Chapter 11
11
E lodie
The next morning, Jaeger wakes me with his face between my legs. I come awake, my arousal shooting from zero to a million miles per hour. My body is primed from his late-night touching, and all the heaviness of last night’s confession and my intense dreams disappear.
I writhe, fighting his grip on my thighs as he eats me like he’s starving, and I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted. My climax spirals closer, coming within reach. My pussy squeezes around his single finger. I just need a little more?—
He stops and sits up. My inner muscles clench on nothing, begging for stimulation.
“Wha—?” I stare at him. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you miss me.” Jaeger rubs my belly. I wait for his hand to slide between my legs, but it doesn’t move any further. “Do you need the bathroom?”
I need to orgasm! But I nod. He carries me to the bathroom and lets me do my business.
When we get back to the bed, he leans in to kiss me. I slide a hand under the silky fall of his hair, cupping the back of his neck to keep him close.
He pushes forward, forcing me to lie back on the bed. His hands roam over my body, his lips never leaving mine.
This is more like it. His big body covers mine, and my core is heating up, ready for him to spread my legs and dominate me.
I’m shuddering under him when he breaks the kiss.
“Ah, ah.” He wags a finger.
“Jaeger—” My mouth falls open when he leaves the bed and walks naked to the closet, leaving me bereft.
What is he up to? I remember our conversation last night. All the intense things he told me in the pocket of midnight. His teenage years, the trauma, the scars. He said he wants to know me. Last night proves he wants me to know him, too.
And now I know enough to imagine as a little boy, growing up with no one to take care of him. How does he know how to take care of me so well?
He deserves someone to take care of him. And I feel all warm and hopeful, imagining that that someone is me.
But it’s overwhelming, too. He’s only been in my life a short time. It’s been so much, so fast, and I’m afraid of how much I’m leaning on him.
I don’t know what to do with any of it.
I can’t think over the ache in my core.
He thinks he can tease me and leave me? I can take care of myself.
I sink into the pillows and slide my hand between my legs. My own fingers are small and dainty compared to Jaeger’s rough digits. I use my free hand to pinch my nipples. The spark of pain gets me closer to the edge.
“Ah, ah.” Jaeger leans over more, grabbing my wrists. He straddles me—yay!—but instead of sinking into my wet folds and punishing me with hard thrusts of his cock, he pins my arms over my head and fiddles with something on the headboard.
Then he moves off me. I go to move my arms, but they remain overhead. “What the—” I crane my head. He buckled cuffs around my wrists, leaving them chained to the headboard. I try to reach my right hand to my left to see if I can undo the cuffs, but the chain is just short enough that one hand can’t reach the other.
“Jaeger?” I wrack the chains, making them snap against the wood. “What is this?”
He sets a hand on my thigh. “No touching.” He leans in to kiss me. I growl and turn my head, and his stubble prickles against my cheek instead.
He rises and pulls on his shirt, completing his usual uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. Meanwhile, I’m naked, trying to pull myself up to see if I can loosen the leather tongue of the buckle with my teeth.
“No.” He returns, grabs my left ankle, and pulls me back down. I try to kick him, but he holds me easily while he fishes at the foot of the bed for more restraints. I end up with my left ankle cuffed and the rest of my body immobilized with a strap around my midsection.
“There.” He places a pillow under my right ankle, elevating it. I twist, but I can’t move far.
I’m panting when he walks around the bed, checking each of my bindings and testing the circulation in my fingers. My outrage made my orgasm die, but something about his proximity, his scent, and the fact that I’m tied down scrambles my mind. My pussy throbs with need.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask to keep from begging him to touch me.
“I’m making sure you can’t touch yourself.” He swipes his fingers between my legs, grazing my folds and making my thighs quiver. He licks my taste off while he holds my gaze. I flush but grow panicked when he turns away.
“Jaeger.” I tug the bindings. “I need you.”
“I know.” He stalls in the doorway. “I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” I wrestle with the cuffs in earnest, but they hold fast. “Don’t leave me.”
“Don’t worry, bunny.” He shows me his phone. On it is an image of me as I am now, in bed. He points to the ceiling in the corner of the room. “I have a camera. I’ll monitor you the whole time.”
Un-fucking-believable! “Jaeger, if you leave, so help me?—”
“Bye, bunny.” He closes the door.
I sag back onto the bed. That bastard!
I wait for him to return, but the minutes drag by. There’s no clock in his room, so I can only guess the time by how the brightening light under the crack of the door shows the sun getting higher in the sky.
I spend a while trying to wriggle into a position that will let me reach the cuffs, but it’s no use. I end up sweaty with my arms and left thigh sore from straining against the chains.
A million years later, the door creaks open, and Jaeger appears holding a black cloth bag.
“Still here, bunny?” he chuckles. “Of course you are.” He sits down and holds a bottle of water to my lips.
I glare at him but drink up. He gives me the full bottle and then feeds me a smoothie with a straw. He unties me long enough to go to the bathroom but then carries me back to bed and ties me up again.
“Are you going to leave me like this again?”
“Yes. Still hungry?”
I shake my head.
“You’re being so good for me.” He reaches into the black bag and pulls out a pink dildo affixed to a set of black leather straps. “Let’s see if we can make this more interesting.”
“Jaeger, please—” I struggle, but I can’t stop him from pinning me and slipping the dildo inside me. I’m so wet it glides right in, and I moan at how it fills me. It’s nice, but not enough to let me orgasm. He finishes buckling the small straps around the tops of my thighs and securing the harness that keeps the dildo inside me.
“This isn’t fair,” I whine.
“I know. That’s why it’s fun.” He drops a kiss on my nose. I bare my teeth at him.
The vibrator buzzes to life. My growl turns into a yelp. I come off the bed as much as the bondage will allow. The toy presses against all the delicious spots inside me, teasing me until I’m panting. Every muscle in me clenches, but as I get close to orgasm, the vibrator dies.
I sag into the bed, too overcome to speak.
“I’ll be back, bunny,” he says, and he leaves. I struggle to escape but get nowhere before the vibrator surges inside me again.
I don’t know how long he leaves me like this. All I know is the intense moments when the vibrator is on and torturing me. I squeeze my thighs together, clenching around it, but I can’t get the right angle to trigger my climax. Sweat trickles down my temple. My inner muscles scream when I tense them. All too soon, the vibrator dies. I bite back a scream and count down the seconds before it starts up again.
When he walks in, many vibrator rounds later, I am one hundred percent a cranky bunny. It doesn’t help that he looks just as hot as when he left, not one golden hair out of place.
“You,” I growl.
“Me.” He settles on the bed but makes no move to free me.
“You left me. All day.” I rack the chains to emphasize my words.
“You want something, bunny?” He brushes his fingers over my breast, and I fight the urge to arch into his touch.
“You know what I want.”
“Mmm.” He squeezes my breast, and I sigh. His mouth descends. His tongue flicks my nipple.
I fist my fingers in the pillowcase. I want him to fuck me. I want him to untie me so I can slap him and force his face between my legs.
It’s frightening how much I need him.
He raises his head, a wicked gleam in his stormy eyes. “A little longer, I think.”
“No!”
But he doesn’t listen. He fits an attachment to the dildo, one that slips between my ass cheeks and stimulates my sensitive entrance back there. I squirm but can’t dislodge it. It adds another delicious dimension to my arousal. Delicious and disturbing. I never knew how good a vibrator there would feel.
This time, he leaves me for longer. Time has no meaning. The light under the door deepens to amber and disappears, chased by shadows.
By the time the door creaks open again, I’m relieved to see him but too exhausted to move. My skin glistens from my straining.
He removes the toy, and I’m not even embarrassed at the wet squelch it makes when it leaves my pussy. He undoes the bindings around my waist and leg, and I whimper.
“Jaeger, you have to help me.”
“I will, bunny. Shhh.” He pulls me into his arms and kisses me. He frees me from the chains so he can lift me off the bed but keeps the cuffs around my wrists. He clips them together so my hands are still bound.
“No touching,” he warns. I’m so wrung out that I nod. Anything to be free of the low-grade torture.
He takes me to the bathroom and then rinses me in the shower. I sit and let him wash me. He’s careful with the sprayer around my swollen pussy. I spread my legs wide, and he shakes his head.
He’s not going to let me cum. But the fact that he’s denying me is extra hot. It disturbs me how much it turns me on.
I have the feeling he’s preparing me for something, but I don’t want to ask what. I’m afraid I already know.
After a dinner that he hand-feeds me, I’m feeling more myself. He clips my cuffs to the side of the chair and leaves me for a moment before returning and carrying me to the bed, where he’s changed the sheets.
“I’m going to uncuff you, but if I catch you touching yourself, you will remain tied up all night and all tomorrow.”
“Fine.” I offer him my wrists. He removes the cuffs and rubs the red marks, even kissing them. The brush of his lips sends flutters through my belly.
Which reminds me… “What happens if I cum accidentally?”
“You will be punished.” The look he gives me sears both fear and excitement into me. “And you will not like it.”
I wish I were brave enough to do it anyway. What sort of punishment are we talking about here?
It’s as though he can read my mind. “There are metal chastity belts made to be worn all day. They cover everything, from here to here.” He hovers a hand over my pussy, then runs a hand over my ass. “You think one day is hard? Try a whole week.”
My head goes back a beat. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.” He’s dead-eyed, scarily serious, enough that I shrink from him.
“But”—I glance at the front of his jeans, which are tented with his erection—“you’re not cumming either.”
“It’ll be worth it.” He kisses my forehead. Just the touch of his lips gives me lower belly flutters. I want to cry. He draws back and sees my expression. “Don’t pout.” He tucks me into the blankets, making sure my hands are on top of the covers.
How am I going to sleep with this throbbing in my pussy?
Jaeger strips off his jeans, and his dick is like a flagpole. I’d salute it if I were in a better mood.
I look at it sadly until he covers himself with a blanket.
“I hate you,” I tell him.
He grins and runs a thumb over my lips. I tilt my head back, my breath growing heavy.
He takes his hand away, and I growl deep in my throat. I didn’t realize I made growling noises all the time until he pointed it out. “I am going to kill you.” He’s definitely higher on my People I’d Like to Kill list.
“Talk to me; take your mind off it.”
Oh, now he wants to talk? I remember how deep things got last night and shake my head. “No.”
He stretches out next to me like we’re having a lazy post-coital chat. It sucks because his presence, scent, and heat are triggers for my arousal now. My clit is throbbing so hard I want to scream.
“You never told me what you think of my brother,” he says.
“He’s on the list,” I mutter.
“What list?”
“The list of people I want to kill,” I say because my filter is gone.
He looks amused. “Am I at the top of the list?”
I roll my eyes. Mr. Ego. “No.” Although, he might be if he doesn’t let me cum soon.
He cocks his head to the side. “Then who is?”
“Why does it matter? Aren’t you upset that you’re on the list?”
He shrugs. “I am on many such lists. You’re the first person to tell me outright.” He grins like this pleases him. “Now tell me. Who else do you want to kill?”
I wriggle to my side, turning away so it’s clear I’m ending this conversation.
He rolls me over. “I have ways of making you talk.”
“What are you going to do? Sprain my other ankle?”
He cups my breast, grazing my nipple with his thumb. “No. Not when there are more fun things I could do to you.”
I push his hand away, but he simply lets it fall to my waist.
“You know what I do for Fraternitas?”
“You work for them.” I’ve tried not to think about this too much, but it’s easy to put the pieces together. And after last night’s confessional, I feel like we’ve trespassed miles beyond the boundary I’d set if I were smart. “Like an enforcer?” I guess.
“That’s one word for it. I am the muscle. Fraternitas’ show of strength. I take out the trash.” So, the murders he committed in the stairwell weren’t his first. His job is to kill people or make them disappear.
His ringed hand rests on my hip. A killer’s hand, big enough to squeeze the life out of a victim, his face the last thing they see.
But it’s such a nice face. I reach up and touch it because I can. No one else gets to see him like this, touch him like this.
It makes me feel powerful.
His cheek curls into my palm. His stubble scrapes my palm. “You pretend to be mean and hateful, but deep down, you’re sweet.”
“No, I’m not.” I shift in the sheets, trying to get my surging arousal to calm down. “Shut up. I’m a psycho killer like you.”
His voice is warm like it gets when he’s cooing sweet nothings in my ear after sex. “Bunny?—”
“I’m an attack rabbit of death.” I place a finger on his lips. “I’m warning you.”
He licks my finger and then swallows it. I close my eyes, dizzy with desire.
“Gods, Jaeger…”
He pulls my finger out of his mouth and kisses the tip. “I want to know who you want to kill.”
“No one.” I go to roll away again, and he stops me. We end up wrestling, which leaves me pinned under him, breathing hard and ready for a good hard fuck.
I tilt my hips. “If I tell you, will you fuck me?”
“I will… later.”
I squint at him. “How much later?”
“At a time and place of my choosing.”
All this edging has a purpose, then. He has plans for me. “Then no.” I’ll torture him like he’s torturing me.
“I’ll touch you?—”
I grab his hand before he can touch my pussy to edge me further. “Nope. I’m a nun.” He looks delighted by this, and I’m in a goofy state from all the edging and denial, so I continue. “No more kill list for me. I’m taking a vow of non-violence. I have forgiveness in my heart.”
He’s smiling when he reaches down and smacks the side of my ass. “Liar.” But he doesn’t press me. He sinks back down to the bed, tucking me against him. He calls for the bedroom lights to blink off.
In the dark womb of the room, there’s only the sound of our breathing. My longing for him dies to a simmer that’s less painful but no less potent. We’re back in the late-night sanctuary where everything is peaceful, even my racing thoughts.
“I want to kill so many people,” I admit to the darkness. “So many. But you wouldn’t understand.”
His hand comes to rest on my throat. “Tell me.”
We’re not joking anymore. But he’s shared so much with me that I feel like he’s earned my secrets.
“You don’t know what it’s like.” The words burn like acid in my throat. “You’re bigger and stronger than anyone. People don’t mess with you. Half of them look like they want to run away when you walk into a room. It’s not like that for me. Everyone shits on me. The creepy landlord, my boss, even you.” I’m clenching my fists. “And I just have to take it.” My teeth ache from clenching them, so I loosen my jaw and draw a shuddering breath. “So I made a list, and I imagine what it would be like to be strong.”
Jaeger and Kaiser aren’t at the top of the list. Not even close. At the top are the dirtbags who wrecked me, who took without giving back, who let me love them and then left like I didn’t matter. And the worst man of all is the one who took advantage of his position over me and destroyed my life and my peace to the point where I had to drop out of school.
I’m not ready to tell Jaeger about them, and he doesn’t press.
“I’m sorry, bunny.”
“For what?” I let out a bitter laugh. “That’s life. The strong crush the weak. Some people are predators. The rest of us are prey. All we can do is try to survive.”
He rubs my back. It’s soothing, but I know he bears a ring on his finger that marks him as a predator.
“I wasn’t always bigger than everyone,” he says. “On the streets, I was prey.”
I don’t have anything to say to that because he told me the barest details about his enslavement to the man called Maestro, and they were so horrible I can’t wrap my head around them.
“I didn’t want to live like that anymore. Neither did my brothers. And so we became Fraternitas.”
I understand that. If I’d lived through what he’s lived through, I’d do anything to become powerful, too. You become the predator, or you die as prey.
Like I said, in the end, we’re all just trying to survive.
I grab his hand and squeeze it. “I’m sorry, too.” In this midnight confessional, we are each other’s witnesses.
But absolution is something we can only give ourselves.