22. Hailey
“Miss Calkins, lovely to see you again. Right this way.” The concierge for Crave’s private members turns and heads down a sleek hallway and past several playrooms off the rear entrance.
My fucking knees wobble, and I nearly snap a heel on the textured concrete floor. The faint rhythm of music pipes through the corridor. It’s seductive and soothing. Nothing like the erratic beat of my heart.
I haven’t had nerves like this since Arlo brought me here to meet his friends. Perhaps I wasn’t as worked up then. Arlo was with me, his hand in mine, escorting me. A part of me wishes Hotaru had done the same, but they are not the same people.
Arlo gets off on my pleasure. Hota on my pain and fear.
“Many members were devastated when Master Kido stopped playing last year.” She looks over her shoulder. “You must be very special to have earned the honor of his time.”
I feel special. Like the pig invited to the luau.
Maybe I offer a passable facial expression. Perhaps she’s used to all manner of insanity. Either way, she turns away, rounds the corner, and stops at the only door at the end of the hallway.
“Enjoy.” She places a key in my hand and retreats.
I stare at the skeleton key’s black metal for too long, then eye the lock at the center of the door. Its ornate design eats up half the solid-stained wood.
Fingers trembling, I lift the key, slide it inside the lock, and twist. Metal squeaks on metal. The door opens slightly. No light shines through the sliver. Tentatively, I push it open and peer into the abyss. The dim lighting of the hallway does nothing to illuminate the interior.
“Hello?” I take a half step inside the room. “Hota?”
My voice pings off the walls and comes back empty-handed. In all the times I’ve been here, they’ve never screwed up my rooms or lost my partner. But there’s no one in here.
I turn around, intent to call upon the concierge, when I hear the slightest rustling from within the room.
“Hota?” I jerk around and take another half step inside, straining to make out the outline of anything within the darkness. Nothing materializes. I slide my hand along the wall, seeking a switch.
A flat, cold wall meets my fingers.
“In,” he barks.
I jump a solid three inches off the ground but manage to bite back my scream.
Hota’s voice is loud and demanding, whereas Arlo’s is raspy and coaxing. Legs quaking, I step fully inside the envelope of night.
“Close and lock the door.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
A part of me wants to call out my safe word and be done with this madness. The other part, the part I don’t often acknowledge, yearns for the unknown.
I turn and close the door. Any hint of light is stolen from my eyes, making the world around me inky and blank, save for the fear clawing its way up my spine. My fingers seek the lock and find it mirrors the other side. I stick the key inside, twist it, and the metal snicks back into place.
My pulse whirrs in my ears.
“Turn around.”
When I do, I may as well have my eyes closed because I can’t see a damn thing.
“Throw the key.”
“Bu—” I clamp my lips shut while simultaneously gripping harder to the only thing that will free me from the darkness.
Somehow I know where this is headed. Hota wants Arlo to face his fear before he’ll let him be topped. It stands to reason that Hota also wants me to face mine.
Bloodplay.
My lungs rattle against my ribs. The blood.
Oh god. Oh fucking hell.
The diameter of my chest seems to be shrinking. I place my hand over my dragon and feel my heart tossing itself to meet it. With the beast under my palm, I think of Arlo and I think of Hota.
This is Hota.
I trust him. I trust him to push me to my limits. I trust him to care for me when they tumble down around me. I throw the key.
The metal pings off several things and settles far away from me to my left. He says nothing. Silence presses in on my eardrums until it becomes too loud. The presence of the door behind me seems to double, hulking like a monster in the forest.
My chin quivers. “Now what?”
“If you find me within a minute, I’ll give you an orgasm before I tie you to the cross and cut you.”
“No!” I try to catch the outburst in my hands, but it’s no use. It bleeds out around my fingers. It sounds unhinged.
“Time starts now.” His voice is quiet this time, singing over my skin.
Tormented by the decision in front of me, I waste precious seconds frozen in fear. Seek him out for a bit of relief or run away from the inevitable?
I step forward, arms swinging wildly in front of me. The clop of my heels gives away my location with every stilted shuffle.
Cold air saws in and out of my lungs, yet sweat beads on my chest and lower back.
“Please,” I beg, arms seeking.
My hand hits something hard. It tips and crashes. The sound of metal skitters across the floor. They sound small and thin.
I squat. My fingers seek the source of the sounds. Thin cold metal meets my fingertips. One. Then another. Then another.
Scalpels.
I cover my mouth and try my best to muffle my scream. Sweat burns my useless eyes. I swipe at my hair and throw myself away from the pile.
Warm, bare flesh meets my hands. An abdomen, chiseled and still.
“Hota?” My hands scramble up his torso, over his pecs, and loop around his neck. I pull him to me and crawl up his pants-covered legs. “Hota?”
His arms come around me, holding me close.
I sob into his neck, hating my weakness and loving the safety of his arms.
“Stop,” he barks the command.
Somehow, my body listens, zipping my lips and jerking upright in his arms.
His hand tangles in my hair. He wrenches my face forward and crashes his mouth into mine. I take the invasion, parting my lips and letting him inside my mouth. A piece of me wishes I could fit him inside my body. So I could walk around with his confidence, his skill. So I wouldn’t be scared anymore.
Too soon, he pulls me back and peels me from his body. He walks me sideways and backward toward the scalpels.
“Wait. Wait!” I stop my steps. His hands tighten on my arms. Without missing a beat, he drags me. My heels scrape on the ground. Panic in my brain grasps at something, anything to stop him. “You…you owe me an orgasm first.”
That news doesn’t even slow him down. I’m lifted off my feet entirely.
“Shoes off.”
Despite everything, I listen, kicking them away.
My feet land on a small platform. The opening in the back of my shirt allows my skin to meet a cold, unforgiving surface. I wince, my mind reeling.
He lifts my arms until they’re outstretched like I’m begging for a hug.
“Don’t move.” His breath is hot on my neck.
I swallow a whimper. His hands ease their biting hold. I try to force myself to inhale.
A strap grazes my left wrist.
“My orgasm,” I scream before he can clamp it tight. “You said?—”
His teeth on my ear sever my words. Pain makes my body swim for a second before the lave of his tongue tickles it away. “I lied.”
Anger replaces fear, and I launch off the sturdy cross at my back. I place both hands on his chest and shove with everything I have.
Whether I caught him off guard or he let me move him, he staggers. I shoot right away from the scalpels and toward the key.
I can’t see anything and have no reference for where the floor is. My feet find it too quickly. The force buckles my knees, and I go down fast. I brace for the concrete but find a pad underneath my hands and knees. It’s firm but not as deadly as the floor.
My hands seek the edge, needing the concrete. That’s where the key is. Farther into the room. I scramble forward, needing distance from Hota. Needing distance from the blood.
A hand clamps around the back of my neck and shoves my face to the unforgiving surface.
The smack that reverberates around the room registers in my ears a split second before the sting of contact meets my ass. Even through layers of clothes, I feel the burn of his hand.
It quiets my panic and blanks my mind.
He wrenches my legs wide and smacks my ass once more. The leather of my pants meeting his hand sends a whip and snap through the air.
An unholy noise leaves my mouth. It echoes in the darkness.
“That’s it, pain slut, let me hear it.” His hand connects with my other cheek, jiggling my flesh.
I suck in a breath through my nose and moan it out, long and hard. My synapses fire, lighting up my body. My pussy leaks, soaking my panties. “Fuck me!”
Wham !
The whip of his fingers connects with my pulsing cunt. Not even my thick pants can buffer the sting. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” I pant and arch my back.
“You’d like my pierced dick to tear you up?”
The memory of his ribbed cock shoving its way inside me makes my head spin. “Please.” My hips snap in search of friction. “Hota, please.”
Pressure slides between my ass cheeks. His fingers bear down on my hole through my pants. “I bet you’d even let me take your ass.”
My blood is made of absinthe, and he lit a match. “Yes.” I nod. My hot cheek sticks to the mat.
“But that’s not why we’re here, Hailey.” His hand connects with my thighs in rapid fire, setting off sparks on my skin. “Why are we here?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
He slaps my clit so hard, I swear it explodes. The force pushes me forward, smashing my face harder into the floor.
“Don’t lie to me,” he snarls.
Before I can form a thought, I’m flying through the air, yanked upright by my hips. He shuffles me toward the cross. Everything in me bellows for me to scream and fight, to kick and punch and free myself.
I don’t know if it’s the buzzing of my adrenaline or the sure man at my back. Either way, in perfect clarity, I know the only way to freedom is through hell.
He places me on the platform and stretches my arms wide. His words to remain still aren’t necessary, not this time.
The straps wrap around my wrist one at a time, and then my ankles are fastened in so tight I can’t escape, even if I wanted to.
A sweet hand curves around my jaw. I can feel his breath on my lips.
“Why are you here?”
I exhale. “I am here to let you cut me. I’m here to see blood.”
His lips brush mine too lightly. Then his tongue is there, prying its way into my mouth. I let him in and relish in the softness of his lips and the determined way he explores me. His hand roves my neck, working the tenseness from it. Slowly, they move down my body, plying me with his hands as though they are a drug.
Too soon, he pulls back, and I hold my whimper.
“Good fucking girl, sunshine.”
I relax into the hold of the cross, letting my head fall back and his praise sink into my bones.
He shifts away. Awareness narrows again. The hysteria still rattles around me, but it’s caged by my willingness to be, to experience.
The tiny sound of metal scraping metal challenges the cage’s integrity. My throat goes dry.
Hota’s fingers slide under my lace shirt and dance up my belly. The fabric goes taut, pulling my middle forward and making me bow.
An unfamiliar sound fills the room. It’s base and nightmare-inducing.
A blade severs the material. The fabric screams.
Gooseflesh assaults my skin as cool air rushes in. My shirt now gapes and hangs by my sides.
Something sharp stings my throat.
I swallow a whimper.
It doesn’t bear down on my skin. It only drags across my sternum to the elastic of my bra. The point digs into my flesh.
My breath sounds ragged in my ears.
The material of a very expensive and gorgeous matching set gives way. My breasts hang free. I’m not given a moment to think before the dangerous point burns a circle around my breast and stings my nipple.
“Hota?” I whisper, trying and failing to keep the whine out of his name.
His mouth closes around my other nipple. Teeth pin in and tug.
“Oh god.” I’m stuck in this in-between, desperate for touch and release while utterly terrified.
I hold still, scared to move, and make the blade cut my skin. Even though I know that’s why we’re here.
Hota makes a meal of my breasts, sucking and nipping, teasing and nearly cutting. Pretty soon, I can’t hold my head still. It thrashes left and right. My breaths heave.
An orgasm hunts me like prey.
Before it can pounce, Hota straightens.
The point of the blade drops to my waist.
“When I cut your pants and shred your panties, I’ll find your cunt soaked, won’t I?”
Truth forms a lump in my throat. When the lump should be from shame. “Yes.”
I arch into the blade, not caring about anything other than finding release.
“Greedy little slut.” Hota’s words rattle against my neck for a second before he bites.
“Yes! Fuck!” I scream and writhe, desperate for his hands on me and his cock in me. “Cut me, already. Whatever it takes. I need your cock.”
He licks a line from the bite to my ear. “Cock doesn’t come with a cut. Blood does.”
My groan rumbles between us.
“I want you on your period, Hailey. I want to pound your pussy. I want you to bathe my dick in your blood. I need to hear the squelch of your wet cunt and watch you paint me red.”
“Sweet fucking Christ.” My legs quiver, so near orgasm, and my pants aren’t even off yet.
How can he make something so horrid sound so hot?
“I want you to mark me, Hailey. Stain me. Ruin me for everyone else except him.” His teeth scrape along my jaw.
“Will I mark him too?” I have no idea where the bold notion comes from, but it only seems right.
“Yes.” His wet lips slide along mine, and he nips at the corner of my mouth. “Stained and ruined. Just like me.”
When my hips jerk forward and the sound of my pants being mutilated fills the air, I don’t cringe or panic. I revel in the freedom.
The point dances over the lace of my panties, and then the material falls away.
Hota crouches low. Two fingers spread my pussy wide. The tip stings its way over my most sensitive flesh.
“Please, do it.” I can’t take an ounce more anticipation. I’m wound so tight. I’m going to split apart.
“Not yet.”
I’m about to argue, but his lips clamp onto my exposed clit.
My knees buckle. The straps at my wrists go tight, holding me up. It’s a good thing because his tongue lashes out, catching the tender bundle of nerves. He licks and lashes and sucks, shoving me higher and higher, winding me impossibly tighter.
The crash is inevitable. Just a few more…
“Fucking! Fuck!” I sob and thrash against the bonds, a wild animal in captivity. Tears streak my face and not for the reason I thought they would when I entered this room.
His tongue licks a circle around my swollen pussy lips. “I want to eat you while your cunt bleeds, Hailey.”
“Then make it fucking bleed!”
His big hand presses against my belly, calming me instantly. He stands slowly. “I would never cut your perfect pussy. It would spoil all our fun. I will cut you here.” He drags a finger over my right breast in two lines. “Two cuts. Are you ready?”
My head is bobbing before he’s even finished. “Yes, please, Hotaru. I’m ready.”
The sting is quick, almost cold.
As promised, he cuts two even lines over my breast.
“They won’t scar, but they will bleed.”
Tears soak my face, but I’m smiling. He can’t see it, but I’m ready for him too. I’m ready to see the blood and see him.
More than anything, I’m ready to fuck him or rather be fucked by him.
“Lights, please.”
The sound of metal hitting the floor sings, and then his hands are on my face, cradling my cheeks.
“You are so brave, sunshine.” He kisses my cheeks, my nose, and my brows.
“I want to see it and you,” I plead, more ready than I ever thought possible.
“Close your eyes.”
“Closed.” Not that the scenery changes.
There’s a soft snick, and I see dim light through my lids.
His hands cup my face once more. “Show me your eyes, sunshine.”
I open them to his stunning face in front of mine, blocking out the majority of the low light. Still, I blink him in. My smile is tear-soaked and huge, tugging at my face.
“I am so proud of you.” He smiles back.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful? Stunning?” I ask, staring into his soulful eyes.
He smirks. “One person.”
“Of course, he has. Because it’s true.”
Hota captures my mouth and kisses me like we just saved the world from certain doom. It makes my chest go light and fluttery. Then he pulls back. “You ready?”
I nod.
His hands fall away. My gaze drops to my chest.
My pink but rather unmarred skin greets me. My mouth goes wide, and then my gaze shoots up.
There, across the un-inked skin of Hota’s right pec, two even slashes trickle small streams of blood.
Hota grips onto the leather belt, holding pants low on his hips when the fabric should be on the floor. He holds perfectly still as though awaiting my reaction. I don’t think he’s ready for the emotions and words flowing through my head right now.
The main one starts with an L and rhymes with glove.
“Unfasten me?” My high voice is not my own.
He nods and crouches at my feet. He makes quick work of the straps at my ankles, then frees my hands.
I shrug off my ruined shirt and bra, then I leap into his arms. I press my forehead to his and blink back tears. “There aren’t enough words to express how grateful I am for you, even before this. But now…”
Leaning back, I gently swipe at the cuts, then drag my finger over his swollen lips. Then I press my mouth to his.
The tang of blood hits my tongue. It only ratchets up my desire. I twine our tongues and suck his into my mouth.
“Fuck, Hailey,” he mumbles against my mouth and then walks us somewhere.
My back meets the mat.
“Yes, fuck Hailey,” I agree.
His shoulders shake in a laugh that’s muffled against my lips.
I wrestle to reach his belt buckle. Together with bumbling hands, we free his cock. It’s so hot and ribbed in my hand. The tip is slick with precum. I swipe at the second cut with my free hand, gather the last of the blood, and smear it onto his shaft.
“Fuck me, Hota.”
His hand comes around my neck. He pins me to the floor. “Don’t rush me.”
I want to say make me, but I barely have enough room to breathe. He must be able to see the defiance in my eyes.
He growls and drags his pierced cock-head through my slick cunt.
Using his knee and one hand, he spreads my legs wide and studies me as though he’s never seen pussy before. His tongue wets his reddened lips.
He launches his hips forward with that feline speed. What little breath I had leaves in an instant as he stretches me with a brutal thrust.
I can feel him in my throat, where his hand holds tight. His balls nestle against my ass. I’m filled, mind and body.
“Watashi no taiyo. Watashi no ai.” He kisses his way between my breasts and to my lips. I don’t know what he said. I’ve told him twenty times that I don’t speak Japanese.
I know his body language, though. I know the cadence of his words. I recognize the reverence in them.
My fingers sink into his hair.
“Thank you,” I say against his lips to keep from saying something bigger. Something I don’t think he’s ready to hear yet.
His hips move so excruciatingly slow, all the way out and then in. Over and over, he works me enough that my body smokes. His hands loosen but hold me still.
“I can feel everything,” I rasp.
The corners of his mouth tip up, giving him a sinister look. “Not yet, you don’t. But you will.”
In an instant, he flips me onto my belly and jerks my hips up in the air.
He enters me with a crash of his hips. Both his hands come down hard on my cheeks, shaking my ass.
A scream rips out of my throat.
“Tell me how much you want my blood-coated dick,” he says, smacking my ass again.
“I, ahh! I want your blood-coated dick so bad, I’ll cut myself for it! Please, Hota!”
“Fuck, sunshine,” he snarls and pumps into me with short, powerful strokes.
They’re great, but not enough. Not what I need to set me off. He knows it. He has to. The man reads me like a goddamn billboard. The light-up, flashing kind. My fingers try to grip the mat but gain no traction.
I search my brain for something that will make him lose his cool and abandon the infuriating chain he has on his control.
“I’m a dirty little slut for you. All I want to do is come on your dick.”
His chuckle is patronizing.
It makes me bite the inside of my cheek until I trade my irritation for inspiration. Without warning, I scramble forward, leaving the perfection of his cock. A zip of adrenaline shoots through me.
I make it three feet when he latches onto my ankles and drags me back. I try to kick out and shove him back. Of course, it doesn’t work. He’s on top of me in an instant, pinning me flat to the mat.
“Arlo’s spoiled little cum slut.” He hisses in my ear and then bites it. “She doesn’t know patience. She’ll learn it if she wants to come.”
I go still.
“Don’t move a muscle,” he snarls.
I nod and then catch myself.
Hota spreads my cheeks wide. A cold dollop of spit lands on my puckered asshole. My clit twitches. I’m pretty sure he can’t see that, but not certain. I bar the whimper that tries to escape my lips.
His hips meet my ass, and he rubs the ribbed length of his cock, head to base, across my asshole.
My fucking toes curl. There’s no stopping them.
He does it again and again, dragging the torturous monster over my most sensitive area. Back and forth until I’m gasping and bordering on nuclear.
“You haven’t felt everything yet. When I’m in your ass and Arlo is in your cunt, then you’ll feel it all.” His teeth sink into my trap.
I breathe deeply, feeling the orgasm knock on my door with two fists.
“Sir, may I please have permission to come?”
He licks my shoulder. “Now she’s learning.”
Tears sting my eyes worse than when I was terrified of him cutting me. My chest heaves on a silent sob. Because he didn’t say yes.
I’m half a second away from exploding, but I grit my teeth and push it back.
His hips retreat, and I bite my lips to silence my scream.
He pulls my hips back into the air. His lips graze each cheek, and then he slams home into my cunt. “Perfect little sunshine, come for me.”
Hota rams himself into me. His hips piston like a souped-up machine. He grips my shoulders to keep me still as he pounds the air out of my lungs.
My body twists so tight I think I might snap, and then I’m screaming. My release takes me by the throat, thrashes me about, and then sends me into space.
“Strangle my dick, sunshine. Good fucking girl.” His roar is violent, filling the room. He spills his warmth into me so full it spills down my leg. It squelches and sucks as he continues to fuck me hard, as though he thinks it may never happen again.
My legs quake and burn.
“Hailey.” He shouts my name as though it has such meaning, and then the fight drains from him.
We collapse onto the floor and stay in that in-between state for a long time, neither here nor there. Just blissed on a deep level.
When he pulls out, his cum runs hot down my leg. He scoops it up and shoves it back inside me. He presses his lips to mine, then grins while looking down at the dam he created. “I have a new kink.”