5: ….THE THINGS THOSE LIPS HAD DONE TO ME
CELESTE
Much later, I awoke to the sound of creaking doors and the heavy silence of a place that felt… old.
When my vision cleared, I managed to take a good look around. We were approaching a mansion. It looked more like a palace. Tall, arched ceilings. Gilded frames. The kind of Victorian nightmare that looked out of place in the 21st century.
I was being carried by two men, too weak to fight them off as we stepped into the building.
“Weirdo, who has a Victorian-style palace in the 21st century? ” I muttered under my breath, my limbs still too numb to move.
The woman, Medina—I’d heard him call her that sometime on the journey here when I was half conscious, appeared in the doorway as the men laid me on a bed, tossing something small onto the space beside me.
A gold bracelet.
“Wear it when the powder wears off,” she said. “It’ll keep the Fates from tracking you.”
The door slammed shut before I could respond.
I sat up slowly, my head still spinning and my anger burning in my chest. I looked at the bracelet, then at the door.
I’d been kidnapped. Asa was gone. And the mystery man from three years ago was somehow involved in all of this.
I clenched my fists.
They had no idea what they’d just done. But they’d pay for it. One after the other.
ELIJAH
There was no way I would've forgotten her.
Lilac hair like hers didn’t just fade from memory. No one who’d ever come across her could forget her.
It had been three years, but I still remembered the way her hair had shimmered, catching the light even in that dim, crowded room.
She’d been wearing a mask that night, but I’d memorized every detail she hadn’t hidden…
Her baby blue doe eyes, her jawline, sharp and defined, her body, lush and curved in a way that was equal parts inviting and mocking, her lips, full, soft and curved just right.
I could still vividly remember the things those lips had done to me years ago, I’d pumped my length to the memory in the shower a million and one times for god’s sake.
And despite the countless women I’d experienced, no one has done it better than her, and maybe no one ever would.
Quickly, I shoved the memory away, feeling my legs weakening underneath me and my cock straining in my pants from the thought.
She was impossible to ignore, let alone forget.
And yet, she left so fast that morning after making me feel all those fucking insane things that I could only ever dream of. Things I’d never felt with anyone after her.
I woke up to cold sheets and an empty bed. No note. No goodbye.
Just the faintest trace of her perfume lingering in the air. It was so unlike anything I’d ever experienced. No one walked away from me.
I was the one who left. Always.
I shouldn’t have cared. It should’ve been easy to brush it off as just another night.
That’s what it was supposed to be. But she stayed in my thoughts, in the smallest, most frustrating ways. She was the one woman I wouldn’t have minded seeing or having a one-night stand with again.
For a while, I convinced myself that I didn’t care.
I moved from one fleeting distraction to the next, telling myself that was freedom. But the emptiness grew louder, and I found myself growing tired, tired of the pretense, tired of myself, tired of the lifestyle.
Eventually, I turned to Medina. She became my in-house plaything. She was convenient, always there, and I told myself it was enough. It wasn’t love or even connection, just something to quiet the ache. But it didn’t do exactly that.
No one else compared to her.
And now, she was here.
I heard the sound of the shower running as I approached her room. I paused just outside the door, my hand resting just above the open door frame, and faintly, over the sound of the shower, I heard her sing.
Her voice was… unexpected. Angelic, soft, and haunting in a way that crawled under my skin. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, letting it pull me in.
I told myself to leave, to let her finish, but my legs carried me forward anyway. The door was slightly opened, and before I could stop myself, I already stepped inside.
The heat hit me first. The room was thick with steam, curling lazily into the air. She stood under the shower, her back to me, completely unaware, or maybe she was just completely unbothered by my presence.
Her lilac hair was soaked, darkened by the water, clinging to her back in wet waves.
And her curves.
I’d noticed her beauty before. It was impossible not to. But this… this was something else.
Her waist was small, impossibly slender, but her hips were full. Her body was shaped with a natural allure, there was a way her presence filled the room.
It was in the soft curve of her waist, the way she moved through space with ease, like she was entirely at home in herself, making everything about her feel both familiar and magnetic.
She looked like a goddess sculpted from marble. Flawless and unyielding.
I clenched my fists, forcing myself to look away, but my eyes refused to obey.
Her face might’ve been angelic, but her body was anything but. It was temptation incarnate, enticing and sinfully destructive, the kind of beauty that made men forget themselves.
She was a siren in every way that mattered, and I wasn’t immune.
I took a steadying breath, telling myself to focus. But then she turned off the shower, and my breath caught.
She moved slowly, deliberately, reaching for a towel without turning around. I should’ve stepped back, should’ve made my presence known, but instead, I stood frozen.
When she finally turned, her eyes locked onto mine instantly.