers and my teeth biting and nibbling and sending tiny sparks of pain through her.
That’s what I do, after all. I’m a master of pain. Pleasure can’t happen without it; there needs to be a balance between the good and the bad.
The pretty and the ugly.
And Anastasia doesn’t seem to mind it, the bites between the licks, the nibbles between the sucks. If anything, she’s getting lost in it as deeply as I am.
The need that explodes in my groin is unmistakable. I’m so hard that it’s painful, so painful that my trousers can’t contain it. She must feel my erection against her soft belly, because her eyes open wide, even though my tongue is playing with hers, even though she’s still shuddering like when I licked away her tears.
And the way she looks at me?
Fuck.
It’s like she wants me to repeat it all over again. She wants me to be the only one who makes her tears stop and lick them away.
She wants to cry for me so I’ll confiscate those tears and have them for my own.
And that’s not something I should wish for or want. It’s not even something I should be thinking about.
Yet, deep down, in the dark corners that I spent decades trying to squash, there’s a part of me that wants exactly that.
Worse, that part might want something even more nefarious. Something that I’ll probably regret once this whole thing is over.
But that time isn’t today. So I don’t allow myself to think as I pull away from her mouth. Her lips release mine slowly, leaving a trail of saliva between us and sticking to her lower lip.
So I lick it, darting my tongue out to get all of it.
“Knox…” she whispers, her breath hitching as my tongue leaves her lips.
“Shhh.” I turn her around so she’s facing the wall and keep my hold on her throat. “I’m going to need you to be real quiet for me when I fuck you, beautiful.”
15
ANASTASIA
I think there’s something wrong with me.
With him.
With us.
Otherwise, why the hell am I so hot and bothered like never before?
And it didn’t start just now, no. This overstimulation started when he pinned me against the wall, grabbed me by the throat, and licked away my tears. He darted his tongue out and licked them all away. I should’ve been repulsed, should’ve flinched away or attempted to stop him.