Page 125 of Lourdes & the Mafia
But I don’t beg for it. I trust him and I trust he will give me what I want and need in due time.
Finally after what feels like forever, Kane whispers. “Open your eyes.”
I do and catch sight of my reflection in his wall/mirror.
I gasp.
Tears fill my eyes at the sight before me. At what he’s created.
“I’ve heard some of your thoughts,” he whispers from behind me. “I’ve heard what you’ve said about yourself. About your independence, your need for others, the love you have to share."
The tears slip from my eyes and down my cheeks.
“If I live a thousand lifetimes, I hope you are a part of each one,” he says, his eyes burning like fire. “So I can remind you every day that you are enough. You are perfect.” He lets out a breath. “That you are my queen.”
A sob lodges in my chest. Every word, every fucking word is everything I’ve ever needed to hear. And the sight before me feels like something I didn’t even know I needed.
Kane has left me bare, but he’s also transformed me. He’s made me into something new, and yet I’m the same as I’ve always been.
Thick body, curly hair, brown skin, dependent, independent, impulsive, foul mouthed, loving.
Enough.
I am enough.
And he has used his magic to place a crown of shadows upon my brow, like a rose amongst the thorns that are my curls, tangling through the shadowy form.
A harness that resembles a corset is strapped to my chest and from my back, like they’ve been there all along, are wings.
Wings made of shadows. Detailed with feathers and talons both.
An illusion that they are mine.
My fingers trace down the line of the ropes strapped to my chest. They’re in a complicated maze, wrapped beneath my breasts, over and around my shoulders and crisscrossing at my back.
“What is this for?” I know I sound breathless, and that’s only because I’m so turned on. His touch, his words, even this… It has all built up to this one moment. To the feeling below my belly and spreading through my body, my veins, making my heartbeat faster and faster within my chest. There is an ache inside me that can't be ignored. I’m on the precipice of something great, waiting.
And all I want to do is fall.
“I have plans for you.” Kane is behind me suddenly close, his lips skimming across the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. I gulp at the sensation and the tingles it sends down the entirety of my body.
“What kind of plans?”
He smirks at my reflection. It feels like the only warning I get before more shadows appear at my back, hooking to the magical harness that hugs my body and darting upwards like ropes. I follow the movement, watching as they wrap around sturdy, thick wooden beams on Kane’s ceiling. They wrap around several times, tying themselves.
And then I’m being lifted into the air.
I gasp in shock, my entire body shaking like I’m on a swing, the floor disappearing from under me as I go higher. My shock makes me wobbly, giving me vertigo. I feel like I’m going to fall, but Kane is right behind me then, the strong bat-like wings at his back pumping to keep him afloat.
“Relax,” he says. “Let your limbs relax. Don’t think about the empty space. Breathe.”
I do as he instructs, breathing in and out through my nose and mouth. He instructs me and I obey, following his own tempo until I feel my mind and body begin to calm. Until it feels natural to be hanging from the ceiling like a spider hooked to a strand of webbing.
“There’s my good girl,” Kane praises.
As always, that praise shoots straight to my core and I groan. A slight breeze wafts over my naked body from the steady flapping of his wings. Coolness against my fevered skin.
Kane circles me and I try to keep myself steady to not move wildly as my gaze follows him. But he’s observing the harness, my body, making humming noises in the back of his throat. His magic appears again, more ropes tethering to me and to the beams, wrapping around my thick waist to keep me hanging steadily with minimal movements.
