21. Chapter 21 – Tamen
Chapter 21 – Tamen
D id I blame the bullet hole in my back on Sloane? Kind of.
Was she currently wearing one of my shirts and nothing else, sitting on the kitchen island ordering room service? Also, yes.
I’d call that a win.
And a loss, because it was torture having her nearby. The best kind of torture.
She swung her legs back and forth while curling the phone cord around her finger absently as she ordered almost every plate on the menu. She insisted I needed to eat red meat to help build back the blood lost last night, and while she wasn’t wrong, I didn’t think one ribeye was going to make a big enough difference to go through the trouble.
But I didn’t tell her that; having her taking care of me was reason enough to go through with it. And I was so bloody tired. It was only two in the afternoon, and I was desperate to crawl into bed and sleep until the next sunrise. That’s what my body needed to recoup.
Not steak.
As she hung up the phone, she stayed on the counter, staring at me silently. Any other day, the silence would have led me to make some snarky comment or insult. Today, though, I simply didn’t have the energy.
So, we just sat in silence, staring.
Her face was washed free of any product, her hair pinned up in a simple twist and the white button up she wore added to the fresh and simple look. It was odd to see her so bare , it made her look vulnerable. Untouched by life.
“Are you in danger?” She asked after a while, breaking through my silent obsessing over the way she looked in my clothes, in my space. “Is something like what happened to you last night going to happen to you again?”
In the shower earlier, I had given her a very watered-down explanation of what had happened, leaving me with a bullet hole on the floor. I told her I had traded a job for the privilege of keeping her to myself at the private event. And that it went sideways.
“I don’t make it a habit of allowing bullets to rip through my body, if that’s what you’re asking.” I replied, in avoidance.
“Do you take jobs like that often?”
“I used to.” I admitted. “It used to be my whole way of life. Now it’s more of a recreational sport. A stress reliever.”
“Killing people.” She stated, not quite asking, though I never spoke of life and death. “You kill people, don’t you, Tamen?”
I eyed her, holding her stare to acknowledge that this wasn’t a normal conversation two people usually had so candidly. “If that’s what the job calls for.”
“How does one go from murder-for-hire to sex club owner?”
I chuckled, sinking down further into the chair as the fatigue became a heavier burden to carry. “Sex, drugs, and money, baby. They all go hand in hand. Surely you know there’s darkness all around your world, whether you see it firsthand or not.”
“Sure.” She shrugged, and then leaped off the counter, gracefully walking toward me. “But I’m usually more focused on the pleasure when I’m in that world.”
“You have my attention.” I adjusted myself in my lounge pants and she smiled softly down at me as she came to a stop between my spread legs.
“I still hate you.” She murmured. “You traumatized me with that whole dramatic event.”
Swallowing, I let her words seep into my mind, so I had no choice but to acknowledge them. She deserved to have her feelings validated, because she was right.
“I never wanted you to see me like that. I never would have exposed you to this if I’d had a choice in it all.”
Sloane slowly placed one knee next to my hip and seductively straddled my lap until her body heat blended with mine through the thin clothes between us. “I’m glad I found you before it was too late.” She gently placed her hands on my abs, sliding her fingers over the ink that covered every inch of my torso like she was tracing a map. Unable to resist, I held her flared hips in my hands, fighting the urge to rock her forward on my already rock hard dick. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to strangle you for my troubles.”
I grinned, and lifted one of her hands to my neck and she instantly tightened her fingers around the front of my throat. “Go right ahead, Love. Take all your frustrations out on me.” Tipping my head back against the chair, I stared up at her and gave into the urge to rock her hips onto me. She licked her lips and rolled her hips a second time for another grind across my erection. Judging by the scalding heat branding my dick, she was naked under my shirt, and I struggled to think of anything else but sliding up into her body.
“As if you could ever let me top you.” She smirked, lowering her lips to hover right above mine. “Both times we’ve been together, you’ve dominated me effortlessly.”
“I can be a switch if the incentive is right.” I swiped my tongue over her plump bottom lip, teasing us both. “Whatever you want, it’s yours. I won’t even pretend that I don’t like it.”
Her teeth latched onto my lip and bit down, making my dick jump between us as she slowly started grinding on it. It was as close as we had gotten to a kiss. Why hadn’t I fucking kissed her before now? “You’d submit to me?” She hummed, “You’d give in and let me have my way?”
“You submit to me.” I replied, “And I know that’s not your norm. So why not? I’ll try anything once.”
“Oh, baby.” She moaned seductively as her arousal started soaking through the front of my pants. “You’re talking to an over achiever here, be careful what you say.”
“Would you prefer I beg?” I countered, fully willing to beg to get inside of her sinful body again. “It wouldn’t be a hardship on me.”
Sitting up in my lap, she teasingly started unbuttoning the shirt she wore and the whole time, she rocked her hips, pleasing us both. “I want you to beg.” Pulling the shirt wide, but keeping it on, her delectable body played peek-a-boo with my hungry eyes every time she rolled her hips. I was entranced by the femininity of her body and how she used it like a weapon and a promise at the same time.
Sloane was a professional, after all. And I was in awe of her skills.
“Whatever you want, I’ll do it.” I said, looking away from her perfect nipples to her flawless face. “Tell me how you want me to beg.”
Was I topping from the bottom? Kind of. But as she lifted my hands from her hips to her breasts and used my fingers on her hard nipples, just how she liked it, I didn’t think she minded.
“Ask for permission to kiss me.” She breathed. “You’ve never kissed me.”
“Please Sloane, let me taste your lips. I want to taste perfection.” Not a single word was a lie or an act. I was suddenly obsessed with her mouth and needed to kiss her. “Please.”
Leaning forward again, she hovered right over me and admitted, “I’ve never kissed a male client before.”
“Good thing I’m not paying for this, then.” I pinched her nipples harder than I had been and she sagged into me, getting closer to my lips.
“You’re paying for this.” She chided, “You just don’t realize it.”
“Then make it worth my money.” Countering, I challenged her, and she grinned.
“The customer is always right, after all.” She whispered and then gently laid her soft lips against mine.
Jesus, fuck.
I tilted my head and let her set the seductive and teasing pace as she worked me over with her lips. Provocatively, she ran her tongue over my lip but wouldn’t let me in when I tried playing a game of will and power.
Every interaction between us was a chess match, both of us fighting to win the unspoken prize at the end. This one wouldn’t be any different.
Tonight, we were playing for control.
And I happily intended to let her win.
Finally, she gave into my needs and deepened the kiss, moaning when I instantly met her moves with my own eagerness. Her fingers moved back to my throat and tightened, pushing my head back into the cushions as she dropped her lips to my neck, biting and licking a trail down to my chest.
“Why did I enjoy that so fucking much?” She hissed, tightening her hand on my throat, restricting my air, and I grinned.
She could kill me exactly like this, and I’d still smile as I crossed the threshold into death for good.
“Because it’s me.” I teased, and she bit my ear hard enough to draw blood. She was playing with fire, though, because I loved every burning touch she graced me with. “I’m quite irresistible.”
“I know.” She groaned, “I’ve heard the rumors.”
A sour taste filled my mouth with the conflict I heard in her voice as I remembered the lie I told her earlier.
“I never slept with your friend.” I said, and she paused, leaning back to look at me skeptically.
After a moment of silent contemplation, she asked, “Why would you lie about that?”
“To make you mad.” I replied plainly, “So you’d turn your energy from fear to anger, and use it to help me.”
She swallowed, but didn’t say anything right away. Finally, she broke the silence. “Why would you think that sleeping with other people would anger me?” The quick shift of her amber eyes to the side spoke volumes, revealing a hidden truth I chose to ignore. “We’re not together. You can sleep with whoever you want to.”
I didn’t believe her words, but rather than call her on them, I admitted something. “Because I know how it makes me feel every time, you tell me about the other men you’ve let touch you since I fucked you the first time.”
Should I have shown my cards like that? No.
Was I hoping that maybe, just maybe, there’d be some sort of benefit to come from the admission.
Sitting up to her full height, she stared down at me with her hand on my throat, scowling. I dropped my hands back to her hips, anticipating her throwing herself from my lap at my pathetic admission. Finally, she cocked her head to the side and glared at me, “Don’t ever lie to me again, Tamen Bryce. Especially about other women.” She reached between our bodies and pulled my aching cock free of my pants and fisted it as I fought the urge to thrust up into her hand. “Promise me that.”
Licking my lips and fighting the lack of blood flow to my brain, I gave her what she wanted. “Yes, Ma’am.”
Sloane moaned and tightened her hand around both my neck and dick in sync, before shoving herself off my lap in my distraction, even as I grabbed for her, but she avoided me. “In the name of honesty, I have something to admit.” She walked away from me to where her purse laid on the counter and fished something out of it. At first I was afraid she was leaving, going to walk out and leave me hard and aching for her as a punishment for my deception.
I would have deserved it for sure, but damn, that would be cold.
As she walked back across the space on the balls of her feet like a dancer, my shirt swaying and open down the center of her body, I caught the flicker of something gold in her hand.
“I lied to you.” She said, drawing my eyes back from her hand to her face as she stood between my legs once again. “But from now on, I’m going to be honest with you, as long as you return it.”
“About what?” I demanded, anxiety crawling up my neck as I tried to remember everything she had ever said to me.
But thinking got hard as she slid my shirt off her body and gracefully sank to her knees between mine. Pulling on the waistband of my pants she removed them until we were both bare and then she ran her nails up the length of my tattooed thighs, barely avoiding the space where my secrets hid, as she gripped my dick and stroked me with both hands.
“There are no others.” She whispered, staring up at me with her mystic golden eyes as she stuck her tongue out and twirled it around the tip before sucking the head into her mouth and letting it pop free. “Not since before the night we met. I lied about letting others have me to rile you up.”
“Minx.” I hissed as she sucked my dick back into her mouth. Bloody hell, she was a magical being with skills unmatched. “Diabolical, really.”
She hummed with a smirk and pulled back, licking her puffy lips as she flashed the golden Magnum condom she got from her purse, slowly rolling it onto my dick.
“Like knows like.” Sloane purred, straddling me again and sliding directly down onto my dick. I was fighting to keep my eyes from crossing, and she was riding me hands free like a master. She was so far out of my league it was comical. “Mmh, I thought if I was in control, it’d feel normal. And then I’d be able to get over this infatuation with you.” She cracked her neck, letting her eyelids flutter closed as she gave into the pleasure as she slowly rode me, rolling her hips rather than thrusting herself on and off of it. I couldn’t care less what motion she used, so long as she let me stay buried inside of her heavenly body.
“There’s nothing normal about me, Rainbow.” I replied, before sucking one of her nipples into my mouth and drawing a breathy cry of pleasure from her lips. “This isn’t normal.”
“Maybe it’s that adage that we all want what we can’t have. Maybe that’s why it’s hotter.” She said and then grabbed both of my wrists in her hands and pinned them to the chair by my head. My shoulder burned as she stretched my flesh around the staples she mutilated me with, but I didn’t stop her. My cock throbbed harder as she restrained me as she rode me. I could have easily overpowered her, flipping the script and pinning her down as I fucked her hard, but she wanted to be in control.
She wanted proof that this differed from anything she shared with anyone else.
I didn’t need the proof, I already knew it was.
Fate wrote the connection between our souls long before we ever met.
It would be the very thing I fought at every turn simply because once I gave into it, I’d be lost and I’d bring her down with me when it all ended. It would end, eventually.
All good things did.
“Or maybe it’s just better.” I countered, taking the opportunity to thrust up into her when she lifted herself fractionally and her tits swayed from the violence in it. “The infatuation runs in both directions, Rainbow.”
“Again.” She breathed, staring at me as she held herself up. “Hard.”
“Gladly.” I winked and did it again, making her eyes roll as I found the pace and rhythm she sought after. I could do it all day long, slamming up into her body as her tits jiggled and her lips parted in pleasurable cries while she held me down like she was in control. Whatever my pretty little Rainbow needed.
She was in control; I was on bottom with my arms pinned behind my head, yet I fucked her like we both knew who belonged to who.
Right now, she was mine. And I was going to take care of whatever she needed. With each plea and demand that fell from her pretty kissed lips, she told me exactly what those needs were.
It was the first time I fucked her while staring at her beautiful face, and now that I had seen the color of ecstasy kiss her skin as she orgasmed, I’d never take her any other way. She was magical, and entrancing, I could stare at her all day long as she came on my dick.
Or my face.
Even as she dug her nails into my wrists, branding me, I ached to taste her orgasm on my tongue again. But I knew my pretty little Rainbow would behead me if I tried to take my dick away from her right now, even if I was simply trying to trade it for my tongue.
So, I gave her everything she demanded from me, watching her lose control and come over and over again. Until I couldn’t hold back any longer either.
“You’re close, aren’t you?” She gasped, staring down at me through hooded eyes as she rocked against my pubic bone. “I should make you come in the condom, since I know you hate it so much.”
Glaring up at her. “I have nothing against coming into a condom.” I uttered, and slammed up into her, “I just prefer to see it on your skin.”
“How about my tongue?” She ran the tip of her tongue over her top teeth and then released my arms and scurried off my lap to her knees again. “Come on my tongue, Mr. Duke .”
Pulling the condom off and tossing it to the side, Sloane sucked my cock deep into her mouth and I rested my chin on my chest and watched the show. God, it felt bloody amazing and if she wanted to swallow my come, I wasn’t going to tell her no.
Within no time, I was there, fighting the urge to blow and wanting the experience to never end. Pleasure won out.
“That’s it, Rainbow. Make me come.” I feathered my fingers into her hair and held her head as she worked her mouth up and down me until I was lost to the sensation altogether. She sucked me down, never once letting my orgasm deter her until I was melted in the chair, and she sat triumphantly at my feet.
“Good boy.” She purred, licking her lips with a smug shimmy. “I knew you could be a good little submissive for me.”
I snorted and shot forward, wrapping my hand around her throat and leaned over her as she laid her hands on my thighs for leverage. “Careful baby, I don’t fully submit to anyone. Ever. But if you play your cards right, I might let you pretend I do from time to time.”
“Tamen.” She whispered, running her hands down my thighs with wide eyes. At first, I didn’t catch on to the sudden shift in the emotions clouding her bright amber eyes. And then I felt it.
Her fingers.
On my scars.
“Are these—” She stammered, pulling her neck back out of my hold to look at the texture of my skin under the black out tattoos I used years ago to cover my weakness. Tears muddied the shimmer of her irises as she shook her head in confusion. “Cutting scars?”
“No.” I stood up in a flash, pushing her backward so I could walk around her.
Gone was the euphoria I had been feeling from my orgasm.
Gone was the excitement I had been feeling from being close to her.
Gone was the comfort I had been feeling in her presence from letting my guard down and relaxing around her.
I forgot; no one was safe.
No one was equipped to handle all of me.
Momentarily, I let myself forget I was supposed to stay hidden from everyone. Monsters like me couldn’t reveal themselves. Monsters like me couldn’t coexist with normal people.
My father had taught me at a young age that I was the worst kind of beast out there, because I wasn’t redeemable. There was no good in me, never had been. I wasn’t a machine he had created over time to be useful; I was just demented from the start.
A willing participant in all his sick games.
And now Sloane saw a bit of the boy that had tried like hell to bleed the monster out of his soul, unsuccessfully, all those years ago. Which meant she had worn out her welcome.
Now, she had to go.