Chapter 49 #3
He shifts his angle, and I cry out in surprise when he hits something so deep that my eyes roll back.
This time, I can’t bring them forward. Holy fuck—he’s grinding against a spot that makes my back bow off the floor, and my entire body go taut.
I hope it looks like I’m trying to get away because all I’m doing is pressing harder into his, chasing this knot of tension that is building inside me, coiling tight, getting tighter.
His lower stomach is rubbing my clit with every pump, and the friction is too much.
Over Nico’s shoulder, I catch a glimpse of the Game Master watching us, and panic slams into me like a freight train.
I snap my focus back to Nico and cry out against the tape, wrenching my bad arm out of his grip with a scream. My bandaged hand connects with the side of Nico’s head.
Nico lets out a frustrated growl that goes straight between my legs and pins my arm to the ground, his grip bruising, but he doesn’t slow down, only thrusts into me harder.
I try to focus on the pain oozing up my arm, but the feeling of him inside me is stronger, each drive winds me tighter, pushing me closer to an edge I can’t go over.
That I’ve never gone over with someone else.
I got you.
I got you.
The words echo in my head because I know he does. Nico’s not going to let anything bad happen to me right now. There’s nothing bad that can happen to me in his arms. It’s the one place in the world where I know nothing can hurt me.
I go limp under him, letting him push me closer to that edge. The pleasure builds inside me so fast it’s dizzying, and not even all the resolve in the world can make me remember to fight now.
I can’t do this. Can I do this?
I’m not going to be given a choice. He’s not slowing down, and something is rising inside me so big I don’t have control over it.
Nico’s pace turns frantic. He’s panting against my neck, a heady smell coming off him as he chases his release.
Hair brushes the side of my head. When he pushes up to look at me, his eyes are glazed over.
Lips red and swollen. Hair mussed from my fingers.
He usually keeps his emotions so locked down that it’s impossible to know what he’s feeling, but right now, he’s so open I can see everything.
All the fear that had been there is gone, replaced by a consuming want he’s doing nothing to hide.
He’s so beautiful. So perfect and beautiful and wrecked and mine.
I clench my walls around him, doing the one thing I can to make him feel good that the Game Master can’t see. The groan I pull out of him is loud and completely unfiltered.
His eyes narrow on mine in challenge before he buries his face in my neck and pulls that soft piece of skin behind my ear between his teeth. He bites down hard.
I topple over the edge.
The orgasm rises from deep inside me, ripping through me in pulses I can’t control. My walls clamp down around him in waves that keep coming, each one stronger than the last. The pleasure is so overwhelming it almost hurts.
A scream tears from my throat. I pour every ounce of rage and fear I have into it, kicking out even as my body betrays me with wave after wave of devastating pleasure.
My good hand claws at Nico’s back. I buck my hips trying to throw him off, but it just drives him deeper and sends another aftershock through me.
Nico drives into me one final time, burying himself so deep I feel it in my chest, and comes with a sound caught between a groan and something more broken. I feel the pulse of him inside me, feel the warmth of his release, and then nothing.
The world goes quiet except for our ragged breathing. We stay locked together. Nico’s forehead drops onto my shoulder, both of us trembling, both struggling to breathe.
He pulls out slowly. The loss cracks something open deep within me. His hands shake as he tucks himself away, his eyes fixed anywhere but on me.
I want to wrap my arms around him so badly my fingers twitch. Want to tell him I’m okay. More than okay.
Slow clapping echoes through the bathroom. My walls crumble, and the fog of pleasure burns away in an instant.
“Bravo,” the Game Master says. “That was quite the performance.”
I tug the elastic of my bra back down over my breasts then fumble with my jumpsuit, trying to pull it back up over me and get my arm looped through even though my whole body feels like it’s made of overcooked pasta.
Nico turns away from me. He scrapes a hand over his face, and his shoulders hunch like he’s trying to fold in on himself. Why isn’t he looking at me? He has to know how that felt for me.
“Well?” the Game Master urges. “You know how to finish her.”
I pull in as much air as I can through my nose and then release it in a long exhale to calm myself.
My nose is running and partially blocked, and breathing through it is as hard as sucking in air through a coffee stirrer.
My lungs are still working overtime from the sex, and knowing I only have seconds to catch my breath is making them burn in anticipation.
I went down a rabbit hole after the murders where I read all about holding your breath, in case Stanley Daniels ever came back.
I wanted to be prepared, as illogical as that was.
I used to lie awake in my bed and practice, taking a ton of tiny gasps to flood my blood with oxygen so I could hold my breath for longer.
My record was three minutes. As soon as I started to panic, it was over, so I’m not going to panic now.
What if Nico can’t bring himself to make it convincing enough? What if the Game Master sees through it and finishes the job himself?
Or what if Nico makes it too convincing and actually kills me by accident? I push the thought away immediately. He won’t.
Nico turns back to me, and the look on his face makes an ugly sob work its way up my throat. His eyes are wild and empty at the same time. He can’t hold my gaze for more than a second before his eyes slide away, landing somewhere over my shoulder.
He hauls me up into a sitting position by the shoulders. A fresh bolt of agony shoots through my hand, and I yelp.
“I don’t know what I expected.” His voice is loud. His words are not for me. “It was always going to end this way.”
I take in as big a breath as I can.
His hands grasp my throat.
The pressure starts so gradually, I wonder if he’s going to cut off my air at all. His thumb rests against my windpipe like he’s checking my pulse.
Energy surges through me. I shove the panic down with everything I have, forcing my racing thoughts into something resembling calm.
Closing my eyes, I pull myself away from the bathroom until I’m back in my old foster home, lying on that lumpy twin mattress with the springs that dug into my back and the popcorn ceiling I’d stare at while holding my breath, counting the seconds, training myself for something I prayed would never happen even if my anxiety tried to convince me it would.
My lungs would start to compress, begging for air, but I always made it to the other side where everything went calm and floaty.
Wet drops fall onto my face. I open my eyes to find tears streaming down Nico’s cheeks, mixing with blood and creating pink tracks through the grime.
His grip tightens. His hands dig in so hard I cry out in surprise, but the sound catches on his fingers.
The pressure builds slowly enough that my body doesn’t panic immediately, but I can feel it coming, that response clawing its way up from somewhere primal that doesn’t give a shit how much I trust him. I can’t expend my energy fighting him. I need to let it happen.
Then my air cuts off.
A sharp discomfort seizes my windpipe. Blood pumps in my ears, a roar that drowns out everything except the pounding of my own heart.
My vision tunnels until all I can see is Nico’s face, red, the tendons bulging in his neck like ropes pulled tight.
His eyes are open, but he’s not here. He’s somewhere else I can’t follow.
I squeeze my eyes as hard as I can and force my body to go limp.
Nico screams, his arms shaking against my throat.
Then his hands fly away from me. I crumple to the floor, my spine bending at a sharp angle as my head cracks against the tile.
The urge to breathe normally is so strong. Every cell in my body screams at me to gasp, gulp down air, take these huge sobbing breaths to get rid of the burning feeling in my lungs, but the tape is still covering my mouth, and dead girls don’t gasp for air.
Nico’s boot presses into my shoulder and rolls me onto my side so my face is turned away from the Game Master. I take the tiniest sip of air through my nose, so small and controlled that my chest barely moves. The tile is cold against my cheek, gritty with dust and I don’t want to know what else.
The Game Master’s footsteps pad closer. A shadow falls across my eyelids. Please don’t step on me.
The Game Master crouches beside me. I can feel his presence like a cold weight pressing against my skin, making me need to run, but dead girls don’t run. His fingers press against my throat.
No.
He can’t check my pulse. Stanley Daniels never checked. That’s the only reason I got away with it.
His fingers probe my neck hard. My heart is pounding like an elephant is stomping on my chest, but maybe the cold and blood loss are masking it?
I remember that thing Griffin said: Entities will make a ninety-year-old woman they’re possessing punch through a brick wall.
They don’t care if she breaks every bone in her hand.
Entities go numb when possessing people.
It’s why they escalate, because they need to do more while dead to feel the same things they did while alive.
Could the Game Master be too numb to feel my pulse?
He withdraws his hand. Goosebumps break over my skin as he does a breathy sort of moan.
What does that mean? Does that mean he bought it?
My lungs are screaming for air, but I keep still, letting only the tiniest sips of oxygen through my nose.
“Subject One is the winner,” the Game Master says, and something clatters on the ground. “I trust you know where to find the key.”