Page 90 of Summoned
She starts trembling when my kisses descend along her flat stomach. I don’t stop kissing her, not for a second, as I relish the tension in her muscles—the subtle tightening, the way she holds her breath at my every move. I keep going,until I’m kneeling before her.
She shudders as I pause just above her navel and exhale.
Then I press my lips to her belly again, lower this time. Her thighs part slightly, drawing my gaze to the smooth, exposed skin between them. The hunger resurfaces, more primal than ever.
“Gaetano…” Nicole’s rough whisper cuts through the fog of lust clouding all my senses. I raise my head and find her gaze, heavy-lidded and dark with yearning, hovering just above the soft swell of her breasts. Pre-cum leaks into my pants.
“I do not obey you,” she says.
My lips curl into a wide smile. By now, I’ve grown used to her defiance. It no longer provokes the urge to tear her apart. Well, not entirely. I still want to. But then, I also crave to put her back together again.
“I know, Baroness.” I run my tongue along the velvet flesh between her thighs. The warm, heady taste of her arousal sharpens my craving.
Digging my fingers into the curves of her ass, I hold her to me and repeat the slow motion of my tongue, following her contours, searching for the most sensitive spot.
Nicole’s hands slide down, grasping my head for support.
I keep going, even slower now. My tongue moves in steady circles, then in small, pulsing motions, until she starts to moan. She tastes better than I ever imagined. With every touch, her thighs relax more, and she yields to me.
I lift my gaze. Her lips are parted, eyelids fluttering. Her chest rises and falls, each breath strained, breasts taut and aching with the rhythm of my tongue. She’s trembling on the edge.
I slip a finger between her slick folds, savoring how readily she takes me in. She clenches around me, drenchingmy hand in her arousal. The tension in my pants grows savage as I imagine thrusting into her, stretching her to the brink of agony.
When her hips rise to meet me, I curl my fingers deep inside her, and she moans. My tongue keeps stroking, teasing, until her body begins to quake.
And then she lets go. Warm release floods my fingers, and her thighs tighten around my face.
I stay with her until the end, imprinting her image into my mind for the nights to come when I’ll be buried in shadows, starving for her. I won’t be able to recreate her completely. But I’ll could make a copy—faint, incomplete. Red hair scattered across the wall. Lips trembling from pleasure. A body undone by desire.
I want to flip her over and take her right here.
I want to wrap myself around her and protect her from everything, whispering over and over that she deserves to be worshiped. Nothing less.
I need to tell her that the world is full of people who’ll try to diminish her worth, just to make her easier to control.
It’s because of someone who mastered that kind of subtle destruction that I’ve been a prisoner for five hundred years. I know what it’s like to never be good enough. Neverdeservingenough.
Nicole parts her lips, but whatever words form inside her never make it out. Her brows knit, her breath unsteady. Confusion shadows her face, but underneath, an emotion flickers. Not quite trust, more like a brief lowering of a defensive wall she didn’t mean to let down.It’s something I don’t deserve.
The burden of my curse hits me hard.
I rise to my feet. The fact that I find her irresistible, that I resent her father’s manipulations, means nothing. It sureas helldoesn’t changeanything. In over a week, I’ll take her soul.
I can show her how to escape the world, but nothing—not even I—can save her from me and my curse.
I press a quick kiss to her lips and step away. “The second trial is over.”
Before she can react, I take her back to her room, leaving her with the torn sketch and the scrapes on her skin from her trial. Then I return to the castle and stand in front of the wall, staring for hours at the slot meant forHarvest 290.
So close now…
And it’s never felt so far away.
29
Nicole
Day 13
