Chapter 11
Royal
I should leave her alone.
That is the first lie I tell myself when I march back to my room in the basement, blood boiling, Marlena’s glitter shirt still burning a hole in my thoughts.
I should take the evidence straight to Legend, should gather Oaks and Rye and map out every sick connection between those missing girls and Pearly Gates.
But my boots take me somewhere else.
Straight back to Becki. I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want her.
Not when the world is falling apart outside these walls.
Not when her daddy is carving girls out of the dark and feeding something in the tunnels of Kentucky.
Not when she is chained to my bed, because I chained her there, and still manages to tempt every ugly part of me I’ve spent a lifetime burying.
But wanting her is a sickness, and I’m long past pretending I want to get well.
I stop outside the door like an idiot. Like a man who has forgotten the rules he carved into himself. The hallway is dim and silent except for the single buzzing fluorescent light at the far end. It flickers like the clubhouse itself is warning me away.
Turn around. Walk away.
Don’t touch her.
I ignore it.
I unlatch the door and slip inside.
Becki is situated on the edge of the bed, knees drawn up, chain wrapped around her wrist like she’s wearing jewelry from the devil. She looks up when the door closes behind me, and the expression on her face tells me she knew I would come back.
Of course she did.
She always knows which way I’m already leaning.
She knows me too fucking well.
“You forget something?” she asks, voice too calm.
“No,” I say. “You did.”
She raises one eyebrow. “What did I forget?”
“That you ain’t safe.”
“From what?” Her head tilts. “From you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. Because the real answer is dangerous. The real answer is standing in front of her with a knife already burning a line in his thigh.
And worse, my cock is already rock hard.
For her.
For the knife.
For the idea of the two of them in the same space, the same air, the same breath. I’m halfway across the room before my brain catches up to my body. She watches me the entire time. Steady. Almost serene. Like she’s daring me to make the mistake we both know I want to make.
“You almost kissed me,” she says quietly. She refuses to let the fact go.
I stop inches from her knees.
“Yes,” I say, and I sound whipped.
She lets out a soft, slow breath. “Why didn’t you?”
Because the second my mouth touches yours, I won’t stop. Because I will drag you under me, chain and all, and taste the entirety of the sin you keep offering up. Because I’ll carve my name into your flesh, into your soul and never let you go.
Instead of answering, I reach into my hoodie and pull out one of my knives.
Her eyes flick to it instantly. Not with fear. Something else.
Want.
“You always carry one of those,” she murmurs.
“Knives don’t jam. They don’t misfire. They don’t leave casings,” I tell her. “Guns make messes. Knives leave nothing but truth.”
Truth and temptation.
I shouldn’t even be holding it around her. Not when she looks at it like it’s another part of my body, she wants her mouth on.
She swallows, but she doesn’t lean back. “Are you gonna threaten me with it?”
“No.”
“Then why show it to me?”
I drag the blade lightly across my palm, not enough to cut, just enough to feel the weight of it. The promise of it. The sharp reminder of who I am.
“To remind myself why touching you is a mistake,” I say.
It’s a mistake, but it’s an inevitability.
She uncurls slowly, like a cat stretching, and places her chained wrist on her leg. Her hand settles seductively between her thighs. The chain rattles as she strokes herself through her shorts. She lifts her other hand and touches the flat of the blade.
My breath stops.
Pressing her fingertip to the steel, her eyes lock on mine. “Feels hard.”
“You shouldn’t touch that.”
“Then take it back.”
I yank the knife from her hand before I even think. Her breath hitching at the abrupt motion goes straight through me like a shot of bourbon.
Becki rubs herself harder. Her lips part. My cock twitches in my pants. Her pupils blow wide. Her knees fall open another inch.
My dick fucking spasms.
“You like these,” she says softly. “You like the control.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand control.”
“I understand power,” she murmurs. “Especially when someone is holding it by the blade.”
Christ.
Moving, before I can think, I grab her wrist, the one with the chain. Stop her from getting off and lift it between us, place her hand on the bulge in my pants. The metal links scrape softly, her pulse fluttering under my fingers.
Her heart’s quick, fear or arousal, I can’t tell.
Probably both.
“You want me to lose control,” I say.
She stares straight at me. “I want you to stop lying to yourself.”
Her mouth is right there. Perfect. Soft. Infuriating. All I would have to do is unzip. My self-control is frayed to threads.
I drag the dull side of the knife down the inside of her forearm, slow enough to make her shiver. She watches the blade, not with fear but with fascination, like she knows I would never cut her.
That is the problem.
I would.
I would cut her until she bleeds.
“You think you’re safe with me,” I say.
“I know I ain’t,” she whispers, nibbling her lip. “But I’m safer than you are.”
My throat tightens. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re afraid of what you’ll do,” she says. “And I ain’t.”
My hand trembles. Taking her hand off my hardness, I press her wrist against the wall behind her head, my body crowding hers without touching. The knife rests close to the wall next to her cheek, my knuckles brushing her skin.
She turns her head slightly, lips grazing the side of my hand. Not a kiss. Just enough softness to destroy me.
I imagine it.
Her breath catching as I run the blade along her thigh, enough pressure to make her bleed. Make her scream. My other hand ripping her shorts aside. Her legs wrapping around me, pulling me in, chain rattling like she’s begging to be kept.
I drop the knife.
It clatters to the floor.
I grab her jaw with my free hand, rough, punishing, squeezing. Just holding her because if I don’t hold something, I will shatter.
“Tell me to stop,” I whisper.
“Stop.” Her voice strains between my hand, breathless.
“Tell me you don’t want this.”
“I don’t want this.”
She’s lying, but she’s fucking obedient.
Damn.
Fuck.
Biting my tongue ring, my forehead drops to hers. Our breaths mix. My hands shake against her skin. I’m so close to kissing her, but she’s our prisoner.
And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep my head. Legend’s warnings run through me.
A thought spears me. She escaped earlier. Someone let her go. I remember what I overheard. Oaks’ offer. Her eagerness.
I rasp, “Who let you out, again?”
She blinks. “What?”
“Who fucking let you loose? Was it Oaks?”
“No.” Her lips curl. “A club bunny. She brought me shampoo. Said I smelled like a whore left in a ditch and to clean up for you. I told you already.”
No matter what she says, I know what I heard. Her agreeing to open her mouth for Oaks’ pleasure. Get on her knees and suck his dick. It punches the breath out of me.
Replacing it? Possessiveness. Rage. Desire. A cocktail strong enough to poison an entire city. And what’s more. Proof. Proof that she’ll say and do anything for her freedom. Legend’s words float into the front of my mind.
Becki’s playing me.
Boots stomp outside the door. I snap back like I have been burned.
Becki gasps at the sudden loss of heat.
“Oaks,” I mutter. “Or Legend.”
Her eyes widen at his name. Because he’s the one she truly wants.
Always.
“They can’t see us like this,” we say in unison.
When I realize it, I’m sick.
I grab the knife, slide it into my hoodie, and step back fast, heart pounding like a war drum.
She slides her legs off the cot, chain dragging softly, chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. She looks shattered. Flushed. Wanting.
I’m worse.
I get the door open halfway before I halt and turn back toward her.
“This never happens again,” I say.
She smiles like a sinner. “You keep saying that.” Then she tilts her head and adds, “Next time you drop that knife, Royal… I’m the one picking it up.”
It’s a threat, erotic or deadly. Both. My blood goes molten. I shut the door before I make another mistake. The hallway is empty. Whoever walked by is gone.
Good.
Because if they saw what almost happened in that room, they would know the truth I can’t hide anymore. I’m losing the only battle I swore I would win.
I make it five steps down the hallway before I have to stop.
My breath’s coming too hard.
My hands are shaking.
My cock is rock-hard and throbbing against my zipper like it’s been caged worse than she ever was.
I drag in a breath, but it doesn’t help. Becki’s scent is still on me. Her heat still pressed into my palm. Her voice still in my fucking head… Next time you drop that knife, Royal… I’m the one picking it up.
Christ.
Stumbling into the basement, I slam the door, twist the lock so hard I almost snap it off. The mirror catches my reflection, wild-eyed, flushed, tattoos, piercings, looking like the kind of man mothers warn their daughters about.
I don’t care. Leaning both hands on the sink, I bow over it, trying to force the lust out of my lungs. Doesn’t work.
Taking her panties out of a drawer, I bring them to my lips. I reach down, unzip, and my pierced cock jumps into my hand, already leaking. Already aching for something I can’t fucking have.
Our prisoner. Becki.
I stroke once, slow, and a groan tears out of me.
“Fuck…”
It’s not just the knife play. It’s her. It’s every way she tests me. Every shiver when I touch her. Every breath she gives me like it’s a secret she shouldn’t have told.
I squeeze tighter.
Imagine her chained wrist pulled over her head. Imagine dragging the knife flat down her thigh while she spreads her thighs wide for me, all stubbornness gone, all claws dulled, begging for the slice of danger and the heat of my mouth on her pussy.
My hips jerk forward.
I brace against the sink harder, breathing through clenched teeth as images hit me like bullets. Becki kneeling between my legs, chain rattling, her chin lifted in that proud, arrogant way that makes me want to fuck her crazy out.
I slide my meat between her lips. I can almost hear the ring hitting her teeth
Becki on her back, my knife on her stomach, her thighs shaking while I hold her open and tell her not to move. Becki’s lips parted, whispering my name like a prayer she’ll never say in church.
My fist moves faster. My legs tremble. She told me she wasn’t afraid of me. I didn’t believe her.
Now I do.
Because the only thing more dangerous than a man who wants to touch a woman like her…is a woman who wants him to.
“Becki…” I breathe, head dropping forward.
I feel the moment I lose the fight, I feel the snap, the surrender, the need ripping through me too raw to hide anymore. My hand pumps faster, my cock spasming hard, pleasure burning through my spine like wildfire.
“Fuck.”
I come with a harsh groan, pulse clenching tight, spilling hot over my fingers, the sink, the edge of the mirror. My hips jerk through the pulses, breath broken, vision blurring at the edges.
I brace there, panting, trying to drag myself back into a body that doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
A prisoner to the girl I chained. A man undone by the one thing he swore not to feel.
I wash my hand. Wipe the sink. Straighten my clothes.
My reflection looks calmer.
It’s a fucking lie.
I unlock the door and step back into the dim hallway, but the truth walks with me. I can’t keep her at knife’s length. I can’t touch her without slicing her open.
And I can’t look at her without wanting everything I’ve denied myself for years.
Next time?
Next time, I don't think I’ll walk away.