Chapter 14
BANE
“Tell me.”
I meet Georgiy’s eyes through unshed tears. His fingers gently cup my cheek, and the brush of his thumb against my skin grounds me. For so long, I didn’t know anything about myself. Just the memories that would appear in my mind, taunting me about a past I couldn’t remember.
Trauma, someone had once said.
That was before I chopped off their arm and fed it to them.
They deserved it.
“Ara.”
“Ara,” he repeats, and I nod, swallowing roughly. “It’s a beautiful name.”
My head shakes, my mind filled with white noise. Why would I remember that? Why now? “I don’t know why I remembered it. I don’t know if I even like it.”
His hand stills, and he cups my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You don’t have to. You can hate it.”
My lip quivers.
“You are whoever you want to be. No one name defines you.”
That chokes me up, and I feel confused. That name suddenly appeared before, a whisper in Anthony’s office.
But then I heard it again while I slept.
A memory, something so familiar. In that moment, I wasn’t hidden below the ground, crawling around, trying to carve my way outside.
No. I was in a bright room. Sunlight. Fresh air. Laughter.
Ara.
My beautiful boy.
“What is it?” Georgiy asks. “What do you remember?”
“A woman, her voice…she said my name. Do you think I’m remembering my mom?”
“Did you never know her?”
“I don’t know where I came from.” I sniffle, and Georgiy’s hand moves to the front of my neck, holding onto me gently. “I thought I was born from the earth. Like an orc.”
“You’re much too pretty to be an orc.”
That makes me snort despite the sadness slithering through me. And at the sound, Georgiy’s lips twitch slightly.
“I am pretty nice-looking, I think. Despite the scars.”
His fingers tighten on my throat, and my breath catches. “The scars make you even better. You are perfect.”
I can’t breathe, and not just because he’s choking me.
Because of my heart. It thuds in my ears as my lungs constrict.
“I have something for you,” I finally say, knowing this is the right time.
The perfect time. For us.
“A gift?”
“Mhm.”
I scramble off the bed and move toward my clothes, pulling the carefully carved bone ring from my pocket. I’ve kept it on me, just in case I felt like he deserved it.
I think he deserves it now.
Georgiy watches as I approach, looking like the Grim Reaper sitting on the bed, his eyes pitch dark, his pale skin almost glittering in the early morning light, his black hair slightly mussed and hanging over his forehead.
“What?”
“You’re sexy.”
He huffs, and I step closer, watching as his pupils dilate at my mere presence.
“Hold out your hand.”
He does as I ask, and I gingerly set the ring in his palm. He stares at it, and his nostrils flare. Fuck, I’m nervous. I mean, I am usually an anxious person, but this…the way he’s staring at it. At what it all symbolizes.
“What is this?”
“A symbol of my obsession. Our obsession.” I amend.
“Obsession?”
“Yes.”
He grabs my throat roughly, pulling me forward, our breath mingling as our lips nearly touch.
“How obsessed are you?”
“I’d murder for you.”
“And I for you,” Georgiy says.
“Really?”
“Yes. Now put it on, Bane of my existence, and claim what’s yours.”
My hand shakes slightly as I do, pushing the ring onto his finger and admiring how the color of the bone contrasts nicely with his skin.
“Perfect,” I murmur, and Georgiy’s eyes positively sparkle.
“Da, and so are you, umnyashka.”
He stares at me like he wants to kiss me, and my heart and stomach go aflutter, but he doesn’t. Of course he won’t. He barely touches. A kiss would make him explode.
But he does guide me into the bathroom where he runs me a bath, washing me slowly and tenderly until the memory is no longer a painful sting, but more of a muted throb.
Ara. I have a name.
One that was given to me.
It’s more than I’ve ever had before.
As his fingers dig into my hair, rubbing my scalp, the scent of rosemary almost overwhelming, he speaks, “How are you feeling, umnyashka?”
“Better. I need to tell Anthony. It might help them in their search for you know who. Because, for some reason, Samvel and Emma helped me remember this. Maybe we’re connected.”
“Perhaps.”
I turn in the tub, water sloshing out onto the floor. Georgiy sighs, but says nothing.
“Let me rinse your hair, and then we can get you clothed. From there, you’ll eat and then you’ll speak to Anthony.”
That bossy voice, the way he’s demanding things of me makes my dick hard. I really haven’t come enough in the past twenty-four hours. He likes to edge me, and I don’t know if my balls were made for such a thing.
“You talking to me like that is making me horny.”
“You’re always horny,” Georgiy grumbles as he grabs a cup from the side of the tub and fills it with fresh water. It washes through my hair and down my face, bubbles getting into my mouth.
“George!” I protest, but he just tips another cup over my head.
“If you’d sit still and tilt your head back, you wouldn’t have soap in your mouth.”
That tone only makes my cock throb.
“I can’t help it.”
“It seems you can’t.” Another cup, two, and by the time he’s done, I’m sputtering and gasping for breath.
“Did you just try to waterboard me?”
I stand up, more water spilling over onto the floor.
“No, I prefer much more humane things. Like spankings and electro-stimulation.”
I groan as I remember that, the way everything hurt so badly. How I needed him, and he’d done what I asked. He took care of me in his own way. Just like he’s trying to take care of me now.
He grabs a towel and flings one onto the puddle near the tub before advancing toward me.
“Out,” he says, and I slip and slide my way onto the floor, his hands reaching out to hold me steady.
I can’t help it when my mouth brushes against his chest. It’s a mistake, completely accidental, but he doesn’t chastise me for it.
Instead, he just dries me off with deft precision before turning me around and grabbing a toothbrush.
He scrubs at my teeth as he stands directly behind me, my back to his front. I try my best not to swallow the toothpaste, but most of it ends up in my stomach anyway. It only makes Georgiy sigh again.
“As a doctor, I recommend not eating toothpaste.”
I pout as he wipes my mouth and begins brushing my hair.
It’s a tangled mess, and not something I mess with often, but he manages to run the comb through it a few times, making me appear slightly sophisticated.
That is, until he tells me to put my hands on the counter and not move.
Then I moan like a whore. My ass arches back, begging for him to stick his dick inside.
It’s bare, so he might as well, but he doesn’t.
He just moves up behind me and grabs onto my chin, forcing my gaze up to his in the mirror.
“You watch me as I get you off.”
I groan again, his hand dragging down my chest to my cock that’s hard and waiting for him. He’s never touched my dick with his bare hand. It’s always been gloves or a toy.
But now…
Now, those long, slim fingers are wrapping around my dick, and I gasp at the sensation.
“Georgiy,” I groan, and he leans closer, whispering something in Russian I can’t understand. I don’t have the ability. I’ve taken some classes, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
His fist strokes from tip to base, and my fingers curl against the counter.
“I’m not going to last.”
“You will. You won’t come until I say so.”
“I can’t help it.”
“This time you can, Bane. My Ara.”
That makes my eyes widen just as he tightens his grip on me and strokes hard.
Once. Twice. I can’t help but peer down at his hand, the one with the ring on it wrapped around my dick.
I need a painting of this. One so I can remember.
Or maybe like an actual replica. Although I have no intention of cutting off his hand or my cock.
So that will have to be tabled for later.
“You’re so needy. Listen to you whine,” he whispers into my ear, and I nod, letting him direct my gaze back to him in the mirror.
His cheeks are slightly flushed on his pale face, his mouth parted slightly as he breathes.
He doesn’t let up on my dick. My legs are straining, my balls throbbing, but he keeps going, not giving me permission to let go, to be free.
He just holds on tighter. So fucking tight that I’m writhing. My ass is surrounding his dick now, that hard length sliding up and down my crack. And the entire time I’m dragging his dick up and down my ass, his hand still stroking, he’s watching me.
“That’s it. Get me off. First me and then you. You can work harder. Work for it.”
I groan and move faster, his fist meeting each of my ruts.
It’s hard work, almost too much. My thighs ache, my head spins, and yet, I can’t look away from what’s mine.
Suddenly, I’m pushed forward, and I feel it—the grip of his hands against my hips, the grunt of his arousal.
He uses me, like all the toys he’s put against my cock, and comes across my back with a loud groan.
I look over my shoulder, and his head is thrown back, the veins on his neck standing out. He looks almost as if he’s in pain.
And then he leans forward, his mouth brushing against the back of my neck, and the feel of him kissing me has me erupting untouched, my own release spilling across the cabinets and onto the floor.
I stand there, resting my cheek on the cool counter, watching as he stares down at what he did. He looks…lost, and yet not as bothered as I expected him to be.
“Did that feel good?” I finally ask, and his fingers loosen on me.
“Yes.”
“Did you not think it would?”
He pauses and then drags a cum-soaked finger up my spine. I shiver.
“With you Ara-Bane, it seems everything feels just right.”
“So, you have a name?” Anthony asks, and I nod, the previous dread and anxiety that came along with knowing my name almost completely gone now.
Georgiy helped with that.