by SincereJester
Most certainly NSFW, this part! Crimson Peak is hungry, and will not be easily sated….
Part 6
To Thomas, Lucille was ethereal, with her white skin and
shift, and dark hair and eyes. As she returned to the nursery carrying the
jewelry box, she saw him and smiled, hiding the box deep inside one of the
crumbling walls, behind a fluttering mass of moth wings and torn cobwebs. She
slipped on a robe over her shift, leaving it loose, and sat on her bed. She
unraveled each of her trailing braids, the wavy locks covering her shoulders
like a dark, silken cloak. Humming, she took up a hairbrush and began to smooth
them out. Lucille appeared quite
collected, even happy, but her hands shook, and she did not look in the mirror.
The stones on the ring caught the dusky light.
The house watched, the dark fey presence of it waiting.
The color had returned to Thomas’ face, now freshly washed.
His shirt was untucked again, and he had removed his waistcoat and tie. He
stood in front of her, barefoot, watching her brush her hair. Lucille looked so
lovely, even with the scratches marring her face, and he felt different, older
somehow. Although no words had passed between them, Thomas understood that he
now would have to care for Lucille as much as she had cared for him in the
past. She had crossed over some unidentified limit that night; something had
been released from the depths of her darkness that could not be locked away
again. She was beautiful the way crystal was beautiful: delicate, fragile, so
easily damaged… Was that how she had seen him all these years? He wondered what
would become of them.
He came to her side, taking the hair brush from her and
running it down the length of the silken strands, slow and evenly paced.
Lucille sighed, letting her head fall forward, relaxed. With each stroke,
Thomas thought, I love you; we’re together now and forever; I’ll protect you,
come what may.
“Thomas,” Lucille murmured, and although it was a whisper,
it was strong in the quiet of the attic. The evening sun drenched the room,
staining everything in it with ruddy-golden light.
“I’m here, darling sister,” he replied. Brushing her hair
back, he leaned down and kissed her shoulder. Light, gentle kisses fluttered
over her skin, to her neck, her jaw, small comforts that held heat within them.
With a twist she pulled off the ring, dropping it to the vanity. She took the
hairbrush from him and set it down, too, as he drew her to her feet. Embracing
her tightly, Thomas continued his barrage of kisses at the small of her throat,
across her neck, any bit of exposure he could reach. She cradled his head to
her, encouraging him, wanting the warmth of his passion to melt the coldness
within her.
His hands freed, Thomas stroked the length of her back,
urged on by Lucille’s touch. He found her hips and grasped them, pressing her
close to him. The sudden wave of agonizing pleasure was jarring, and he held
her like a vise, wondering what would happen without the barrier of clothing
between them. Lucille moved against him, making his moan. She twisted in his grip,
half-dancing as she guided him to the nanny’s room, to the large bed. She broke
free to perch on top of the covers.
Staggering, Thomas fell to his knees in front of her,
overcome with his blossoming lust. Lucille, panting with her own desire, began
to draw up the hem of her shift, exposing her long legs from calf to thigh, up
to her waist. Spreading them wider, she plunged her hand to the center, fingers
tracing along the wet folds. “Come to me,” she beckoned. “Kiss me, make love to
me.”
He reached for her, still kneeling, wanting something he
hadn’t ever experienced before, like they had seen in that book in the library,
the book of lovemaking. He kissed the inner part of her thighs, moving inward,
answering Lucille’s gasps of pleasure with those of his own. He replaced her
hands with his, amazed at the slickness of her on his fingertips, observing
every reaction his touch brought to her.
The house creaked, the wind panting with them through the
halls, roiling in a haze of sinful lust, a forbidden love. Crimson Peak was
ancient and remembered magic that people had forgotten, the sacrifices once
made on it, buried within it…and it was thirsty once more, roused from its
patient trance like a spider in its web, to the vibrations of its entangled
prey .
With a long moan, Lucille rocked against Thomas’ kisses, her
hands twining in his hair. She relaxed as if melting onto the bed, tugging him
back by his curls. She smiled at him in the crimson light, and he smiled back,
the ocean-sweet taste her still on his lips. She sat up, taking him up onto her
lap; children but not children any longer.
She rocked him gently, like an infant, pressing his cheek to
her breast, and she began to sing. It was a lullaby she often sang to him. “Let
the winds blow kindly/in the sails of your dreams/Let the moon light your
journey/and bring you to me….”
Thomas wasn’t dreaming, of course, and he could hardly keep
still. Lucille undid his trousers, her hand finding his swollen flesh. He gave
a muffled cry as she grasped him, and she shushed him as she had many nights
before. Releasing her hold, she slipped
out from under him. She stood him on his feet, trading places with him as she
sank to the floor, pulling down his trousers and smallclothes as she did. “Lay
back,” she said, and he did. She stroked the hard length of him, and gently
kissed it before drawing him between her lips and suckling him. He began
whimpering, his vision blurring in the dim light as he closed his eyes. He
never imagined this captive lust, this primal sensation…He felt the need to
move, to welcome her mouth around him, and she moved with him, humming the
lullaby.
Below them, forgotten, smoky wisps of violent red rose like
steam from the sinking body, the water now still as glass and cold. The crimson
earth oozed and pulled at the bricks and boards atop it, as if to tear the
incestuous lovers from their heaven to the very depths. The house inhaled the sweet sounds of this
offering, binding its black wickedness into their perverted love as the walls
bled.
His heart hammering, Thomas grabbed at the blankets as he
began to lose himself. He gulped in air, desperately pulling breath into his
lungs as the intensity at his core increased. Lucille abruptly let go, sitting
back, concerned. “Thomas?” she asked her lips dark and eyes wide.
With a half-strangled cry, Thomas clutched at the clothes
rumpled at his feet, frantically trying to stem the wet burst that the sudden
release around him allowed. Lucille let out her own cry of dismay and moved to
assist him. His coughing gasps became quiet shuddering sobs as Thomas stood
shaking in the last of the dusky red light. Above him, the moths flapped and
fluttered their wings in the shadows. “Sh, sh,” Lucille hushed him. “It’s all
right, my darling, it will be all right. Don’t cry, dearest…”
“I c-couldn’t breathe,” he stammered.
“But you can now, can’t you?” she replied firmly. He nodded.
“There, then. Go change into your nightshirt. “She stared after him as Thomas
shuffled from the room, clutching his clothes. She shivered, hugging her arms
around her. The darkness seemed to reach out from the corners and surround her.
She felt suddenly small, weary. “Thomas?”
she whispered, following after him.
Thomas stood in the common room of the nursery, dressed in
his nightclothes, eyes downcast, fidgeting.
He had lit the candles, the pale light flickering over his solemn
expression. “I’m sorry, Lucille.”
“You needn’t apologize, little brother,” she answered.
“There’s no shame in it. We are bound together, Thomas, bound to this house. We
are the last of the Sharpes, heirs to Allerdale Hall. Lord and lady of Crimson
Peak.” She embraced him tenderly, reassuring him. “Nothing can change that, now
or ever.”
Thomas shivered, doubts racing through him, but he dared not
voice them. He closed his eyes, retreating to the safety of his own thoughts
and merely held on to his sister in the shadows in silence as the candles
burned lower.
“We need to leave here,” Thomas murmured. “We need to leave
tonight, Lucille. We should just go.”
Lucille sighed. She knew he was right. As much as they would
try to shut out the rest of the world, it would come to them far sooner than
they would ever want. They could not just bar the door and expect to be left
alone. But the necessity of their escape
made her indignant. This was their home; theirs by right and bought with pain
and suffering. They couldn’t simply abandon it. “Not before morning, sweetest,”
she argued. “This house and everything in it is ours. Ours! Without it, what do
we have?”
Thomas stared at her, eyes shining with emotion. “We have
each other. I promise you that, Lucille. We will always protect each other,
forever.”
“But…where will we go?” Lucille questioned.
“We’ll walk along the road; eventually it goes to Falham.
Then we can go to Surrey together, or London, or anywhere we wish. But we’ll be
together.”
“And what about Mother?
If anyone finds out what happened…”
“They won’t. I won’t tell, and you won’t. We’ll make up a
story,” Thomas suggested. “You’re good
at stories.”
“It’s not as though she struck herself, Thomas…Oh, wait!
Let’s say that a robber came in and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give
him all her jewels and the keys to the silver cabinet! And we hid and ran away
because we were scared he’d kill us, too.”
Thomas nodded eagerly. “They’d have to believe that, since
Mother would never give up those keys and there’s hardly any silver left
anyway. And you hid the jewelry box.”
Lucille stood up, excited. “They will never part us if we
tell them that story!” She began to embellish the story in her mind, how they
had been sent up to the attic to go to bed; that they had heard a strange voice
in the house, and Mother screaming, and then nothing, and had climbed out a
window to escape into the night out of fear. It would work, this little fiction!
“Come on, then, let’s get on our coats and take some small things with us. I’ve
a few coins, and we must take some candles and a flint…” Lucille and Thomas
raced about, gathering a few necessary possessions. Lucille took up her
mother’s ring, reluctantly stashing it with the others in the box; she dared
not take it with her. Rushing down the stairs into the kitchen Lucille stuffed food
into their bags. She insisted that Thomas wear his jacket, and he threw it on
over his nightclothes. Following after her brother, she stepped out into the
dark embrace of the night on Crimson Peak. Thomas reached back, taking her
hand, and they fled across the hills like butterflies freed from a net.
Slutty Yorick 