Arthur took a drag of his cigarette and pulled it from his mouth, the smoke clouding around us. Apart from when I was smoking them myself, I usually disliked the smell of cigarettes. But not when it came from Arthur. Never then. From him, it smelled like heaven itself.
“You shouldn’t be here, princess,” Arthur said, his deep voice wrapping around me as tightly as the serpent from the Garden of Eden. He stepped closer to me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end merely at his wickedly addictive presence. My mind tried to warn me to leave, showing me highlights of the night in the alley. Of Arthur cutting down men twice his age in cold blood. Of him ordering my attacker to castrate himself, no expression on his perfect face, no remorse in his corrupt soul.
But he saved you, the newly acquired depraved side of me argued, overriding my brain. He saved your life.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I edged forward and stopped right before him. Arthur downed his gin; a half-empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire was on the bar behind him—his brand of choice. He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the bar. The wash of midnight stubble on his jaw and cheeks only made him look more rugged and severe.
Arthur met my eyes. Then he licked his lips, and I felt my cheeks blaze. “Run,” he said, voice thick with warning. Lifting his index finger, he placed it on my jaw. He moved it, light as a feather, down my neck, over the front of my throat and down the centre of my chest between my breasts. My breathing was laboured and my nipples hardened, sending heat flooding between my thighs. “Run, princess. Run far away, back to your ivory castle and the valiant knights that protect you.”
I wasn’t thinking. I was purely acting on instinct. As his finger lifted from my chest, I caught it in my hand and brought it to my mouth. Following a rebel side of me I didn’t even know existed, I took his finger between my teeth and bit down hard.
Arthur’s eyes flared, a napalm firestorm igniting in their sapphire depths. He didn’t make a sound as my teeth met his flesh. I wasn’t a delicate little princess. Right now, I wanted to be anything but perfect or good or someone Arthur didn’t want to corrupt.
He acted quickly. In a flash, he pressed his hand to my face, his index finger still in my mouth, and pushed me against a wide breakfast bar. My back hit the marble countertop with a thud. I was numb to anything but Arthur and the godless look in his eyes. His spare fingers were splayed on my cheeks. His eyes were molten as they bored into mine. I bit down harder on his finger until I tasted blood. Arthur hissed, pressing his chest against my breasts, dragging a moan from my lips.
He liked it.
He liked that I caused him pain.
Arthur pulled his finger back from my mouth. It was too dark to see, but I knew there’d be teeth marks embedded into his broken skin. I ran my tongue along my teeth, the tinny taste of blood trickling down my throat.
His blood. Arthur’s devilish blood that, to my tongue, tasted like manna from the gods.
Arthur towered above me, his hard, muscled body pressed flush against mine, his ally of darkness wrapping around us. The tip of his nose ran over my cheek. He still held me in his grip, his warm breath lapping at my flushed and wanting skin. He moved back an inch and dragged his thumb over my bottom lip, no doubt smearing my bright red lipstick.
“I’m going to fucking wreck you,” he warned softly, darkly, truthfully. My back arched at his depraved promise. My clit throbbed and my muscles ached just waiting for what came next. His thumb smudged over and over my lips until I felt them begin to swell. He pushed his thumb into my mouth and waited. I knew what he wanted, and bit down hard until my teeth broke through flesh. Arthur’s jaw clenched and his hips thrust toward me, his cock hardening against my hip.
I swirled my tongue around his thumb as if it were his dick, the mix of his blood and my saliva bursting like vintage Cristal on my taste buds. The muscles in Arthur’s neck strained, and he pulled his thumb from my mouth. I barely had time to take a breath before he dragged me across the room by my shoulders to the dining table and slammed me down on top of it. I cried out at the impact of my back hitting wood, but before my voice could even carry into the air, Arthur ripped my dress in two and yanked down my thong.
He tossed it aside and, with a murderous intent in his gaze, pushed my legs apart. I was completely bared to his eyes, a naked offering. His hands ran down my thighs, locking them apart, and he lowered his head and sucked on my clit. I screamed out loud as my back arched off the table, white-hot pleasure ripping through me, devouring me down to my soul. Arthur never let up. He sucked and licked along my clit and slit with a maddening intensity, so intense that I didn’t think I could take it. His hands were steel traps keeping my legs wrenched apart, immobilising me. I blinked into the heavy darkness, the lights from the marina glinting off Arthur’s dark hair and the frames of his glasses.
Desperately needing to touch him, I reached down and ran my hands through the ebony strands. His hair was like silk between my fingers, and I tried to be gentle. But when Arthur exchanged his relentless tongue for his teeth, he bit down on my clit, and stars burst before my eyes at the addictive cocktail of hedonism and pain.
His fingers bit into my thighs, and I yanked on his hair. A sharp, sex-fuelled grunt slipped from Arthur’s lips, evidence of his need sneaking through his impenetrable walls. That sound … that slip of the shield he seemed to forever wear was like a match to petrol. I pulled on his hair as his tongue slid inside me, pushing, licking, swirling. I moaned, unable to take it, take his tongue and all the things I’d never felt before. Arthur pushed a finger inside me and bit down on my clit again. That was all it took for me to splinter apart.
My skin was a furnace, and I had just reached the height of my orgasm when Arthur stood and pulled his cock from his shorts. My breasts ached to be touched, and I squeezed my nipples as my pussy clenched, holding on to the remnants of pleasure.
My eyes widened when I saw his cock—he was thick and long and bigger than I’d ever had before. Arthur threw his shirt to the floor and stroked his cock before caging me in with his arms and fixing his gaze on mine. His nostrils flared, and just as I reached up to lay my palm on his stubbled cheek, he slammed inside me. My lips parted and I cried out at the intrusion, at the fullness and the slight pain that came with taking someone so big. I was far from a virgin, but I felt as though this man, Arthur Adley, the apparent devil himself, had just torn through my innocence and shredded the memory of all past lovers.
It was him and me and the pulsating darkness. Arthur wasn’t soft or slow. He fucked me. Hard. He fucked me like the living demon he was rumoured to be—rough and wild and with unmerciful intent.
“Arthur,” I whispered. As soon as I spoke, he moved a hand to my throat and wrapped it around my neck so I couldn’t speak again. A light sparked in his eyes as he squeezed. I felt all his incredible strength in that single grip. There was a sinful gleam in his gaze as he held me at his mercy, perched precariously between fucking me and killing me if he desired.
He squeezed tighter until I could only breathe a little, but I didn’t fear him. I wanted him to push me as far as I could go; I wanted every fucked-up part of this man. If this was the only night I would ever have Arthur, I wanted him in all his raw entirety. I wanted the devilry, I wanted the sadism, and I wanted this man, the man who had made a grown man cut off his own dick, to fuck me with equal amounts of depraved ease.