“I know what you’re doing, Blue,” he warned as his hand latched around the Imperial Star hanging on a chain around my throat, pulling it tight enough to make my heart race as I sank my tongue between his lips.
“I know what I’m doing too,” I teased and he cursed as I rocked my hips again.
I forgot all about the distraction as he used two fingers to push my little bikini bottoms aside and sank them into me with a growl in his throat. It might not have been good timing, but as we had to wait here for our interrogation anyway and death seemed to lurk around every corner in our lives these days, I was going to steal a moment with my man and fuck him breathless.
I shoved Darius back against our bedroom door, kissing him hard and moving my hands to his waistband as my heart thundered to a panicked rhythm and I worked really damn hard to keep the violent memories of being at the mercy of monsters out of my head.
“Roxy,” Darius growled against my lips, pulling back and breaking our kiss but I just moved my mouth to his neck and started kissing my way down it as I yanked his shorts down. “Roxy,” he said with more protest to his tone, his hands moving to my arms as he tried to nudge me back but I ignored him again, dropping to my knees in front of him.
“I want you to fuck my mouth, Darius,” I replied, looking up at him as I pushed my hand into his shorts and he released a Dragon’s growl as I took his solid length into my grip and licked my lips in anticipation.
“By the stars,” Darius groaned in frustration, cursing as he reached down and caught my wrist before I could tease him anymore and pulling me to my feet again with his hold on it.
“What?” I snapped as he fixed me in a glare and I reached for his cock again, but he had already tugged his shorts back up and was shaking his head at me.
“Tell me about it,” he insisted. “I saw that look in your eyes when Hamish said there would be a Cyclops interrogation and I know that Vard-”
I yanked out of his grip as a knot of tension formed in my stomach and memories of what I’d suffered through the night before his wedding coated my tongue with acid as they tried to creep in again.
“I have my Phoenix back again now,” I replied, trying to shrug it off as I turned away from him and moved towards the bed, snatching one of his shirts from it and pulling it on over my bikini, trying not to feel the sting of rejection at him pushing me away. The black fabric swamped me but I felt better like that, hiding myself beneath it like I was wrapped in a security blanket. “No one can get into my head if I don’t want them there.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier on you,” he insisted. “I know what they did to you. I know how the idea of anyone else getting into your head must make you feel.”
“It’s fine,” I said, my pulse thumping against my eardrums as I remembered the sickly, cloying feeling of that fucking creep crawling around inside my head, of all the things he’d tried to make me believe and the fear he’d tangled up with all the good memories I had of the man in this room.
“It isn’t,” he snapped, moving up behind me and gripping my arm as he pulled me around. My heart leapt at the contact and fire burst to life in my fist as he made me look at him, the echoes of the fear they’d tried to make me feel for him lingering in my skin for several seconds before I forced them away.
“You can talk to me about it,” Darius insisted, his hand curling around my cheek as my breaths came faster and I closed my eyes as I tried to fight off the memories. But they wouldn’t leave me be. And suddenly it didn’t feel like his hand was on my cheek, it felt like Lionel’s as he’d forced my gaze up to meet his while I panted through the agony of my flesh and sat chained before him with my skin slicked in my own blood.
“Don’t touch me,” I snarled, jerking back and feeling the fire race up my arms to coat my body, coming to my aid the way it couldn’t that night.
My back hit the wall and I was vaguely aware of someone calling my name but all I could feel was the heat of the fire magic which raged against my skin while my Phoenix was buried away and pain of a knife sliding between my ribs.
A hand locked around my throat, taking the burns from my fire as he continued to shout my name and suddenly the sound of a door bursting open crashed through the screaming in my skull. Except it wasn’t in my skull and as I peeled my eyes open, I found myself curled up in a ball on the floor with Darius leaning over me, his eyes blazing with concern.
“It’s alright, little Vega,” Max said softly, his hand slipping into mine, his skin cool with the touch of his water magic and an offer of escape in his deep eyes which I accepted wholeheartedly as I fought to stop myself from thrashing against the wall.