I recall the night when the artist accused me of “playing with fire.” Matches and old paper were merely a child’s game.Thiswas the true definition of that peculiar saying. I was playing with Lucifer the same way a suicidal thrill-seeker might play Russian roulette.
Which part of him contains the bullet? I will only learn through trial and error.
He doesn’t react when I cut my gaze over to the knife, but I sense a slight shift in his posture. He’ll stop me from reaching it, though I have enough sense to know that it’s out of the fear that I’ll use the blade on him rather than myself. And maybe I can. I’d slash a jagged wound across his face. His neck. I’d goad him into killing me, even if by accident.
The thoughts swirl in my mind, and a laugh trickles out of my mouth before I can bite it back. I’m dizzy beneath my own insanity. There’s no true identity lurking beneath the shackles Vinny’s used to conform me since the day we met. I’m a puddle of nothing but rage and desperation, melting the moment I’m cut loose from my cage.
And Lucifer... He’s watching me like he isn’t hungry to do every violent thing I know he’s capable of. Control is a drug to him—I can sense it. He prides himself on maintaining it, no matter the temptation.
My right hand skims my thigh, drifting down to curl around the hem of my borrowed shirt. I finger the bloodied, sweat-soaked fabric while Lucifer watches. He pretends not to notice or care when I begin to drag the fabric up to my waist. My other hand comes down, and within seconds and a few stiff motions of my arms, I have the shirt over my head. Then it hits the floor at my feet.
Fire begins a dangerous dance down my spine. Lucifer doesn’t enjoy being played with. His jaw clenches, and he doesn’t allowhis gaze to travel down to the cleavage bared by the lacy bra. I don’t know why I decide to take it off, fumbling with the fastenings as if I have all the time in the world to strip myself naked before a monster.
Maybe I want him to fuck me again—split me open, ruin me utterly for any other man. Or perhaps bash my brains out against the cupboards? Maybe I want him to doboth?
I don’t know, and it’s a terrifying, suffocating sort of tension to watch him watch me as I take two steps back until the rim of a counter juts into my spine. I brace both hands on either side of me, and then I haul myself upright so that my ass hits the surface.
Lucifer glowers. I think he’ll opt for the second of my two twisted scenarios as I spread my legs wide, allowing him to see what little the patchwork of black lace and silk attempts to hide. Deep down, I know that it’s insanity to taunt a man like him. Maybe this hollow shell of a woman is who Vinny’s reduced me to. Only the newer pain keeps him at bay now...and I need Lucifer to blind me. Smash my skull so that I don’t have to think. Cut my throat out. Tear my soul apart. Fuck me until I bleed.
Anything to prove that, as long as I can feel again, I’m notthere.Vinny’s specter, lurking in the corners, isn’t real. He won’t ever own me again.
The floor creaks when Lucifer finally moves. I expect him to walk away. He doesn’t. His gaze holds mine as he stalks forward like a bored, exhausted wolf unable to resist the willing throat the sacrificial doe presents.
His grip is hard when he seizes my wrist and drags me from the counter. I stagger forward, and he uses that momentum to shove me into the main room. I don’t stop moving until my hands hit the back of the couch. The force sends me to my knees, and my chin smacks off one of the seat cushions.
Lucifer is already behind me. He fists his hand in my hair so hard that I can’t silence a cry. A scream. The pain floods mysystem, a powerful narcotic. My vision blurs, obscuring those haunting shadows.
To block them out completely, he shoves me forward as if he means to suffocate me against the cotton and padding. The act forces me higher on my knees, and the fingers of his free hand are there to seize the waistband of the panties and drag them down my legs.
He doesn’t prepare me this time. I hear his zipper come undone. I hear him groan. I feel him. I’m impaled by him. On him...
My entire body screams to life at the invasion. Everything feels different when I’m not the one setting the pace. I moan, digging my nails into the couch’s upholstery, breaking some of them, and Lucifer doesn’t hold back. He slams his hips into me, forcing me to accept him. There is no more room for any dark memories. I’m stuffed to the brim, and it hurts the same way the burning alcohol did when poured onto my ear. Darkness dies screaming...and with every brutal, harsh, violent thrust, new shadows are forced into the spaces Vincent Stacatto used to infest.
I go numb beneath the assault. My brain is a slave to the sensation. I don’t even register the act for what it is—sex. This is demolition.
Lucifer growls into my ear, the sound part pleasure, part aggravation. He’s a beast, feasting on a fresh kill he never really wanted to hunt. He gorges himself on the feel of me anyway. The taste. I don’t flinch when his teeth rake my neck as if biting is the only way he can prove his lack of attraction.
I shiver and shudder beneath the feeling, his teeth grinding my skin between them. Marking me. It would be so easy to just let him take me. All of me. Corruption is best delivered in steady, mind-numbing doses—Vinny taught me that. I shouldn’t be so greedy for it. So impatient.
I bite my tongue when he thrusts again, his hips slapping mybackside, pressing my stomach against the edge of the couch. It’s searing friction; he’s impossibly deep.
But it’s still not deep enough.
My sweat-soaked hands fumble against the cushions, finding enough leverage to allow me to push back.There.My mind swims. The walls of the room shift and shatter. I’m falling and then flying, my stomach churning too quickly to make out which direction is which.
I taste blood on my tongue as a craving for more goads me to flex my hips when he shoves himself into me again. Again.Again.
I can’t smother the sounds I make: desperate, pathetic, triumphant, bitter, brutal, animalistic sounds. Lucifer doesn’t appreciate my little bid for power. He shoves his hand down on my hip, holding me steady while he pounds his essence into me, every naughty little drop. I swallow it all down. I’m choking on him. I’m drunk on him.
My knees flex against the floor. My hips swivel, chasing an even deeper, darker sensation. I want to feel him everywhere. Everywhere...
And then I do, but his presence doesn’t inspire pain. The fire burns hotter, spreading too quickly and turning ravenous. I want the agony, not the pleasure, but it drives the most tortured sounds out of me. Moans. Squeals. Whimpers. It, more than anything, takes control of my body, forcing me to throw myself at him. Arch my back. Reach for him with my hand, plunging my nails into the side of his ass. He flinches at the contact and bends the offending arm against my back. I’m at his mercy again, and I expect to feel that same fearful desperation that gnawed holes into my soul while living with Vinny.
Instead, all I feel is...
Hungry. I wantmore.I need him to hold me tighter. Force me down. Force himself inside. Bite. With every depraved thought, the heat surging through me gets even hotter. Higher. My skin crackles and burns. My blood boils. Then it bubbles over, and ithits me like a wave: pure, aching, smoldering pleasure. Too much. Not enough. I gasp as if I can catch more of it on the air. I breathe him in. He’s swelling inside me, branding the shape of his cock onto my inner walls.
And it still isn’t enough.
