Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,77

touches my clit—and I lose the last thread of sanity.

Sobbing, I turn my head from his and let my temple hit his shoulder. My hips move restlessly, sinking down every time that he thrusts upwards. We meet as one, the slap of our skin painfully erotic in the chapel.

I’m dying.

A slow unraveling that starts with his hard cock and segues to the calloused finger that rubs over my clit in tiny, aching circles and ends with his roughened, “Come on me. Fuck, I need to feel you.”

I don’t want the moment to end.

I don’t want to ever stop spinning.

And yet even now I feel the tightening in my core. Feel the way that I quiver with every brush of his finger on my clit. Delicate, feathery caresses that make me pant and want and moan.

Damien’s thrusts quicken, the carefully set pace demolishing on his next breath. He’s losing control, fucking me harder, faster, and then he roars, “Now, Rowena, come now!” and I come with a cry that ravages my throat. With a tight, pained groan that shakes the very foundation of my being, Damien pulls out of me not even a second later. Hot jets of come hit my inner thighs, an instant reminder that we were reckless, wanton.

A lifetime of loneliness and then him, the Mad Priest.

The villain.

The enemy.

The god refusing to don the crown of the hero.

My heart hammers in my chest. I should say something. Tell him that I’m on the pill, although I’m not, or that we shouldn’t do this again, although the thought of never doing so leaves me feeling strangely frantic. There are so many things that I should say to clear the air but all I manage is his name.

“What?” he rasps, his hand finding mine when I touch his face. “Tell me.”

“I lied earlier.”

A small, pregnant pause. Then, gruffly, “In what way?”

I offer him a tremulous smile. “I mourned for you, Damien Godwin. For a moment, when no one could see me, I mourned for you.”

24

Damien

The living can’t be mourned.

They can be forgotten or despised, and sometimes, if the person in question is particularly lucky, he might even be loved—but mourning is reserved for the departed. And I’m not dead.

Which doesn’t explain why Rowena’s words have haunted me for hours.

She has haunted me for hours.

I chased her because there was no other choice but to catch her. Stripped her naked because I needed, for once in my goddamned life, to be flesh on flesh—no barriers held, no pretenses made. And I took her on the altar because if I was going to break a vow, then I planned to savor every bloody second of my reckoning.

Unrepentant bastard that I am, I want to take her again.

Fuck her again.

Make her come on my cock again.

Like a thief stealing into the dark crevices of my mind, the early morning sun creeps in between the gap in the curtains. Blinded, I tear my gaze away from the window to look again at the shared wall that separates me from Rowena.

Guy would tell me to keep my prick in my trousers.

Saxon, pre-Isla Quinn, would remind me not to forget about the mission.

I have no idea what Saxon post-Isla Quinn would say—probably something about chasing rainbows and choosing happiness and fuck Holyrood until our dying breath. Especially the last one, if our tense conversation last night is anything to go by.

With my wrists propped on my bent knees, and my shoulders pressed against the side of the bed, I lean my head back against the mattress and close my eyes. Familiar exhaustion lingers on the periphery, a traitorous beast prepared to sink its claws into me and claim me permanently, if I let it.

I mourned for you, Damien Godwin.

Fucking hell.

Lifting my ass off the floor, I snatch Mum’s necklace from my back pocket and hold it up at eye-level. The silver links glint under the rays of sunlight. Every night, she would carefully unclasp the hook and set it on her bedside table. And she’d stare at it, this faraway look in her blue eyes that troubled me, even at six years old.

She always wound it around her fist when she struck.

Then she would sob for hours, her shoulders shaking so hard that I used to wonder if a person could die from sadness. Nowadays, I know better. Now, I know the grip misery can have on a soul; how the darkness, like I told Rowena, can own every piece of you until there’s nothing left