Vexed: A Tidal Kiss Novella (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 5) Read online

  “I know you’re a murderer. I know you love it. I know you want nothing more than to give into every single thing that the darkness wants for you,” Vex whispers, face delicious in its mask of wicked intent, and I scowl, turning on my heel.

  “You can just sit here and ponder what else you fucking know then… alone. I’m going to bed.” I turn on the spot, done with the conversation and move over to the bartender.

  “Can I have the keys for the rooms?” I ask him, and he nods, passing me both keys, which are in the form of weird credit card type devices. I stare at them a moment, alcohol impairing my usual mental speed as I pass one back to him.

  “Give that guy this one. I don’t want to be bothered.” Not waiting for his reply, I spin, storming past several tables full of men drinking, no doubt beyond what they can reasonably handle.

  I see more holly, more mistletoe, hanging overhead as I begin to climb the rickety and uneven staircase twisting its way around the back of the bar and up to the top floor.

  As I slide my hand along the wooden bannister, I catch Vex’s eyes tracing my every motion like a predator, and I shudder, unable to contain my disgust. I ignore him, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing I’m aware of him at all.

  Reaching the top of the staircase, I find myself presented with a small, hideously decorated corridor. I look down at the key in my palm. There’s a total of three rooms that I can see, and I find my room is the one at the far end of the hallway. I’m glad of this and so move forward with haste, craving solitude and the darkness within, with which I will finally be alone. Something I had not thought I’d miss.

  I slide the key into a slot beneath the golden door handle and push on the thick, dark wood of the door, stumbling slightly as I flick on the light and feel another wave of intoxication hit me. The room is simple, crimson walls, black carpet and a mahogany four-poster bed draped in onyx velvet. It’s decadent, surprising considering not only how the rest of this trip seems to have gone, but also how grotty the corridor outside is.

  I stand on the threshold of the room, letting the door close behind me and leaning against it as the deep, rich woods of the space, paired with the bloody red of the walls, become too much, too hearty. I turn the light back off and exhale as I stride across the carpet, reaching the matching black velvet of the curtains draping the narrow, frosted glass of the window pane. It looks out over the Cathedral, and then, as I twist, I see it also has a view of the graveyard where she’s buried. I move to close the curtains, and as I do, relief falls over me in waves. Tears come to my eyes, and his words echo out in my mind.

  Scared little girl.

  You’re a murderer.

  Your pain doesn’t make you special, Azure.

  I know you want to give into every single thing that the darkness wants for you.

  I allow myself to cry as I close the drapes and fall into the bed, letting the shadows fall over me, letting myself experience the loss of everything I had wanted so badly for my daughter. The main reason I’m crying, though, isn’t because of the pain I’ve carried for years. It’s because of Vex. Because he can see through me in a way that I can’t explain. He makes me feel bare, exposed. I can’t hide from him, not in the way I usually do. My usual defences seem to melt at the way he goes right for the jugular, for the truth. He rips off all the Band-Aids without regard for anything other than being honest, and I hate him for it.

  I want to live in denial, to not care, and yet, the way he’s been mirroring myself back at me lately, he’s making me realise that maybe what I am can’t be changed, can’t be tamed or escaped.

  Perhaps I have no choice but to give in and be what I’ve always been. Perhaps he’s right when he says that I was chosen to rule the Psirens not for my kindness, for my goodness, but for the fact I have the capacity for rage that is unrivalled and an ability to make decisions without emotional attachment because sometimes I really just don’t give a damn.

  I ponder the last few days, the turmoil of it all building inside me as I let salt dry on my cheeks, and my fists ball in the velvet of the sheets, wrecked beyond repair, as perhaps I have always been.

  After what feels like an hour, I hear a knock at the door. I wonder if I’ve mistaken the time, if I’ve cried the whole night away, and it’s housekeeping or something. I get to my feet and part the dark curtains before emerging into the cold air of the room, switching on a bedside lamp and wiping my cheeks dry of tears. I feel better, more like myself, but something is missing.

  My mind is clear, clean, refreshed, and yet, I’m still not angry, still not as powerful in substance as I had once been. I reach the door and take a deep breath, not wanting to give away how upset I’ve been, before turning the handle and revealing him standing there.

  “I’m sorry,” is his only sentiment. The look on his face, the way he cares makes me feel physically sick.

  “You were right,” I reply, and he blinks once, then twice.

  “I… I was…” he asks me, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “I am a murderer. I am at war with the darkness inside me. I always have been. Are you happy now?” I cock my hip, angry and on the cusp of sober, as I feel myself naked under the scrutiny of his gaze. He comes in close to me, wrapping his arm around my waist. I let him.

  “I am; I adore your darkness, Love. Your strength. Your rage. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You shouldn’t be so ashamed.” He looks down into my eyes, and I exhale, bringing up my hand to slap him across the face. My palm makes contact with him, but rather than moving away or flinching, he takes the blow, moving with it and looking down at me with pity in his gaze. Not the reaction I was intending.

  “What was that for?” he whispers, not angry, but instead, hurt. I feel my rage building at his lack of action, his lack of retort, as he grabs my hand in his and clutches it gently. I don’t know what to say, what to do. I want him to bite, to give me the relief I seek at being the source of his fury. I just know I need to hurt him, need to destroy him for making me feel this way, making me feel any way when I have so long desired to feel nothing at all.

  Digging my fingers into his neck, I ram my lips onto his, sliding my tongue into his mouth and tasting the smoke on his skin. I bite down, letting a dark sanguine allure loose as I devour him, addicted instantly to the surprised pain in his groan and the metallic ash of his blood.

  Pulling him across the threshold, I slam the door behind us as we disappear, entangled, into the dark.

  Chapter Eight

  Supermassive Black Hole

  I break the kiss, ramming my palms into the solidity of his chest and sending him reeling backwards before he slams into the bottom left post of the bed. His eyes are wicked, his breathing ragged, and neither of us speak. I merely take the space between us, closing it as I slap him across the face for good measure. I can’t have him mistaking this for affection.

  Grabbing me around the waist he pulls me to him. I resist, not to the full of my potential, but I cannot claim total helplessness as my body smashes, flush, into his. I feel the ripple of his abdominals beneath his shirt as I grip his wrists, twisting his hands behind him and holding him hostage around the bedpost. I feel a smile grace my lips, one packed full of malicious intent.

  “You need to be punished… don’t you Vex?” I whisper in his ear, no longer afraid of what’s happening between us.

  It’s been inevitable from the start.

  “Oh, Love… I thought you’d never bloody ask,” he growls against my neck as his lips trace me and his teeth nip at my skin. I continue to restrain him against the bed with one hand, both of us standing upright, as I take my hand and begin to caress the solid mass beneath the denim of his jeans. It was immediate as soon as our lips met, and I let my fingernails dig into the plump, firm, flesh of him, which throbs beneath my grasp.

  He growls, twisting away from my touch and enclosing me on both sides with his arms. Manoeuvring my weight seamlessly into his place, he positions me with rough, clumsy dir
ection so I’m facing the bedpost. My grip on him dissolves now, becoming intentionally flimsy as I lean forward and take the post in my hands.

  He brings one palm up around my throat, using the weight of his body and the stiff fleshy tentacle in his pants to push me into the wood. He uses his free hand to reach around, moving it down to my jeans, which he unbuttons within moments before slipping his fingers inside my panties.

  I fight it, but a small groan escapes my lips, much to my dismay. I don’t want him to know how much I crave this, crave him, and the incredible release my hatred for everything about him will surely drive me to.

  “That’s it, Love… that’s right,” he purrs in my ear, encouraging my pleasure as his own breathing becomes ragged, and he rubs the length of his erection along the curve of my ass, causing his breath to falter. The noises of both our resistance make the atmosphere between us crackle with self-appropriated heat.

  “Mmm. Fuck.” I exclaim, breaking his spell over me with my own words as I spin in his arms, the weight of him loosening each time he thrusts against my behind.

  “You like that?” he asks me, cocking his head and slipping off his jacket. His biceps bulge in the dark, and his pupils dilate as he brings a hand up to my chin, tracing my jawbone and collecting my hair in his grasp before he gives it a tug.

  “Why would you think that?” I bait him, narrowing my eyes as I’m forced to look up at him, licking his blood from my bottom lip.

  “You’re trembling, Love. Trembling for me…” he smiles, glee too evident on his cocky mouth, the darkness of his eyes gleaming with arousal and the hundreds of ghosts from the purely filthy possibilities running through his little dirty mind.

  “It’s cold in here.” I keep my expression deadpan as he looks to the drapes of the bed with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Mhmm. I see. Nothing to do with the fact I make you want to let go, make you want to give into all those dirty little urges that have been niggling at you ever since the day we met?” he insists, taking a step backwards and pulling his shirt over his head before throwing it to the floor. His muscles are cut like ice, sharp, in the cold moonlight, which drips in through the gap of the curtains, and I lean back against the post, pulling my sweater over my head so I’m stood in just my bra. My nipples protrude through the lace, obvious, taunting him.

  “My body disagrees with that theory.” I bite my bottom lip as a growl explodes from Vex’s chest and he practically charges at me. I take a step left before he reaches me, knocking me back through the black velvet drapes. I’m splayed among the onyx sheets within seconds of impact as he kneels in front of me.

  I won’t let him top me; I refuse, so instead I get to my knees too, meeting him full force in a fusion of kissing and biting, letting blood from his lips and tongue run across my pale skin as he devours my neck with vigour.

  “Doesn’t look very bloody disagreeable to me, sweet.” He brings his hands around me, and I run my long nails down the length of his back as hard as I can. His throat lets sound escape as we struggle in the clutches of this oxymoronic passion, each of us not wanting to let the other know just how much pleasure we are enduring at the hands of the other.

  My rage builds, giving me an erotic thrill as I feel his breathing quicken even further while my breasts push against the rapid beating of his blackened heart.

  “There’s nothing sweet about me,” I gasp as he runs his tongue up the side of my neck. Gripping both my hands and binding them behind me, the veins of his biceps bulge blue under the translucent pallor of his skin.

  “I bet you taste sweet. Like a sweet, dark, fucking cherry,” he whispers in my ear, and I close my eyes, feeling my eyelids flutter as the space between my legs begins to ache, making me furious.

  I don’t want to succumb, don’t want to let go, but he’s forcing my hand in the most blatantly inescapable way possible.

  Holding me down with his weight, he pushes me back to the pillows, taking my bra and ripping it in two so the lace falls, flimsy, from where it’s been barely covering the swell of my nipples.

  He looks down at me, licking his bottom lip before taking each of my breasts in turn and caressing them in concentrically smaller circles with his tongue. I scrutinise him, not breaking eye contact for a second as his teeth graze me with irritating agony in all the right places. I whimper, gritting my teeth, furious, as I start to burn for him, the desire to screw him into submission growing with every passing motion of his tongue against my flesh.

  Having had enough of his deviancy, I grab his head between my hands and bring my knees up so my feet are pushing against his chest, kicking him back with such force that he rolls onto his back, head hanging back off the foot of the bed, splayed and helpless. I grin, my heart pounding in my chest as I yank off his jeans in a quick motion and then straddle him, still wearing my own.

  I push the seam of my jeans into the hard length of him as he ebbs, hot between my thighs, and his mouth opens into a supermassive black hole of ecstasy, held back only by the restraint he’s gathering from the dark power raging within. I run my nails down his neck, scratching and leaving bloody trails down his body as my fingertips descend, tracing the definition of his pectorals, and then abdominals, curving around the deliciously dark v of his waist, where flesh usually fades to tentacle, and grabbing his disgustingly attractive length with both hands. He groans as I pull his foreskin back over the head, fluid spurting from him, and bend down, licking it up and watching as he tenses. A mangled cry of pleasure is unwillingly let loose as the salt of him disperses over my tongue, and I smile, gazing up at him, continuing to move my hand and pleasure him with unrelenting sincerity.

  I watch as he bucks like a prize stallion, his body straining and helpless as I pin him with my weight, leaning forward and biting gently down on his neck, just above where his carotid pulses with the rush of his lust filled blood.

  “Fuck! You’re going to make me…” he exclaims, so I still, removing my hand from him and letting his length fall flat against the too tense ridges of his six pack.

  “You bitch!” he curses, sitting up and grabbing me by the shoulders. I smile at him, wickedness drenching me, as I cock my head and purse my lips with the satisfaction of denying him release.

  “You want it, come and get it,” I purr, reaching down to my jeans and touching myself just to frustrate him further. I let my fingers explore my folds and curves, slick and hot to touch as he watches me, starvation lacing his expression.

  I hang my head back in surrender to my own intent and moan, the only sounds audible over me being that of him sputtering, his breath coming fast and hard, as desperation poisons each inhale like that of a rabid, starving dog.

  He lunges at me, ripping my jeans off, and I roll back onto the sheets as he had done just minutes before, helpless to the momentum of his weight as he uses my own ploy against me. He grabs me by the hair, pulling me to my knees and slamming me into one of the wooden posts of the bed yet again.

  “Hold on or I’ll spank you raw,” he promises darkly.

  “That’s not much of a deterrent,” I snort, and he brings his fingers up, ripping the underside of my panties wide open as I clutch at the wood before me. I expect him to take me, to bury himself into me and punish me for teasing him so, but he doesn’t. I brace myself for the impact of him from behind, but it never comes.

  Instead, I feel him pinning my ankles to the bed before, moments later, his tongue slips up into me.

  I inhale sharply in surprise, the pleasure too intense as he laps at me, softly opening my hot orifice and trailing down to my clitoris, taking his own damn leisurely time.

  “Mmm,” he laughs at my surprise, his chuckle vibrating at my tender aching skin, which only becomes wetter as he whispers. “Just like cherries, black cherries. I knew there was a part of you that was still sweet. Even if it is the most filthy, beautiful part.” His words almost undo me as he goes back to working with his tongue, sucking and caressing the epicentre of my surrender over and over again
, until I feel myself ready to empty right into his mouth, delivering the sweet nectar he desires against my will.

  I cry out, and my muscles begin to tense as I reach the edge, but he stops, running his tongue down the inside of my left thigh, and digging his teeth into my ass with an audible chuckle. I exhale heavily, furious as I turn over my shoulder and glare at him.

  “Two can play at that game, Love,” he promises, collapsing onto his back and placing his hands behind his head, presenting himself to me. I climb atop him, but he grabs my wrists as I move to bend forward, to take him deep inside and ride him dry.

  “Uh, uh, uh.” He stills me atop him, and I scowl.

  “What? Don’t tell me you’re not man enough for the job now…” I goad him, and he smirks.

  “Oh, no, Love. More than up to the task… it’s just… I want you to own it. Take it like it’s your god given fucking right. I’m not going to give it to you. Oh, no. That would be far too simple. Don’t you see? I want you to take it. Steal it if you have to. If you want it, you work for it, my sweet, black cherry. Let go.” He whispers these final two words, sending a shudder through me. I feel my eyes dilate to black; the rage, which I’ve been denying truly belongs to me, returning full force as my arousal reaches its peak.

  I’m done playing games. I’m done fucking around. I just want the release I deserve. The release he’s withholding from me like a prize asshole of the deep.

  He watches me, a smile of pure, unrestrained pleasure taking over his face as I feel the evil run loose like a tsunami of desire through my veins, setting my skin on fire.

  “Happy now?” I ask him, gazing down at him, superior, as dark lines map my skin.

  “I’m about to fuck the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen into sodding oblivion. Wouldn’t you be?” he asks me. I observe him from above as his eyes trace my nakedness. I take his hands in mine, running my nails up his forearms before pinning his wrists above his head, stealing what belongs to me, and that which he is so happy to withhold.