Arrows and Apologies (Monsters & Muses, #4)

by Sav R. Miller

“You’re hardly in a position to be negotiating,” he says, voice thick. “Should I get on my knees then?” His free hand finds the button of my jeans, pushing it through the loop. Hooking a thumb in the waist, he gives a small shake of his head. “I’d much rather be on mine.”

“All night, I’ve imagined how you’d taste, little thief.” Another lick and the flat of his thumb follows. “Imagined what this view would look like. How it’d feel to worship a deviant.” I shudder. “And?” Teeth nick my clit again, causing me to cry out. “Fucking divine.” As he finishes his sentence, his tongue spears inside me.

“There it is,” he grunts, speaking directly into my pussy. “Give it to me, m’eudail. I want to see how bewitching you are when you come.”

Taste is too tame a word for what this man is doing, though. He consumes, ravishing me like this is the only meal he’s ever desired and the last one he’ll ever get.

My eyes bulge at the silver barbell sticking vertically through the mushroom-shaped head. “What is that?” I can almost hear his frown, and he pokes at the hoop in my nose. “Surely, you’re familiar with piercings?”

“Innocent lassies don’t come all over the face of a man they don’t know. They don’t strip bare in an alley and spread their delicious thighs, and they certainly don’t ask the monster to fuck them.”

“That was my favorite fantasy of the night,” he hisses. “Thinking of what it’d feel like to take you raw.”

“And what would you have done if I came inside you? If I pumped your sweet cunt full of my cum? So full that she’d leak for a week, and you’d have to walk around with the reminder of how deliriously good I felt every damn day.”

Alistair Wolfe. Thirty-six years old, bisexual, an avid hunter and self-proclaimed art connoisseur, working on reviving the economy on the island and driving it away from its reliance on real estate investments.

Chlorine and citrus. Well, well. I warned the little nymph about the chase. Looks like someone wants to play after all.

“God doesn’t get on his knees to worship,” I mutter against her, taking her clit between my teeth. “You’re in bed with the devil, m’eudail, and I don’t think he intends on letting you go.”

“You’re building a pool.” I nod, threading my fingers through her hair. “Why?” Closing my eyes, I consider not answering this question either. Swimming has never appealed to me. The water leaves you vulnerable, which is why I’ve always simply avoided it. My lips are dry when they open again. “Because you said you like to swim.”

Eat the rich, my ass. More like let them eat you. Maybe I need to reevaluate my principles in general.

There’s something wildly intoxicating about bringing a powerful, dangerous man to his knees. It makes you want, even when you know he’s bad for you. Maybe especially then.

“I get it now,” he whispers, breath hot in my ear. “There’s something alluring about a violent woman. Men, not so much because violence is our legacy. But being at the mercy of a woman craving blood? There’s nothing quite like it.”

“Besides,” he rasps, his free hand splaying out over my belly, pushing in, “I hunt only what I desperately wish to eat.” My mouth struggles to close, saliva collecting on my tongue as I feel the whole length of him. “How’s your appetite now?” “Deprived.”

But… I kind of like the chase too. It’s kind of nice being on this side of things for once. Being wanted is nice, even if the man doing the longing isn’t.

“Trying to get yourself killed, little thief?” Alistair whispers roughly in my ear, and my body trembles. “Even death won’t save you from me.”

Do I have a blood kink, or is there something so depraved and primal about seeing this man lap at that particular fluid? As if his obsession runs so deep, he wants to familiarize himself with every part of me.

“Fuck, it’s just as good as the first time. You’re so hot and tight, and your cunt sucks me right in, like the greedy little bitch she is.”

“You coming?” he grunts, and my pussy tightens, gripping his cock like a vise. “Fuck, do it. Come for me. Soak my cock like a good slut. ’Cause that’s what you are for me, right? My pretty, perfect little whore. Let me fuck you in public twice now, and your sweet cunt comes so good for me when I do.”

“You’ll spread your legs for me and me only,” I growl, pushing my trousers down so my cock bobs free. “You want two at a time? I’ll give you exactly that, and you’ll never seek pleasure from another fucking soul, or I swear I’ll hunt them down and burn them alive.”

My balls tingle, white-hot electricity shooting through my limbs as her cunt works hard to swallow two cocks at once. God, she looks beautiful, stuffed full like this, stretched to the brim and fucking loving every second, every bite of pain as it morphs cohesively with her pleasure.

“Jesus Christ, look at that; look how you’re taking the whole thing, even with this toy shoved up alongside it. You’re such a pretty, perfect little slut for me, aren’t you?”

“I’m dumping all my cum in you, and I want your cunt sucking it all in, okay? I don’t want you wasting a single goddamn drop. You won’t be of use to anyone else with my baby in your belly.” Toxic? Yes. Never claimed to be anything but.

“Take it, m’eudail. Take it all. Gonna fill you up, breed you, and keep you here, tucked into my side forever. You’re mine.”

“I like that you don’t need kid gloves,” he says after a moment, cupping my hips. “I like that you’re not afraid.” I am, though. Of him, especially. Terrified of the way I feel whole with him.

“Protective too. I can see why you ended up being such a skilled shot; men who acknowledge their potential losses in life will do whatever necessary to keep their assets safe.”

I’m not used to being affected by anyone so viscerally, but I suppose that’s what love is—soul-deep and catastrophic. The kind of thing that has the power to effectively ruin you, but that you trust isn’t going to.

How do you heal a broken heart when you’ve just noticed its fractures?

But I meant it when I said I appreciated Alistair’s commitment to treating me like an adult. An equal. For all his possessiveness and toxicity, the constant with him this whole time has been his desire to keep me the same.

I’ve never had anyone just accept me, warts and all. Most people find your flaws and think they need to fix them, but he sees mine and likes me anyway. Maybe that’s what you need for happiness to take root—not for someone to offer it on some silver platter, but for them to provide the soil and space for it to grow.

And Hollis isn’t really Hollis at all, but Lucian Astor? The poster child for drug abuse and unfortunate circumstances that everyone in their hometown and family wrote off as a lost cause. Now, he’s dead.

But just because someone doesn’t love the same way as you doesn’t mean they love you any less.

“You love me?” I repeat, a tiny sliver of something sprouting in my chest. “Infinitely, and with every fiber of my being, Cora Astor. I’ve loved you since the second you walked into my life, and I’ll love you every second after, until I have no more to love you with.”

“I love you too.”

I might have caught the little nymph years ago, but I’ve never stopped chasing her.