The entire front of Blackwell’s ensemble became soaked with the bath water that lingered on her skin as he gathered her body into his to deepen their kiss. This kiss was a little wilder, a little more desperate than any of the others had been. Without breaking it, he hauled her up into his arms, and she wound her legs around his hips like a vise. The tip of his tongue massaged hers with long languid strokes as he turned toward the vanity and placed her on the edge of the counter. Her hands twisted into his hair as his reached around to unhook her and push her knees apart. When he finally pulled away, she made a sound of disappointment, and he smiled.
Kissing the underside of her jaw, he assured, “I promise you’ll prefer where my mouth is going next.”
She whimpered with anticipation as he stepped back and undid the belt of his trousers with one hand, flicking open the button with his other. His eyes didn’t leave her face as he liberated his cock from beneath its fabric cage and gave it a single pump with his fist. Her blood boiled with her need as he lowered himself to his knees in front of her, the counter she was sitting on the perfect height for his mouth to access the apex of her arousal.
Spreading her thighs wider with one hand while he continued to pump the other over his thick shaft, he leaned forward to taste her arousal, and she swore her moan of pleasure could probably be heard across the entire manor. He gave a pleased grunt as he lashed his tongue over her swollen clit and pumped his hardness to the same rhythm of his licks across her sex. It didn’t take long for him to send her over the edge, and as the orgasm washed over her, she called out his name.
He stood and she grasped his shirt, pulling his mouth back to hers, loving the taste of herself on his tongue. He aligned the tip of his length with her entrance and wasted no time sheathing himself inside, swallowing her moans as he deepened their kiss once more. His thrusts were slow, deliberate. His hands were roaming over her body like he was trying to memorize the shape of her.
She broke their kiss, eyes half-lidded, mouth swollen, as she said, “Let me down.”
He didn’t hesitate, pulling out of her in an instant and stepping back to help her to the ground. Confusion flitted across his face at what her next move would be, but when she lowered herself to her knees, his expression turned positively feral with lust.
“Don’t hold back,” she told him before slowly licking her own arousal from his shaft, running her mouth from base to tip.
“If I don’t hold back, I’m not going to fucking last,” he groaned, a hand flying out to sink into her hair at the nape of her neck.
She had never taken the full length of him all the way down her throat, but now she was determined to try. Wrapping one of her hands at his base, she sucked the tip of him into her mouth, making his hips buck forward with a curse and sliding a few more inches between her lips. He used the hand in her hair to gently guide himself even deeper, and she took it greedily. She brought her unoccupied hand up to rest on his thigh for balance as she took him further and further one inch at a time, until he hit the back of her throat.
“Fuck, angel,” he panted. “Your mouth feels like fucking heaven.”
She adored the way he always praised her when she did something he liked, the raspy little breaths that came out of his throat as he pumped into her mouth letting her know he was enjoying himself as much as she was. He made her feel safe to explore him without worry of judgment or fear.
As she sucked harder, keeping up with the steady rhythm he had set, his hand began to tighten in her hair, and she knew he was getting close.
“You’re doing such a good job,” he encouraged. “Eyes up for me, angel.”
She flicked her gaze up to his face, holding his lust-filled stare as she moved her hands to the back of his thighs to take him as deep as possible for the last few strokes. He practically growled in satisfaction as he came harder than he ever had before with her.
She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth as he helped her rise, circling one arm around her waist while he reached around with the other to massage the back of her head where he had been tugging on her hair. She hummed in contentment as he pressed hot kisses over the base of her throat and behind her ear.
“If there were ever a divine entity I’d worship,” he murmured, “it’d be you.”
“My body, your altar,” she offered.
He whispered her name—no, he didn’t whisper it, he invoked it.
The bathroom disappeared as he transported them to the bedroom. He pinned her beneath him as he snapped away his clothes, and with a single thrust, he buried himself back inside of her. Their kisses turned sweet now, lingering, the connection between them strengthening with each thrust of his hips, each ragged breath. It was something that transcended the boundaries of the living and the dead. He wasn’t a Phantom in this moment, nor she a mortal. And this was not a melding of their bodies, but their souls.
“Ophelia, I—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Someone popped into the room, at the foot of the bed.
“I love a good show after dinner.” Jasper laughed at the compromising sight of them, Poe lounging in his arms.
Ophelia was sure the cat threw her and Blackwell a look of judgment as she squeaked a sound of surprise and scrambled to cover herself. Her entire body flushed pink at being caught in such an intimate moment.
Blackwell used his magic to clothe them both before hopping off the bed to confront Jasper. “You’re early.”
“Am I?” Jasper asked ruefully, his tone suggesting that he knew precisely what he was doing.
“Early for what?” she asked, climbing off the bed to smooth out the delicate black gown Blackwell had dressed her in. It had ribbons and bows and little red roses embroidered around the hems.
“Lover Ghost, here, asked me to track down what happened to your parents,” Jasper told her. “Made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I’m pleased to inform you both I got the intel you’re looking for.”
Ophelia gaped at Jasper in shock before swinging her gaze to Blackwell. “What did you offer for this?”
“Nothing important.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“He’s being modest.” Jasper smiled, though it was not necessarily kind. “He gave up three years of his memories for this information. When you get back into bed, you should thank him nice and hard—”
“Shut it, Jasper.” Blackwell glowered at the Devil before looking back to her. “You don’t have to hear anything he found if you don’t want to. Don’t worry about what I paid for it—it’s your choice.”
They watched her as she cycled through an array of emotions. On the one hand, if her mother had wanted her to know her business, wouldn’t she have told her herself? On the other…
“Is it bad?” she asked Jasper.
“Depends on your definition of bad,” he said. “Must I keep reminding you that I’m a Devil, sweetheart? I doubt we have the same system of measurement for good and bad.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, what did you find?”
“Why don’t we go somewhere else for this conversation? Somewhere that doesn’t reek of flowers and sex,” he suggested. Turning to Blackwell, he said, “The drinking parlor?”
Blackwell nodded, and Jasper disappeared, along with Poe. Blackwell turned to her, gently pinching her chin in his hand to angle her eyes up to meet his.
“Are you sure you want to know whatever he’s found? You can still change your mind.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
He nodded in acceptance, kissing the bridge of her nose with affection before pulling her to him so he could transport them after Jasper.
“I hope you know we’ll be finishing what that bastard interrupted, later,” he promised.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she answered just before they blinked away.
Jasper hummed as he fixed himself and Blackwell a drink, Ophelia making herself comfortable on the couch next to Poe. Jasper held out a glass of the brown liquor to her in offering, and Blackwell’s smirk was knowing as she made a face and politely refused.
“Alright, where do I start?” Jasper said as he stirred his glass.
“How about the beginning?” she suggested.
“That’s no fun.” Jasper shook his head. “How about, do you want the good news first or the bad news first?”
“Bad,” she said without hesitation.
“Your parents fell in love during Phantasma,” he said cheerily.
She made a face. “Then what the Hell is the good?”
“You were conceived here during that time.” He raised his glass to her. “Isn’t that neat? A first, I do believe.”
“We absolutely do not have the same definitions of good and bad,” she told him, aghast. “Explain to me the whole ordeal with people falling in love here. I don’t get it.”
Blackwell and Jasper exchanged a loaded glance. Then Blackwell revealed, “We aren’t allowed to say. It has to do with the creator and—”
“That Salemaestrus person, right?” she interrupted. “Sinclair told me about him.”
Blackwell reared back in shock and even Jasper’s gaze darkened.
“What, exactly, did he tell you about… that person?” Jasper asked carefully.
“He’s the Prince of the Devils, running this place as a punishment for choosing the person he loved over his father,” she recited from memory. “I’m assuming that’s why falling in love is so taboo, then? Because that’s what got him in hot water in the first place?”
“Precisely,” Jasper confirmed. “And since Sinclair told you that, I’m allowed to say that it isn’t just taboo. It’s… disastrous. Your mother and father fell in love within Phantasma’s walls and, subsequently, they were cursed.”
“Cursed, how?” She leaned forward, on the edge of her seat now.
“Rumor has it that the curse made your mother—Tessie, right?—become more apathetic toward your father with every passing day, but your father became more dangerously obsessive with her at the same time. They both forfeited the competition, according to a couple of the Devils who were here at the time. Then about two years after your mother gave birth to you, when she was pregnant with a second child, she made a bargain with a Devil in New Orleans by the name of Andrea. Andrea’s side of the bargain was to make your father forget the three of you existed so that your mother could leave him. But the curse that Phantasma had inflicted on your parents unfortunately also affected the bargain your mother made with Andrea. Over time, the curse eroded Andrea’s magic and your father began to remember. Curses are corrosive little suckers like that.”
Ophelia stood and began to pace as Blackwell added, “I wonder if the gouged-out name carved into the floor was your mother’s. If he did that during his second stay here. Out of resentment, perhaps?”
“Did you ever notice anything odd about him?” Ophelia questioned. “I know I said I didn’t want to ask you what he was like but was he… like me? Did he have…”
“Not that I could tell.” Blackwell shook his head, instantly picking up that she was referring to the Shadow Voice and that she did not wish to mention it in front of Jasper. “There were no visibly obvious mannerisms or tics like yours at least. But outside of searching the manor for my tether and competing in the levels, he didn’t leave his room. He summoned me only in the direst of situations, and hardly ever bothered to ask me to clean up the haunts in his room.”
“And he never mentioned my mom?” she questioned further.
Blackwell winced. “He did mention he had a wife, once, and that he was here to win the Devil’s Grant to get her back, but he made it seem like she had died, not…”
“Gotten the equivalent of a magical restraining order against him?” She laughed, the sound a bit high-strung. “This is… unbelievable. And on top of everything I am eternally tied to this place because of them. I can’t stand it.”
No, I hate it.
Her pacing had become frantic. She felt like adrenaline had been injected directly into her veins. Blackwell was growing more concerned by the second, while Jasper grew bored.
“This is all my mother’s fault,” she whispered. “This is all her fault. If she had told us the truth from the beginning, I wouldn’t have to be here! If she hadn’t somehow racked up debt and then left us with it, Genevieve would have never come, and we’d still be at Grimm Manor.”
“Ophelia.” Blackwell took a step toward her, hands raised in front of him as if she were a scared animal and he didn’t wish to spook her further. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How?” she bit at him. “How is any of what you just heard okay? Especially when you and I are apparently just repeating history!”
Her mouth clamped shut in shock. She hadn’t meant to say that last part. Hadn’t meant to imply…
Jasper’s interest was suddenly reignited. “Well, this just became much more entertaining.”
Blackwell turned to the Devil and commanded, “Leave. Now.”
“No, stay.” Ophelia backed up as she looked between the two men, panic setting in. “I’ll go.”
She raced for the exit before Blackwell could argue, and though she knew he could stop her if he really wanted, he didn’t. She threw open the door, and before she realized what she was stepping into, she was falling.
She had summoned the Whispering Gate again.
