Chapter 16 #2
The labyrinth is large, and I come to several dead ends and have to turn around, quickening my pace when I hear the footsteps again.
Another glance over my shoulder leaves me with an eerie feeling because it sounds like someone’s right behind me, but I can’t see them.
I come to a junction up ahead and catch a flash of movement in my periphery, but as I turn, it disappears.
There’s nowhere for them to go except into the mirrored walls, so either I’m imagining things, or this house really is haunted.
I travel down another path, only to find myself stuck in an alcove, but before I can turn around, a shriek escapes me when I see the reflection of a figure looming behind me.
He’s dressed in gray coveralls, wearing a Michael Myers mask that obscures half of his face. The rest is covered by white paint that extends all the way down his neck.
It throws me off my game for a minute, but I find myself secretly hoping it’s him because it’s weirdly hot.
“Venator?” I whisper.
“Praeda.” His dark voice echoes off the walls, amplified by the space.
I think he adjusted the settings on his modulator because he sounds more terrifying tonight. It sparks a rush of adrenaline as my hairs stand on end, heart pounding in my chest.
Half of me is tempted to let him win here and now because it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve felt him. But the other half of me isn’t ready to give up without a fight.
We’re only in the first room, and he already has me trapped.
My gaze darts over his shoulder as I analyze the gap between him and the wall, wondering if I can squeeze myself through it if I run. I’m still trying to decide when he captures me around the waist and lifts me off the floor.
I scream and try to wriggle out of his grip, but he’s barely putting in any effort, and I still can’t escape him.
He lets out a low growl of pleasure as his rough words fill the space between us. “Keep screaming like that, and I’ll take it as an invitation to fuck you right here.”
A soft whimper leaves my throat as my legs clamp together, desperate to stave off the ache inside me.
He lifts me above him so I’m looking down at his face as my legs dangle uselessly beneath me.
A glance at our reflections highlights the striking contrast in our size. He’s an anchored wall of muscle, and I look like a doll in his arms—completely helpless to his power.
He catches me staring, and his painted lips tilt with a hint of a smile.
“Does that please you, praeda mea parva?” He lowers me to the ground, fisting my hair and wrenching my head back as his words brush against my ear. “You know what I’m capable of, and you’ve seen the lengths I’ll go to have you. I think you get off on it.”
A choked sound of approval catches in my throat, even as I try to deny it.
“I think you want to be the villain’s perfect little princess.” He buries his face in my neck, breathing me in. “The one he’d scorch the earth to protect.”
My chest compresses as his lips graze my beating pulse, admiring the evidence I can’t hide.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he rasps. “There isn’t a line I wouldn’t cross if it meant I could keep you.”
A visible shudder passes through me, the possession in his words heating my blood. The air between us electrifies as he traces my collarbone with his mouth.
I melt for him, lips parting, nipples stabbing against my leotard as his teeth scrape over me.
That slow burn crawls up my neck as he lays claim to every inch of that fragile skin. When he reaches my jaw and bites down, my knees nearly buckle as a sting of pleasure consumes me.
“I’m going to fuck you so thoroughly tonight, you’ll feel me everywhere, and when I’m finished, I’ll own every hole on your body.”
I bite back a moan as he turns me in his arms, startling another gasp from me when he shoves me forward. I reach out instinctively, hands slapping against the mirror to catch myself. He grabs my hips and drags them back until I’m bent over and on display for him.
A palm grazes my bare thigh, and that’s when I notice how different it feels. Tonight, his hands are covered in black latex gloves.
A question surfaces about what he’s hiding beneath them, but it drifts away as my gaze slides over the mirrored walls.
From this position, I can see our reflections from every angle, and it feels more intimate than our encounters have ever been.
One or both of us are usually in the dark, but in this room, we may as well be under a spotlight.
His mask is designed to hide his gaze within two black sockets, but it exposes the lines of his jaw and neck beneath white paint. I watch the way his throat works as he slides his palm beneath my sheer skirt, and for the first time, I see how deeply that simple touch affects him.
It’s visceral, witnessing his control falter, even for a second. That fleeting span of time is enough to reveal a hunger so raw that he aches with it.
It’s hard to wrap my head around, because it doesn’t feel new. It feels…ancient.
I’ve been thinking about kissing you for a long time.
His words from the night we met come roaring back, unleashing a flood of emotion as I study him. Is there a reason he feels so familiar to me, or am I making a connection that isn’t there?
As if he can sense my thoughts, he lifts his gaze to mine. Dragging a finger along the hemline of my leotard, he snaps it against my skin.
A shiver rolls down my spine as warmth melts through my insides, distracting me from that haunting question in my mind.
“You like that?” He grips a handful of my ass cheek, squeezing it roughly.
I bite my lip and nod, anticipation thrumming through my veins as I imagine how rough he might get with me tonight.
“Good.” Darkness threads through his voice. “Let’s see how you like thinking of me every time you sit down.”
With one fluid motion, he unsnaps my leotard, peeling the fabric up along with my skirt until I’m entirely exposed to him. I draw in a breath as I wait to see what he’ll do, and I don’t even have time to exhale before his hand reverberates off my ass…hard.
I yelp, my legs nearly buckling from the shock of it.
“You’d better learn to hold on, Praeda. That was just the appetizer.”
I straighten my legs, locking my muscles as I brace for the next impact. He gives me another hard smack on the other cheek, and an embarrassing sound of pleasure catches in my throat.
It isn’t just the spankings. It’s watching him loom behind me like nightmare-fuel.
His body is a weapon—an actual killing machine. I saw it myself the night he protected me.
His dominance has never been in question. He’s so much larger than me, he could toss me around until I broke if he felt like it.
As he continues to rain down blows on both sides of my ass, I watch him in utter fascination.
My eyes map the visible lines of his jaw, the tendons in his neck, and his Adam’s apple as his throat works.
There’s something so hot about seeing the predator in him surface, and tonight, I’ll see him at his most primal.
He beats my ass until it’s red hot, then smooths his palms over the sensitive skin, lifting his gaze to my reflection in the mirror.
For a long moment, we linger there as he soothes the sting with his hands, cataloguing every physiological response to his touch.
I’m aching for him already, and I can’t hide it.
He guides his palm down between my thighs, slipping through my arousal, and my eyes fall shut.
“Look at my sweet little prey,” he murmurs. “Practically begging to be used.”
My back bows in offering, and a sound of approval rumbles through his chest.
“You want to come, baby?”
I nod, a rough exhalation spilling from my lips.
“You have to earn it.”
I’m not certain how I’m supposed to do that, but he has my attention when he removes something from his pocket. It looks like a small drawstring bag, but it’s hard to tell because his hands obscure what he’s doing.
He opens what sounds like a bottle, squeezing out some liquid before he returns the bag to his pocket. A wet sound fills the air as he glides his fingers over the object, then presses it against my ass.
Goosebumps erupt on my body as I realize it’s an anal plug.
His free palm settles over the base of my spine as he slowly starts to work the plug against me. He massages the muscles in my back as he opens me up, and the combination sends me into a spiral of pleasure.
After a few more minutes, my entire body relaxes, but the ache between my legs is so heavy, I can hardly stand it. By the time he inserts the entire plug, I’m prepared to beg if that’s what it takes. But he has other ideas.
He pushes two fingers into my wetness, and it feels so much more intense than anything else we’ve done up to this point. I feel the pressure of the plug through the thin wall as he tortures me with deliberately slow strokes, sliding in and out of me until he withdraws his fingers completely.
“What are you—?”
His palm reverberates off my ass again, and it sends a shockwave through my entire body. My toes curl inside my shoes as I wait, hoping for more. But instead of giving it to me, he pulls my leotard back into place, buttoning the snaps and smoothing my skirt over my hips.
Wordlessly, he gives me one last glance, then turns and walks away.
I stand upright, the plug shifting inside me as I try to follow him. But as soon as I round the corner, he’s gone.
I stare down the mirrored hall in confusion. There’s no way he could have disappeared that quickly. I was right behind him, and I would have heard him if he had been moving fast, but he wasn’t.
With no explanation and in desperate need of relief, I walk back down the hall and continue navigating my way through the labyrinth.