Queen Takes Rose (Wicked Villains #6) - Katee Robert Page 0,45

had sex in front of other people more times than I can count. It’s a common occurrence in the Underworld. I’ve acted out fantasies upon fantasies over the years, dredged every single one of mine from the darkness and thrust them into the light. I’ve never done anything like this. We’re outside the kink community, outside the club, outside a personal residence. If someone walks in, they’re not going to expect to find Malone finger fucking me before dinner. It feels almost wrong, but in the most delicious way possible.

Part of that is pure Malone. She’s staring down at me with something wild in those green eyes, something fierce that calls to a part of me I’m still not entirely comfortable with. Her fingers flex at my throat, not cutting off my air at all, but making me feel chained in place. Held down. Captive. She slides her thumb over my clit. “Did you agree to this assignation to punish me?”

Too close to the truth.

I swallow hard, the movement pressing my throat more firmly against her palm. “Why would I want to punish you?” She doesn’t know who I really am. There’s no way she’d interact with me the way she does if she realized the woman she took everything from twenty years ago had a daughter. A daughter Malone is sliding a third finger into right now.

“Could be any number of reasons.” Her cheeks have gone a little pink and her lips are swollen from our kisses, her lipstick a little smeared. She strokes her middle finger against my G-spot, something like pure satisfaction flickering over her expression when I moan. “Maybe because I’ve been ignoring you for so many years.”

I laugh a little, though it comes out as a gasp. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t been hard up for company in the intervening time.”

“No, you haven’t.” She circles my clit again. “Pretty, popular Aurora. You’re everyone’s favorite, and yet you’re always left in the dust when they find their people to settle down with. They don’t see you, and the ones who do want to change you. They don’t appreciate you for the gift you are.”

I’m suddenly terrified that Malone truly does see me. I try to keep my mouth shut, try to just enjoy this without digging myself deeper into a hole I’m not sure I can climb out of. “Do you?”

“Fierce Aurora. Protective Aurora.” She picks up her pace between my thighs, driving me toward orgasm as if we’ve done this a thousand times before, as if she knows my body as well as I do. “Deadly Aurora.” Her smile is just as fierce as her eyes. “Yes, I see you.”

I orgasm. It’s just a physical thing, just a tiny death, but it feels like something’s shifting inside me. Like something is changing that I can’t afford to change, not if I want to keep my feet on the path I’ve trod for more than half my life.

It feels like forgetting.

I shouldn’t want to forget. I shouldn’t betray the memory of my mother, my grandmother. I am simply so tired. Tired of fighting, of plotting, of hope. That must be why I’m craving this woman’s touch. No one has ever undone me in the same way that she does. I’ve never craved that undoing the way I am now.

Malone gentles her touch, bringing me back down with the same expertise she ramped me up. She holds my gaze as she lifts her fingers to her lips and sucks them deep. Tasting me. My entire body clenches at the sight. It doesn’t matter that I just came, that she’s my enemy; I want her. “Malone—”

She ignores me and pulls my dress back down, smoothing it into place, her touch lingering on the sequins for a moment before she sits back. “I’m famished.”

“Malone.”

“Aurora.” The snap is back in her voice, the coldness I recognize… Though it’s different now. It feels brittle, like it might crack beneath my feet at any moment. Not like the deep permafrost it used to be. Or maybe that’s all in my head. I honestly can’t be sure.

It shouldn’t matter. It can’t matter.

I carefully sit up and move to a kneeling position. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” I stare hard at the bright red of the cushion in front of me. “You want me to stop talking and stop pushing, right? Here I am, being obedient.” Why am I so angry? I should be happy that she’s reestablishing the