Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Chapter 24

24

Sweeney

B ee reappears out of the gloom, her steps solid and straight. She has her mask on, which is a good idea—the less I see of her stupid face, the better.

She’s in my lap before I can rise from my seat, warm thighs enveloping me. She slides her hands around my neck and rakes me with her nails as she drops her lips to mine.

Oh fuck. That’s more like it.

The scent of Nellie’s sweet cunt is stronger than ever, and I feel my focus narrowing, getting sharper as my cock hardens instantly. Bee grinds her hips, her wetness soaking my crotch, and I realize she’s opening up sweetly for me, my swollen head nudging inside her.

I reach beneath her petticoat and grip her buttocks firmly, drawing a mewl of pleasure from her throat.

“Are you sure you’re?—”

“Shhh.” She catches my lower lip in her teeth, and I shudder, shocked at how good it feels. “Fuck me.”

I don’t know what changed, but I’m caught up in bliss in this dark corner of the courtyard.

Bee ’s pussy swallows me in one velvet stroke, soft and wet, and I groan into her neck, overcome by something—guilt, shame, lust. I don’t know. This bitch is just a receptacle, the thing in which I will come as I lose myself in thoughts of Nellie.

My girl, the woman who takes me every which way, flays herself for my smile, bleeds for my love. The love I don’t even fucking give her, and still she fights for it.

I can’t breathe . What the fuck is going on?

Bee has her hands around my neck, her eyes burning behind her mask as she squeezes. I take her waist and hold her steady, thrusting to the root and lifting her up again and again, driving deep.

I love it. God, I do.

My vision swims and Bee bares her teeth at me, pushing me backward so my head smashes into the bench. My balls tighten, my cock throbbing as her inner walls pulse and spasm around me.

She’s utterly and totally fixated on me, even as her own climax chases her. Her kisses nip and hurt like a piranha, and I thrill at the taste of blood in my mouth.

My consciousness is fading, and the sensation fights with the exquisite urge to shoot her full of my seed; I surge and moan like a madman, happy to die if I get to feel this way doing it.

All at once, she releases her grip, and air rushes in. The world bursts back into color, and I seize her hair, the mask tumbling to the ground.

Nellie.

No, it’s oxygen deprivation or the final killing stroke of madness. It cannot be her, unless I manifested her into reality by wanting her so.

But it’s her, really her, and I’m coming, flooding her sweetness with all the good stuff I owe. Thick pumps coming from some deep, grateful place inside, filling her with all I am and all she is.

She almost killed me . She almost killed me, and I never came so hard in my goddamn life.

Nellie yanks my mask off and throws it away. Seeing my face hurls her over the edge, and she bursts into urgent sobs as her orgasm ravages her.

She tightens around my cock, milking the last drops from me, her thighs like granite as she peaks and rolls down again, supple and spent in my arms.

“Nellie!” I push her shoulders back so I can look at her. “What the fuck are you doing here? I told you to stay away!”

She closes her eyes, a smile spreading over her tear-stained face. “It’s me,” she whispers. “It had to be me. You couldn’t do it to her, could you? I saw you.”

I shake her. “Nellie. What did you do to Beatrix Wetherby?”

“Nothing.” She opens one eye. “Girl talk. Gave her some medicine.”

Idiot. You sweet, sexy, depraved, obsessed fucking idiot of a woman.

I set her on her feet and stand, rearranging my clothes. “You better hope she’s alright, for both our sakes. She’s the wife of a fucking Lord, not some street slattern.”

“I complete you, don’t I?”

Nellie looks punch-drunk but triumphant, like a gypsy boxer who knows he’s won, even if the fight took ten years off his life.

“You’re everything and more to me, but only with me. These people, this world—it’s not yours. You can’t be part of it, can’t even fucking visit. Stay with me, Sweeney, and stop chasing nightmares. I’ll be dreamy for you, always. Everything you need. But stay with me !”

The words won’t come. There are a million things I could say to my precious treacle right now—she has once again derailed my plans with her foolish jealousy—but despite it all, I’m poleaxed by adoration for her, too dazzled by her audacity.

No other woman in the world would begin to conceive of something so unhinged. How did I summon her? How does the sick, strange universe conspire to open my veins and find this sublime creature running through them?

We both jump at the scream. It’s the kind you hear in silly, melodramatic chapter plays. The blood-curdling terror type.

“She’s dead! Murder! Oh, saints!”

I sigh.

“Mrs. Lovett, you are a fucking liability.” I point at the back of the trellis, which is attached to the wall. “Would you care for a lift?”

I steeple my fingers, and Nellie steps into my hands so I can vault her to the top. It’s not too tall, and we use the ivy to scrabble down the other side, landing beside a man smoking a pipe.

“Beg pardon, sir,” I say, turning away fast.

My horse and cart are parked where I left them, and I untie the nag, leading him into the road.

Then we’re away, the cacophony of panic behind us fading as the smoggy night air closes behind us. The horse’s hooves clatter on the cobbles, and Nellie snuggles close, tucking herself under my arm.

“Whatever the fuck am I to do with you?” I ask.

She wriggles her shoulders gleefully. “Ask yourself what you’d do without me, love.”