18. Hyacinth
EIGHTEEN
HYACINTH
The tie is flimsy around my wrists. I’ve already worked the knot so I can pull myself free, but haven’t taken the last step to actually pull free.
My hands are bound in front of me, anyway. There are plenty of things I can still do to defend myself.
Zane kept his arm around my shoulders for the entirety of the car ride back to his house.
His other hand had been around my throat, squeezing intermittently while he’d kissed me.
It still would have been trivial to take one of my knives and stab him.
“Are you going to stab me in the back if I get out of the car first?” he murmurs when we reach his home.
I smile at him. “It’s a risk you’ll have to take. But I’ll point out that I could have let my mother shoot you.”
His bodyguard turns from the front seat to glare at me.
“You could have,” Zane agrees. He slides over to the door and lets himself out before offering his hand to me to help me out of the car. “That doesn’t mean I trust you, Hyacinth Cuore.”
I nod. “You shouldn’t.” I step closer to him. “I think your bodyguard disapproves.”
I don’t bother disguising my voice anymore. Let them all know who Zane is inviting into his home.
“That’s because he has all the sanity I lack,” Zane says. “You can tell Stefan I’m being suicidal again, Mason.”
The bodyguard, Mason, purses his lips. “Boss…”
Zane arches a brow.
Mason grits his teeth but nods curtly. “Yes, sir.”
Zane grips my upper arm and pulls me toward the house. After he unlocks the door, he smirks at me. “Turn around,” he says. “I can’t have you seeing the code to my security system, now can I? Mason, make sure he closes his eyes like a good boy.”
I laugh and turn obediently, lowering my eyes but not closing them all the way. The system has no beep feedback, so I can’t use the sound as a clue about which buttons he pressed, or how many.
Good. At least something is working right in his security system.
Unlike his useless bodyguards.
“I bet I can get you to give me the code willingly,” I say.
The bodyguard makes a rude sound, but Zane only laughs.
“It’s cute that you think so,” Zane replies. “You can turn around now. Go to the living room and strip. All of your weapons get to stay down here while we play… and this time, I call the shots on when you get to leave.” He grabs me by the back of the neck and squeezes. “Understood?”
I shiver, then say, “You’ll need to unbind my hands if you want me to strip.”
“Mm, I guess I’ll just have to help you, then,” he says. “Living room.” He doesn’t release my neck, though, herding me in that direction with his fingers flexing on my neck.
Even though I’ve got a clearer head now than the last time, I still obey.
My body is taut with anticipation.
He doesn’t release me until we’re in the middle of the living room. He reaches down, tugging at the tie, and he chuckles when it comes free with a mere touch. “Oh, you escape artist. Always have to be in control, hmm? Until you aren’t. Don’t worry. I’ll bind you better this time.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” I say as I drop my hands to my sides.
Zane circles around me, one hand on my body. I focus on that touch, on the way his eyes linger on me.
He starts by undoing a single button on my blouse, then he presses his finger into the newly exposed skin. “Not white, this time.”
I let out a soft laugh. “I knew there was a high risk of my clothes getting dirty.”
“How many clothes do you ruin in your line of business?” he inquires. With each button he unfastens, he runs his finger along the bare skin left in its wake. “They’re always beautiful. Custom, I assume? From… your sister?”
Protectiveness flares up inside me. “Leave her out of this,” I say. “I’m not talking about my family while you’re undressing me.”
He hums. “Mason, go to the kitchen.”
Mason lets out another choked sound, but one glance from Zane has him obeying.
“My apologies,” Zane says. “I was only curious. If you aren’t going to kill me, and I’m not going to kill you, well… The game changes, doesn’t it?”
It shouldn’t change, except… I’ve made my choice already.
I made it the moment I saved him from my mother.
I could pretend that I want to kill Zane myself, that I don’t want the shame of failure, but that would be a hollow argument.
Even now, I could attack Zane and redeem myself in my mother’s eyes.
It’s not going to happen.
Lionel was right about everything, and I hate that.
I feel weak.
I want Zane so badly though.
I meet his eyes. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“What don’t I mean?” he asks, sliding my blouse down my arms and letting it pool on the floor. It thuds more heavily than simple fabric would. “Hasn’t everything changed?”
“It has.” I lower my head and let my hair fall in front of my face. “I don’t do things by halves, Zane. If you want me, you get all of me. There will be no one else for you anymore. You don’t get to pretend I’m not here. This will get messy.”
He strokes my shoulders. His voice is quiet as he says, “I’m not out, Hyacinth. I can’t be. But I want you, all of you, just as you are.”
Is that enough?
For right now, it has to be.
Zane drops his hands to my hips and finds the zipper for my skirt. That drops down too, with a similarly heavy thud as my blouse. Zane huffs.
“Do I want to know what was in there?” he asks.
I shrug. “You can spend the next hour trying to find it all. Or you can do whatever you want to my body.”
“Mm, I think I know what I’m going to choose,” he says, and he hooks his fingers in the waistband of my leggings to pull those down, too. I kick my shoes off to let him pull them off completely. “This is like unwrapping a present. A dangerous present, but a present nonetheless.”
I’m left standing in my tight boxer briefs. My cock stirs already. Shame and desire coil in my belly, both make me want to kneel for Zane and worship him.
I wait for his command.
“Do you have weapons in here, too?” Zane asks with a smirk as he pulls my underwear off. “Or is that too dangerous even for you?”
He steps back, his eyes slowly taking me in from head to toe.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs.
I nod in acknowledgement, but I don’t answer.
‘Don’t speak. Stay still. Take what I give you.’
If I do this with Zane, will it erase the memories of Keith? Will I be free of his harassing specter?
Zane touches my chin, but he doesn’t lift my head. “Come upstairs,” he tells me, then takes my hand. “I have plans for you that don’t include you standing in my living room.”
I follow him upstairs, naked as I was last time.
Would he keep me naked, if I was his?
I catch a bodyguard watching from one hallway. I wink at him.
Let him stare.
The play room looks different in the afternoon light. It’s less sinister now, even though I can see all the implements hanging on the walls. The center ceiling beam has several hooks embedded in it, as does the beam across the opposite wall.
How many people has he brought here?
I’ll murder anyone who ever stepped foot in this room.
“You’re quiet,” Zane notes. “I noticed that last time, too. You don’t need to be.
I’d like to hear what you’re thinking.” He beckons me over to a bench finished in dark wood, and he smooths his fingers through my hair.
“This is the only kind of game I want to play with you, Hyacinth. I have no reason to trust you, and you have no reason to trust me, but for a little while… Let’s set that aside, shall we? ”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I was thinking that I’m going to murder anyone who’s been in this room. Aside from you, of course.” I smirk. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”
He chuckles. “The list wouldn’t be very long,” he replies. “But I’d prefer it if you didn’t go on a murder spree that could be linked back to me. I’d be the prime suspect, and then how would I ever do this again? Stay there.”
He walks over to a nearby drawer and pulls out something wrapped in a satin cloth. He opens it to reveal a dildo with a suction cup on the bottom.
A very large dildo, with realistic looking veins and ridges, that he brings over to the bench and sticks in place in the center of it.
“Do you publicize your fucks?” I ask, my attention fully on the dildo.
Zane gives me a confused look. “Of course not.”
“Then nobody will ever connect those deaths with you.” I smile sweetly at him.
He shakes his head. “It sounds like I need to get your thoughts in the right place,” he remarks.
“Now…” He straightens, and I see it as he slips into a different headspace entirely.
“Go to that dildo and suck it, Sin. Just like you sucked my cock that day, sloppy and loud. I want to hear it, see it, feel it.”
I take a shuddering breath and kneel in front of the silicone phallus.
I lick my lips.
This is demeaning. Humiliating.
But I lean forward and take it into my mouth all the same. I lick it sloppily, saliva dripping down the shaft. My lips stretch wide around it as I bob my head up and down.
And yes, I make noise. I go the extra mile to moan and grunt and slurp. The noises form an obscene orchestra, one that makes my skin heat up and my cock slowly rise.
I hear cloth whispering behind me, but his clothes make considerably less noise than mine had as they hit the floor. He comes up behind me, and he grinds his cock into my back. “You feel what this is doing to me?” he purrs. “Before the end of the day, this entire dick is going to be inside of you.”
I groan and press my back against his cock. He drags it higher, so it presses against my head, then my cheek.
I release the dildo and turn so I can kiss his glorious cock.
He grabs me by the hair. “Did I tell you that you could do that?” he asks. His voice is dark, smooth as silk. “Get on the bench, straddle it. Don’t try to take it yet. I only want to see you astride it for now.”
My eyes flutter, and even the hint of pain from when he tugs on my hair is enough to light up my senses. I nod, forcing more of that pain on my scalp, before standing. He releases my hair.
I wish he hadn’t.
My cock is fully hard as I get into position. It’s low enough that I need to squat, my hole hovering over the spit-slick dildo.