Page 28 of Scent of Desire
“I want your G-string gone,” I ordered, desire burning my eyes to the point tears of blood would scatter to take my sight—and I’d blindly offer it to her if she demanded it.
She took her excuse of a panty off and dropped it on the floor. Her heartbeats stopped. Her pussy was bare. With a bite of her, she stayed silent, but I felt her body shot with static electricity. She unleashed the worst of me, my darkest compulsions resurrecting from the dead.
“Now, I’m gonna eat you.” I lifted myself up from my seat and loomed toward her, readjusting my cuffs. “And tomorrow, the underworld will know you’re mine.”
Ihad to make a choice.
Two dresses, both equally magnificent, were facing me on a hanger above the shelf. Both were the epitome of haute couture and royalty but were complete opposites.
A refined card was left among them, beautifully written, probably with a feather. Its inky smell of walnut notes, wet-sweet oakmoss, smoky leather, and black amongst the vetiver had filled my nostrils, sending me to a place of old, dusty books in a fairy-tale library.
Thunder unleashed on nature, its merciless lightning tinting the roaring sky in a gray-blue moonlight. The branches hit the glass like a fallen soul knocking on the window of my bedroom to find refuge inside the manor and escape the obscure air.
I spoke the words written on the card out loud between two lightning bolts.
Another growl from the sky, this one like a hungry monster awakening from the abyss of hell, raised the hair on my skin. It wasn’t a simple dress to choose, no. This one would define my destiny just as one chooses a wedding dress. I buried my nails inside my palms, clamping them into tender flesh as I tried to think.
It was a devious test from Radcliff.
The first dress was as sweet as pink roses, smelling of the beauty of a ballet and a swan and of every princess’s dream. It was elegant with an ivory corset. The sleeves fell below the shoulders and were transparent like a veil. It sparkled, as if one had taken all the stars of the universe to put them on this dress. Some flowers were sewn in rose-gold lace on the waist to form the most beautiful garden. It was my kind of perfection, and Radcliff knew it.
The other was from a pitch-black, starless sky, smelling of a royal court of night with a throne of bones and thorns. My heartbeat increased at the sight of it. This one screamed of power. The full-skirted dress was strapless with a plunging neckline formed of black roses, the edge of which burned into a flaming burgundy. It was more revealing than anything I’d ever owned. The bouffant skirt had different layers of satin. Crimson flowers were sewn down the length of it, like lianas rising from the bottom up.
Those were the two handmade dresses Radcliff had asked to be made for me.
Two sides of me.
Two futures I’d have to choose from.
“Regretting your choice?” Radcliff’s whisper warmed my nape, sending chills to my core.
The hellish front doors opened, and the air of corruption and madness enveloped me. Only one foot inside Club 7 and the heavy weight of the stares of the guests hidden behind their masks had fallen on us. The Devil and I, walking side by side, were the highlight of the spectacle, the twist that no one expected.
Radcliff had wrapped a possessive arm around my waist, gentle yet firm, as he guided me through the crowd, who had stopped their activities. I nestled in his darkness, and we leaped above the music and the show. Everything else apart from us became a blur.
The click-clack of my high heels echoed on the floor like a murderous drum. I lifted my head, puffing my confidence into the aura surrounding me.I won’t regret my choice.The sound of my shallow breath was the only symphony I could hear, like a time bomb clouding my thoughts.
In the red light of the club, the dark roses on my dress seemed to have taken on another form of life. They burned with hellfire, like the one that rose after the end of a battle after having inflicted chaos and destruction. As I passed in front of my reflection, the obsidian rocks on my flower tiara glittered like powerful stones needed for a ritual. My stare became a murder weapon, and my lace mask inked under my skin like a poison corrupting my cells.
The air had taken on the smell of green envy. By choosing the black dress, I was the flower with thorns ready to hail hell and gather its hellions. Radcliff’s arm tightened around me, his hold taking root in me as if our souls had signed a bloody deal with a chalice. His touch sent a powerful electric shock on my skin, the kind that would leap flames of lust inside me. Tonight, he wouldn’t leave my side, and at that moment, I knew I had made the right choice.
“Not one bit,” I replied, boring my eyes into his, despite the black mask he wore. “Did I make the right choice?”
“There is no such thing as right or wrong.” He shifted his head slowly toward me, a sinister snarl slipping free. “You’ve made the choice that your soul seeks.”
“What about your soul?” I teased, convinced that by searching for his light, I had fallen into my darkness voluntarily, and worse, I wasn’t ready to give it up. It was a dangerous game, where only one side could win. One of us could rise at the cost of destroying the other.
“I don’t recall having one,” he dropped with all his regal confidence, wetting his lip with a growing appetite. “But you certainly made your point, and you’ve compelled my black heart, spellbinding it with sins and more blackness than it had before, little witch.”
All the air across my lungs vanished as if Radcliff had stolen the oxygen from the room and stopped time. I was his—it was a statement. A royal coronation. The weight of all the staring guests was nothing against the shadows of his calla lily eyes roaming my face, expressing the torment I was inflicting on him. Lust was like smoke encircling us, intoxicating us until we gave in.
We broke the eye contact—probably for my own good—and Radcliff gunned his eyes at the curious guests. Mostly men, the kind I wouldn’t stay alone with in a dark hallway. They bowed their faces to the ground in an immediate reply, their fear of Radcliff stronger than their carnal impulses.
I chuckled, amused. “And you’re proving yours.”
“I don’t need to prove that you’re mine. They know.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, his scorching stare studying the crowd as if he wanted to keep the memory of this moment intact. “Their thoughts about you. I can feel them creeping through my scars. They’ll pay.”
“You can’t condemn desire. It’s human.”
