Chapter 30
Becki
The basement room isn’t a room at all. It’s a box made of cinder blocks and bad vibes.
Royal doesn’t shove me inside. He doesn’t drag me. He walks ahead of me like a wolf leading prey down into its grave… and stopping every few steps to make sure I’m following.
I should run. I should scream.
I should fight.
But every time he looks back over his shoulder, those eyes rake me slow, hungry, horny
and my legs move on their own.
The steel door slams behind us and the sound vibrates through the concrete. The only light is a single bare bulb swinging from the ceiling. It flickers across his tattoos, black ink winding up his throat, down his arms, across his ribs like scripture carved into muscle.
He locks the door.
The click is like a hand is constricting my throat.
Royal turns toward me.
God, he looks ferocious.
His long hair down for once is messy from dragging his hands through it.
His cut hangs open and I see the glint of metal at his chest. His tongue ring flashes when he drags it across his bottom lip.
His cock ring, yeah, I see the outline pressing obscenely against his jeans, has him painfully hard already.
He stalks toward me slow, deliberate, controlled in the way only a man one breath from losing control can be.
“You knew I would cage you down here,” he says. His voice is smoke and gravel. “You fucking knew.”
My pulse kicks. “Yeah. I knew.”
“You think this is a game.”
“No,” I whisper. “I think it’s a confession.”
Royal laughs. It’s low and violent and beautiful.
He reaches out and grabs my chin between his tattooed fingers, forcing my head up like he’s inspecting something he’s about to destroy. His thumb drags across my lower lip. His breathing changes.
“You tremble when I touch you.”
“Maybe I like the way danger feels.”
His grip tightens. “I’m not danger, Becki. I’m the ending.”
I don’t blink. “Then end me.”
Something inside him snaps like a bone.
He slams me back against the cinder block wall. Hard enough to hurt me. Hard enough to remind me nobody else has ever touched me like this. Hard enough to remind me I asked for it.
His mouth hovers an inch from mine, not kissing me, just breathing me in.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking for,” he murmurs, voice darker than the room.
“I want everything you won’t let yourself do.”
His eyes close like the words hit too deep.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “You have no idea what I’m fighting.”
“Stop fighting.”
That does it.
Royal’s hand slides into his pocket and comes out with another knife. The silver handle looks obscene in this dim light. He flips it open with one practiced flick. The blade glints. His breath hits the metal and fogs it faintly.
I gasp.
He hears it.
Biting his tongue ring, he smiles. “Not scared?” he asks softly.
“No,” I lie. I’m terrified, and that excites me so much I’m dripping wet.
He presses the flat of the blade to my stomach, cold and wicked.
Royal’s voice drops to a growl. “Lift your shirt.”
I don’t breathe as I obey.
He drags the knife up my ribs, slow, reverent, never breaking skin, just letting the cold carve a path of goosebumps. When the blade reaches the underside of my breast, he pauses.
His tongue ring flashes as he licks his bottom lip again.
“You have no idea what I think about when this knife is on you.”
“Tell me.”
“I think about marking every inch of you until everybody in this goddamn club knows you’re mine. I think about licking blood off your skin until you cry. I think about chaining you so tight you forget your own name.”
I shiver violently. He feels it through the grip he has on my waist.
His lips brush my jaw, barely, light enough to make me chase him.
“You want that?” he murmurs.
“Yes,” I breathe.
He drags the blade up, up, up, past my pierced nipples. Then slides it under my chin, lifting gently.
His voice is a whisper of sin. “If I cut you right now… you would let me.”
“Yes.”
“And if I tasted you…”
I swallow. “Yes.”
Royal groans, like my consent breaks something sacred inside him.
His knife moves.
Not to cut.
He traces my collarbone, down the slope of my neck, ending at the hollow of my throat. His tongue follows the trail, piercing scraping lightly, sending heat straight between my legs.
I gasp.
Royal presses his hips into mine, letting me feel all of him, hard and restrained by sheer will. The pressure of his cock ring pulses through denim against me, just right.
“Feel what you do to me,” he growls. “Feel what you make me hold back.”
I rock my hips once, involuntary, the sensation maddening.
He snarls.
“Do that again,” he warns, “and I’ll take you on this floor.”
My breath leaves me.
I do it again.
Royal pins me harder, one tattooed hand around my throat, thumb stroking the frantic jump of my pulse. His grip is firm, cruel, cutting off breath, so controlling, so claiming.
“Say my name,” he orders.
“Royal,” I choke out though I can barely breathe.
Louder.
He lets up his hold. “Royal.”
Louder.
“Royal.”
He growls deep in his chest, mouth claiming my throat in a hot, biting kiss that steals breath and sanity. His tongue ring flicks against my skin, cold then hot, the sensation spiraling through me with sharp, dizzying pleasure.
His free hand slides down my stomach, slow enough to torture, stopping just above the waistband of my shorts.
He doesn’t touch me where I’m shaking.
He just holds me there.
Waiting.
“Ask,” he says.
For a second, pride keeps my mouth shut.
Then I break.
“Touch me.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
My heart trips. “Royal…”
“You don’t ask. You beg.”
I tremble against the wall, chain rattling faintly against my wrist where he locked me earlier.
His forehead presses to mine.
“Beg for what you want,” he whispers.
My voice breaks. “Touch me, Royal. Please.”
“Where?”
“Touch my pussy, Royal. Please.”
He inhales sharply, like the plea cuts him.
His hand moves.
Slow.
Dangerous.
Wicked.
His fingers slip beneath the fabric of my shorts, finding heat, slickness, need. His groan hits my mouth like he won.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes. “You are soaked for me.”
I choke on a sound.
He circles slow, deliberate, pushing me to the edge with expert cruelty.
“This,” he growls. “This pussy is mine. Nobody else touches you like this. Nobody else gets you shaking like this. Nobody else gets to hear the sounds you make when you break. Not anymore. Never again.”
I grip his shoulders.
I can barely think.
“Royal…”
“Say you’re mine.”
“No,” I gasp.
His touch stops.
Agony.
“Say it,” he growls.
“I’m… not…” I can’t say it. I already gave myself to someone else. Though, I don’t even want to think the name.
Royal’s fingers slide lower, stroking slow, devastating circles that pull a moan from me so loud it echoes.
“Say it, Becki.”
I break. I can’t deny it any longer. “Royal…”
He stops again.
I cry out, furious, desperate.
He smiles like a devil.
“Try again.”
My voice trembles. “Royal, I’m yours.”
He kisses me like he’s been starving for years. His mouth devours mine, tongue ring sliding against my tongue, teeth, metal and heat and hunger. His fingers move again, deep, fast, perfect, ruthless, dragging a shuddering climax out of me so intense my knees give.
He holds me up.
He always holds me up.
Even while destroying me.
I shake against him, trembling through the last waves, gasping his name like a prayer.
“You are Property of Royal,” he whispers. “And I will never let you go.”
The words land low and thick and final.
Royal presses his forehead to mine, panting, his voice turbulent.
“Take off the shirt,” he says.
My breath trembles, but I lift the hem and pull the shirt over my head. The air hits my back and chest and my skin pebbles instantly. Royal watches each part of me revealed.
His left hand, the ink-covered one, comes up and cups the nape of my neck.
Rough.
“You said you’re mine,” he murmurs. His breath ghosts across my cheek. “So I’m fixin’ to give you something that proves you’re not lying.”
His other hand lifts the knife.
The blade is polished. Sharp. Familiar now in the sickest, sweetest way.
My lungs stutter.
“Turn around.”
I do.
He steps behind me. His fingers sweep, brushing the back of my neck with a touch so careful it hurts worse than cruelty.
The knife kisses my spine.
Cold. Light. Testing.
My breath catches.
I don’t flinch.
Royal leans in, his chest a wall of heat against my bare back, his mouth close to my ear.
“If you’re playing me Becki,” he says, voice a low growl vibrating through me, “say it now.”
I don’t speak.
He exhales a sound that’s half-relief, half-possession.
His hand spreads over my hip, steadying me.
And then the knife presses in.
A slow, deliberate slice.
Sharp enough to make my breath punch out of me. Shallow enough that it’s pain and pleasure braided tight.
Royal drags the blade downward, curving gently, his breath shaking against my shoulder.
He’s not carving a line.
He’s shaping a letter.
An R.
His initial.
His ownership.
His confession.
The sting is clean and electric. My whole body shivers, not away from him, into him. Then he continues, carving the rest of his name. I blink as the room spins. The pain is too much and then not ever enough. I bare it and want more.
I think of Legend’s name in my thigh that I carved myself. This erases it. Maybe not from my body. But from my very soul.
Blood beads instantly, warm rivers sliding down my lower back. Royal’s thumb presses into my hip harder, holding me steady while the knife traces the last stroke.
When he’s done, he stands still behind me. I feel his chest rising, falling, uneven, like he’s barely holding himself together.
I whisper, “Royal…”
He drops the knife.
It hits the floor with a metallic clang that echoes through the concrete.
His hands grab my waist, pull me back against him like he needs the contact to breathe. His forehead presses to the wound he just carved.
And then…
His tongue touches my skin.
A choked gasp escapes me. I can’t hold it back.
Royal groans, low and wrecked, as he licks the first line of the R. His tongue ring drags against the fresh cut, cold metal against raw heat, and the sensation sends a violent tremor through my entire body.
He tastes my blood like it’s something holy.
Something earned.
Something he worships.
His grip on my hips tightens as he follows the name he carved, licking slow, reverent strokes. Each one pulls a soft, helpless sound from me.
“Fuck, Becki…” he mutters against my skin, voice rumbling. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
He kisses the center of the R, soft but bruising.
“You are mine,” he whispers. “You can lie. You can run. You can fight me until you bleed. But you will never belong to anyone else.”
I turn my head toward him, breath shaking, mind spinning, skin on fire.
He lifts one bloody fingertip to my lips.
“Say you’re not mine now.”
I can’t.
The taste of iron and him fills my senses. The pain is exquisite. The pleasure is unbearable.
“Royal,” I breathe.
Not no.
Not yes.
Just his name, given to him in a voice that sounds broken and owned.
His eyes close like it kills him.
He rests his forehead between my shoulders, one hand splayed across my stomach, holding me close while blood trickles down my spine.
“You are Property of Royal,” he whispers against my skin. “And now the whole world can see it.”