9. Nine #3
I choked and drooled and cursed him with every fiber left.
My nose ran, my eyes stung and watered, and he drank it in, savoring the humiliating ruin of my makeup as it ran down my chin in black rivers.
He’d promised me a spectacle, and he was delivering.
I could tell he was about to come, so I twisted my tongue around his shaft and hollowed my cheeks, refusing to blink even as the tears stung raw.
He held my face against his cock on the final thrust, spilling down the back of my throat, and I had no choice but to swallow until it seared down to my emptiness, marking me from the inside. He held me there, choking me with his cock, fingers locking me tight while his hips shuddered and stilled.
Arrow didn’t say anything at first, just stroked his slick thumb along the cut of my jaw, still tight in his grip. My lips were numb, my chin slick with spit and smeared lipstick.
I’d never felt more alive in my life.
He made a small, satisfied sound, almost a purr, and pulled me off with a slurp. I gasped, mouth raw and wet, straining at the cuffs as if I could breach the gap between prey and predator by will alone.
“You will always belong to me, Harlowe. No matter who’s watching. Even when it’s just me.” He smacked my cheek, not hard enough to hurt, just to punctuate. “Better make a mess like this every time, little viper.”
I bared my teeth, lips smeared black and snotty, and growled, “Fuck you.”
He smirked. “If it’s not already obvious, you will.”
Arrow stood before lifting the edge of the mask so I could see him.
His eyes were pale, crystalline, and merciless.
Then, he kneeled close, his mouth at my ear, and pressed his tongue along the curve of my jaw.
He left me kneeling, my hands cuffed behind my back as he used a handkerchief to wipe my face.
“Get used to it,” he said, brushing a thumb under my eye to clear the mascara trails, “or I’ll find a way to make you beg for it.”
I spat at his feet.
My head spun with pain and the afterglow of humiliation. He smiled with his teeth, tucked himself back into his pants, and laid the edge of the mask down against my cheek again, as if to caress.
“Don’t ever let me catch you on your knees for another man,” he said, low and cold. “Your cunt’s a diplomatic grant, Harlowe, but your mouth is mine.”
He uncuffed me, leaving the collar on. As my hands slid free, the blood rushed back, pins and needles agonizing in the nerves.
Arrow knelt—impossibly expensive suit fabric taut at his knees—and pressed his mouth to my temple.
Then he stood and left me crouched, naked, spit running down my chin, dripping onto my tits, and still trembling on the glass stage.
I waited until his footsteps faded before collapsing fully, the trembling doubling as I ripped off the mask.
In the aftercare room, Isadora lent me her shawl and dabbed the mascara from my face with a certain motherly care that made me ache. Zephyr avoided my eyes, and when I finally caught his gaze in the cracked mirror, there was something like mourning in it, which almost made me laugh.
He stepped closer, careful not to crowd me. “You’re his now,” he said quietly. “I can see it. The way you moved tonight—you’re already learning him, and adapting to what he wants.”
I looked away, but he tilted my chin back up with one finger. It was a gesture so familiar it made my chest ache.
“I’m not going to fight for something that was never mine to keep,” he continued. “You came to me looking for something I could give you, but this”—he gestured vaguely, but we both knew he meant Arrow, meant all of it—“this is different. He doesn’t know how to share yet. Maybe he never will.”
“Zephyr—”
“Let me say this.” His voice carried that old authority, but it was soft now.
“You were always going to belong to someone like him. Someone who doesn’t ask permission, who takes what he wants.
The only difference now is you want him to.
” He stepped back, gave me space. “That’s not a punishment.
That’s just the difference between surrender and choice.
” He met my eyes in the mirror one last time.
“When you need a safe word, you know where to find me. Always.”
I walked home alone, letting the city’s acid-bright chill carve the last dregs of adrenaline from my skin.
Every step was a dare to the skyline: do it again; prove you can’t be hurt.
I climbed the stairs to my room, avoiding the guards’ eyes, and locked the door, savoring the slam as it echoed through the empty marble hall.
Stripping off my clothes, I ran a bath so hot it nearly burned.
Afterwards, I slunk to bed with the collar still on.
Even naked, it felt heavier than the duvet, pinning me to the mattress.
I slept, and in my dreams, Arrow was everywhere—hands, voice, teeth—all the ways a man could own a girl and never have to say it out loud.
I woke up twice, mid-scream, biting down on my knuckles to chase the taste of his skin from my tongue.