Chapter 17
17
I ’m in a world of trouble.
Waking up this morning with a cold, empty side of the bed stretching out beside me, I realized just how perilous my circumstances are.
I’m nothing but a horny, oversexed mess.
The reality I discovered about myself as I gradually opened my eyes—coming to while in the middle of the most vivid sex dream I’ve ever experienced—is that I’m swollen and aching between my clenched thighs. My clit is still covered in dried cum, and my giant has not only left me here once again, coated in his release, but drowning in absolute longing for him to come back to me.
Emotional turmoil rolls through my chest as I contemplate the risk of attempting to give myself another orgasm right here and now because that dream was something completely overwhelming, and yet also the kind of fever I’m left clutching at wisps of.
Wishing I could close my eyes and return.
Three bodies surrounded mine on all sides, much the same way that we were all together that night at Noire House. Except, in this imagining, they didn’t have their masks on. Just naked flesh slapping and sliding against each other as it was difficult to know where one figure ended and the next one began.
I grab the sheets to stifle the groan I want to let burst free, allowing it to float up to the ceiling, taking all my frustration and guilt away like a balloon.
Although, that motion leaves me jerking my hand back against my chest as if I’d just touched blazing hot coals.
My goddamn hand.
As I peer at it through sleepy eyes, I see a little trickle of dried blood has seeped from beneath the dressing, but the bandage still seems to be firmly intact.
Cradling the now throbbing heart of my palm, the sensation takes me right back. Reminding me of all the pieces of last night threaded and interwoven together. The terror. The panic. Followed by how safe I felt inside Angel’s arms.
God, I can’t believe I asked that of him. To kiss me .
What in Christ’s name was I thinking?
I initiated everything that transpired between us, and for all our challenges in communication, goddamn that man’s mouth is phenomenal. No wonder my body is primed and ready for, oh, so much more of where that hit of pure bliss came from.
No words are required when a man has that kind of mastery of his tongue.
Even though things went in a vastly different direction from the imaginings of my spun-out brain, I’m not angry with him. Disappointed, maybe, that he refused to give me exactly what I wanted, but I’m not upset.
Jesus.
Heat burns my cheeks, and I squeeze my eyes closed. I can hear my own begging and pleading on replay. There was no mistaking that particularly vocal effort on my part.
Blowing out a long breath, I hate to admit that he was right to do what he did. I don’t know why, because a part of me thought that man would be the type to simply take without a second thought from a half-naked girl begging for his cock, and yet he didn’t.
It’s perplexing, yet when he instructed me to touch myself like that—and holy fucking hell, I didn’t have any idea how erotic that would feel, rubbing a man’s cum all over my own clit—it dropped me out of my own head, without question.
Maybe he knew that was exactly what I needed.
Or maybe he’s just an asshole who likes to taunt girls and mess with their minds.
Somehow, I already know that when it comes to the man who cradled me so carefully in that shower for as long as he did, it isn’t the latter.
Oh, god, I’m in so much trouble knowing how his mouth feels. The rasp and drag of his beard against my sensitive skin.
Is there going to be any world in which I can look him in the eye and resist the will to seek out even more?
As I lie in my bed of uncertainty, a sudden noise makes me jolt.
It’s a phone. A text message.
The sound comes from right beside my head.
With my non-bandaged hand, I reach over and grab hold of the sleek, black device, and of fucking course, the damn thing is registered to my face. Again .
My stomach clenches, recalling how proceedings unfolded the last time I was given a mysterious phone and contacted on it, but this time there is an actual name on the screen.
Grey.
He’s also sent me a selfie, holding one of his fancy fucking coffees, only this time, he’s not standing in his workshop. The photo this man has sent is clearly taken in the kitchen just down the hall.
The smirk on his face tells me he knows the exact allure of whatever promise is hidden in that cup will be enough to get me moving.
Grey:
Image attached.
Want one?
Yes.
Please.
Give me a couple of minutes to shower and get ready first?
A renewed flood of guilt washes through me. Why do I feel like I betrayed some sort of connection between us by doing what I did with Angel last night? I can’t help but feel an attraction to Grey, even though he’s crass in equal amounts with dollops of charming, and maybe that’s entirely the problem.
I shudder a little as a flashback to that night flies in front and center. His mouth was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Churning me into a puddle of lust with his demeaning words, calling me a slut and a whore while also making me somehow feel like I was the center of their world for a night.
It unlocked something inside me that I’m a little hesitant to admit resides there.
A willing and eager little flower who wants to experience more of that same kind of treatment from him.
The arrival of a new text startles me out of a fresh round of salivating over memories of his cock, which I’d apparently spent half my night doing while asleep.
How’s your hand?
Kinda looked like you’d murdered someone in here.
Oh god. Were you the one who had to deal with that?
I’m so sorry.
Let me go throw myself off a cliff right now.
Come on, little flower.
I spend my days collecting far more claret than you left behind as a present for me last night.
I’m disappointed there wasn’t more to mop up.
Firstly, yuck.
Secondly, the cut might need a new dressing, I think.
Well, I’ve got weird hazelnut fucking flavored coffee and all the tools to patch up your little attempt at recreating a slasher movie.
Showered yet? Or do I gotta come in there and lend you a hand?
The sight of those few words sends a bolt straight to my clit, and I slap the phone down on the bed. Jesus, I cannot allow myself to be charmed by this man. He’s absolutely an unhealthy choice, and I need to be getting myself armed with a plan for escaping my impending captivity, or whatever the fuck it is that supposedly is going to happen to me.
What I absolutely do not need to be doing is lying in bed, wearing one man’s t-shirt and his cum, while flirting over text with his friend slash possible boyfriend.
So I slip off to the shower, noting as I quickly wash and dry myself that all evidence of last night, sodden clothes and all, has been tidied up. No prizes for guessing who must have been busy long after I crashed into a heavy, orgasm-drenched slumber.
Once I’ve dressed in another set of perfectly sized leggings and a buttery-soft slouchy sweater of my dreams, I pick up the phone and make my way to the kitchen.
Do I want Angel to be here?
Do I want to see him again so soon?
At the possibility of rounding the corner to discover his broad shoulders filling the kitchen, my heart starts to flutter. However, any particular feelings about needing to navigate a potentially awkward ‘morning after’ conversation with a man who doesn’t talk are lifted.
It’s only Grey’s hazel eyes and ridiculously perfect cheekbones to greet me.
“Honestly, I’m so sorry you had to clean up my mess.” My eyes scan the location where my aforementioned bloodletting and panic took place.
Everything is spotless. It’s back to show-home perfection.
“Although, I’m not sure whether I should be comforted or worried about your talents at making it look like a forensics team could sweep through and find barely a dust particle.”
Grey’s lips twitch as he presents me with a steaming coffee, a bowl of fruit and yogurt, and pulls out a stool for me.
“A misspent youth.” He raises one eyebrow, looking supremely pleased with himself. It’s as if I’ve just complimented him on a piece of artwork he’s created.
“Or an adulthood spent honing talents that should by all rights have landed you in jail.” Taking the cup, I arch my brows his way.
“Ah, but then you wouldn’t have me here to make your coffee and stitch up your hand.”
I nearly choke on the sip I had been in the process of enjoying.
“You’re going to do it? Here? Now?” For some reason I hadn’t exactly been prepared for breakfast with a side of amateur surgery.
“Breathe, love. What I’m going to do first is take a look at what we’ve got to play with. Then we’ll figure out exactly how much fun we’ll be having.”
My nose scrunches. “Of course, this is your idea of a perfect morning, huh?”
His lips quirk, and my core clenches at the heat behind that stare. “I can think of a few other more pleasurable ways to spend a morning.”
Well, shit. My mouth drops open a little. Does he know about what went on between Angel and me?
Grey slaps down a much more advanced-looking medical kit than the one from last night, snapping me out of that impending spiral, and stands beside me, gesturing for my hand. When I reluctantly tuck it to my side like a starling nursing a broken wing, he chuckles softly. “C’mon. Gimme… I won’t bite.”
The noise I make says that I know that to be absolute bullshit.
He spins my stool to the position he requires me in, and now this damn gorgeous man looms before me. Dressed in what must be his customary attire during his days at Noire House, of a shirt rolled at the elbows, a vest, and dress slacks.
I gnaw on my bottom lip while watching the veins and ink of his tattooed hands and forearms flex in the process of opening the kit on the kitchen counter. He turns back my way and that puts him squarely between my knees.
The smallest graze of his leg against my inner thigh sends sparks and heat blossoming where it damn well has no right to. I don’t want to be so intensely attracted to him, I really don’t.
Yet, here I am. Imagining all the ways his mouth might compare to the man who licked my pussy so masterfully last night.
Swallowing another hasty mouthful of coffee, the irony isn’t lost on me that I am indeed every inch the slutty little flower he so crudely told me I was when we first met.
He reaches for my hand, and that point of contact feels like tingles extend in every direction from his calloused fingertips. For a man who lives and breathes what is presumably a diet of brutality and almost certainly torture, he turns my palm face up with the kind of careful examination of a delicate petal.
I don’t feel in any way deserving of this close attention, but the only thing I can seem to focus on is the roam of his skilled hands over my palm. He removes the bandage methodically, precisely, until eventually, the wound is laid bare. It runs in a wide arc extending from the center of my hand toward the outer edge of the heel of my palm, almost as though one of my lifelines has spontaneously decided to carve itself a far longer path across my flesh.
“Looks nice and clean,” he murmurs, turning it a little toward the light to take a good look. Meanwhile, the only thing I’m focused on is his face. He’s tracing the cut on my hand, and I’m doing the same to every part of his brow, his closely cropped hairline, and the shaved stubble across his angular jaw.
Grey is beautiful, as so many deadly things in nature tend to be.
As if my thoughts have somehow flown out of my head and whispered in his ear, those bright eyes flick curiously to mine. I don’t know what that expression represents, but holy shit, it’s intense being trapped here in the spotlight of his gaze.
I don’t know whether to wilt or combust.
“You don’t need stitches.” His fingers idly trace my palm like a fortune teller about to reveal my destiny. Or maybe my demise.
With each passing second, Grey continues to trap me with those eyes, his touch plays havoc with my pulse, plucking and strumming at the strings of my sanity, and I can’t fucking breathe.
“Looks like I can glue you back together, little flower.”
What is this? I’m surely not foolish enough for one second to think this man is doing anything other than following orders.
I have to shake this assortment of muddled emotions off because, right now, it feels dangerously seductive to have another of these men tend to me.
“Will it hurt?” My throat feels oppressively tight.
“Pain is relative… but no, it shouldn’t feel like anything more than a little adhesive, a little pull as the skin is held taut.”
“Ok.” I bite back the urge to say something completely insane like I trust you.
Grey sets my palm face up on the counter, then fusses inside the medical kit.
“What’s the deal with the phone?” I nibble on my bottom lip.
“It’s yours.”
“That seems too easy. What if I were to call for help? Simply phone a ride for myself… and leave?”
His jaw works a little as he sorts out some antiseptic.
“I think you’re intelligent enough to know how that would go.”
“Can I use it to contact other people? My friends?”
He nods sharply, accompanied by a rather too-efficient application of the antiseptic. That bitch stings worse than last night for some reason. Possibly because I was so wrapped up in a whirlwind of adrenaline and terror, I hardly noticed any additional pain that might have come along.
“You’ll need it for the next part of your initiation. To let you know when your presence is required, and where.”
The mischievous energy in him from just before seems to have dimmed, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s focused on the repairs to my lacerated hand, or if it’s because of the topic we’ve steered onto.
“What I can tell you… is that begins later th is evening.”
“Tonight?” I stare at him, a little stunned. While it’s not entirely unexpected, somehow, I thought I might be drifting around this place aimlessly for a while yet.
“Your lab results came back all clear,” he murmurs, while pinching my wound together and carefully applying the line of what looks like fancy superglue to the cut.
“Oh.” The response is automated, numb on my tongue. Apparently, my clean bill of health has signaled a green light for whatever it is I’m here for to progress.
“You’ll be joining Hawke at Noire House.”
If this man wasn’t gripping my hand firmly and holding my split skin together while we wait for some fucking glue to dry, I would be up and out of my seat in a heartbeat.
“Do I even get a choice?” I hiss. All fine hairs on the back of my neck just stood on end at the notion of being in that man’s foul presence.
“No.” That muscle in the side of his jaw flexes again. “You’ve been provided with items to wear, and Angel will drop you off and pick you up since it’ll likely be quite late by the time you finish.”
Grey isn’t exactly easy to read… but in this? He seems like he doesn’t like the idea, yet he’s bound up in something I cannot possibly hope to fathom.
“What if I don’t want to?” I press softly.
Using a forefinger, he explores the glue to make sure it has set sufficiently, then once he’s satisfied with his handiwork, his warm palm wraps around mine, guiding it into a loose fist before pushing my hand back toward my chest.
This time, when he speaks, he doesn’t look me in the eye.
“That, little flower, is something far beyond any of our control.”