Page 95 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Auden!”
He slaps my bottom so fast and so hard that I squeak in surprise. “No. I say when you come. I say when this perfect little body feels release. Because you are mine, and that’s what you wanted, right?”
“I know what you’re doing,” I say, turning my face to speak. “It won’t work.”
“And what am I doing, little bride? Enlighten me.”
“You know you can’t scare me with pain because I get off on it, and so you think you can scare me with selfishness. But it won’t work, Auden. Your selfishness gets me off too. You get me off—your will, your desires—they are mine now, as well as yours. And I know the secret anyway, which is that you’re not selfish. Not really.”
“Oh, is that so?” His hand is still working his organ, his knuckles grazing the curve of my bottom as he jacks himself off. “I’m not selfish?”
“Not like how you’re worried—oh—”
He slides back in, one hand sliding under my stomach to lift my hips slightly off the ground. I realize what he’s doing—he’s making sure there’s no stimulation against my clit so I can’t come. Mean. He’s so mean.
“How can you be so wet and agreeable when you know what I’m going to deny you?”
“I don’t know,” I whimper, trying to arch against him, trying to rock into his hand, trying to chase down any friction I can get.
“How can you still love me when I mistreat you so?”
“Because it’s fucking hot, Auden, please—”
“No,” he says. Smugly. Breathlessly. Then he comes with a sharp breath and low moan, his shaft throbbing inside of me as it releases.
It was the act of telling me no, of denying me, that brought on his orgasm, as much as it was my body, and it’s so hot. It’s so damn hot.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he murmurs, his cock jerking a final time. “You always feel so good.”
“Sir—”
He pulls out, leaving me empty and aching, wet from his release. “You can come when I say so. How I say so. And not a moment sooner.”
“So not right now?”
Another slap on the backside, hard enough that I know I’ll be sporting a bright red handprint for the next hour. “Just for that, it won’t be tonight. Or tomorrow.”
I roll over to look at him as he sets his clothing to rights, keeping my sex shamelessly exposed—hoping he’ll change his mind, but knowing he won’t.
No, he’s too mean for that, and also too good a Dominant.
His eyes do drop down between my legs however, as if he’s drinking in the sight, and after he’s finished zipping himself up, he says, “Stay just like that. I like looking at you.”
So I stay on the floor with my legs spread and my skirt up, his orgasm slowly leaking back out. He sits on a trunk directly in front of me to enjoy the view, periodically reaching down to run an admiring finger through the mess he made. My clit is so swollen, I can feel every stir and puff of air against it, and I can’t help but rock against his hand whenever he deigns to touch me—something he takes advantage of, toying with my needy berry until my pleasure starts to build, and then backing off and watching with satisfaction as I wiggle and whine.
“You know you’re not selfish,” I say after a long few minutes of this. I say it even though every nerve ending south of my belly button currently disagrees, and even though the fresh erection visible in the leg of his trousers proves he’s enjoying my agony like only a mildly sadistic person can.
But it’s true. He’s not selfish.
“How can you possibly say that? You’re spread out on the floor with my semen dripping out of you, displayed for my liking.”
“You know what I mean.”
He sighs, looking down as his hair tumbles in front of his forehead. “There’s no material difference between my father’s selfishness and mine, Poe. I want you as thoroughly and as horribly as he wanted your mother, and God knows I still want St. Sebastian, even though I’ll burn in hell for it. How is that not the worst kind of selfishness? Doing everything in my power to possess the daughter of the woman my father killed? Barely able to keep myself from hauling my own brother off to bed?”
“But you do keep yourself from doing it,” I say, pushing up to my elbows so I can better see his face. “Even though I know you don’t personally believe you’ll go to hell for it. You do it for him, because it’s what he needs, and that’s not selfishness, Auden. That’s love. And as for me, we already know I want to be possessed by you. Your father didn’t want love or possession; he wanted to fill an emptiness inside himself, and that’s not what you’re doing or who you are.”
Auden doesn’t look reassured. “But what if it is me? How can I tell the difference?”
