SWNOVELS The Dark Rising: Chapter 23
out for a bit, I’m going mad being cooped up in here. You said I wasn’t a prisoner, yet it’s been nearly a week of seeing the same Gods damned walls,” I fume, folding my arms over my chest as he enters the room. “You come and go as you like. You were out most of yesterday!”
He just leaves when he wants, especially during the night. I’ve woken up to him gone, and I can’t help but wonder what he is doing. He never tells me.
“Go to the balcony for a little bit, that’s your fresh air,” he says, walking toward the bathroom.
“Ugh.” I throw my hands up and scowl at his back.
I turn toward the bed and hear the shower go on, just like clockwork. I bite my lip, refusing to look over my shoulder, knowing I’ll see him in all his stupid, naked ass glory. I made that mistake the last time I went to argue with him.
He didn’t have his back to me, no, not Darius. I had a full frontal view as I followed him, and I soon shut my mouth and scurried out of there with my cheeks on fire. His chuckle still rings in my ears. Now, he makes sure the door is a little open and he’s always facing this way.
I huff out a breath and turn toward his closet to change into one of his t-shirts. I have some clothes of my own that I brought with me from Belldame’s home, but they need to be washed. Darius took them from me the second day I was here and said he will sort it. I haven’t gotten them back since.
His black t-shirt comes down to my thighs when I change out of an old one, and I walk back into the bedroom, eyes going to the locked door with anger. It’s warded with his power, and that’s why I haven’t been able to open it.
I huff again and put my hands on my hips, looking around the room and wondering if I can knock the fucker out and somehow that will release the door. I hear the shower go off and I turn, ready to tear him a new one, but I quickly snap my mouth shut.
Rivers of water drip over his skin, they follow his tattoos from his neck, the tops of his shoulders, and then flowing down over the side of his ribs and abs. My eyes move on their own accord to the hair trail leading down, and below the towel wrapped around his waist. I swallow roughly, hating the desire that heats my flesh and I lick my lips, breathing deeply through my nose. A low growl has my eyes snapping up to his darkened ones, and I shiver at the heat in them.
We’re locked in a battle of desire and anger, but something that is unmistakably us. I take a peek at his forearm, at the barely visible design in the middle, and I subconsciously move my hand to my own, squeezing over my own marking. He tilts his head at me, looking at where my fingers grip my skin in an almost bruising grip before he runs his hands through his own hair.
This is so fucked. Everything is fucked.
“Darius,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes and trying to ignore the pull to him. It’s constant even when I’m near him, like a low buzz dancing beneath my skin that can flare up at any moment. Unpredictable, needy, wild. “It’s been too long, I haven’t seen anyone but you, and you’re driving me crazy.”
“You need rest,” is all he says, it’s what he has told me every damn day since I woke up in his bedroom.
“I’m well rested. So after sleeping tonight, you can let me out. I’m as good as new.” He gives me a blank stare and I try not to fidget under his scrutiny. I am feeling better, I’m still a little tired, but not completely exhausted. Why he feels the need to keep me locked in here and do nothing is beyond me. I hate the feeling of being trapped, but I won’t tell him that, though I think he knows it.
He looks me over, from my bare toes all the way back up to my eyes, lingering on any exposed skin he can see as he goes. He can see my frustration, my impatience as a smirk spread across his damn kissable lips. Gods, I need to get out of this room.
He’s the enemy, Rhea. Enemy.
“I’ll let you out tomorrow, on one condition.”
My eyes light up, wondering about his change of mind, but then I scowl. “What condition? There shouldn’t even be a condition.”
He runs a hand over his chest, wiping the beads of water that are left on his skin. “You get into bed tonight, and you’re not going to complain one bit about it when I join you.”
No.
“Why don’t I just go to a different room? That way you can have your own bed back without me complaining that you refuse to let me have my own space.”
Since the first time, he’s gotten into bed with me every night, refusing to leave no matter how many times I try to get him to. I even went for his balls last night and tried to bite him, but the fucker doesn’t go anywhere. And when I try to leave the bed, he just cages me within his arms and laughs at me like I’m fucking cute when I’m fighting for my freedom. I don’t stop trying to get out of his arms until I’ve exhausted myself and he always makes the same, smug sound in the back of his throat when I relent.
Asshole.
“Not happening, little wolf.” He begins to undo the towel around his waist, and it drops to the floor with a wet slap. I try very hard to not look down, so hard that my eyes start to sting, because I know he’s now completely naked. I’ve seen a man naked plenty of times with them being wolves, but seeing Darius is like looking upon something extraordinary, and I hate that I feel that way. He smirks and licks his lips, knowing the effect he has on me, and I internally scoff at how my body is attuned to his, how it remembers his touch. The way he turned me inside out the last time we were naked together. “I could always do other things to make you pliant when we go to bed.”
I blush, letting out a shaky breath and pretending he can’t see how my nipples harden, or smell my arousal. It’s a reminder of how he once owned my body during my heat, making me experience something I never have before. An orgasm would be nice, we have been somewhat cordial, but I haven’t forgotten what he did to me. I don’t want him touching my body like that, not after the way he hurt me.
Only right now, I really fucking do. He’s been touching me for days, especially during the night. One time I woke up laying on his chest and one of his hands was under the back of my t-shirt, the other on my ass, holding it possessively. I tried to move but he just gave my ass a good squeeze and drew me closer. So damn close, there was not a part of me that wasn’t touching him. Thankfully, the t-shirt covers the front of me, but I still felt his hardness against my stomach.
He smirked at me the rest of that day when we woke up and I pretended I didn’t feel how hard he was and every night since, I have ended up laying on top of him somehow.
“Not happening,” I answer him, clearing my throat.
“Then let’s go to bed and no complaints, those are my terms.” I look away as he walks to his side of the bed, naked as the moon drawing the furs back to get in. I huff and climb in next to him, staring at the ceiling and pulling the furs up to my chin.
The room is stifling with tension, and I wiggle around, trying to get comfy while holding on to the furs tightly. He shifts next to me, and I see his head turn toward me out of the corner of my eye. I’m restless, and I squeeze my thighs together. The sensation that causes doesn’t help me one bit.
Dammit.
“Settle,” he says.
“I’m trying,” I grit out, wiggling again.
“Fuck it,” he mutters, and then two hands are on my waist and I’m flattened on a hard, warm chest. The breath rushes from me as I scramble to get off him, but his hands land on my waist, keeping me to him in a tight grip.
“Wha-what are you doing?” I ask, hating how my voice has become breathless as I stay as still as possible, not daring to move. Not wanting to acknowledge his hard cock beneath me, right where his t-shirt covers me between my legs.
I shiver, and wetness rushes from me, making my cheeks heat. I push on his solid chest to move, but Darius releases a soft groan and my eyes snap to him. He’s not looking at me though. No. He’s looking between my thighs, like he can see through the material.
He licks his lips, and his eyes slowly come up to mine, dark and heated and my chest heaves. He squeezes my waist and rocks me forward once, making me release a choked sound as his cock slides through my folds and nudges my clit.
I claw my fingers into his chest. “Dar—.”
“I can feel how wet you are for me,” he says in a low tone. “It’s soaking through my t-shirt, making it smell of both you and me.” Another roll, and he grunts. “I’ve been smelling your arousal for days. I told myself I wouldn’t touch, I would wait until you made it clear what you want.” He rocks me back, and then forward once again, and I tremble, my fingers digging into his chest. “But feeling you coating my cock through my t-shirt with how wet you are for me, that’s enough of a sign that you want me. My patience has ran out, little wolf, now more than ever I need to feel you,” he groans as he continues to move me, his head falling back. “Do you think about me? How I shoved my cock so deep inside you and made you scream?”
“No,” I moan as he releases my waist and pulls the t-shirt up. He hisses as my pussy meets his cock and it’s instantly wet. He moves his hips, moving his cock against me, the tip nudging my clit again. I squeeze my thighs on either side of him.
“You’re a little liar, little wolf.” He continues to rock me over his cock, and I’m unable to be quiet. Fuck, why does it feel so good. My nails scratch his skin, drawing blood that makes him release a deep groan as he watches how he moves me.
The sound of his groan does something to me and my eyes flutter shut. Not wanting to, but relishing that I’m doing this with him. Me. His cock is warm and wet from me, and a deep internal instinct preens at this fact as much as I don’t want it to. The fact that he’s covered in my scent.
One of his hands leaves my hip, but he urges me to continue rocking with his other hand, and I do, unable to help myself at how good it feels. He trails his hand down to my thigh as I glide back and forth, goosebumps peppering my skin at his touch. It’s been so long, so, so long since I felt something good.
I just wanted to feel something good.
His hand moves the bottom of my t-shirt up and drags it over my head, I lift my arms to help him as his heated stare devours every inch of me as he throws it off to the side. Cool air hits my skin, adding to the sensations flowing through me as I place my hands back on his chest, ready to have the euphoria that I know will come. But then I freeze, remembering who this is, what he’s seeing. He’s seeing me naked after he saw me and all my scars. Seeing me naked outside of my heat.
His eyes flick up to my wide ones, and I scramble to move off of him, needing to get away, needing to stop this madness. But he sits up with ease, pulling me further on his lap as he grasps my chin in his hand. “Don’t do that,” he says, pulling me flush against him. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed in all my years,” he murmurs softly. His green eyes are nothing but truthful, like he fully believes what he’s saying. He shakes my chin a little. “Scars and all, little wolf. Seen or hidden.” He leans forward and runs his nose up the side of my neck, and I grip his shoulders, holding myself steady. “Make no mistake that I desire you. That I want to own every sliver of your skin, that I want to infiltrate you and tear down every barrier that I know you have built to survive, and don’t doubt, Rhea, that will happen.” He moves his hand from my hip and moves his head out from the crook of my neck. His gaze moves to my forearm, trailing his fingertips down to the middle and circling there as his eyes come back to mine. My breath catches in my throat. “When I’m fully within you, in every part of you, as you will no doubt be within me because I demand nothing less, you will know you will never need those barriers ever again, never against me.”
“Darius,” I say, confused on how we got here and his words.
He smiles. “I will be a barrier for you, shielding you, protecting you, keeping you safe.” He brings my arm up and kisses the center of my forearm, his lips are warm and so gentle. “I won’t let you go. I won’t see you walk away from me and go back into hiding. You will be by my side, always.”
“No.” I shake my head, refusing to hear this, refusing to want and need and hate the idea. He will crush me, I have to remember that, remember how he held that whip in his hands and let it fly through the air to hurt me. “Don’t,” I plead, my voice cracking.
“You know as well as I do that the outcome will be the same, regardless of how we get there. It was set into the lands from The Deadlands, maybe even before then.” His tone has gentled, but I sense his irritation of me not wanting to do this. But why would he want to?
“You don’t even want me.” He doesn’t, not really, and I can’t stop the tear that falls from my eye. I hate this vulnerability I’m showing him, hate how he can see how much his words affect me. “I don’t want you either,” I remind him. Darius’s eyes turn hard, and he lifts his hand off my arm and takes my tear from my face before bringing it in front of us, watching it on the tip of his finger.
“I didn’t want you,” he agrees, and my heart cracks, no matter how much I don’t want him to affect me. “I never wanted you, never wanted this.” He puts the tip of his finger in his mouth and sucks the tear off, his eyes piercing mine. “But I have accepted it is inevitable. Accepted what it is, what we are, and so should you. Your tears will be the only ones I put there from now on, and only from the pleasure I give you.” He moves closer, our lips inches apart and I blink back more tears that want to escape me. “We cannot change how we began, how we got to where we are now, but we can change what happens from here.”
“Nothing will happen,” I whisper.
“More lies, Rhea. I thought we were past this.”
I bite my lip, and his eyes lock on my mouth, glinting. “I didn’t want this either, you know, but I cannot forget what you did, how you tore flesh from my back. I nearly died, Darius.”
His jaw clenches and his eyes avert to the side. His brow furrows and then he releases a deep growl before turning back toward me, his eyes determined. “Kiss me,” he says.
“What?” He’s just going to ignore what I said?
“Kiss me because I demand it, kiss me because you want it, kiss me,” he says, his eyes darkening, “and I’ll make you feel alive.”
I pause, my eyes bouncing between his as I wonder if I want to close the distance between us. If I want to ignore that he won’t acknowledge what he did to me, like he can run away from it. Why is it so hard for him to do so, he doesn’t give a shit, not really. He just can’t help it with this connection and that’s all it is. Something that has tethered us together to be like this.
This isn’t us, isn’t me or him.
This is the Gods, and I hate them for what they have done.
Can I just take pleasure and feel something good and figure out later how to fix this? How to get far away from him so I never have to see his green eyes again. Do I want that?
I’m so confused and overwhelmed with my feelings of anger, hurt, sadness, need and desire. I just want it to stop, I don’t want to feel like this, I don’t want to think. If he can stop the thoughts swirling around my head for a few mere moments, then I’ll take it. I deserve it.
I close the distance and press my lips to his, and his growl of approval rumbles through him to my chest as he grabs me and pulls me closer, our naked skin pressed together for the first time since my heat.
He invades my mouth with his tongue, pressing closer and guiding his hand up to the back of my head, gripping my hair. He pulls on it, and my head falls back the way he wants as he nips at my lips, licking them before he once more tangles his tongue with mine. Our kiss isn’t gentle, it’s brutal and angry and dominating.
This is what I want. To not think and just feel.
His other hand moves up my side, stroking over my skin until he has a handful of my breast and squeezes. Hard. I whimper, and I feel his smile against my lips as he moves to my nipple and pinches. I grip his shoulders tighter, moving my hands to the hair at the back of his head and gripping it tightly. He grunts, falling back so I’m on top of him again. His hips thrust upward and I moan as his cock slides against me. I move in tandem with each glide. With every roll of my hips the head of his cock nudges my clit, making my belly clench with what will inevitably come.
He slows his pace and I whine. He chuckles and I growl, biting his lower lip in return. “You know how I like to play,” he says against my lips. “Fuck. Do you see how good we can feel together?”
“I hate you,” I moan, rocking faster against him, feeling the warmth of his hard cock and he lets me, groaning as he looks between us and sees his cock moving through my folds.
“Then hate me some more, my little wolf, and ride my fingers until you come.” He keeps a hand in my hair and moves his other one down, skirting his fingers around my belly button until they lower. He presses a finger to my clit, circling softly, never stopping his thrusts and I release a loud moan, trembling as the pleasure builds within me. But I feel so empty, clenching on nothing and I let out a soft whimper.
“I know what you need,” Darius growls, and moves his fingers further down, touching all of me and feeling how his cock is sliding through my folds with ease. He stops his thrusts suddenly, and then he’s pushing two fingers inside of me with no mercy. My head falls back, his hand in my hair keeping me steady as he sits back up and his lips go to my neck, tasting, sucking, biting.
“Gods,” I whimper, clutching his arms.
“Heir,” he corrects on a groan that vibrates against the skin of my neck. “Fuck, so tight, do you feel how much your pussy wants something to fill it? How much it wants me to fill it?“ I moan at his words as he pumps them in and out of me, the sound of how wet I am turning me on even more. My body starts to tremble, my orgasm building already. “You’re close, aren’t you,” he breathes against my neck, then licks up and along my jaw. “Give it to me, little wolf. I want to feel you strangling my fingers, I want you to soak them. I’ve waited months for a taste again, to have you on my tongue. I would make myself come with the thought of it, waking up and having to fuck my fist at the thought of you. So give it to me,” he snarls. He moves his thumb up to my clit and presses down hard as he adds a third finger.
“Darius,” I moan, clenching around him as I move my hips up and down, riding him faster as I near the edge. “Fuck.” Darius leans me further back, keeping his grip on the back of my head to hold me as his mouth comes to my nipple and bites down.
My orgasm barrels through me, my pussy pulsing, my back arching as he growls against my skin, listening to my moans as he continues to ram his fingers into me. My body trembles and my eyes flutter shut as aftershocks wrack my body, and I become pliant in his hold. Just like he said I would.
I’m grabbed and turned, my back hitting the soft furs as my legs fall around his waist. “Good girl,” Darius growls, and I make a soft noise at the back of my throat before I peel my eyes open. I whimper as I watch his hand glide over his cock, his fingers glistening with my orgasm as he stares between my legs. His stare is possessive and so full of heat that my body does a full shiver, my legs twitching.
Darius strokes faster, his breaths becoming ragged, and then his eyes snap up to mine before he tilts his head back and releases a deep groan. Ropes of cum land on my pussy, thighs and stomach, and I watch the corded muscle of his tattooed neck strain from his release.
“Those fucking eyes,” he breaths when he stops stroking himself and leans forward. Hands land beside my head, making sure not to crush me with his weight as he looks deep into my eyes. He brings a hand up, and I watch as he brings his fingers to his mouth and sucks them clean of me, his eyes closing a second as he makes a satisfied sound. He then moves his hand down to my pussy, and I jolt as he smears his cum over my clit. Bringing his hand back up, he touches his fingers to my lips and they part in an instant, tasting him until I can’t any more. He leans down and kisses me, and I can taste myself as his tongue spears into my mouth, not caring that he can also taste his own cum as he kisses me until I’m boneless on the bed.
He sits back, rubbing over my body and I realize he’s rubbing his cum into my skin where it landed, making sure I have his scent. I’m too tired to care what I look like, but he must like what he sees as his eyes flare with heat again. “Laeliah,” he murmurs, and my heart skips a beat. He leans down and takes my lips with his again. This is more gentle, soft, but still so possessive. I’m once again lifted and turned until Darius is on his back and I’m laying fully on his chest, never once breaking the kiss until I eventually pull back.
“I need to clean up,” I murmur against him. Ignoring what he said. I can’t make myself regret what we did, not with how relaxed I feel after so long, but I need to wash up.
“No,” he says, guiding my head to his neck and I breathe him in, unable to stop myself. His heart pounds against mine as I lay on top of him, and he runs his fingers over my back. Up and down, up and down. Sometimes he goes in a diagonal move, starting from the top to the bottom, sometimes his fingers trail in a straight line, sometimes he only moves them half way down my back until he goes to the top again.
My mind is in a content haze as I sigh and relax on top of him, letting his touch soothe me. He makes quiet sounds as he strokes over my skin, like it’s settling him too. His other hand comes to the back of my head and he runs his fingers through my tangled hair, carefully getting out all the knots whilst still moving over my back with his other hand.
It isn’t until I’m in a half asleep state that I begin to realize that his fingers on my back aren’t just mindlessly moving. There’s a pattern to them, to the trail they make over my skin like in the bathroom. It’s meticulous, a constant pressure that’s gentle, but knowing.
He’s following the pattern of scars that he put on my back from when he whipped me.