Little Doll (Blackmoth House #1)

Chapter 19

Fane

Nova’s new little friend intrigued me.

I didn’t know where on earth she came from, but frankly, I did not care. I didn’t necessarily believe the amateur botanist story, although Ren did have a never-ending supply of utterly boring facts about twigs and leaves. She could talk for hours about flower petals and, although I couldn’t care less about what she was saying…

I could watch her lips move with unwavering attention.

Ren was everything this family was not. Lively, energetic, smiley and generally pleasant. Well, maybe Draven shared those attributes, but unlike Draven, Ren was also smart. It was that feature of hers that perhaps charmed me the most. Although, I would admit that I was quite charmed imagining what might lie beneath the dainty colorful dresses Ren wore. She always had a high neck collar and long sleeves. Being close to that night after night made me obsess over imaginings of what her skin looked like underneath it all. Made me crave the feel of her. Made me yearn for the taste of her.

Meanwhile, she didn’t appear to notice that I existed. I was simply a thing that belonged to Nova and Astrid. Like a servant basically, who dwelled only on the outskirts of the little world they created together.

That’s why I was so terrifically surprised the night that she stuck her tongue down my throat.

Astrid had long since drifted off to sleep and been taken to bed. Nova had been nursing a headache all day and evening, and as soon as we put Astrid down and returned to the garden, her migraine erupted.

It was awful watching it happen to her. Her already pale skin would grow even more ashen and gray as close to death as a living thing could look. Although, technically, Nova couldn’t be considered a living thing. Even the minute twinkle of a star high overhead was enough light to blind her with pain. Even the quiet sound of leaves tossing in the breeze was enough to make her cry.

Everything tortured Nova when these damned migraines struck. And nothing seemed to help her.

Except sometimes, Ren.

That night, we three were in the forgotten back garden, up in the ridiculous tree. I was on a limb higher than my ladies, who were on a thicker branch beneath me. From my vantage point, I could look on as Ren gingerly cradled my little doll’s head in her lap. She bent close to Nova’s ear, and I could just barely hear her shhhh and sigh, whispering comforting words. Nova’s eyes were sealed closed, and she whimpered. She writhed slightly, even though she was trying to stay still. But the pain was too much and caused her waif like body to jolt. However, Ren was finally able to calm her and send her off to a dreamworld that would hopefully heal her.

In fact, I myself became intoxicated by Ren’s whispering voice. As Nova calmed, so too did I become drowsy with heavy eyes. I vaguely contemplated that if I fell asleep, I could very well slip out of the limbs of the tree and break my neck, falling to my death. But under the influence of Ren’s voice whispering on the night wind, I couldn’t be convinced to care much.

But, when she slid onto the branch next to me, I startled back to alertness and back to caring.

“Hello,” she said, her eyes twinkling at me in the moonlight.

“Hello…”

“Could you help me take your Little Doll to her room, please?”

I smiled, hoping to dazzle her as I had so many before her. Was she the sort who would find my idiot brother with his dashing smile attractive?

Or was she the sort who could be dazzled by a man like me?

“But of course, Willow Wisp,” I quipped before even giving a thought to my response.

Ren sat back and gave me a confused smile. Then she laughed. “Willow Wisp?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The nicknames come up with themselves. You’re just a little wisp of a girl. Perhaps that’s what made it come to mind.”

She cocked her head to the side and gave me a crooked smile with one arched eyebrow. “I’ll allow it. I kind of like it.”

I smirked. “Oh, you’ll allow it, will you?”

A hint of crimson flamed into her cheeks. She gave my arm a playful shove. “Come on. Let’s get her to bed.”

I leaped down off the limb, hitting the ground on my feet. I looked up at her in time to see a look of admiration on her face punctuated by heavy eyelids and slightly parted lips.

Dazzle.

She shimmied down to Nova’s branch and gently helped to maneuver and lower my sister into my arms. Even though she was dead weight, she barely felt like she weighed anything in my arms. I cradled Nova to me, acutely aware both of her cold lithe form against me, and Ren’s small body and quick steps next to me as she tried to keep up with my long legs. Her body seemed to roll with heat that reached out and sizzled when it touched me.

Once we stepped inside Blackmoth House, the walls and floors did their magical shift and, in a dizzying second, we found ourselves standing in Nova’s stone room. If anyone asked me how to navigate the magic of Blackmoth House, I wouldn’t know how to explain it. The whole place was like a watery dream that flowed and swirled into whatever we wanted it to become.

I shivered once we landed in the stone room. The place felt like a tomb to me, and I hated being in it. That’s why I’d been more than happy to fix up other places in the house to make them safe for Nova.

I hoped she’d quit asking me to spend time with her in the stone coffin of a room.

Ren pulled back Nova’s bed covers, and I ever so gently laid the little doll on it. Ren moved to the foot of the bed, lifted Nova’s skirt, and unlaced one of her boots. I joined her in the task and started to unlace the other boot. Ren finished first, gently removed the boot, then carried it across the room to the red chair where I sometimes sat. She stood there next to the chair, holding the boot.

When I pulled off Nova’s other boot, I followed Ren across the room, without really knowing why.

Once I reached her side, she placed Nova’s boot on the floor, and took the other one from me to place beside its mate.

Then she pushed me down into the chair.

Next, she climbed onto my lap and pressed her lips to mine.

As soon as our lips touched, they caught fire. That is when her tongue proceeded down my throat.

She probed my mouth with hers, invading me. I tipped my head to better let her and as our heat mounted; I growled darkly into her. She pulled her face back from me, grabbed my jaw and told me, “Shhhhh,” while giving a sparkly eyed smile. I smiled too, staring at her lips, which she obliged me by planting back on mine.

Ren Ripley set off a series of mind-numbing explosions inside my brain. There would come a time when I would explore every single infinitesimal part of this woman. Lick and kiss my way over the plains, swells and valleys of her entire body. Uncover all her dirty secrets.

But that night, I had to have her.

It was a desperation, really, to take her hard and fast.

She had shimmied around on my lap until she was straddling me, the silks of her skirt sighing as she linked her legs around my waist and the rigid back of the chair. As she quivered against me during her feverish kisses, my cock raged against my trousers. Never releasing my lips, her little fingers deftly opened my trousers and unsheathed my dick, which jolted as it met the sultry night air in the dark room.

I lurched to my feet, lifting her with me. My hands were deft too, and I quickly and roughly placed her feet back on the floor and spun her around. She released a dreamy and content sigh as I encircled her waist with my arm and pushed down between her shoulder blades, forcing her to lean forward and brace herself on the chair.

With a torrid whisper of fabric, I lifted the back of her dress. I breathed long ragged hiss as I noted she had on nothing beneath her petticoats except her boots. I raked both my palms against her ass, digging my fingers into her soft, warm flesh there. She arched her back like a cat and wiggled her rear toward me, as though magnetized to me.

I kicked a foot between her two feet to open her legs further.

She let out a quiet giggle, a sound of both excitement and fright.

I licked my fingers liberally while staring down at the round hills of her ass, up in the air and grinding against whatever part of me she could find in the dark. I reached between her legs with my wet fingers, instantly finding that which I sought.

I had to hold my breath to resist the urge to drive my full length brutally into her tiny body. I had spent the last weeks obsessing over Ren Ripley. Thinking of her day and night. She’d become the leading lady of all my darkest fantasies and the keeper of my most wicked desires. All as I’d assumed, she had refused to notice that I existed. I had wanted to discover her and destroy her.

But now that she was here in front of me, warm, waiting, and wanting, I wanted to protect her from pain.

At least for the moment.

I teased her center, flitting my fingers over her delicate skin there. She squirmed frantically, but I placed my other hand on the base of her spine and steadied her. I tipped my head to the side to get a better view while I coaxed my fingers between the folds of her hidden treasure even as she worked her own feet further apart. Evidence of her arousal glistened on her in the dark, shining like starlight. I sucked in a sigh as I swirled my fingers in it and then lifted my fingers back to my lips to taste her. She’d turned to look at me over her shoulder and gave a whispered mewl as she watched me with intoxicated eyes lick her juice off my fingers. But I quickly returned them to her pussy and worked my fingers inside her.

She arched her shoulders and trembled as she began to work her hips. She slipped herself over my fingers. I sucked in a sharp gasp of breath and held my hand still, allowing her to grind her own rhythm against it. She moved her hips as though she were doing an erotic dance, and tossed her head side to side, so that her carefully styled updo came loose and showered down over her shoulders and back.

Her inside was soft, wet, and hot. Just watching her work her body over my fingers was almost enough to make me come unglued. My whole body felt weak, like if I moved at all, I would collapse.

“It’s been so long,” Ren whispered. “Please, Fane. Please… Give me what I want.”

“Fuck,” I uttered. I whipped my hand free of her, causing her to writhe and whimper. I stroked the same hand that was wet with her arousal along the length of my cock, teasing the tip against her opening.

“Yeeeeeeesssss, pleeeeease,” she moaned.

I swirled the throbbing head of my cock against her, letting myself get nice and wet, nice and electric. Letting her drip and squirm and open for me. I began to work into her tiny opening. She arched her back again and vibrated against my dick.

I took hold of her waist with both hands and slowly slid into her slick heat until my tip met the barrier of her inner wall. She panted and ground her ass into my hips. Her pussy clenched on my cock as I rocked my hips, sliding in and out of her.

“Please, Fane, please,” she begged, backing herself into me even as I rocked myself into her.

I started slow and quickened my pace a little bit at a time. I wanted to make it last, but watching her writhe beneath me like a butterfly caught in my net had my release mounting. I became aware of the blood rushing in my cock, and I gripped her waist so hard it would leave marks.

I wanted this to last all night, but I absolutely had to have this woman. Hard, fast, all over her.

Soon, we were in sync with our thrusting and pushing. She gave a breathy little grunt every time my dick hit the deepest part of her. I began to feel the muscles inside her flutter on my throbbing cock, and I had to look toward the ceiling for just a second to prevent myself from coming too soon.

I just wanted to come with her this first time. Just this once…

Back and forth we swayed, connected by flesh and heat. The friction of her moving on my cock had every nerve ending in my body buzzing; I wondered what it felt like to her delicate, warm pussy. I wondered what my shaft and my veins quaking into her did to her exactly.

But she reached behind herself, dropping her face onto the seat of the chair and I found out. She gripped her ass and spread herself wider. For me to see her better maybe, or for her to feel me better. It didn’t matter; it set me off. Quivering from head to toe, I felt the hot ribbons of my cum shooting deep into her. She clenched and stiffened, a strangled shriek escaping her as she tumbled over the edge. She came so hard that she almost fell, were it not for my iron grip on her tiny waist.

When the last pulses of our ecstasy subsided, I slid my shaft out of her, and we both jolted with the lingering sensations of orgasm. I helped her to stand, allowing her skirt to fall back into its respectable fashion. Then I swept her up into my arms.