Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 4
“You do whatever he tells you to. Now go.”
She waited as I hesitated. It was now clear there was no escaping this, and that informing her of my inexperience would be pointless.
So I gripped the railing tight and waded down to the second floor.
Adrenaline fled. Terror froze my feet to the floor before the closed purple door of room twelve. The room sat at the end of the hall. Firelight in the lone lamp upon the wall caused the aged brass of the numbers one and two to darken and then glow.
Could I truly do this? Not only was I ill-prepared, but apparently, I was also a coward.
The silence of the entire floor was too telling. Too stifling. Indeed, the rooms had been masked by spell-work to keep all sound trapped within.
Claws, sharp and sinking, dug deep into my stomach.
I shifted over the cool wood floor beneath my bare feet, unsure how I should proceed.
Was I supposed to knock or simply enter the room and introduce myself? Would he decide to just get straight to... business? What would such business entail when it was a transaction? I had some idea of what to expect when I one day gave myself to another, and I’d imagined passion, heat, and a magic that could not be explained. Would this gent want any such thing?
Perhaps he was expecting me to merely offer myself and forget about any enjoyment of my own. Was I permitted to enjoy it? What if I loathed it? How should one even offer themselves? Naked? Half clothed? Sprawled upon the bed and hopefully not shaking with fear of the unknown?
Behind me, the stairs halfway down the hall tempted like an alluring siren I wasn’t sure I could muster the courage to become.
If I fled, then I would face yet another gigantic setback and certain danger. Like so many with business in the middle lands, Morin would have people to punish those who dared to disrespect her. If I stayed, then I would face the stranger awaiting the use of my body on the other side of the door that seemed to pulse with the uneven thud of my heart.
As if plucking a piece of broken glass from my foot, I seized the handle with gritted teeth and opened the door.
Of course, the first thing I noticed was the bed. Deep purple gauze was secured with black ribbon to the four posts surrounding it. It waited dressed in similar colored bedding in the center of the far wall.
I saw nothing else.
My teeth unglued, my attention stolen by the commanding presence of my first client.
He stood at an oak liquor cabinet mere feet from where I was frozen in the doorway, his hair only a shade lighter than the rippling black silk of his loose shirt. I drew in his staggering height, then the long fingers leaving the crystal decanter of whiskey he set down.
The most beautiful man I’d ever seen turned, his thick hair whispering over a broad shoulder. “You’re late.”
I was unable to keep my eyes from widening as my heartbeat stalled.
Man was the wrong word.
Every inch of him was pure and cold-blooded faerie.
My heart restarted with a violent patter. Unsure how to respond—how to talk at all—I uttered dumbly, “I am?”
He stilled, and I knew I’d displeased him. The air changed, growing chilled with talons and teeth as he turned in full.
I almost wished he hadn’t.
His eyes were a blue so deep, they resembled the sky before an evening storm. Fringed in dark lashes, their uncompromising weight caused my heart to cease racing in my chest.
It stopped beating entirely as the male’s thick brows furrowed and he gave the glass of whiskey to his parting mouth. His nose was strong and straight without a trace of past injury, and his lips so full I couldn’t help but wonder how soft they’d feel against my own when he lowered the glass.
He licked them, and my stomach tightened. The odd sensation worsened when he swallowed the liquor.
Hypnotized by the dipping of his throat, my gaze traversed the olive skin as though I could follow the whiskey’s journey into his body. A body that, even covered in clothing, overwhelmed. Burning with shame and something I failed to recognize, I couldn’t remove my eyes from the small smattering of dark hair revealed where he’d left his shirt unbuttoned at his throat.
His voice was bark wrapped in silk. His order one I didn’t even consider disobeying as he said with quiet authority, “Do close the door.”
I tore my eyes from his chest and turned to do as he said, using the opportunity to take a moment. I took a few more as I locked the wooden barrier with the golden chain, unable to believe what I’d just done.
I’d blatantly ogled my client.
A client of whom I’d need to bed.
A male of whom was both breathtakingly beautiful and extremely terrifying.
As though he could read my mind, and likely scent what I was undoubtedly flooding the room with, humor thickened his tone. “Do you not wish to look at me some more?”
My cheeks caught fire. “I apologize. You just...” I turned back, but found I couldn’t meet his eyes. I fastened my own upon the large velvet divan beside me. “Well, I suppose you shocked me.”
Shocked was putting it mildly.
It was not for me to discern why anyone visited this establishment, but curiosity had me wondering what beneath the stars would possess such a creature to pay for pleasure? He had no need, surely, regardless of whatever his tastes may be.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
I shook my head and clasped my hands before me to keep them from trembling. “I wasn’t told anything about whom I would uh...” I winced, deciding on, “I would meet.”
The faerie said nothing for a moment, but his attention was a frost pressing upon every part of me. I heard him swallow as he drained the whiskey. The glass hit the wood behind him with a thud that nearly made me jump.
“Frightened, little butterfly?”
At that, I looked at his brown leather boots. They were giant and pointed at the toes. “No.”
“If you’re going to be so bold as to lie, you will at least do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye while you do.”
His crisp words washed the heat from my cheeks. My spine locked, every instinct screaming to flee.
I could already hear Madam Morin’s threatening disapproval, so I did as he wished. I met his gaze, expecting to find a glower—more displeasure within the endless dark blue.
Instead, I found a calm stillness to his features, rendering them sharp like stone, and a studious glow that brightened his eyes. “Much better,” he murmured, and his head tilted slightly. “Now try again.”
“Try again?” I asked, confused.
“Answering the question.”
Oh. I squeezed my fingers together.
It was growing abundantly clear that I was doomed.
Whoever this male was, he was not from Crustle. His demeanor, the power roiling from him like a second shadow carried as an ever-fluttering invisible cloak, was too much.
It was as lethal and true to every word I’d heard and read of those with enhanced magical abilities. Of those native to Folkyn.
He was going to punish me by speaking of my incompetence and disrespect to Madam Morin. I could feel it. Or worse, he might even hurt and humiliate me until he’d felt I’d sufficiently learned my lesson.
At a loss for what to do, I bit the inside of my cheek and felt the sting of tears grow stronger.
All the while the creature radiating a power that shortened each breath did not blink. He waited for my answer, lashes curled toward his dark brows.
My chest tightened and tightened. I’d never felt more trapped, more like prey, as this faerie refused to set me free of his gaze. “I’m nervous,” I finally confessed, my words rasped. “And scared, yes.”
His blank expression did not change. “Was that very difficult to admit?”
“No,” I said, but when his head cocked, I corrected myself. “Y-yes.”
“Why?” he asked, his eyes never leaving mine as he crossed from the liquor cabinet to the divan. The nearing of such energy, of all that he was, raised the hair on my arms. “Because I frighten you?”
“I do not know you...” I stopped, for I was digging a deeper grave with every passing minute.
He huffed and lowered to the divan with eye-drawing grace, his form far too large although the seat was designed for two. “Try again.”
“Yes, you frighten me,” I admitted, turning to fully face him.
He placed his leg over the other, black trousers snug over muscular thighs. “What is your name, butterfly?”
I attempted to choose from the many names I’d always dreamed of having. In the end, I knew he’d see any of them for the lie they were. “I do not have one.”
That earned a surprised lift of his brow. He repeated in a slow drawl, “You do not have one.”
I shook my head.
He hummed. The arm spreading atop the divan caused his shirt to open more at his chest. “Come closer.”
Unsure how close he wanted me, I stopped mere inches from where he sat.
His leg dropped. “Closer.” My heart kicked at my sternum as his scent, an earthy caramel, deepened and lured. His knees opened, revealing the hard bulge at his groin that threatened to burst the seam of his pants.
My eyes stayed fastened upon it a moment too long, but thankfully, he did not comment.
“Closer,” he almost rasped. When I stood right between his knees, he said, “Yes, stop.”
The heat of him was overwhelming. A warmth so crystal sharp, it burned like the touch of iced water.
My lips parted, and my stomach clenched, as he stared at my mouth while saying, “Much better.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He spoke before I could feel forced to say anything at all. “Surely, the people of this bustling town must call you something.” The word bustling was said as though he’d meant rotten.
“Flea,” I said. “My guardian called me Flea.”
His bark of laughter was unexpected, the throaty melody transforming his features from mouthwatering perfection carved from marble to ethereal. The sound died far too quickly for my liking as he said, “I do hope you’re trying to evade giving me an honest answer. If so”—he dragged his teeth over his bottom lip—“you are rapidly improving in the art of deception.”
“I wish I were,” I said quietly, attempting to smile.
His features flattened, eyes flaring so fast and bright, they turned an iced blue. The temperature in the room dropped. Before I could understand why, the faerie licked his teeth behind closed lips. “This guardian must have truly loathed you.”
“She did.” And I couldn’t avoid recalling the one time I’d asked Rolina if she would call me something else—couldn’t help but lose the nervous excitement that had thickened my blood as I remembered what my request had been met with.
Laughter followed by a slap across the face.
“Where is she now?” the male asked softly, daringly—as if he had already guessed.
“Dead.”
Another hum. “This pleases you.”
I shouldn’t have said anything, but he was crossing a line I did not think needed to be crossed. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”
I awaited reprimand. A demand to divulge whatever he sought.
It never came.
“Very well.” I stared at him in surprise and felt the tension slowly leave my shoulders. “But I will not call you such a thing.”
I nodded once, my lips unwilling to open.
His chest rose and fell with a deep inhale as his eyes briefly left mine to traverse my body. “Do you like that gown?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
Confused by all his questions when I thought he’d only wish to get to know my body, I couldn’t help but gently ask, “Why do you care to know?”
He laid his other arm over the headrest of the seat, fingers stroking lazily along the steep angle of his hair-peppered jaw. It firmed under his touch as he studied me. “You are brave.” Noting the furrowing of my brow, he explained, “To ask anything of me unless it pertains to how you can please me.”
I knew I had to, though it still irked me to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” he said, his teeth flashing bright as they caught his pointer finger. “I do not think you are.”
I flushed, loathing it.
“Answer the question, and perhaps I shall forgive your carelessness.”
My eyes met his, and in them, I found a darkness gathering. His thumb rubbed his upper lip. “It itches,” I said, tracking that movement intently. “The dress.”
“Then take it off.” It was not a request and also not an order. It was not a suggestion, either. Rather, the words grazed the skin like the daring tickle of a blade’s point.
A taunting test.
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. I was here to do more than undress for him, and it seemed it was time for the reason he’d visited this pleasure house.
Yet fear did not seize me as I’d guessed it would. As I clutched the mass of material at my hips and pulled upward until the entire monstrosity was falling from my hands to the floor, a rush of unexpected liquid heat swept through me.
The heady taste of anticipation shocked as I looked from the pile of peach organza to the male whose eyes hadn’t left me.
My cream satin slip reached my thighs and showed almost half of my heavy breasts, the material sitting just shy of my nipples. I resisted the urge to fold my arms over my chest, and the urge to cover the wide flare of my hips.
My client’s hand had fallen slack, hanging beneath his hewn chin. But his expression remained impassive save for that glow of amusement in his gaze. I’d have worried that I wasn’t what he desired to indulge in until he said thickly, “Take a seat.”
I made to move from between his knees to the other side of the divan when his hand caught mine.
The touch singed and stilled.
Smooth and slightly roughened fingers curled around my own. “On my lap.”
I blinked, but he merely stroked his long fingers over mine and waited. I shivered, though I wasn’t the least bit cold. Then I awkwardly moved forward.
“May I touch you?”
My answer was whispered. “You already are.”
He smirked, all the warning he gave before he grasped my hips and lifted me as if I were nothing but feathers. My thighs fell astride his, my core close to his groin, and my hands splayed over his hard chest.
I withdrew one to tug at my slip before I could remember that it didn’t matter if he glimpsed between my thighs. Not when he was here to see and have all of me.
And as he snatched my hand to set it back on his chest, I was growing more excited than fearful of that by the second. “Much better,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if that were true. My heart pounded, and my stomach flipped.
Seeming to sense that, and I supposed he could, the male’s gaze momentarily dipped to my breasts. Slowly, it returned to mine as his hand slid up my back, tangling in my long curls. “Hair of pure snow and eyes of damp soil.”
My shoulders loosened, as did my fingers over his chest, when he gently traced the strands of hair at my back. “You are full faerie,” he said, almost a whisper, “yet so dreadfully innocent and full of heart.”
It hovered upon the edge of my tongue, the desire to refute his correct assessment. I didn’t. I watched his long lashes curl up and down as his eyes fell to my stomach, then to my thighs. “How is that possible, especially in a place such as this?”
I didn’t know he was referring to the middle lands in general until I said, “This is my first evening here,” and he smirked.
Apparently, he was well aware of that.
My eyes narrowed. “That is why you wished to meet with me?”
His lips lowered, eyes roaming back up my chest to meet with mine. “I prefer not to waste time with those who don’t know how to please, but I will admit to being too curious for my own good.”
I wasn’t sure why a knot of disappointment formed at hearing him say that. Perhaps it was because I’d long-wished to experience many things, pleasure at the hands of another included, and maybe this was indeed a test.
One I was failing miserably.
Fingers clasped my chin. I hadn’t realized my gaze had fastened to the peeling ivory paint upon the wall behind the divan until it was forced to collide with the male’s once more. “I am not deterred.”
“You’re not?” I surprised myself by saying aloud.
His thumb brushed beneath my lower lip, his eyes following. “Something tells me you will be eager to please me.”
Irritation spiked, causing me to open my mouth when it would have been wise to remember who held the power in this room. “Presumptuous and awfully arrogant of you.”
His brows jumped, and I braced.
He chuckled again, and a relieved exhale left me. “Is it, though?” he asked, and the way his mouth curved distracted. So much so, that when he leaned forward, I grew tense again. “I can smell you, sweet creature. You’re aroused.”
Heat drenched my cheeks, and he skimmed the side of his finger over one. This close, I could make out a small scar at his hairline, and notice the way his pupils swelled while I studied his soft-looking mouth.
“Indeed.” He groaned, and the hand at my lower back pushed my body into his until his length sat flush against my core. “I cannot help but think you will please me more than what is good for me.”
My head swam from the contact and his throaty words. Dizzied and feeling drugged, I leaned back with my hands braced upon his chest, needing to breathe.
He didn’t seem to mind, his touch at my face remaining and tickling as he traced my cheekbone.
Fear slipped away as I watched him—his rapt focus as he absorbed my every feature. The arch of my brows and the crest of my lashes were gently brushed.
His curious touch and hungry gaze emboldened me to study him in kind.
He was giant yet lean. Beneath the loose silk that gaped at his defined chest were rock-hard muscles. My fingers hesitantly crawled down to his abdominals. His hardness twitched against my core. It shocked me still, and he clasped my cheek.
