Page 16 of Autumn Ritual

I could see her better now, my eyes having adjusted to the gloom. The pale triangle of her underwear ended in darker shadow between her thighs. There was a quiver in her muscles as she fought the instinct to close her legs. She didn’t. She held herself open, trembling, and the courage of that nearly broke me.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

It took me a second to realize she wasn’t asking about my real identity. She hadn’t forgotten I was the masked escort to the harvest ball. Those were her character’s words.

So, I assumed the role and gave her the answer she craved. “Commander Bastain, General of the Ninth.”

Sara fucking gasped.

The sound cut through the space around us like the crack of a whip.

I smiled viciously, knowing the effect those words had on her. My hand found her inner thigh and pushed gently, spreading her wider, and then I hooked her right leg over my shoulder. The position bent her forward, her bound hands now bearing more weight against the banister. She was vulnerable, spread out before me. A prize to be taken, even though she hadn’t just defeated a troll in the arena. Reality melded with fiction to create the perfect atmosphere.

My mouth found her through the cotton. I breathed hot against her, feeling the fabric dampen immediately under my breath. Her hips jerked. A small, broken sound escaped her and her fingers scrabbled against the belt above her. I pressed my tongue against the thin barrier. I tasted the salt-sweetness of her even through the cotton. She grew dangerously wet against the fabric.

“You’re mine,” I growled.

Sara choked. “No! No, I’m not!”

My smile pressed against her pussy. “You are when you’re this wet for me, angel.”

Death. Her character was called death. But that word had no place here, not between us.

I peeled back the underwear and pulled them aside to the sound of her ragged breathing. The scent was warm and sweet. Musky. Unmistakably female. My tongue found her bare flesh.

Fuck. She was decadent.

Sara cried out. The sound went through me like a current.

Tugging the underwear down her legs, I dove forward and ate her with the hunger of a man who had been starving. This time, her leg lifted to rest on me of her own accord. The fact that she willingly opened herself made me ravenous. My tongue traced the length of that gorgeous pussy, from that tight entrance to her clit, and then circled there, slow and deliberate, while my hands held her for balance.

Sara shook, resisting the urge to buck against my mouth. Her skin turned slick. Every time my tongue flicked over her clit she made a sound like something breaking.

“Please,” she said again, and this time I knew what she meant. Please don’t stop. Please.

I didn’t stop. Cazzo, I couldn’t!

I sucked her clit between my lips. She jerked against my face, her thigh tightening around my ear. Above, her bound hands strained against the belt. Her breathing turned to ragged, shallow pants that echoed in the stairwell, and beneath that I could hear the wet sounds of my mouth on her, obscene and perfect in the dark.

She came with a beautiful violence.

Her body went rigid, every muscle locking, and then she was pulsing against my tongue in waves as her inner muscles clenched on nothing. An anguished cry was stifled behind her teeth. I worked her through it, my mouth relentless, drawing out each aftershock until she collapsed forward with a sob.

The silence afterward was charged. I could feel her pulse against my kiss. Sara took shallow, uneven breaths. I pulled back. My face was wet with her, and I wiped it on the inside of my shirt. She stared down at me, and I met her gaze through the dark. Something in my chest had cracked open—a door I’d kept bolted for longer than I cared to remember.

I captured an angel.

I made her mine.

I unhooked her leg from my shoulder and set it gently on the ground. I pulled her underwear back into place. My fingers lingered longer than they needed to on the warm, damp cotton. I drew her pajama pants up over her hips with the same care I’d used to remove them, smoothing the fabric over her skin.

She didn’t speak. Her breathing had slowed, but I could feel the questions gathering in the air between us, heavy and unspoken.

She would want to know what happened next.

She would ask if I was coming back—or staying.

I rose to my feet. My knees popped, protesting the long kneel on hardwood. The sound seemed ordinary compared to what I’d done. I brought my knuckles down the slope of her cheek. In the silence, I promised that there was no escape.