Page 34 of Tethered Souls
I blink in surprise. “It’s uncomfortable.”
He walks towards me, and my nerves dance across my skin with every step he takes. The bathroom suddenly feels too small, too constricting with not enough exits. And I hate this feeling of being trapped, of being forced to cower under a bigger threat. I became an assassin so my father couldn’t make me feel this way.
Yet here I am, standing against a man without magic, feeling like I’m about to be eaten. Mauled under a moonless night where no one can hear me scream.
Because even if I manage to kill him, I will not manage to escape. If Varius is in my room, I do not doubt Khalid is close by. Perhaps just right outside the door, in the hall, waiting to see if he’s needed.
Fucking Dayne making him paranoid. Some damn bestie he is.
My magic burns beneath my skin, itching to fling free as Varius continues towards me. But he doesn’t strike me for my disrespectful tone. He simply bends down and scoops me into his arms. Walking out of the bathroom, he places me on the edge of the bed as I gawk at him.
“Spread your legs for me,” Varius says as he drops to his knees, and my breath catches at the sight of him before me. He’s had a shower, his hair still damp and smelling of soap. His mouth is justthere.But it’s the fact that he seems keen on actually helping me – unlike my asshole of a bestie, that has me doing what he asked.
Leaning back on my elbows, I try not to concentrate on the fact that I still haven’t shaved. Or had a shower yet, and his old cum is still all down my legs.
I swallow down my embarrassment as he spreads my lips open with one hand. “Can you get it out?” I ask. I’ve never had this happen before, and I really,reallydon’t want to ask his mom, who is a healer, to take her son’s impromptu toy out of my vagina on the first night I met her. If I try to use magic for this myself, I’m likely to accidentally rip out my ovaries, and then there goes my one worth to this family.
My life would be over.
“Relax,” Varius says as he presses two fingers between my pussy lips. His invasion is slow and methodical, but it doesn’t feel like a doctor doing an exam. His touch is too electrifying. His breath is too hot as it feathers across my thighs.
My nerves drumming tighter, I blurt, “So do you do this to all your girls then? Sorry, yourwombs. So you can take it out and act the hero? …Sir.”
He looks up at me, a half-smirk hiding in his eyes, and I don’t know what that means. If he’s laughing at me or the situation or if he thinks my rambling is “cute” like my best friend does.
It’s definitely not cute though. It’s embarrassing. But my mouth will just not shut up in front of a hot man.
Give me a knife and I’m fine. Throw me in a cage with a werewolf on the full moon, and I’ll die without ever being nervous. But put me on my back with a wicked neanderthal kneeling between my thighs? I turn into a bumbling idiot no matter how much I try to bite my tongue.
“No,” Varius says as he dips his eyes back to my pussy. “First time.”
I blink. “First time putting knives up someone’s vagina or…” I trail off on a little laugh, my nerves clearly getting to me. Of course he isn’t. That’d be silly. He’s Varius fucking Shadow. Probably fucked his way through half the state.
But when he doesn’t dismiss the notion, I bolt upright.
“I almost had it,” he says, but I don’t care about that now. Him being a virgin when we met makes him seem human. Flawed. Not so untouchable as Varius fucking Shadow – the boogieman to the boogiemen. The asshole neanderthal who only wants me for my womb.
“But you’re so good at it,” I blurt. “How can that have been your first time?”
He looks at me dryly. “I came in seconds. That wasn’t a clue?”
“But in the office, you kept fingering me until I was about to come and then stopping! And you did it repeatedly!”
His lips flatten. “That wasn’t deliberate.”
“That wasn’t –” I slam my hand over my mouth as a little giggle crawls up my throat. “Oh my gods, you were just shit at fingering.”
“Thank you,” Varius says so deadpanned, I struggle not to laugh. His dark eyes narrowing, he returns his gaze to my vagina. “Lay back down,” he commands, and I flop back, still reeling from that reveal.
“I was your first?”
“That is what it means.”
“You were mine, you know.”
“I know.”
I scrunch my nose, thinking him an idiot for trusting that ‘exam’ before I catch myself. I lean up on my elbows just in time to see him pull the balisong free. He flicks it open and twirls it around in a sequence of spins and tosses. My eyes linger on the knife even as he snaps it back shut. I’m happy he got it out, but my focus is on him. On the potential future here that might not be that bad.
