“You already know the answer to that, Little Conduit.”
That low, rasping growl of his had a touch more bite to it this time, sending a shiver up my spine.
Lucky me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
KIERAN
Careful, pretty girl.
I had already slowed down on the gin with my next pour—this would be more than enough to get me drunk. And drunk was, regrettably, exactly what I needed to be right now in order to numb my daemons long enough to put them in chains, to ease the harsh bite of my own self-loathing long enough that I could swallow it. I needed to shove it all down before it pulled me under.
I wasn’t about to drag her to Hel with me. Not like that, anyway. But my grip on my self-control was always tenuous at best around Arken, and I swore on the fuckin’ Source, if she tried to pull my hair like that again…
No. Don’t go there. You’re in no place to dominate her tonight.
I ceded to my conscience as the liquor began to heat my blood, tempering my senses.
But I could still make good on that promise. I could still fuck her up. I’d already had plenty of fun with Arken’s littlemasochistic streak, even without a formal power exchange between us. And I didn’t need her submission to shove her up against a wall and fuck her hard and fast and messy—just the way she liked it.
One of these days, however…
The liquor had done its job. Memories of the day circled the drain, replaced by nothing except her. Only her.
And I watched her with darkening pleasure as she bit down and suckled at her lower lip—the absent-minded, anxious habit of hers the main reason I’d developed a taste for her blood on my tongue. Between her restless mind and the inherent aggression of our kisses, that pink and plush little thing was almost permanently split as of late.
“Am I making you nervous, Ark?”
Arken took a long sip of her drink before responding.
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said. “I like you nervous.”
The haze of the gin had set in, clearly loosening my lips. I studied the way Arken’s flushed chest seemed to rise and fall a little faster now, enraptured by the way those perfect breasts strained against the bodice of her dress.
“Is that so?” she murmured.
“Yeah.” If she wanted an explanation, the girl would have to work for it. I wasn’t in the most forthcoming state of mind, and I liked watching those gears turn like clockwork behind her golden eyes.
But Hel, she was so fucking sexy. Hard to resist, and so much harder to deny. I watched greedily as she tipped her head back, throat bobbing while she drained what remained of the whiskey in her glass. She wasn’t quite catching up to me and my daemons, but the girl was a lightweight, which meant she was getting just as drunk as I was.
The notion thrilled me for some reason, and it made my cock hard.
Distantly, I knew that urge was rather unlike me, but at the same time…Gods,I had wanted to fuck Arken in some state of inebriation ever since that first night I saw her get drunk atThe Clover, watching the way her body moved, transfixed by the way a touch of liquor on her tongue seemed to loosen her up.
It was a strange thing for me to crave, because consent was so critical to me that I very, very rarely took anyone to bed while intoxicated. I had always required lucid, enthusiastic consent from a partner to even get it up.
But I had grown very, very well-versed in what constituted Arken’s consent over the last few days. It was as if her body spoke a language that only I knew how to interpret, and because of that, I knew damn well that my Little Conduit had been craving my cock long before that whiskey ever touched her lips. And I knew she was still craving it now. I was so enthralled by the way she was looking at me, so interested to see what else might loosen between us—what secrets we might expose under the influence of both liquorandlust.
Arken’s lashes lowered as she tilted her head toward me, not intimidated. Just curious. Intrigued.
“And why is that, Captain?” she asked, her honey-sweet voice a little huskier than usual.
“Because I am a very, very depraved individual,” I replied, the words rolling off my tongue thick and slow.
“Mmm,” she mused, studying me over her glass. Again, I watched those gears turn as she interpreted my words, calculating…extracting her preferred translation. “I couldn’t tell.”