Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“Oh yes.” He presses into me, gliding in and out in a movement so slight I could be imagining it. It’s strange to feel someone inside me trying to be a part of me.
Rex rolls his hips, and his cock hits a new spot deep inside me. Lighting flashes down my limbs and spine, followed by a rapidly spreading warmth. Pleasure coils deep inside me, ready to burst and carry me over.
“Yes, that’s it.” He’s triumphant, knowing he can command my body this way. I squeeze down on his cock, and his eyelids flutter. “Fuck,” he mutters, dropping his head so his silky hair tickles my face.
I do it again, milking his organ with my inner muscles. He groans, and I know he’s in my thrall as much as I’m in his.
I curl my fingers, trying to hold onto the moment. “I want to touch you,” I whisper.
He pauses and reaches up to unhook the cuffs. “You can’t escape,” he reminds me. He’s serious and intent. I place my fingers on his beautiful lips and smile. He knows how his control sets me free.
I run my hands over his chest and trace the thickened weals of his scars. “Where did you get these?” There’s a particularly brutal one at his left shoulder, a slash in front of the joint. I try to imagine what sort of wound would leave such a large mark.
“Hunting.”
My fingers still. “You mean killing.” The scar under my hands is a few inches from his heart. Some of his prey fought back.
“You know what I am, little bird.” He takes my hand and kisses it before clamping his hand over the leather cuff and pressing my wrist to the bed. “You’re the only one who knows.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue. Why me? I want to know this more than anything.
But I don’t ask. I’m afraid.
Instead, I rock my hips to meet his. He gasps and pins my other hand. Dark fire blazes in his eyes. “You’re ready for me.” And he begins to thrust. His cock rubs the top of my entrance, and goosebumps break out over my body.
In my mind’s eye, I see our auras rising up together. His darkness and a blazing chaos of red and orange. Light meets the shadow and consumes it like a phoenix burning bright.
“Inara,” Rex calls, and I surge upward, claiming his mouth with mine as the fire licks along the bed.
The sweat beads on my face, and I’m shouting, hoarse, as the heat blasts my skin from my bones. The phoenix is rising, leaving the world behind and crumbling to ash.
And we are one.
27
Inara
I rise like a ghost from Rex’s bed. He’s still there, I think, tangled in the sheets, asleep. Or maybe he’s gone, and I’ve only imagined that he still slumbers.
In bare feet and a silk robe, I walk the halls of the Roy’s great house. Somehow, I know exactly where I’m going. There are other ghosts in the walls, laughing, murmuring, dancing to the sweet song of violins. Over a hundred years of the history of lives lived and now long gone. I move quickly to avoid them all.
But something stops me. In a long corridor of locked doors, one door is left ajar.
I enter and find a child’s bedroom, complete with a set of toys. There’s no dust or cobwebs, and the air is heavy, undisturbed, but the bed is fresh as if it had been made this morning.
Maybe it was.
The windows overlook the gardens. I can imagine the little boy standing here, a shock of raven-black hair. He completes the puzzles his mother bought for him and sets up the city of blocks. The tiny buildings are replicas of ones in New Rome. There’s the park and Hotel Magnifique with the lion statues and the white Corinthian columns. Above it all, the skyscraper with a sign declaring it belongs to Roy Enterprises.
A little boy pretending he’s king of the city.
On impulse, I open a drawer, half expecting to find children’s clothes. Instead, there’s a wooden box with a golden lion’s head on the top.
I shouldn’t continue, but I can’t stop myself. The box opens to a bundle of papers and notebooks. The top one is a leather-bound journal, again bearing the golden lion’s head of the Roy crest.
I open the journal. The first page has a name scrawled in the top right corner. Rex Roy.
The next page reads, “Yesterday was the memorial for Mother and Father. Hamish made me go. The adults all wore black and whispered, but none of them looked really sad. They saw me and said “poor boy” behind their hands. One man told me I was brave. I told him the coffins were empty, so this ceremony meant nothing. He patted my shoulder and said my parents had done great things for the city. He meant their money. I suppose no one’s really sad because there’s still money for the city.