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“You said my name.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It was such a sweet little moan, Ruhí. Pray tell, what were ...
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“Get out.” “Try it again. A little more conviction this time.”
“If you want me to stop what I’m doing, you’ll use the word honey. Do you understand?”
“Let me bite that lip for you,” he said, his right hand twitching. Gods, help me say no to this. “Never,” she managed,
“Tell me what you want, Ruhí.” “Touch me,”
“No,” he said, his words almost strained.
“I can feel you squirming on my skin, and I’m not sure how much longer I can fucking take it, Ruhí. Come for me.”
Arioch reached across and pulled the hand she’d buried in the sheets free. She tried to yank it away, but before she could, he leaned in and wrapped his lips around her fingers. She almost choked, feeling the slow, hot glide of his tongue as he tasted her, grazing her skin with his teeth, his eyes never leaving hers.
“So sweet, Ruhí. At least, one part of you is,”
It hurt—it would never not hurt—the fact that she couldn’t control herself around him, her feelings dictated by a small, shiny glyph on his skin.
“You’ll sit or you’ll kneel.”
“Since you think that you can say, and do, whatever you like here, let me make the rules very fucking clear. You’re welcome to explore.”
“those fingers of yours have been busy . . . no more of that.” Her lips parted. Did he just— “Not without permission, Ruhí.”
“In my home, when you say my name, I know about it.”
“When you’re stretching yourself around those pretty little fingers pretending they’re mine, I’ll know about it.”
“Don’t hurt yourself.” His voice was husky and thick against her skin. “You’re the one at knifepoint.” She nicked him again, teasing a growl from between his lips.
“Do you think I would be if I didn’t want to be?”
There was something fractured about her, something dark that he saw in those broken moments when she seemed to lose control
He couldn’t hate her because he couldn’t assign the blame of an entire race to one being. Nor would his body allow it, not when her soul begged him to return to her, to stay close.
“Life is. . .”—she looked down into the void, tiptoeing to the railing—“fleeting, for mortals. For us, it’s just . . . pain.”
“You don’t want to be remembered?” “Most of the people who have remembered me in the past were people I’d much prefer forgot me instead.”
“Respectfully, what the fuck, Alshaytan,”
“If you have to add the term respectfully, then there’s a chance you’ll ruin my fucking mood.”
“Her presence with us isn’t a point of discussion,” Arioch cut him off.
He had his hand wrapped around the blade that had been meant for her, holding the knife inches from her face.
“Do you think I’m a monster?”
She nodded wordlessly and for a moment, he stilled.
“Yet you’re not afraid of me.”
“No.”
“That’s something we should remedy, little goddess. It’s just good survival instincts to fear a predator who’s above you in the food chain.”
“However, I don’t see that now. You should be terrified—dangling that fragile life of yours over certain death, but you’re not. You should have been terrified in that room, but instead, you stood your ground. So tell me, what makes a creature that doesn’t fear death run with such resolution?”
“Fear of life.”
“Life is too long for shame, Ruhí. You are what you are, and you like what you like.”
“And what do you like?” she whispered before she could rein the words back in. Fuck. She really hadn’t meant to ask that.
“Do you want to find out?”
“What happens if I break our bargain?”
The air whooshed from her lungs for the millisecond she’d moved before Arioch’s strong arms wound around her middle, pulling her against him roughly.
“Gives new weight to the phrase trust fall,” Aheia breathed,
“Don’t ever make that mistake.” “What?”
“Trusting me.”
“Violence from beautiful creatures,” he said, flourishing his hand and retrieving a needle and thread from somewhere inside his shadows. Then he leaned over, just as he dropped the two things in her small hands, his lips brushing the shell of her ear, “. . . is one of the things I like.”
“Better stop squirming. I can’t promise I’ll hold back if you keep rubbing your ass against me like that.”
Aheia likes praise. Just like she liked the thrill of a near-death experience. He could work with that . . .
“Which of the two gets you off?”
“Receiving pain or forcing it onto others?”
“I don’t plan on carving obedience from you, little goddess, though there is a part of me that thinks you’d enjoy the pain I have to give.”
“I’m the only God you should be concerning yourself with while my fingers are inside of you.”
The idea of her begging anyone but him made him fucking feral.
