Little Doll (Blackmoth House #1)

Chapter 2

Nova

Somehow, we made our way through all the people, and he led me through a plain white closed door. He opened it swiftly, ushered me in, then closed it just as quickly. We stepped into a dark room. It was dizzying stepping into a much quieter place and leaving the party behind the door. But it wasn’t completely quiet here, it was just a different sort of noise.

In only a few feet was the lady with the peacock mask astride a man who was lying on a chaise. Her bodice was open and huge breasts spilled out and bounced as she moved up and down on the man. Her copper hair had come loose and spilled messily around her face and over her creamy, bare shoulders. Her head tipped back, and her full red lips parted as she moaned obscenely. Despite her wealth of silky iridescent skirts, it was still obvious she was grinding herself against the man.

His head tipped back and off the edge of the chaise so that he was looking directly at me, his long black hair falling and reaching the floor. The man smiled broadly, although since I was viewing his masked face upside down, it looked more like a leering frown.

It was my brother Fane.

He stared at me with the impossibly wide grin while grabbing the peacock woman’s waist and moving her up and down. Despite the thumping sound of the music outside the door and the moans and cries of other couples in the room in various stages of undress and pleasure, I still heard him speak to the woman while keeping his eyes trained on me. “Bounce on my cock, love, bounce,” Fane crooned. The woman groaned and moved even faster, yelping each time she slammed down onto him.

I shuddered and jerked my eyes away from my brother, training them back on the masked stranger who’d led me here. I began to think I should rip my hand from his grasp and leave this devilish room, push through the crowd, leave this place altogether.

But tears came to my eyes as I remembered the incident with my father earlier in the evening, and that my life would end the following day. In truth, I was no stranger to romance. To stolen kisses and caresses in the dark, thanks to my mother’s legendary parties. However, it was all ending. Never again would I enjoy the opportunity to choose my own pleasures, my own delights. Never again would I get to choose whose hands I wanted on my body. Who I wanted to kiss. To lick.

To fuck.

A whirlwind of emotions collided with the drink in me, and I became furious. I would let the man lead me wherever he wanted to go.

He took me to another chaise deep inside the room. We passed by at least ten different couples and even trios lost in their own stages of ecstasy. Some rutted silently. Some grunted or groaned. Some moaned sweetly, while others tossed their heads back and screamed.

I wanted to do all of that.

When we reached the chaise, the man stopped, bent down, and crushed his lips to mine. The hard ridge of his mask pressed into my cheek. I parted my lips and pressed my tongue into his mouth greedily. It elicited a deep rumble in his throat.

The man pulled back from me, and, with one fluid motion, he spun me around, so my back was to him. He pressed against me, feeling down my arms with his hands. He smelled like cedar and smoke, and I gasped to breathe him in. The man took my hands and bent me forward, placing them onto the soft seat of the chaise and pressing his big fingers between mine to splay them.

I felt the back of my long skirt and petticoat jerk up and come to rest on my bent back and the man dragged his hands down my thighs as he yanked down the thin cloth of my pantaloons. The steamy night air hit my flesh, and my legs trembled.

A woman nearby gasped and moaned as a man thrust into her almost violently.

My pulse quickened, and I squeezed my thighs together to cover the mounting heat at my naked core. But the man put his hands between my thighs and pushed them open.

I felt his hot breath on my exposed center. He used his hands to spread my ass cheeks. A moan escaped me, and I shuttered.

I wanted to squirm and glance back over my shoulders and look at him. I wanted to see his half skeletal face near the heart of me, studying me. Touching the soft skin of my thighs and my ass. But I somehow sensed he would not want me to look. I kept myself bent into the position in which he’d placed me.

When his tongue plunged inside me, I arched my back and hissed a long sigh. I threw my head back but still did not look.

With my eyes slammed shut, I pictured him on his knees, lapping up the wet arousal that had gathered in my most secret place.

The man thrust his long tongue in and out, and I couldn’t help but squirm against his face. I’d never known a man’s mouth in this way before. The heat of it, the wetness, the slurping sounds were all so delicious. Inside me, he swirled the tongue, then withdrew to lap along my opening and my clit. As he rubbed his tongue along my swollen clit, my legs went weak, and I began to fall. But he righted me and held me rigidly in place with big, powerful hands until I was stable again. Then he moved his hands to my center. Without preamble, he slid two ridged fingers into me, then curled his fingertips against a part of me I had only ever accessed by myself. My body convulsed with each curl of his fingers that caused them to hit the spot.

He moved the fingers in and out. All the while, I felt his hot breath on my tender flesh. A thumb joined the rhythm, rubbing back and forth with just the right amount of pressure on my clit. Moving back and forth, I ground against his hand. My own juices dripped on my inner thigh, and he growled. I felt the vibration of his growl on my skin. I felt him shove to his feet. There was a quick rustling of fabrics and then the masked man plunged his cock inside me.

Still, I could not see him, but I could imagine it. He was big. Thick enough to stretch me past the realm of pleasure and into the dark territory of pain. And long enough to reach into the depths of me as he rammed into me. His hard hips slapped against my soft ass, and I sighed as my body began to match his rhythm. I could hear the music again more clearly. Another dark melody and we both slipped into the sultry beat of the song.

The woman nearby screamed savagely, and her body shook as though a demon had possessed her. Her orgasm sent the man who was fucking her over the edge. With a roar, he withdrew from her and scrambled to cram his pulsating cock into her mouth as he came.

The man bent over me as he thrust into me and reached around to the front of me with his hands. One hand pressed against my pelvis and the other reached for my clit. He resumed his fabulous rubbing rhythm on my clit and never missed a beat with his long, hard thrusts.

My breath grew faster and faster. I no longer felt like I was standing, but rather floating. Each of his thrusts lifted my boots almost off the floor and then put me back down. Warmth tingled down my thighs as blood rushed to my head and roared in my ears. The drink I had taken was reaching its full effect, and I was close to coming.

“Yes,” I snarled between gritted teeth. The man growled again, louder this time. The hand that wasn’t toying with my clit reached up my back and gathered a fist full of my hair and yanked my head back. “Yes!” I urged, a little louder.

We smashed into each other frantically. His hand slipped away from my clit, but I hardly noticed until I felt his thumb swirl around my asshole. I sucked in my breath and held it. Driving harder and harder, he slipped the tip of his thumb past the tight ring and inside, and I came utterly unglued.

My whole body felt loose, as though I had turned into wind as my orgasm spilled over the edge of sanity. The inner workings of my pussy pulsed and twitched, clenching on his thrusting cock. I trembled and my mouth dropped open as I cried out so loud and long that it brought actual tears to my eyes.

The man grunted one last time, and I fell forward onto the chaise as he swiftly pulled out of me. His hot seed spilled onto my ass cheeks, which were still borne to him as I lay face down on the chaise, panting and desperate to get air in my lungs.

The man and I parted ways outside the white door, and it was Fane who next swept me into his arms to dance. Invigorated by all that had transpired in the dark, I leaned my head back and laughed while my brother twirled me about. Between songs, we visited the bar for more green drinks. With each song, it felt as though we danced faster and faster, and laughed louder. My head spun deliciously. I didn’t see the masked man again, or the woman with the peacock mask. It was just as well.

The night felt like it belonged to my brother and me.

But, before I knew it, he was ushering me out the door of the place and back into the warm night. We spilled out of the dance, laughing. It was the sweetest time I’d ever shared with Fane.

“The carriage will be waiting, just this way, Little Doll,” he said. I still smiled, but I grimaced at the stupid name. He’d been calling me that all my life and I hated it.

Fane turned and headed into the dark alley, the opposite way from whence we’d come. As our boots clicked on the cobblestones, moving away from the dance, an unsettled feeling came over me. It was the best night of my life, thanks to Fane. So, I tried to hang on to my carefree mood and not to allow suspicious thoughts to enter my mind.

When we came to the alley, there was a street. Across from the street there was a little graveyard, cloaked in mist and night gloom. “The carriage is on the other side of the cemetery,” Fane explained. “We’ll cut through to get there quickly.”

I slowed, then stopped with the toes of my boots on the very edge of the graveyard. The mist slithered over the ground and among the crumbling graves as though it were a living thing. The giant full moon still hung high in the sky, giving the place an eerie glow. An owl hooted overhead, coming somewhere from the direction of a stand of dead black trees whose limbs reached up as if to claw and rip holes in the sky.

“We should go around, Fane,” I whispered, my lovely mood sobering. “It’s wrong to be in a graveyard at night.”

Fane tossed his head back and laughed. “Says who?” He extended his hand, expecting me to take it.

But I shook my head. “No, Fane, this is a mistake. Let’s go around.”

Fane poked his bottom lip out dramatically. “Is my dear Nova frightened? It’s all superstition. This place is like any other. Walking around involves walking through a bad part of town. That’s more dangerous than a gathering of the dead, wouldn’t you think?”

I crossed my arms and stared at him.

His face and voice softened. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He gave me another one of his dazzling smiles and gestured toward me once more. “Take my hand, little doll. ”

I stared at his outstretched hand, now covered with a black glove for a moment, then glanced back at his smile. Out of nowhere, fatigue crashed into me. I was more exhausted than I’d ever been. All the hardship of the evening before, and the terrible nightmare that was awaiting me in the daylight, came crashing back and the masked man was all but forgotten.

I just wanted to get home and into my bed. So, I slipped my hand into Fane’s.

He pulled me fast, and soon we were running. I began to panic, struggling to keep up. The soft earth of the cemetery was damp, and the heels of my boots sank and caught in it. Fane navigated the uneven terrain effortlessly, as though he were no stranger to this place. But I was certain I would fall.

“Fane, slow down!” I called.

Fane laughed and only pulled me on.

Fortunately, we soon exited the other side of the graveyard and once again he slowed as we emerged onto a sidewalk on another city street lined with dark and slumbering buildings. He led me to a corner and then he stopped.

I didn’t see our carriage, or any carriage, anywhere.

But I did see a little boy. A wee pauper: he couldn’t have been over five years old. I couldn’t imagine what on earth he would be doing out so late, and without an adult to look after him. Although, the hour had grown so late that perhaps it was nearly morning. It may have been early for this little child, not late.

The dirty and disheveled little boy walked toward us even as our carriage turned a corner and rolled our way. The horses cantered and the big spindly wheels of the carriage turned fast.

The boy reached us, and the carriage was almost there. It was like they were racing.

He reached up and pulled on Fane’s coat tails. “Pardon me, good sir,” said the little boy in a tiny little voice, as the carriage reached us.

Before Fane could reply, the boy stumbled and flew into the path of the wheels of our carriage.

I gasped and shut my eyes, diving to hide behind Fane.

But I heard the crunch of the little boy’s bones beneath the big wooden wheels.

And I felt the warm splatter of his blood across my face.

I tasted the metallic substance inside my mouth.

I screamed.

Fane was grabbing me roughly and shaking me when my knees grew weak, and I fell.

As I crumpled into my brother’s arms, the last I recalled was thinking that Fane pushed that little boy. And then everything went dark.