But I only made it as far as the door before my knees grew too weak to support my weight. I held on to the door handle for a moment, trying to summon the strength to keep moving, but there was no hope. I’d taken more laudanum than I thought, perhaps, because I could feel the blackness at the edges of my vision, the tumbling of my thoughts growing erratic and dreamy, and I managed to find an armchair nearby before I collapsed and knew no more.
It was morning when I woke—early morning, gauging by the rosy light filtering in through the curtains. I was no longer in the armchair but in bed, a long, muscled body pressed against mine. I was gathered in his arms, my face to his chest, and I could tell by his breathing that he was awake. Awake and unhappy.
I tilted my head back to look up at him.
“Good morning, wildcat.” A small smile curved on his lips. “You slept like the dead last night.”
It had felt that way, although the lingering tendrils of nightmares still brushed at my mind—leering faces and whispered threats, Mrs. Brightmore’s scowl and Mrs. Harold’s honeyed voice, Molly’s sharp eyes and Julian’s rasping words. Cages and whips. Fear and lust and shadows. The prickling feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. If the dead dreamed, surely those were the kinds of dreams they had.
“What’s wrong?” Julian murmured. “Your face—it has gone distant just now.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered, even though I knew that wasn’t quite true. But I wasn’t sure what, exactly, was wrong. Save for a feeling. A glimmer of intuition.
He brushed the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “You’ve gone somewhere in your mind, Ivy. Come back to me.”
I took a deep breath and did as he asked, refocusing my thoughts on him and him alone. He lowered his lips to mine and I softened into him, letting his breath entwine with my own, molding my curves as tightly as I could against the lean lines of his body.
He pulled back. “You were such a good pet last night,” he said, his concerned murmur slowly changing back to his usual commanding tone. “You let me fuck you so hard. And you liked it, didn’t you? You liked it when I took your ass. You came so beautifully, wildcat. I could feel every squeeze and flutter of your perfect body.”
I nodded, pressing my head against his chest once more, feeling my breathing start to speed up. My dreams came back to me, the sneaking fear that someday I wouldn’t be able to perform, that I wouldn’t be able to be this good pet that he wanted. And with it came the twisted longing to be totally at one with him, even his darkness.
Especially his darkness.
“And now I will reward you,” he said. “You deserve to be spoiled.”
Anticipation started to stir in my belly. “How will you reward me?”
“You choose.”
“Then I want you to fuck me,” I said without hesitation. I had none of these bothersome worries and anxieties when he was inside me. When we were together, our union felt so safe, indissoluble.
He laughed to himself. “I know, but that’s not how this works. Today, I want you to do whatever you want with me. Today, I want you to take your pleasure selfishly. Use me however you like, because today, my mouth and cock and fingers belong only to you.”
I bit my lip, confusion warring with my growing desire. He’d always been the dominant force in our affair, the one who shaped and directed our encounters, the one who determined when and how my orgasms would come. It was an alien feeling, being in control in bed. But my slowly throbbing clit and tightening nipples were not about to complain. I blinked away the last of my laudanum grogginess and then pushed him onto his back. The sheets pulled away from his shirtless body and I could see how hard he was in his trousers, a rigid outline that was mine to explore and use today.
But I was sore—deeply sore—and I knew I would need to be ready for him. So instead of climbing on top of him, I positioned myself above his shoulders on my knees, so that my bare cunt was a mere inch from his face.
“Yes,” he groaned, not waiting for me to lower myself, but instead raising up and capturing my sensitive flesh with his mouth, sucking and nibbling at turns. His tongue flicked over my clit, lightly at first, before moving to lick at my hole, plunging in and out. After the exhaustion of last night and with the honeyed influence of the opium still fogging me, I couldn’t support myself much longer, and my knees slid down so that I was now riding his face. I tried to raise myself back up, certain that he was uncomfortable, but he wrapped his arms around my thighs, trapping me to his face as he fucked me with his tongue.
He made noises of deep satisfaction, noises of deep hunger, as if this were the only thing he ever wanted to do, and it was those noises—and the very prominent display of arousal behind me—that sent me over the edge. I bucked shamelessly against his face, forgetting about his comfort, forgetting about dignity, just riding his mouth as I quivered and clenched and panted, riding his face so hard that I could feel his stubbled chin grating across my flesh.
I slowly stilled, looking down into his aventurine eyes as I did, leaning back so that my weight rested on his chest instead of his face.
“Oh wildcat,” he breathed. “You don’t know how difficult it is not to flip you over and fuck you right now. Just tasting you makes me hard. But having you take my mouth like that makes me dangerous.”
He wasn’t lying. His eyes blazed and his body trembled ever so slightly, as if he were fighting to restrain himself. I slid off him and then off the bed, indicating with a gesture that I wanted him to stay there. I wanted to look at him for a moment. At the expensive trousers tented by his cock and at the sharply muscled lines of his stomach, with that line of dark hair that led from his navel down past the line of his pants. His lips still wet from me.
“You look a little wild right now, Ivy. What are you thinking about? Do you want to ride my face again? Or would you like to sink onto my cock and ride me that way? I know that beautiful cunt will be hungry until it’s filled. How will you let me fill it?”
I stepped forward and tugged down his trousers. “Quiet,” I told him. “You’re distracting me.”
He grinned, grinned like a man getting his pants taken off by a naked woman. “Good.”
I climbed back on the bed and straddled him. “I’m going to fuck you until I come,” I told him. “But this time, you aren’t allowed to come until I say.”
His smile faded, a dark and savage look replacing it. “Do you think that’s wise, wildcat?”
“You said this was my reward, that I could do with you as I wish.” I slid my wet cunt along the underside of his shaft, which earned me a low hiss. “I’m choosing to use you. I’m going to use that thick cock to make me come, and then maybe I’ll think about letting you climax.”
