Depravity

Chapter 21 Knox #2

Skylar lifts her hands toward the hide, then thinks better of it. She stops short, her hands hovering midair.

Curiosity shines in her eyes when she turns her head to me for approval. I don’t say a word, don’t give it to her. Yet.

“But unlike debriding, when you flesh a hide,” she continues, “what you do is…remove the parts that aren’t needed?”

Still waiting for me to give her the go-ahead, she runs her gloved hand over my forearm. A growl rumbles in my chest.

Skylar’s learned exactly which buttons to push to get what she wants from me.

“Yes, you’re right.” My teeth grind as I snatch the fleshing knife from my side. “Smart girl, Trouble.”

The handle bites into my palm with how tightly I grip it.

“Thank you.” Her eyelashes flutter, her cheeks reddening.

“Don’t thank me.” I jam the knife into her palm and force her to look forward, at the hide, or I’ll forget about the whole thing and ram my cock into her. “So. You know more or less what needs to be done, but did you practice anything like that in school?”

I’m not asking just for the sake of fleshing. I’m asking because I want more of her stories. To possess them. To possess all of her.

“Yes.” She bites her lip before nodding, appearing unsure about my swift change of subject.

The simple Yes gives me what I wanted, thrusting me straight into her world.

I picture Skylar in a bright room, surrounded by her classmates. A dead animal instead of a person in front of her. Her eyes sparkling while she wields a knife steadily in her hand.

“What’d they let you use?” I stare at her profile expectantly, starving to learn more about her.

“Pig feet. Can I start?”

Her eagerness to step into my world sends a thrill through me.

I nod.

“Oh, would you look at that.” She runs her fingers over the skin, testing its texture. Testing me, it feels like with how tempting she’s being. “Knox, it’s still hot.”

“You’re the hot one,” I grumble.

She lets out a laugh. It’s sweet and way too loud.

In a flash, I have my arm around her face, sealing that sound shut. Her teeth sink into my forearm, her body back to fight mode.

“No laughing.” My lips brush her ear, warning threaded through every word. “They won’t hear you happy down here, understood?”

She growls at me when I rock my hips into her. The sound of her body smacking the table turns me right the fuck on.

“Be good.” Last time I gave her that order was yesterday, the first time I met her. Could’ve fooled me. We’re so right, we might as well have known each other our entire lives. “Be good for me, Trouble.”

As fear melts away, her body relaxes into me.

“Kay.” The slide of her teeth along my skin as she talks is erotic.

I won’t give in and fuck her. Won’t.

What I do is release her.

She takes a deep breath. Her lungs must burn from the long seconds my forearm pressed over her mouth and nose.

“What part of him is that?” Returning to the work at hand, she jabs her finger into several areas of what used to be Easton. “It’s smooth but also kind of taut?”

“The back,” I grit out without touching him. After a decade of handling hides, I can easily identify which part is which by looking at them. No joints getting in the way. It’s flatter. “Makes no difference for fleshing, though.”

She holds up the knife, and a light tremor courses through her hand. Watching Skylar handling my work tool is nearly as hot as the memory of her coming all over my cock.

“Okay,” she whispers. “What’s the first thing we do?”

We.

“Right. So, you keep the pressure low and the angle steady.” My pulse, though, isn’t steady in the slightest.

Drawing in a deep breath, I wrap my fingers around her wrist, lowering the knife to Easton. The asshole who, with Bronwyn, plotted to kill my Skylar.

Adrenaline soaks my blood. The aggressive, violent energy in me needs an outlet.

Work.

Together, Skylar and I run the curved blade down what used to be the bastard’s back.

“Oh, like this, then.” Already, the tremors are gone, and her hand moves with practiced ease.

It’s not just because I’m the one guiding it. She’s so smart, she’d be able to flesh out the next slab on her own.

Except, fuck that, I’m jealous. I’ll be damned if I let her work on him by herself.

“Yes, like that.” I glance at her profile, sliding the blade by muscle memory.

Need spirals down my spine and straight into my cock, so intense it forces my hips against her back. To ground myself through touch. Through her warmth.

My control still hangs by a thread.

Instead of losing it, I do something to curb my urges.

I flick my gaze to Easton.

“You’re doing so well,” I grunt, meaning it.

“I am?” There’s a shakiness to her voice. She’s as on edge as I am. “You think I’m doing well?”

I wish I could express myself better, tell her just how well she’s doing. How, when she lets me guide her, she keeps the blade to stripping only what matters. That she isn’t scraping bone in the process, either.

I’d say those things, but all I can think about is her body, her lips, that pussy I can smell over Easton’s remains.

I’m too choked up for long sentences and flowery words that have never come easily to me in the first place.

So I huff the one thing I can manage. “You see the table under the hide?”

“N-No.”

“Then yes, you’re doing well. You aren’t scarring it.” Fuck fleshing. Fuck my rituals. I just want her.

“Can you tell me more?”

With my jaw clenched, I do my best to give my curious woman what she wants. More explanations.

“Where we drew the blade across, is there a mess there? Any skin left along the edges, or uneven cuts to fix?”

I watch her, obsessed with every twitch of her mouth. With how beautiful she is as she’s trying to focus. Trying not to beg.

“No mess.” Her answer ends up being a simple one.

Unlike her need to be pounded. That one’s complicated. It’s dark. Twisted. Suffocating us both while breathing life into my basement.

“See, that’s good too.” I keep talking because she needs it. Because this connection we’re building is more important than my desires. “Fleshing isn’t about force. It’s about knowing when to stop.”

Her eyes flick to mine, pleading with me before her mouth breathes the word, “Please.”

Fleshing had its rules once. Care, patience, order. But I can’t and won’t stick to my ritual. Won’t just stand here watching her when she’s begging so fucking prettily.

My gloves go first, flung aside. I free my cock that’s already hard and aching. It’s warm and heavy in my palm, leaking when my other hand slides to her hips, dragging her closer. Lining myself up to her heat.

Pressed to her now, I push the head into that soft, soaked heat that’s mine.

“So wet,” I praise, sliding in another inch as I prolong this moment. As I savor it.

My teeth grind. Sanity is close to snapping.

Skylar’s already gone, slapping her free hand on the table, holding on for dear life. This woman, who’s a princess-turned-butcher, shivers, but not from the hide. From my cock.

From the threat of me tearing into her.

“Don’t you dare quit.” I spit on my hand, slipping my fingers to her front. Rubbing her clit. More of her need drips down on me, soaking my cock. “You’ve got work to do. Fleshing him is”—sinking deeper into her, I bite her shoulder, getting off on her screams—“your responsibility now.”

“I-I…” Strangled sounds escape her. Her pussy clenches around me. Sucking me in. “I thought we were doing it together.”

No more savoring. No more waiting.

“Fuck.” One thrust and I’m buried to the hilt. Skylar’s pussy is milking me already, greedy little cunt. “Skylar. Fuck.”

She lets out a string of hushed yes, yes, yeses while I rail her. I’m relentless, powerful. I’m also big compared to how tiny she is.

Pounding into her has to hurt.

No other way to take me.

Every inch of me.

“You feel this?” I part my lips over the side of her neck and suck. “Feel what you’re doing to me? I need to split you open. Need to mark you from the inside. Fuck.”

“More.” She meets me thrust for thrust, her breasts bouncing. “I want you. So sore, but I want you. I can’t keep fleshing him. We—later.”

I pull back, yanking out of her completely. Leaving only my finger there, on her clit. A taunt. A torment.

“No,” she growls and curses me. “Why are you doing this?”

“I gave you an order. Think you can ignore it? Ignore me? No.” I spank her pussy for driving me insane. For not moving the knife. “Either you flesh him, or I’ll put you back on the hook where you belong. Will come all over you while you beg for release.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Her voice breaks, tears welling in her eyes. One blink, and they streak her cheeks. “Husbands don’t do that.”

Precum beads at the tip of my cock.

Husband. She called me her husband.

The sweetness of the moment scorches through me, but it disappears just as fast.

What’s left is the pressure in my groin. The intense ache to bury myself so deep she’ll never get rid of me.

“I’m not like other husbands. I’m yours.” My fingers dig into her hip, bruising, branding her. “I was put on this earth for one reason and one reason only. To ruin you with every fucking thing I am. To own you so viciously you’ll forget other men ever existed. You hear me?”

“You can’t leave me like this.” Her hand trembles as the blade hovers at the hide, angled exactly the way I taught her. “You can’t.”

“Test me.” I release her hip, wrap a hand around my length, and start fucking my fist.

The sounds of me jacking off fill the basement. My tip brushes her ass with every pump of my cock.

Pleasure cuts through me. And even though I’m aching for Skylar to get off too, my finger stays pressed to her clit. A reminder of what she won’t have if she doesn’t start moving.

But, fuck. I can’t do it for long, though. Denying her hurts me just the same.

Time to speed things up.

“I could do worse than this. While you’re on one of my hooks, naked, I’ll make you watch me jack off.” My strokes slow to a steady grind, smearing my precum over her ass, marking her. “Then, when I come, I’ll coat my fingers with my seed. And I won’t stop there.”

“I’m trying, Knox. I really am.” She sinks the knife into Easton’s hide like I taught her. At the same time, my needy girl pushes her ass back, seeking my touch. “Don’t punish me.”

“If you don’t start moving, that’s what I’ll do.” I rasp.

My hand slides up from her clit to her breast, squeezing it. I roll her nipple between my fingers until her gasp shudders through me.

“Put my cum where it belongs,” I continue. “Deep inside your pussy. I’ll paint you white from the inside. Get you pregnant without sex. Without giving you the relief you’ll so desperately need.”

As if I ever could. There’s nothing I want more than being one with her.

“No, no. I’m fleshing him,” she weeps, cutting, doing as I taught her. “You don’t have to be so mean. You don’t have to do it.”

“You’ve been so good that I don’t have to.”

My cock pushes inside without a fight, knocking the breath out of us both.

“Mine,” I growl, curling my hand around her throat as I waste no time pounding into her hard and fast.

She’s soaked, soft, made for me. So perfect.

“Yours,” she breathes.

Skylar captivates me with how precise she is with the knife, all while giving herself to me.

“That’s fucking it.” The table rattles. My body aches to drive into her again and again. “Fuck, I want to stuff you with my cum. To breed you. Knock you up.”

“Please.” When she finishes with that piece of Easton’s skin, she slides the knife away, then flattens both hands to the table. “Do it.”

“Do what, Trouble?” We both know what, but I need to hear it coming from her. “Use your words.”

“I’ve been good,” she breathes out between moans. “Put your babies in me.”

“You have been good, and…” Her green gaze collides with mine as she waits for me to finish the sentence. My heart beats wildly in my chest when I see just how badly she wants all of it—me, us, a future together. “I will.”

“I—thank you. Thank you, Knox.”

“Good girl.”

As a reward, I fuck her without a shred of mercy. Force her body to take every inch of me until pain and pleasure melt into one.

Her pussy clenches then flutters, soaking me down to my balls.

Then she’s coming, and I have to slap a hand on her mouth to silence her pained moans.

“That’s it.” My thrusts are rougher, cock going deeper. “Just like that.” My control shatters. “Let me have you. Let me love you.”

I don’t stop when my own orgasm pulses through me, my hips jerking still until I’m done emptying myself inside her. I pull out only to replace my dick with my fingers, driving my cum back in. Making sure her pussy can’t escape destiny. Can’t escape us.

While I do, I kiss and lick the tears off her cheeks, savoring her taste.

“Nothing goes to waste.” I curl my fingers, reaching the deepest, into her womb. “Not now, not ever. We’re going to have so many babies.”

She hums to herself, turning her head to look at me. “Yes.”

A half smile curves my mouth as I settle her onto the chair. I strip the gloves from her hands, wipe her clean, and slide her into a fresh shirt.

My palm cradles her cheek, thumb stroking once before I murmur, “I’ll finish him up.”

“Um.” Her eyebrows knit. “Knox?”

“Yes?”

She doesn’t offer any explanation, keeping to herself, glassy-eyed and silent.

Maybe she’s still jealous?

“He means nothing to me,” I tell her, needing her to see just how serious I am about it. “You’re my only one. I’d finish him with you, the way we did before, but you’re wrung out. Rest.”

“Knox…”

“I’ll handle what’s left of him with my gloves on.” I lift my other hand, cupping her cheeks with both my palms. Holding her in place, I lean closer until our breaths mingle. “I’m not touching anyone but you. Okay?”

“It’s not about that.” Her chin wobbles. “You said let me love you. You… Do you love me?”

“I wanted you the second I saw you.” The answer is so simple, it flows out of my mouth. “The first one. Of course I do.”

“That’s it?” Her hands grasp my shirt, small and warm. There’s hope in her eyes. “You just love me because you…love me?”

“Yeah.” I don’t mind that she doesn’t say it back. She will, eventually. I pry one of her hands off me, kiss each knuckle. “Exactly.”

Her smile is the sun. A rainbow. A fucking shooting star.

My everything.