Chapter 6: Frozen Ecstasy
The air in the study was thick with the smell of sex, spilled wine, and cooled incense. Lilly’s arms trembled as she pushed herself up from the desk, her body a symphony of raw, throbbing ache. Eris remained behind her, his breathing gradually slowing against her back.
His hand, which had been smoothing her hair, stilled. Then, without a word, he withdrew fully, stepping back. The loss of his warmth was immediate, leaving her exposed and cold against the damp wood. She heard him move, the soft rustle of fabric as he fixed his trousers.
She didn’t turn. She couldn’t. Shame, hot and acidic, warred with a dark, humming satisfaction in her veins. She had pushed him. He had pushed back further. They were even, he’d said. The words felt like a lie.
His fingers brushed her hip, not a caress but a prompt. “Up.”
She obeyed, her movements stiff. Her dress was ruined, torn and stained. She clutched the fabric together, holding it against her chest as she finally turned to face him.
He was already composed. His shirt was untucked but straight, his hair only slightly disordered. Only his eyes, still a smoldering banked fire, and the raw, red marks circling his wrists gave evidence of what had occurred. He looked at her—truly looked—his gaze scanning her face, her disheveled state, the tremor in her hands.
He said nothing. Instead, he stepped forward, and before she could flinch, he scooped her into his arms. She was too weary, too sore to protest. He carried her from the study, through the dim, silent halls of his personal wing, his footsteps echoing on the stone. Servants who might have seen them were conspicuously absent.
He shouldered open a heavy oak door, and the humid, perfumed air of a bathing chamber washed over them. It was a sunlit space of polished oak and frosted glass, golden light spilling through arched windows that overlooked a mist-shrouded forest below. A vast, steaming pool occupied the center, the water clear and scented with pine and lavender.
Eris walked to the edge and didn’t pause. He stepped directly into the pool, clothes and all, holding her above the water for a moment before sinking in. The hot water was a shock, seeping through her ruined dress, stinging the bite marks on her shoulder and the tender flesh between her legs. She gasped.
He waded deeper until the water reached his chest, then he simply released her. She slipped under the surface for a second, coming up sputtering, her hair plastered to her face. He was already shrugging out of his sopping shirt, tossing it onto the marble floor with a wet slap. His trousers followed.
He stood before her, naked and unashamed in the steaming water, the powerful lines of his body blurred by the ripples. “Take that off,” he said, his voice devoid of its earlier razor’s edge.
Her fingers fumbled with the wet fabric. The torn dress clung to her skin. He watched, impassive, as she struggled, until with a sound of impatience he moved forward. He took the neckline in his hands and ripped it straight down the front, parting the material like parchment. He peeled it from her body and let it float away, a sodden rag.
They were both naked in the water now. He reached for her, but not with aggression. His hands went to her hair, loosening the wet strands. Then he took a cake of soap from a niche in the wall and began to wash her. His movements were methodical, impersonal. He soaped her arms, her back, her neck, washing away the sweat and the scent of him and the wine. He was cleaning his possession.
She stood mutely, letting him. The heat of the water began to loosen the knots in her muscles. The sharp, cleansing scent of pine filled her nose. When his hands moved lower, over her breasts, down her stomach, she stiffened.
“I’m washing you,” he stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. His touch was clinical, even as it passed over the most intimate parts of her, slicking soap between her thighs, over her bruised backside. She closed her eyes, a hot tear mingling with the steam on her cheek.
He rinsed her, cupping water in his hands and letting it cascade over her skin. When he was finished, he turned his attention to himself, a quick, efficient scrubbing. The silence stretched, broken only by the soft lap of water.
Finally, he spoke. “You left marks on my chair.”
She opened her eyes. He was looking at his wrists again. “You left marks everywhere else.”
A flicker in his gaze. Something almost like approval. He stepped closer, the water shifting around them. He cupped her face, his thumb wiping away the tear track. “You are a revelation, Lilly Lunda. A dangerous, infuriating revelation.”
He kissed her then, but it was nothing like the kisses before. It was slow. Deep. A tasting. An exploration devoid of anger, laced instead with a weary, bewildered sort of wonder. Her lips parted under his, and she kissed him back, her hands coming up to rest on his water-slicked shoulders.
When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against hers. “I should send you away. For my own sanity.”
“You won’t,” she whispered, the certainty of it settling in her bones.
“No,” he admitted, the word rough. “I won’t.”
He lifted her then, his hands under her thighs, and hoisted her out of the water. She expected him to carry her to the bed, but he turned and sat her on the wide, cool marble edge of the pool. The air was chill on her wet skin, raising goosebumps.
He stayed in the water, his arms resting on the marble on either side of her hips, caging her in. His eyes traveled over her naked body, gleaming in the sunlight.
“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice a low rasp. “All pale skin and defiance.” His head dipped, and his mouth found the juncture of her neck and shoulder. He didn’t kiss it. He bit down. Not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to make her gasp, to arch against the sudden, sharp pleasure-pain. The marks from the study throbbed in sympathy.
His hands slid up her thighs, pushing them apart with an insistence that brooked no resistance. His knees nudged hers wider, forcing her open to the cool air and his hot gaze. She was exposed, utterly. The steam from the pool curled around them.
He leaned in, his breath ghosting over her curls. “You’re still swollen from me.” He said it as a fact. “Still open.”
His thumbs brushed her inner thighs, then drifted higher, not touching her core, just tracing teasing circles on the sensitive skin nearby. “You said something about screaming,” he said, his voice dropping to a intimate, wicked register. He looked up at her, his eyes reflecting the golden light. “Let’s see how loud you scream when I fuck you with icicles.”
Before she could process the words, his right hand lifted from the water. Frost glittered on his fingertips. The air around his hand grew sharply, painfully cold. Between his fingers, he held three slender, perfectly formed icicles, dripping and clear as glass.
Magic. Autumn Court magic, drawn from the chill in the air, the mist outside the window.
Her breath caught. “Eris…”
“Hush.” He brought his left hand between her legs, stroking her firmly, making her gasp and writhe. Her body, treacherous and eager, responded instantly, slickness gathering despite her fear. “You wanted a performance. Now you’ll get one.”
He slid one finger inside her, then two, stretching her, preparing her. She was wet, so wet, her hips moving against his hand of their own accord. He watched her face, his own a mask of intense concentration. Then, he withdrew his fingers.
The cold was a shock. The tip of one icicle pressed against her entrance. It wasn’t blunt like a cock; it was a sharp, melting point of cold. He pushed it in, just the tip.
She cried out, a sharp, startled sound. The sensation was unbearable—a searing, freezing invasion that made her inner muscles clamp down in protest. It was pain, but a bright, clean pain that danced along the edge of pleasure.
“More?” he asked, his voice a dark hum.
She nodded, frantic, beyond words.
He pushed the icicle deeper. It was a slow, inexorable slide, the cold spreading through her, a shocking contrast to the heat of her body and the steam around them. She was so full, so stretched by the cold, rigid length. He began to move it, a slow in-and-out, and the friction was unlike anything she’d ever felt. The melting ice created a slick, freezing burn.
She threw her head back, a moan torn from her throat. Her hands flew to his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin.
He added a second icicle, pressing it alongside the first. The stretch was immense, unbearable. She screamed then, a short, sharp sound that echoed off the glass and wood. Her body convulsed, torn between trying to expel the cold invasion and craving more of the shocking sensation.
“That’s it,” he growled, his own breathing ragged. He fucked her with the twin shafts of ice, his movements precise and relentless. “Scream for me. Let the whole damned forest hear you.”
He leaned forward and took her nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, his tongue laving the peak. The heat of his mouth against the cold violation between her legs was a sensory overload. She was sobbing now, tears streaming down her face, her body a taut bowstring.
He withdrew the icicles suddenly, the absence a different kind of ache. Before she could even gasp, he replaced them with his mouth.
His tongue was a brand of fire after the ice. He lapped at her, feasting on her, his tongue spearing into her with fierce, demanding strokes. The shock of the heat after the cold sent her careening towards the edge. She fisted her hands in his damp hair, holding him to her as he drank from her, his groans vibrating through her very core.
He pulled back, his lips and chin glistening. His eyes were wild. “You taste like winter and want,” he panted.
He surged up, his hands grasping her hips, and in one powerful move, he impaled her on his cock. After the icicles, he felt monstrously huge, burning hot and impossibly solid. He filled her completely, stretching the ache into a deep, claiming fullness.
He didn’t give her time to adjust. He pulled her to the very edge of the marble and began to pound into her, each thrust snapping her hips forward. The marble was hard and unyielding against her ass, his grip on her hips iron-tight. The sound of their joining was obscenely loud in the steamy chamber—wet, slapping flesh, their mingled grunts and cries.
“You see?” he snarled, driving into her with a force that stole her breath. “You see what you make me do? What you turn me into?” His control was gone, shattered by her earlier rebellion, by the ice, by her screams. He was pure, undiluted need.
She could only hold on, her legs wrapped around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back. Every thrust hit a spot deep inside her that made her see stars. The climax built, a tidal wave fed by pain, shock, and a dark, devouring hunger.
“Come,” he demanded, his voice breaking. “Come on my cock. Now.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a command her body had no choice but to obey. The orgasm shattered her, a convulsive, screaming release that ripped through her like a lightning strike. She spasmed around him, milking him, her cries echoing off the glass.
With a guttural roar, he followed her, his own release pumping into her in hot, endless waves, his body shuddering against hers. He buried his face in her neck, his harsh breaths loud in her ear.
They stayed like that for long minutes, clinging to each other as the water lapped around his waist and her sweat cooled on her skin.
Slowly, he softened inside her. Gently, he lowered her back into the steaming pool, drawing her against his chest. He held her as she trembled, his hands running soothingly over her back.
She rested her head on his shoulder, spent. The world had narrowed to the heat of the water, the beat of his heart under her ear, and the deep, full ache between her legs.
His lips brushed her temple. “When I keep you,” he said quietly, the words a vow in the steam-filled air, “it will be your choice. But know that once it’s made, it is forever. There is no walking away from me.”
She didn’t answer. She simply closed her eyes, the truth of his words settling into the marrow of her bones, as deep and irrevocable as the marks he’d left on her skin.
She simply closed her eyes, the truth of his words settling into the marrow of her bones, as deep and irrevocable as the marks he’d left on her skin. The steam curled around them, softening the sharp lines of his face. In the quiet lapping of the water, the world felt reduced to this.
A shiver ran through her, a delayed reaction to the cold and the cruelty and the shocking pleasure. He felt it against his chest. His hand, which had been stroking her back, stilled.
“You’re cold,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.
He lifted her easily, water streaming from their bodies, and stepped out of the pool. The air bit at her wet skin. He carried her to a thick fur rug before a low-burning hearth, its embers pulsing with a drowsy orange heat. He set her down on the softness and fetched a linen sheet, warm from a heated rail.
He didn’t speak as he dried her. His movements were thorough, almost ritualistic, blotting the water from her hair, her arms, the delicate skin between her legs. He was tender in a way that felt more unsettling than his earlier violence. When he was done, he wrapped the sheet around her like a cocoon.
He dried himself with quick, efficient strokes, then knelt before her on the fur. The firelight danced over the planes of his chest, the faint silvery scars, the fresh red marks from her nails. He studied her face, his own unreadable.
“That was…” she started, her voice hoarse from screaming.
“A lot,” he finished, his tone flat. He reached out and tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “You pushed. I pushed back. It’s our pattern.”
“It’s a fucked-up pattern,” she whispered.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Indeed.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of embers. The memory of the icicles, the feel of his cock fucking her raw on the marble edge, it all swirled in the space between them. Her body ached in a dozen different places, a map of their conflict.
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of her hips, caging her in again but without aggression. His eyes searched hers. “You shackled me to a chair. You made me watch you. Do you have any idea what that does to a male like me?”
“I wanted you to feel helpless.”
“I didn’t.” The confession was soft, dangerous. “I felt… riveted. Every second you were on your knees, I was planning how I would take you apart. The cuffs were just a delay.”
She swallowed. His intensity was a physical weight. “And the ice?”
“A lesson.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “A reminder that pleasure and pain are threads from the same loom in my world. My world, which you are now steeped in.” He brought a hand to her throat, not squeezing, just resting his palm against her pulse. “You can’t un-taste it.”
Her heart hammered under his touch. She knew he felt it. The choice he’d spoken of hovered, immense and terrifying. To walk away now, back to a normal, sunlit life, seemed not just impossible, but colorless.
She lifted a hand from the folds of the sheet. It trembled slightly. She reached out and placed it over his where it rested against her neck. His skin was warm. She traced the faint ridge of a knuckle.
His breath hitched, a barely-there sound.
It was the smallest crack in his armor, but it was enough. Enough for her to find the courage she’d feigned earlier. She shifted forward, the fur soft beneath her knees. The sheet slipped from her shoulders, pooling around her waist.
She’d wrap her arms around his neck then kiss him softly.
It was not a claiming, not a challenge. It was an answer. Her mouth met his with a gentleness that startled them both. Her lips were soft, moving slowly against his, a silent communication. She felt the rigid tension in his shoulders, the arrested breath in his lungs. For a long moment, he didn’t move, didn’t reciprocate, frozen by this unexpected tenderness.
Then, with a sound like a dam breaking, a low groan from deep in his chest, he kissed her back. His hands came up to frame her face, his touch reverent. The kiss deepened, not with hunger, but with a profound, aching relief. It was a tasting of a different kind—of vulnerability, of a ceasefire, of something fragile and new trying to root in the scorched earth between them.
When they finally parted, their foreheads rested together. His eyes were closed.
“Lilly,” he breathed, her name a prayer and a curse on his lips.
“Forever is a long time,” she murmured, her own voice thick.
He opened his eyes. The fire in them had banked, leaving something clearer, more devastating in its honesty. “It starts now.”
He lowered her back onto the fur, following her down. This time, there was no marble edge, no ice, no shackles. Just his weight settling over her, warm and solid. He kissed her again, softly, then trailed his mouth down her jaw, her neck, to the bite mark on her shoulder. He soothed it with his tongue.
His hand slid between her legs. She was sore, swollen, but still wet for him. His fingers explored her gently, learning the textures of her arousal and the aftermath of their brutality. She gasped, her hips arching.
“Easy,” he murmured against her skin. “This is just for you.”
He touched her with a focus that was utterly unfamiliar. His thumb found her clit and began to circle it with a slow, unwavering pressure. His other hand cupped her breast, his thumb stroking her nipple until it pebbled into a hard peak. He watched her face as he worked her, his expression one of deep concentration.
“Come on,” he coaxed, his voice a rough whisper. “Let go for me. Just let it happen.”
It built differently this time—a slow, inexorable tide rather than a crashing wave. Her orgasm unfolded, a deep, rolling release that made her cry out into the quiet room, her body shuddering beneath his hands. He held her through it, his mouth on hers, swallowing her sounds.
As the last tremor faded, he shifted. He guided his cock to her entrance, the head nudging against her slick, sensitive flesh. He pushed inside with a slow, measured thrust, filling her with a stretching, burning fullness that was pure sensation. She wrapped her legs around his hips, anchoring him to her.
He began to move, a deep, rocking rhythm that was more about connection than conquest. Each stroke was deliberate, his eyes locked on hers. The pace was maddening, intimate. He was fucking her, yes, but he was also seeing her, every flinch, every sigh.
“You’re so tight,” he gritted out, his control straining. “So fucking perfect around me.”
She clawed at his back, her nails digging into the muscles there. “Eris.”
It was all she could say. His name. A plea and an affirmation.
He buried his face in her hair, his thrusts gaining a sharper, more urgent edge. The tenderness fractured, consumed by a raw, desperate need. He fucked her harder, driving them both toward the edge once more.
“Mine,” he growled into her ear, the word a possessive snarl. “Say it.”
She was beyond denial, beyond pretense. “Yours.”
He slammed into her one final, devastating time, his body shuddering as he came, his release hot and endless inside her. He collapsed, his full weight pressing her into the fur, his breath harsh and ragged against her neck.
They lay like that for a long time, intertwined and spent. The fire popped softly.
Eventually, he rolled to his side, taking her with him, keeping her tucked against his body. His arm was a heavy band across her waist. She listened to his heartbeat gradually slow.
“The cuffs,” he said into the stillness, his voice rough with sleep and satisfaction. “Where did you get them?”
She smiled against his skin, her eyes already closing. “Stole them from your desk drawer. The one with the lock shaped like a screaming face.”
A faint chuckle vibrated in his chest. “Clever girl.”
The last thing she felt before sleep took her was the press of his lips against her hair, and the slow, possessive stroke of his thumb over her hipbone, tracing a circle on her skin as if marking his territory all over again.