Chapter 12 #2
“I didn’t say you could see my face, Scaredy Cat.
That’s not part of this game tonight. You’ll do something stupid, like go to the cops and tell them what I look like.
Maybe you’ll tell all your followers who to look out for.
But then again.” He steps closer suddenly, both hands coming up to cup my face.
Leaning in, I feel the goggles brush my face, and his breath ghosts against my lips as he murmurs, “They like me, don’t they?
Your followers. They want me to do this.
To be here. They want to see how far I can push their precious Scaredy Cat. ”
“Yeah, well, I don’t really care what they want,” I murmur, matching his tone and wishing I could do something, anything, to gain some kind of control in this situation.
I jerk on the cuffs, hoping that they’re fake or plastic so I can snap them, but the metal is cold against my wrists, mocking me and proving me wrong.
“Yes, you do.” He slides his hands down my arms, pulling me close until I’m pressed against him. “Stop that,” he adds, stilling my arms. “You’re going to hurt yourself, and I’m not interested in that. Tell me, what will it take to really scare you, hmm?”
His hands are in constant motion, and it’s hard to focus on anything other than his wandering, gloved fingers. They smooth down my sides, digging into the thin fabric of my leggings before working back up to my waist.
“Nothing. That’s the point,” I reply bravely, tilting my head upward arrogantly. “Literally the whole idea of my blog is that I don’t get scared.” God, I’m feeling bold tonight.
He chuckles. “No, it’s not. The whole point is you finding something to turn you into the Scaredy Cat you crave to be. And I’m here to give you that.”
“I don’t think you’re capable of that.” Okay, I’m being too bold. Way too bold, judging by how his hands suddenly still.
I worry for a moment I’ve pissed him off, that I’m really going to regret this, but then he chuckles, and I’m being walked backward until my back hits the wall again.
“You know, you could lie to me,” he points out almost conversationally.
“You could tell me something, and I could do it. Then you could act scared and hope that I’m satisfied.
We could play pretend, and you could make sure I’m not interested in coming back for more.
But you can’t, can you?” One hand suddenly grabs my chin, his thumb against my lower lip.
“You’re too proud. You’re arrogant, aren’t you, my little Scaredy Cat? ”
“I’m—” The moment I open my mouth, his gloved thumb slides between my teeth. Surprised, I bite down, but he doesn’t really seem to care, judging by the fact he just tightens his grip on my chin with his thumb pressing hard against my bottom teeth.
Eventually my jaw aches from the pressure and I let up with a gasp. He does the same, though keeps his thumb on my tongue and his fingers under my chin.
“Arrogant,” he purrs in my ear. “That’s what you are.
But you also like this. No—” He presses down again when I start to say something.
“That’s not a question. You like this. Were you wet for me after Dusk House?
Did you go home and get into bed, crawl under your blankets, and touch yourself with the taste of my blood on your tongue? ”
Immediately I shake my head, absolutely ready to deny that.
“No? Then let me do better so that’s what you do tonight.”
Those aren’t the words I’m expecting. But I’m also not expecting him to lunge forward until his body is pressed to mine.
I flinch and release a soft gasp when I realize that his tongue is on my throat and he’s licking upward.
He stops at my jaw, pressing a soft growl to my cheek, before he does it again.
“I could devour you here, in the darkness,” he murmurs after doing it again. “You taste so good when you’re pretending you aren’t afraid of me, Scaredy Cat. Bet you’d taste better when you admit you are.”
“I don’t—”
He snaps his teeth together right in front of my mouth, causing me to pull back.
“You don’t need to lie to me when both of us know you’re full of shit.
” He chuckles darkly. “Come on, babe.” His hands find my hips, and he rubs circles in the dips of my hip bones, fingers against my skin under my hoodie.
“It doesn’t make you any lesser to be terrified of me right now.
I’m a stranger. I have a knife—” When I drag in a nervous gasp, he chuckles.
“Did you think I left it at home? Maybe I’ll let you feel it on your pretty lips tonight.
I have you at my mercy in the dark, in a place where your screams will just feed the atmosphere. ”
I feel his night vision goggles when he presses closer, and I twist my face away from him. But that only gives him better access to my throat, where his teeth nip and nibble along my skin to pull another shiver from me.
“I could do whatever I want to you. Anyone would be terrified to be in your shoes right now. But do you want to know what the difference is between you and anyone else, Persy?”
He’s never used my name before, so it sounds almost special on his lips, like the nickname is something more than it is. Any witty retort dies halfway from my brain to my mouth, and finally I take a breath, trying to steel myself before I ask, “What’s the difference?”
“The difference between you and anyone else…” Without warning, he shoves his knee between my thighs, making me squeak like a mouse and lunge up to my tiptoes.
With nowhere else to go, I don’t really have any other options.
Unfortunately, he follows me, and he’s tall enough to keep me on my toes, leaving his knee between my thighs as the only thing keeping me balanced and on my feet.
“You like this.”
“No, I—”
He grinds against me, cutting off my words, and chuckles roughly in his throat.
“Yeah, you do. You want to be scared because you like it. You want me to terrify you. I’ve seen the look on your face twice now.
I know what’s under that fear. I know what my precious, perfect little Scaredy Cat needs.
” His tone turns almost condescending, cooing, and I should be furious.
I shouldn’t feel heat gathering between my thighs, where his leg presses against my core.
My hands shift behind me, fingers curling and uncurling with nothing to grab onto.
“Stop,” I protest, hating the weak, guilty note in my voice.
He hears it too, I know, because the man gives a soft, breathless laugh and grinds his leg against me.
“You don’t want me to. Do I scare you yet?”
For some reason, my answer is out before I can stop myself. Before I can even think, I murmur, “No,” into the darkness of the cell.
“Good.” One of his hands leaves my skin, the other dragging my hoodie up until he can shove it over my head so it’s just hanging from my arms. Left in the dark, I flinch at every touch, at every brush of his fingers while he effortlessly holds me in place.
I can only shudder when I hear the soft sound of his knife leaving its sheathe. The touch of metal on my stomach, just above my navel, makes me gasp in earnest, and my body flinches away from him instinctively.
“You know it’s real,” the man purrs in my ear.
“I cut myself before to show you it was real. You like the taste of my blood,” he accuses.
“I bet you were licking it off the whole way home, my little masochist.” The blade presses just sharply enough to my skin that I’m afraid it’ll cut me.
But it doesn’t—he doesn’t. With way more control over the knife than I have over my sleep schedule, he alternates between stroking the blade over my skin and pressing down just hard enough to make me sure that tonight, he’s going to cut me.
By the time he reaches my throat, I’m panting from a mixture of terror and something I won’t name. My body aches for something I won’t give it, and the steady pressure of his thigh isn’t helping.
“Stop,” I breathe, head tilted back with the urging of the knife
“No,” he hisses in response. “I don’t think I will. Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue for me, Scaredy Cat.” When I don’t, his other hand is on my face, pressing against the hinges of my jaw until the pressure is too much to ignore.
A whimper escapes as my lips part, and I close my eyes hard as if that’ll help me. My heart races in my chest and my stomach twists, but still that damnable heat builds, no matter how much I will it away. This is wrong, I tell myself furiously. No normal person reacts like this to what he’s doing.
Another sound, like a soft sob, is pulled from my chest when the blade strokes over my bottom lip. He doesn’t let go of me, he just taps the blade against my chin.
“Stick out your tongue for me, or I really might cut you.” The warning is dark and warm and wrong all at once. But the thought of pissing him off terrifies me enough that I quickly stick out my tongue until it’s resting on my lower lip, even though I’m trembling under him.
The first touch of the sharp, cool metal on my tongue has me gasping and trying to pull away, though my head only hits the concrete behind me at the motion.
The man shushes me gently, leaning close again so we’re pressed flush together from the chest down. His tactical gear is cool and rough against my skin, and this close, it’s impossible for me not to notice that he’s just as turned on as I am, if not more.
“You feel that, pretty girl?” he growls in my ear, shifting so his hardness presses more firmly to my thigh.
“That’s all for you. All for those cute sounds you make when you think I’ll cut you.
You look so good with my knife on your tongue.
I love you like this, when you’re really afraid of me. You are, aren’t you?”
I can’t move, or speak, but I’m sure he knows that. Without warning, he pulls back and the knife clatters to the ground. Before I can do anything, he spits suddenly, his saliva dripping onto my tongue that’s obediently still extended for him.
Once I’ve winced in surprise, my next instinct is to spit it right back into his face.
He must sense that too, because with a growl he crushes his lips to mine, forcing me not to.
His tongue invades my mouth instantly, forcing me to taste him, and urging me to swallow as he purrs and nips at my lips.
“Be good for me, swallow that like a good girl, and I’ll let you go,” he tells me, his thigh working harder between mine. “I have the keys to those cuffs. You can run out of here and pretend the only thing you feel right now is fear—”
“I’m not scared,” I interrupt, despite knowing I shouldn’t and with his saliva still heavy on my tongue. It’s so hard not to chase his mouth. So fucking difficult not to want more with my heart thumping in my chest and his body hot against mine.
The stranger honest to god growls against my mouth and captures my lower lip between his teeth. He bites down until he pulls a whimper from me, then lets go to lick over the spot. “Swallow,” he orders with his hands pressed to my hips again.
Something in his voice makes me do it without even thinking about refusing. He must see, because he steps back suddenly, no longer touching any part of me and leaving me panting in the darkness.
“You should consider lying to me,” he suggests with a chuckle from somewhere a few feet away. The jingle of keys catches my attention and I follow the sound, taking a step forward. Somehow, I end up stepping right into his arms. He grabs me with one and turns me around, deftly unlocking the cuffs.
“You shouldn’t want me to come back for more,” he growls in my ear, helping me put my hoodie back on. But once I do and I try to move away from him, I end up shoved into the same wall with his hand in my hair.
“What are you—” The flash of a camera blinds me, and his snicker makes my face hot with humiliated anger. “Did you just take a picture of me?!”
“Of course I did.” He lets go suddenly, and when I lunge for him, all I find is air. “You’re arrogant, Persy. It’s going to be your downfall if you don’t learn some humility really fast.”
“Not from you,” I sneer back, trying to ignore the fear that’s making me cold and my heart race. I don’t want him to know how scared I am. When I turn again, he catches my hood, pulling me back a few steps. But then he just laughs and lets go, causing me to stumble once more.
“You’re like a pissed-off cat. All claws and tiny hisses.” I hate the amusement in his voice. “Settle down, Scaredy Cat, before you hurt yourself.”
“Before I hurt you, you mean.” Embarrassment and anxiety fuel my rash words, but then he catches me again, and this time, the feeling of the point of the knife under my throat causes me to freeze like I’ve had cold water dumped over me.
“Settle down,” he murmurs again, not sounding like he means it.
“This isn’t the place for you to start something you can’t finish.
But since that’s what you want so badly…
” He crushes his mouth to mine again, his kiss dominating and aggressive.
For a few moments I fight him, my hands coming up to grip the tactical jacket he’s wearing, my fingers barely able to sink into the rough, thick canvas.
“I’ll give you what you want,” the stranger promises, jerking me back with his grip in my hoodie. He nips once more at my mouth, harder than he did earlier, then drops me so I gasp and stumble backward.
“And I’ll make you regret wanting it at all.”
“I’m not—”
The cell door whines as it opens, and a light on the wall flickers, sputtering to life in its iron cage.
But there’s no one here to lie to. No one in the cell except me and the weak light.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I whisper anyway, as screams from somewhere else in the haunt meet my ears.
“And I don’t want anything from you.” I force myself to say it, for myself if no one else, before I dart back down the hallway, too nervous to stay and needing to find a place to calm down before I meet back up with my friends.