Igniting Cinder (The Lost Girls, #3)

by Holly Roberds

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fucking witchtitties on a toothpick,”

“Cinder,” I whisper. “Come. Come on me, I want to feel you.”

“Come for me, Kai.”

“You make me rock hard. It’s almost impossible to keep from unzipping my pants and fisting my dick whenever I set eyes on this little getup. I wouldn’t even care if anyone saw me jerking off to the punk princess of two realms.”

Fuckity, fuck godsdamn. Don’t blow your load, Charming.

“Tell me like a good girl, and I’ll give you what you want.”

“Because you’re my bride. And even if this engagement is fake, I’m yours for the duration and you’re mine.” Five more points to me. “I don’t want anyone else. In fact, there is no one else now that there is you and this perfect little cunt.”

“That’s it, let them hear you. Let Tink hear how I pleasure you. You may not care, but I sure as fuck do. I need you to know I only want to do this for you, to you. Because you come more beautifully than anyone I’ve known.”

“And if you let me,” I choke out. “I’d feast between your legs. I’d lick up your desire like a starving man. Like it was my last meal and you're the only thing that can sustain me.”

“I’m yours, only yours, my gothic goddess,” I punctuate with a kiss.

It’ll be for the best. She deserves better. But I can pretend I deserve her. For a little while.

“Forget the martini. I’d like to order a hundred more of these.” “Smiles? You are the cheesiest, most ridiculous person I have ever met. And don’t you think the pumpkin spice might be the reason I’m smiling?”

You want me to be sorry? I can’t be. Not when I know what that bastard has done,” he points out the window, “what he would have done to you. And I’d kill him a hundred times over if I could for even thinking he could take you by force.”

You’ve somehow found my secret hideout spot, though I shouldn’t be surprised. You manage to get into all types of places I’ve never imagined.”

“You're so hot, almost scalding,” I murmur. “I want to burn to ash in you.”

This thing between us isn’t real. It's a temporary respite from what I must do. Yet, I find myself clinging to it, to her, like a drowning man to a life raft. But I won’t let her drown with me. I’ll let her go. Though every day the thought gets harder and harder than the day before.

Right now, I’m not the prince of Midnight, I’m not even a playboy down for an inventive roll in the hay. I am here solely for her release. I’m hers to use, to abuse, desperate to give her whatever she wants however she wants it.

I fuck us both into oblivion as Cinder becomes the center of my universe.

Numbly, I follow him out of the studio and to my apartment trying not to love every single fucking thing he’s just given me. Trying not to love him.

“You taste like spice,” he groans. “And everything nice?” I finish for him. Impossibly dark eyes turn up to meet mine. “No. Like you're my forever vice.”

She owns my name. She owns my everything whether she knows it or not.

I’m scum. I’m worthless. I am not suited for responsibility or anything of importance. And the only girl who can see through all my masks is looking at me like I matter.

She doesn’t have to mark me the same way. I’m already fucking hers, body and soul.

my little black parade.

But we are both two live nerve endings, so sensitive the slightest real touch hurts us so deeply, so ferociously, that we think we might die.”

Let me love you. Let me love you. Please, fuck, let me love you, Cinder.

Oh fuck. I want it so bad. To sink my fangs into her, to let the blood that calls to me slide down my throat. I want to leave marks so that everyone knows she’s mine. Every time she looks at it or closes a dog collar over the raised scars my teeth left, she’d know I possess her body and soul.

It’s getting too dangerous. It’s going to hurt her no matter what, I see that now. So I’ll do what I never thought I’d do. Show her the real me. “Because I love you.”

“I know you won’t hurt me because you love me.” It hangs in the air between us, heavy with implication. I see pain flash across his face, quickly masked but unmistakable. My heart constricts, aching for him, for us, for this impossible situation we've found ourselves in. “And Kai?” “Yeah?” “I love you too.”

I meant it about leaving Midnight, but I planned to take Kai with me. One night without him, and everything turned to shit. Not just because my step-monsters attacked me, but because I wanted him by my side. I want those stupid fucking nicknames he doles out. I want to make sure he doesn’t feel alone in a crowded room.

“I love you.” “With my name, say it with my name.” He’s desperate, a cross between a feral beast who is claiming me and a lost little boy who needs me to give him something he’s never had before. And I can’t help but give it to him. “I love you, Kai.”

“Fuck me, Kai,” I tell him, grasping his shoulders. “Thought you’d never ask, my unholy hottie.”

Prince Kaison fucking Charming claims me from the inside. All my parts. All of my black shriveled soul. All of my broken pieces and my ugly past. He wants it all. And I want all of him.

“I’ve never wanted anything, anyone more than you. I’ve always wanted you.”

“I used to follow you to the cliffs. I’d watch you paint for hours and I wished you knew me. I wished we could be friends because I was certain you were the only one who would truly understand me. I loved the way your eyes got serious whenever you were lost in drawing. I used to wish you’d draw me.”

“My dark goddess. . . fuck, so sweet. . . spice and sunlight. . .” “Probably because of all the pumpkin spice,” I say, still feeling lightheaded. “Then we better keep you flush in the stuff,” he says seriously.

“I’m so very often a damsel in distress yet no one comes to my rescue.”

“I would have preferred Vegas.” “Ohh with an Elvis impersonator?” Kai chimes in hopefully. “Sure,” I shrug. “Whatever blows your tits off.” Kai grins at Jack. “She treats me so well.”

“I‘ve told you before,” Jack says impatiently to Kai, “the Mice have eyes everywhere. Gus has been posing as a thrall for a while now.”

Omgg I just realized they’re the mice from the OG Cinderella 😂

I am Cinder Park. Goth Queen. Mistress of my own fate. And I'm ready to raise some hell.

Fuck everyone else. I’d hand over every last human and fae to my father to save her.

“Please don’t leave me,” I beg. “I can’t live without you.” But I will. I’ll be here. For centuries. Without Cinder.

She can take my life. All of it. If she drinks me dry in exchange for five minutes more of life, I’d gladly give my future away for her. Five minutes so she could drink one last pumpkin spice latte, hug her friends, so I could show her that I love her more than anything in this realm or the next. That I’m not scared to be who I am anymore. I’m not my father. Because I love. I love her more than myself. And that’s something he could never understand.

“That’s it my gothic goddess, take all of me.”

My prince’s

“Would I be known as Queen Spooky Babe or Queen Goth Girl?”

I release his flesh to present my neck to my husband, my King, my forever slut muffin.

Brexley turned out to be a surprisingly good dancer and stuck to Red like glue as she held a glass over her head—a virgin decaf mocha martini. The wedding plans have been postponed until she gives birth to the little pup growing inside her. If Brexley was insufferably overprotective before, now he’s ten times worse.