Chapter Seven
The darkness rolls over me, slithering under my skin.
If he thinks I’ll just lie there and take whatever he gives, he has another fucking thing coming.
I reach back, smooth, practiced, and the hidden blade meets my palm like an old friend.
A girl can never be too careful. “I'm going to leave now.
And you're going to remove your hands.” My voice doesn't shake.
I don't let it. I feel him harden against me, his length pressing into me.
The sick bastard is getting aroused by this.
He leans in, pressing himself deeper into me, the weight of him intentional, inescapable.
“Is that so, Thorn?” His head dips closer.
The skull mask travels my jawline, the hollow nose grazing, a death's-head kiss. “I don’t think I’m done with you just yet,” the words grind out.
Rough and dark. The growl wrapped around me like a leash.
“Don't say I didn't warn you.” I sing it, almost sweet, settling the blade against his pulse.
He laughs, sharply and delighted. The crazy ass motherfucker actually laughed.
I press it harder into his throat, a bead of blood dripping down onto his lapel.
“Now let go.” Before I can register what's happening, he has me spun around, crushing my face into the wall.
He captures my wrists, pinning them above my head in one smooth move, then leans over me.
Dominant and close. His other hand finds my throat and applies pressure.
Just enough to steal my breath, not enough to hurt.
A moan builds in my throat, traitorous. I swallow it down, not allowing him the satisfaction of winning.
I rear my head back, crown meeting his nose with a sick crack.
Hot, sticky wetness rains down on me…His blood.
I feel his heart thumping through his chest as a guttural growl roars from him.
Something other than pain. “Oh, my thorn, what a beautiful pain you are.” His hand slips off my neck, trailing slowly down the apex of my cleavage, then drawing a line to the back of my dress.
The sound of my dress being unzipped echoes hauntingly through the small box.
I think the fuck not. Bucking my hips back, sharp and sudden, I feel him stumble.
Just enough to seize the upper hand. Ripping my wrist from his hand, I quickly turn around and throw a punch, landing on my mark.
His stance shifted, seeming to grow. He surges toward me, toppling me to the ground—the bass throbs, loud enough to swallow screams. Up here, the music is a wall.
No one hears. No one helps. A blessing. A curse. “What do you want? Who are you?”
"I want you." He says it like a sentence, tearing my dress down the front.
"As for who I am…" The pause stretches, thin and sharp.
"I'm nobody. A ghost." He breathes it against my ear.
"Your ghost now." He finds the blade I lost, cold metal against my skin, slicing through my bra. I will not go through this again. “If you just relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” logic says his words are nothing.
Something deeper listens. A dent. A weakness.
"I can feel that heart," he taunts, "smell what you're hiding.
Fight all you want, pretend you don't. But your fight is fading, Thorn. Every second. Less of a fight, more mine.” The blade drags down my chest, cold then hot, a red trail rising behind it.
"You had control taken from you before," he murmurs, watching me bleed.
"Now you want it taken under your terms." His other hand rises, palms my breast, and my body betrays me as nipples stiffen.
Heat grows low in my stomach, and I release a soft moan.
“Please…I…” I’m stuttering as his hand moves lower down my stomach, brushing where my thighs are clamping shut.
He slides off me, sliding my legs apart, and plants himself where he can see all of me.
With my dress ripped open and bra cut, the only thing keeping me from being bare is my thong.
“Please, what? Use your words, Thorn.” His hand kneads my thighs, drifting closer to the spot that is desperately betraying me. I shake my head, despite my body wanting to be touched again. I can’t, I just can’t. “Use. Your. Words. I can’t hear your head rattle.”
The final stretch of my resistance shreds.
What's one night with a stranger? Then I can go back to normal.
My fucked-up brain is trying to negotiate with itself.
“Please…just touch me already.” His control snaps like an overstretched rubber band, and his hand is quick to find my clit.
The roughness of his gloved hand, with his gentle movements, gives me the friction I need.
As soon as my eyes shut, the movement stops.
A broken whimper slips out before I can stop it.
I force my eyes open. I can’t see him, but I can feel his stare like a hand around my throat.
“You will watch yourself lose control… and take it back.” I don’t know how he sees straight through me, and I don’t care.
As long as he makes me feel something. Anything.
I nod, hips shifting in a silent plea for him to move.
He holds still, punishingly calm, for a few heartbeats.
Then his fingers circle me again, slow and deliberate. The euphoria claws its way up my spine.
I press down into his hand like I’m starving to be touched. “More,” I plead. “Please. I need more.”
A low, seductive laugh rumbles from behind his mask.
“Is my thorn getting needy?” He purrs. “I can give you more.” Cold air hits my clit as he pulls his hand away, and a broken whine rips from my throat.
In the next breath, he flips me, forcing me onto my knees.
“Last chance,” he murmurs behind me. “Do you want this?” I nod frantically.
“Words, Thorn,” he warns. “I need your words.”
“YES,” I gasp, almost choking on the plea. “Please…God, yes. Just make me feel.” Metal whispers as he lowers his zipper. A second later, I feel him at my entrance, the blunt head of him nudging at me like a promise and a threat.
“So wet for me,” he muses, voice heavy. “And your sweet little words are begging for me.” With one ruthless thrust, he buries himself in me to the hilt.
I gasp, the sudden fullness punching the air from my lungs, pain and pleasure twisting together as he stretches me in the best and worst way.
He draws back halfway and sinks into me again, finding a pace that’s faster than a tease but torturously, deliberately slow.
I shove my hips against him, chasing more, not caring how desperate I look.
I don’t want slow; I want unhinged. He answers by driving into me harder, the rhythm sharpening.
A sharp sting blooms across my lower back.
“You bleed so beautifully,” he says, almost reverent.
He stills, only long enough to reach for something.
Bringing it in front of my face, I recognize the torn scrap of my dress.
He peels off my mask and replaces it with the fabric, knotting it over my eyes and stealing the room away.
“It’s okay,” he breathes into my ear. “I’m not going to hurt you.
Just breathe. Relax.” Moving again, a raw, helpless moan tears out of me, shattering what little silence there was.
I swear I feel him remove his mask, but I'm too far gone in the bliss to care.
Keeping it as strangers is safer. Cleaner.
His tongue drags up my spine, slow and possessive, sending shivers down my body.
“Mmmm,” he hums against my skin as his thrusts turn harder.
“Even your blood is sweet.” The words hit, sparking like kindling, my orgasm detonating.
My head spins as the aftershocks rip through me, leaving me shaking around him.
He slams into me one last time, burying himself as deep as he can, his hips flush with my ass.
A deep feral groan claws its way out of him as he spills inside me.
Warmth floods me before it spills out, slick between my thighs when he finally pulls free.
I collapse onto the floor, boneless, and hear something soft placed beside me.
“See you later, Thorn,” he says as he takes every trace of him.
Rolling onto my back, I find a dress laid out beside me— an exact copy of the one I’m wearing, down to every last detail.
For a moment, I forget where I am, lost in a haze, until the final notes of the song onstage drag me back.
Guess I need to change. I peel myself out of my ruined dress and pull on the new one.
The fabric settled on my skin like the whole thing was a fragment of my imagination.
I don’t know how, but at least he prepared for it.
Mask, blade, and shredded dress in hand, I slip out and reach my car before the crowd spills out.
He’s given Phantom of the Opera an entirely new meaning.
Starting my car, I head home, replaying every touch, every word, until the night feels like it's buried under my skin.