Moth to a Flame

16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Regan

Grass at my back. A man on top of me. Grubby hands. One is pinning a knife to my throat. The other touches every inch of my body, it feels like.

Rotten apples.

Needy grunts.

This is how I die.

Raped, then murdered. Ditched in the bushes of Central Park with my jeans cast aside and my panties torn. With my blood painting the greenery red.

This is how I die, and I’m not scared.

I’m terrified.

I want my mom. I want my dad.

I want to have popcorn with Rosemary while we binge on some of the Saw movies in her bedroom.

I want…

“Don’t make a sound, bitch.” The man doesn’t go to his zipper. I was sure he would.

Every time I have this nightmare, he does.

No, this can’t be a nightmare. It’s so real. Except his hand curls around the baton and…

Make it stop. Make him drop it. Make him not use it on me.

Not this time. Not again.

No. No. No.

“Better think again, motherfucker.”

Lester’s weight is lifted off me in a heartbeat. He’s being thrown in the air by this man—no, this God—and lands on the grass a few feet away from me. My savior spares a dark glance at me. At my bare body. At my rumpled and discarded clothes.

He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he sneers and twists to Lester, who scrambles to his feet. I’m quick to pull on my jeans and wipe the tears off my cheeks. Nothing to do about the panties, sadly.

Or not. They don’t matter.

He’s saving me. Someone’s actually here to save me.

I blink over and over, refusing to believe this is real. This giant man with shoulder-length platinum-blond hair has found me.

He’s found me, and he’s beating the shit out of Lester. Kick by kick. Punch by punch as he goes down to his knees. He doesn’t even stop to catch his breath, just keeps throwing his fists at Lester’s face and ears and chest. The God, my God , grabs Lester’s baton.

Cracking sounds ensue. Bones and ribs break. Blood splatters, and this time, it isn’t mine.

He’s found me. I have to repeat it because none of this feels real.

Landon , my twenty-five-year-old self whispers. It’s Landon.

It’s him, and he’s gotten to me before .

Before the real torture began.

Before this sick fuck defiled me.

Before he managed to cause permanent damage.

“Regan.”

Landon’s hushed voice feels close by. It can’t be. He’s destroying Lester over there. At least six feet separate us.

“Regan.”

Louder this time. His hands are on me.

How?

A new wave of tears streams down my cheeks. The horror doesn’t go away because Landon is here now. Because he’s finally saving me.

“Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

“Regan!”

A thunder.

I snap my eyes open. Landon’s here. On top of me, his forearms bracketing my face, his hair a curtain around his face. And he’s blurry.

The world is just as blurry, and my chest is burning, and I’m…

I’m sobbing. I’m bawling my eyes out.

Landon is here. He’s here.

His large palms cradle my cheeks, and he’s under the blankets with me.

Nothing will hurt me with his body shielding mine. Except too much already has.

It’s been days since he started sleeping over here.

It’s been years that I’ve been reliving the worst night of my life.

“You’re here. You’re safe.” He doesn’t kiss me. He holds me, protects me. My fierce dark knight. My psychotic villain who’ll always be here to save the girl. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, love. No one can hurt you.”

“Landon?”

“Regan!” My sister’s voice and Mojo’s yapping are like an explosion in my small apartment. “Regan, where are you?”

“I have her.” Landon won’t tell her I’m fine. He won’t lie, just like he hasn’t over the last couple of nights when I’ve woken up crying and screaming. “Go back to bed, Rosemary. I have her.”

“Okay. Okay,” she murmurs. I hear the terror in her voice. “Let’s go, Mojo.”

The door clicks behind them. Then the lock.

My vision clears. My tears slowly dry.

“I’m sorry.”

That lands me a growl and a feral kiss that leaves me breathless. “He touched you again?”

Landon doesn’t know the extent of what happened to me that night. He hasn’t looked it up online, either. He’s waiting for me to tell him.

More sobs rip from my chest. He shushes them with his lips over mine, with another passionate, vicious kiss. Through his actions, he reminds me who I belong to. The only man who’ll ever get to hurt and touch me again.

As his teeth tug on my lip and his tongue rubs mine, I dare to wish. I wish I could be completely honest with him.

He deserves that. He deserves the world.

This rough and rugged man who’s been working from the small desk I set up for him in my store. Who brought me a man’s toe that I keep next to the eyeballs in my cupboard. He said some asshole on Moth to a Flame had sent me filthy messages before I closed the account, so there it is. His toe.

I even have a chastity belt that I have to wear to work. He’s with me there the entire time. Unlocks it when I need to use the bathroom. Because it’s not meant to humiliate me.

It’s symbolic. He loves it when my pussy is confined by black leather and metal, and he alone holds the key to it.

He gives me so much of himself.

And I can’t do the simplest thing in return. Tell him the truth.

I want to give them to him so badly.

I can’t.

Can’t tell him about the torture Lester put me through that night.

That would break his heart.

He keeps talking about breeding me. About putting babies inside me.

Apart from having me, having kids together would turn him into the happiest man on the planet.

My story will put an end to that. It will break his heart. He’ll be in so much pain.

When the tears and hiccups get worse, Landon grips my chin.

“I’m not having this anymore. You’re not having this.” He’s dead set on burning the entire planet and taking me with him to the gates of hell. “I promised I’d protect you, and so help me, I will not go back on my word. I won’t fail you, Regan. Ever.”

A huge part of me trusts him. Then there’s the part that’s still stuck in the nightmare. I do my best to escape; I do everything in my power to shake the nightmare off.

But then Landon gets up and stalks to his backpack at the corner of my bedroom. He walks with his back ramrod straight, shoulders pulled back.

Fierce. Powerful.

Terrifying.

It doesn’t matter that I recognize him as my Landon. It makes no difference that he’s harmless in the gray sweats that I ordered for him. They came in the mail today; I remember that part clearly. He smiled when he tried them on. When they hung perfectly around his tapered waist.

None of these things matter.

My nightmare and the memories mingle in my head like a rancid aftertaste. Other than the moonlight filtering in, the room is dark, the same as it was then .

I’m vulnerable here, on this bed. In his T-shirt and my thin lace panties and nothing else.

Nothing separates us. Nothing can stop him from pulling a baton out of his bag and using it on me. It doesn’t matter that the bag is too small.

He could.

Landon straightens after fishing out two strings of black ribbons and dropping his bag back on the floor.

I’m already holding Jigsaw with both hands, pointing it at him.

“What’s this?” I can barely hear his harsh whisper.

“Don’t…” I’m shaking. My body. My voice. My entire world. “Don’t come anywhere near me. I won’t let you…Won’t let you do this to me.”

He doesn’t cower. Doesn’t tell me to put the gun down.

He prowls forward.

“Stay back.” I scramble to sit up against the wall, my heels scrunching the sheets. I bend my knees and press them together. “I mean it. I fucking mean it. I’ll blow your brains out.”

“Do it.” His expression is regal, harsh. Set in stone. He’s at the foot of the bed, all lean muscle and resolution. “Being shot by you would be the highlight of my life, Regan. Fucking do it.”

My name. He says my name. Lester never said it. He called me little girl . Bitch . Choked me. Spat on me and punched my face so hard that I lost a tooth I had to replace.

Not once did he say my name.

None of this soothes me enough to lower my gun. To take my finger off the trigger.

“Take another step closer and I’ll shoot you.”

His knees are on the bed, and he tosses the ribbons to the side.

“Don’t make me kill you.” A sob wracks through my body. My lungs are on fire. “I-I don’t want to, but I will. Don’t make me. L-leave. Go away.”

He ignores me. He crawls to me.

His hands are on my knees, parting them despite my resistance.

“Why won’t you go away?” My words are garbled as tears run down my cheeks and another sob catches in my throat. “Why won’t you just leave?”

He’s between my thighs.

“Do it, little lamb.” The darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re his. “Use that gun on me. Do whatever makes you feel good. I’m yours. You’re in control of this, do you hear? I’m giving it to you. Whatever happens next is your choice.”

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want or where I am and fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I trust you.” He’s closer now. Lining his mouth to the barrel of the gun.

His lips part.

His gaze is fixed on me.

“No.” I shake my head, keeping my gun where it is. “No. Don’t. Don’t make me.”

He’s so still that he doesn’t even blink.

My heart races, and then it hits me.

Then I realize how to take the power back. What Landon is asking of me.

I’m steady as I shove the gun into his mouth.

Landon stays put. There’s not an ounce of fear in him. If anything, his eyes grow darker. His breath slows with each rise and fall of his shoulders.

He’s offering himself to me. While he’s usually the one to take, to fuck, to decide for me, tonight he’s turned into something else. Tonight, it’s like he’s really inside my nightmares, reaching into my past, and giving back what was taken from me.

What was robbed from me.

The power over my life. The control.

Some things won’t ever be fixed. Some parts of me are gone for good. I’m never getting them back.

Permanent damage was done, and that’s a fact.

But this. This hollow, spiraling part of me, Landon can fix it.

He is fixing it.

He wraps his lips around the gun and fuck. Fuck .

That’s the hottest thing ever. It should be illegal, how sexy his lips look around the black barrel. How phallic.

I can’t stop myself. I can’t help dragging it in and out of his mouth. Pulling it back until it’s almost out, and pushing it back in, I feel the resistance from his pressed lips.

I’m fucking my boyfriend’s mouth with my loaded gun.

And he likes it. He groans, fisting the sheets. He even rolls his eyes before cutting his gaze back to mine.

I like it too. So much so that my nightmare is gone. I finally see the person in front of me. It’s the man I love, the man who’ll do anything for me.

Protect me. Shield me. Own me in the filthiest ways.

With my consent. Always with my consent.

My nipples peak. My panties are a mess. I’m panting as heat spreads like a wildfire from my face to the tips of my toes.

“Good girl.” At an inhuman speed, Landon removes the gun from my grip. He still holds it while he moves down my body and yanks me by the ankle. “Such a good girl, Regan.”

I’m lying on my back. Speaking is beyond me. I love him so much that I’m choking on the emotion.

“Such a good girl.” He bats my hands away when I reach for him, moving up my body to straddle my shoulders. “I’m going to show you now.”

“Show me what?” It’s barely a breath.

He hears me, smirking. “Who the real monster is. Who’s the only person you should ever be afraid of.”

The outline of his cock in his sweats makes my heart not just race. It gallops.

He’s hard and big. His cock pushes against the fabric. I see the ridges of it. The shape of his head. The wet drop at the top.

I’m expecting him to shove his pants down. Force his dick into my mouth.

Landon has other plans for us.

“You’re going to take it.” His thumb is on the lower row of my teeth, pushing it down. My mouth opens for him. “Be a good girl.” The barrel of my gun is in my mouth, slick with his saliva. “Take it.”

With his shadow cast on me, his knees pressing to my body, and my own loaded gun in my mouth, I have no choice.

I don’t need one. I purse my lips around the metal like Landon did, and I do what he said. I take it.

In and out. Slow then fast. He shoves the tip to my cheek, his cock jerking in his sweats when he sees my skin straining.

“That’s it.” I don’t think he’s aware that his hips sway as he abuses my mouth. They do, and I’m so horny from watching him, from being at his mercy. From listening to his hoarse voice praising me. “That’s a good slut, Regan. Taking that gun like that. So degraded. So feral. You should see the look in your eyes. Mine. I fucking own you. Anyone else ever comes near you…”

There’s a thunderstorm raging inside of him.

“Anyone comes anywhere near what’s mine, and I’ll destroy them. I’m already doing that, destroying the pain from your past. Can you feel that? How I’m poisoning your blood? Me, no one else. I’m the motherfucking virus that’s killing every last one of your demons. And I’ll keep doing it every minute and every hour for the rest of my life.”

My hands fly to the backs of his thighs. Fingernails scratching at his skin.

His jaw tics, and I can tell he’s on the brink of losing control. A loud grunt rips from his throat and the gun is gone.

It’s somewhere on the bed. On the nightstand, maybe.

I have no idea. I couldn’t tell if I tried.

All I see is Landon. His hand slams on the wall while he’s taking his cock out. He’s so big, so close to my face. Even lit by the silver light from the outside, I notice the veins and his taut skin.

How wet the tip is.

“Suck.” His other hand is on the base, and I open up, peeking my tongue out. “Fucking take me, Regan.”

He shoves himself in my mouth. Past my lips. On my tongue. The head of him hits the back of my throat and I taste his salty precum. I swallow it while he holds my face.

While he fucks it.

“Fuck, I want you. Fuck, I need you so bad.” He fucks me so hard that I can hardly breathe. “My slut. My good girl. Suck me off. Just like that. Harder, Regan. Yes.”

As I swirl my tongue on his length, he moans. Landon moans for me.

“Fuck, even now.” The muscles of his thighs pulse beneath my hands as he pummels into my mouth. “You’re letting me violate you. You’re the one letting me defile that pretty mouth of yours. That thing you do with your tongue. Baby . Yes, that’s right. Fuck.”

His nostrils flare when he sucks air into his lungs, and then he’s gone.

“Landon,” I rasp.

“Be quiet.” He’s harsh, merciless as he flips me on my stomach. “You really think”—with rough movements, he yanks my hips up, pulls my arm back, pressing it to my ankle—“that I’ll come like that? Alone? When your panties are soaked?”

“Please.” I should be embarrassed. He’s positioning me so my knees are spread, and he can see how wet I am. I need him so bad I could cry. “Please, Landon.”

“So desperate.” The silky texture of the ribbon is being looped around my wrist and ankle, binding them together. He does the same on the other side. “So needy. I would never leave you like that.” His tongue is hot on my pussy, pressing to the lace, pushing against it. “Ever.”

One movement and my panties are torn.

“I’m going to make you come hard, love.” He comes into views, with his pitch-black eyes and his hair shimmering in the moonlight. “You’re going to be my filthy little whore and be quiet while I fuck you.”

He’s not asking. He’s shoving my ripped panties into my mouth, gagging me with it. It’s so vile, sucking on my arousal. Choking on it.

Loving it.

I’m the one who gave him a free pass to do what he wants whenever he wants with me. I embrace it. I need it.

“You’re beautiful. So beautiful,” he hisses, throws his sweats on the floor, and goes back to kneel behind me.

The way he tied me and positioned me, I’m bare to him. I’m spread open. From how my face is angled, I see him looking at all of me. At my wet thighs and dripping pussy.

“One day.” He sucks on his thumb, pressing into my tightest hole. Where no one has been before. Not even the monster. “I’ll take you back here. Today, I’m fucking babies into you.”

Tears brim in my eyes, but they never fall. Landon, without knowing, banishes my sadness by slapping my pussy. His hand cracks hard on me, again and again. The wet sounds and my choked screams echo in my bedroom.

On an impulse, I try to close my legs. He cracks his hand harder at that.

“You’re not running from this.” Another crack, and it hurts. It’s hot. I’m trembling as an orgasm coils inside my belly with each harsh slap. “You’re going to let me take care of you.”

Each word is a slap. A crack. So many of them that I lose count.

“You’re fucking gorgeous like that. Swollen and wet. You’re making a mess of my hand.”

Another surge of pain comes. This time, it’s accompanied by an explosion of white-hot pleasure. He’s filling me up with his cock. Landon bottoms out inside of me, and he’s ruthless.

He’s the embodiment of power. He is power.

Hands firm on my hips, fingers biting into my flesh. His thrusts push me deeper into the bed. They knock my breath out of me. He stretches me so thoroughly, marking me from the inside out.

Making me even more his.

I’m Landon’s.

And I’m strong. So strong.

“You.” He’s no longer sitting up straight.

One hand is on the back of my head, the other is on my clit, rubbing, stroking. He presses on it, making me squirm in pain. Making me moan in so. Much. Pleasure.

“You’re a drug, Regan.”

My wrists and ankles push against the restraints. The need to hold him, touch him, it’s a living thing.

“I could never get enough of you. Only. Ever. You.” The last word cracks. He’s choked with his need for me. “Come. Fucking now.”

I do. I come for him. I come apart for him, clenching and unclenching around his cock. He holds me tighter, rubs me faster. Fucks me that much harder.

“So good. You’re milking me so fucking good.” His hands return to my hips and he uses his grip to move me, to change the angle in which he’s fucking me. I didn’t think he could get any deeper. He does. “You’re going to take my cum, Regan. Going to take every drop.”

Please, don’t say it. Please, don’t say it.

Please.

“I’m going to get you pregnant.” With every last ounce of strength in me, I force the tears back. Try to focus on how good he feels while he’s rutting into me. “I’ll fuck babies into you. So many of them.”

I blink at him, and there are no tears left. There’s only Landon and the flexing muscles on his back and biceps. Only his fingers and cock. Only him. I come for him again, and it triggers his orgasm.

He empties himself inside me with long, harsh strokes. Runs his hands down the curve of my back, of my ass.

“Such a good girl.” He pulls out, and I ready myself for what comes next.

I’ll have to tell Landon, eventually. When? I don’t know.

It’s easier to pretend that nothing was stolen from me.

That I’m as whole as I was the day I was born. I need it.

When Landon runs his fingers on my thigh, when he gathers his cum that’s leaking from me, I bite into my gag. I scream at my emotions internally, telling them to go back to that dark, sad place where I locked them.

“You’re soaked with my cum.” He flickers his gaze to me before he’s back to focusing on my pussy. “Except I don’t want it on your thighs.”

The dam holding back my emotional meltdown is fragile. The most fragile it’s ever been.

My nightmare, the gun play, the way I’m bound and helpless and in love.

That’s so much. That’s too much.

“I want it deep”—he pushes two soaked fingers into me—“in your pussy. Want to make you preg—”

Poof.

The second time he says it, the dam breaks. Dissolves. Burns into the ground.

Whole-body tremors come first. Then hitched breaths. Uncontrollable sobs.

Screams.

The gag falls out of my mouth.

I don’t care. I can’t care.

“Regan.”

Nothing. I’m nothing. I’m nothing.

I’m so empty.

The world turns black.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

“Regan!”