Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,84
I’m touching myself, my finger wet, my clit even wetter. And I paint a portrait of him in return: his dark head thrown back, the veins in his neck throbbing to match the way his corded forearms flex to hold me still as he fucks my mouth.
It’s messy.
It’s beautiful.
It’s a slow ruination of us both and I don’t regret a thing.
When I come with a cry, I choke on his length, and he releases the deepest, most delicious moan I’ve ever heard. “I’m going to come,” he warns, his voice guttural. “You’ve got to pull back, Rowena . . . Jesus, pull back.”
I don’t.
Damien orgasms with a roar, and, for the first time in my life, I give all of myself to a man. I suck him down, and lap him up, and when his legs give out and he pulls me over his prone frame on the rug, I allow my limbs to tangle with his.
If this is ruin, then I’ll gladly die happy.
26
Damien
Thin pink scars stretch across Rowena’s bare back. They expand and contract with her every breath, and no matter how she tries to angle her arms to reapply a fresh bandage, she can’t finish the job.
And I can’t tear my gaze away.
Those wounds were red and bleeding when I pulled her from the moat. Even hours later, when I extracted the glass myself, there was no telling how Rowena managed to escape Buckingham Palace with her life. She should have died right alongside the queen.
“Let me,” I husk.
She freezes with her arms clamped awkwardly behind her then peers over her shoulder at me. “You weren’t so kind the last time around.”
“Should I apologize?”
Her mouth pulls to one side. “I don’t know, Damien. Do you feel bad?”
No.
Yes.
Skimming a hand down the back of my neck, I rest my palm over my nape and squeeze tight. Do I feel bad? After a lifetime in Holyrood, my relationship with pain is . . . complicated. I expect it because I’ve been the one to suffer a hundred times over. The same goes for every Holyrood agent. We’ve all been hurt. But none of us can claim innocence—we’re thieves in the night, snatching anti-loyalist lives with just another mental tally on the chalkboard.
Pain has its place in the world, its purpose, and I . . . “Apologizing for something I believed in seems insincere.”
Dark brows furrow over the bridge of her nose. “And you feel differently now?”
“I feel . . .” At the expectant expression on her face, my hand drops to my side. Heat scalds my cheeks and I lower my gaze to the bandage she’s holding, where her thumb worries the latex edge. A quick glance at the tight set of her shoulders tells me she’s actually holding her breath, waiting for my answer.
Her uncertainty in me is a punch to the gut.
When did I become the man who trades only in the currency of violence? When did I become the Mad Priest, when the moniker alone makes my skin fucking crawl?
Deep down, I can pinpoint the exact day, hour, minute—and I despise myself for it.
Carrigan’s men stabbed me and along with my blood spilled out my conscience. It ran in rivulets over the pavement. Morals, gone. Ethics, destroyed. I started the day as one man and ended it as another. And the half-dead man who left the alley behind Christ Church Spitalfields didn’t care, one way or another, who he hurt in his quest for vengeance.
Rowena included.
Something that feels like embarrassment propels me forward. I duck my head, cutting eye contact that’s already severely one-sided. Nine days ago, I stood over the exam table and ran my gaze over her blistered body, and I felt . . . nothing. Nothing but rage. Nothing but vindication that she practically landed on my doorstep to do with as I wished.
Blind. Ruined. Mine.
The heat on my face spreads south to squeeze the air from my lungs. I’ve been no better to her than Mum was to me—the only difference being that whereas I once hid to make myself invisible, Rowena Carrigan has claws that draw blood the moment she’s threatened. A she-wolf who will bend to no one, even when she’s backed into a corner and left to fight for her life.
Swallowing tightly, I touch my fingers to the bandage, to take it from her, but she yanks it out of reach. “Do you feel bad?”
“Ashamed,” I admit, my voice hoarse. “I feel ashamed.”