Page 42 of A Touch of Dark
“Open your eyes. Though perhaps I should do the honors, figuratively speaking?” He drags my legs apart as he speaks.
While I’m blinded, the sensations of slick leather and silken fingers resonate tenfold. Cool air assaults heated flesh. I suck in a breath. Too sensitive. My eyelids flutter. Make it stop.
Never have this end.
“Your father is a man of contradiction,” Damien grits out. Something brushes my earlobe, imparting a tendril of alarm. Moist. Soft. His lips? His mouth, lowered so close that I feel every lash of his tongue as he speaks. “In public, he pretends to be the beacon of justice, but in private? He hides and obfuscates whatever he can. He’s had all of his past records erased. Wiped clean. Did you know that? Not the good cases of course, but the others… Now, be the good little girl you are for everyone else and open. Your father could order you to jump off a fucking cliff and you would, wouldn’t you?”
Probably.
The heart-stopping fall would be preferable to this; at least I’d know what to expect. I’d see the bottom in advance. I’d never have the chance to regret my decision for very long.
But this…
Lightning strikes. Thunder rumbles, and all the while, Damien breathes his hate into my skin. There’s no clear line of sight to the end of my fall. I could be suspended for ages. Or hit the ground without warning.
“Open.”
I don’t bother denying him out loud.I can’t.His thumb twists inside my mouth until the nail grazes my tongue. Boom! Flash! He’s created his own storm inside me.
“I don’t particularly care to molest you, Ms. Thorne.” He almost sounds convincing. If only his accent didn’t wrap around that little word—molest—and strangle it beyond recognition.
I know the word he substituted it for. Destroy.
I don’t particularly care to destroy you, Ms. Thorne. But I will.
The hand between my legs twitches in warning as his voice straddles that guttural octave. “Open your goddamn eyes.”
“N-no—”
Inferno.He must have anticipated my response, because silken fingers cup me without hesitation. Ruthlessly. My thoughts scatter at the contact. Total shutdown. What little air I have in my lungs escapes in a rush. Every nerve I possess overloads and then comes back online, one after the other. Sensation first. Then the parts of my brain capable of interpreting it. Heat. Fire. Sweltering. Raw. Skin. Soft. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
Motion rustles near my earlobe as he murmurs something unintelligible.Open. I register a ragged inhale. Sharp exhale. Then he growls, “Mierda. What game are you playing?”
As if I’m the one who wields the control. I wish I were. I’d push him off. Run away. I’d cower and hide like he wants me to.
“Open,” he snarls.
But the darkness is addicting. Beneath its veil, I can interpret more of him than ever before. He’s closer, leaning his weight toward my position. What must be his torso brushes the tips of my knees, not quite forcing its way between them. But almost. Heat fans my neck in tandem with his breathing. Harsh. Slowed. He’s grappling for calm, something I doubt I’ll ever find again.
“For the last time…open your eyes.”
I don’t. He retaliates.
Only the power of my imagination allows me a vague inclination of what he does next: slide a finger inside me. My frozen muscles don’t offer him any slack. He has to force it. I have to feel it. Friction—bitter, searing friction. Tightness. Closeness. A feeling beyond fire or inferno. A nuclear blast.
A strangled cry crawls up my throat, but I barely hear myself beneath his grunted exclamation.
“Qué mierda!”
Doused. He pulls back so suddenly that that’s what it feels like: being drenched in ice water and left to freeze.
His mouth remains near my ear, however, his thumb trembling against my tongue. “You’re a virgin.”
He sounds incredulous. He sounds…furious?
I don’t know whether to lie or admit the truth. So I say nothing. But he wins. The breadth of his confusion feels far too great to experience through feel alone. I have to open my eyes and see his clenched, disgusted expression for myself.
He’s closer than I thought, hunched against me, his hand still between my legs, his face almost parallel to mine. There’s no avoiding the path my eyes take. Even blindfolded, his features form a beautiful silhouette in the dark—but make a terrifying contrast when lightning flashes.
