Chapter 18 #2
His nostrils flare as he stares at me, but still, he doesn’t open his mouth to speak. Silence stretches between us, the moonlight gilded over one half of his face, illuminating the sharp point of his cheekbone.
Beautiful and haunted and tormenting.
Does he know it’s torture not to hear his voice?
“You throw it back in my face like it’s a joke,” he finally says, eerily soft, “what I did to you beneath the hotel. But it was nothing compared to what I had planned.”
A delicious ache wells up in my low belly and I bite down on my bottom lip.
His eyes flash, noticing, but I need him to really fucking get it.
“Then show me. All the horrible things you wanted to do to me. Do them now.” I know they’re not as bad as he thinks they are.
He put his own body between me and his father, me and three armed men.
He straightened my clothes and covered me up, not wanting me to be exposed to them.
He’s stopped me from getting hurt over and over again.
He cares for me in some way only he can, twisted and tormented inside his messy, beautiful head.
“And if you think I wished you hurt by anyone but me,” he keeps going, as if I didn’t speak at all, “you are entirely brainless, Little Sun.”
My throat feels tight.
This time, it’s my turn to be quiet.
He doesn’t move toward me though. Doesn’t stalk to the bed like I desperately wish he would, but he keeps speaking.
“You cuddled up to me last night, your cheek pressed to my back, like I wouldn’t absolutely devour you in the worst way if I could have stayed awake.”
“Do it,” I whisper, unquestioning. Brainless? For him, I might be.
“You follow me into every danger, put yourself in all the worst positions, only so… what? You can add me to the list of Writhe men you’ve conquered?”
I narrow my gaze and resist the urge to stick up my middle finger. “Fuck off,” I snap. “Don’t degrade yourself like that.”
He looks surprised, brows raised, but he clearly catches my meaning. “Are you saying I mean more to you than Cosmo de Actis? Because I’ve watched the two of you fuck, you know, more than just for the Night of Lies. I hope he meant at least a little something to you, the way you let him treat you.”
I don’t ask for specifics. I don’t wish to hear them.
Instead, my face red and hot and my body flushed, I say, “Did you like it? Watching him inside me? Pulling out and coming on my thigh?” Every time he did that, or my chest, if I gave him head.
I’ve never swallowed cum before, but for Sullen, I would.
“Did you like how I was brainless for him? A puppet, a doll? Something for him to use? Nothing more than a warm, wet—”
“Get up.”
I straighten my spine, lifting my chin, but I don’t do as he said. I just stare back at him, watching the bones of his jaw jump, the white bandana around his neck just blocking out what I know are stark tendons in his throat.
“Karia,” he says, his voice raspy. “Get up.”
“First you tell me what Sanford said to you to make you like this, then I’ll consider your request.”
“I have always been like this. For all you know, Sanford Rule could be a corpse desecrated on golden sheets across the hall. And I know you’re being a sarcastic little brat, but it wasn’t a request. Get. Up.”
I think of Sanford’s insides clawed to the outside. His tattered suit ripped to shreds.
Sullen must see something in my eyes because he smiles cruelly at me.
“Yes, you forgot for a moment I was a monster. Now, remember. Come here.” He nods, indicating the space before his feet, black high-tops on which I saw him dry with the hair dryer after I emerged from the shower this morning.
“Or do you want me so badly, you can’t obey a simple command, Little Sun? If Cosmo asked, would you—”
I move so swiftly from my position on the bed to standing on the floor in my bare feet that I’m dizzy, my knees wobbly beneath me.
“I don’t give a fuck about Cosmo,” I say, teeth gritted, the walls spinning a little around me but I don’t care.
“Now, do you want me on my knees before you, or can I stay on my feet?” Without waiting for an answer, I slowly stalk toward him, wanting to run my fingers through the thickness of his hair.
Drag my fingertips along his cheekbones, feel the split skin of his face under my nails.
I want to press up onto my toes and bite down on his bottom lip.
I want his blood in my mouth. His muscles beneath my hands.
His breath against my ear and my name on his tongue.
I come closer, moving deliberately, my hips swaying with every step. My breasts are full and aching beneath my shirt, my fingers relaxed at my sides, but the tension inside my bloodstream is painful.
His lips are parted but he doesn’t speak. He only watches me, eyes on my face, moonlight cascading over his smooth skin.
When I am toe-to-toe with him, my bare feet less than an inch from his shoes, I stop, my heart racing erratically inside my chest. I feel as if I am vibrating with energy, lust, want, need, and something eerily close to love.
I want to reach up and touch him.
I want him to eat me alive. Push me against the wall and fuck me just like that, make me promise I won’t ever let anyone else touch me how he does again in my life.
I would, too.
I would damn myself for his obsession.
His chest rises high, then higher still before slowly, it falls.
He doesn’t stop staring at me and I at him.
I am wearing next to nothing compared to everything he has on, and while I want him naked before me, I will take this. In fact, for us, it feels right, and I don’t mind.
But I can’t wait in submission forever.
I reach for him, my hand coming to his face, fingertips gently resting over his cheekbone. I feel the jagged cut beneath my ring finger, my thumb close to his pretty mouth, but I don’t push too far.
Still, I press up on my toes, wanting to lean into him, wanting to kiss him, bite him, lick him.
But before I can come closer, his hand darts out to my throat, leather against my skin.
He doesn’t choke me. He barely curls his fingers around my neck, but he stops me, and for some reason, it feels as if my heart might break because of it.
I know love and sex and attention are all tangled strangely inside my head.
He was right about that, some of the things he said.
But the irrationality of it doesn’t stop what I’m feeling, the ache in my chest as his thumb comes to my windpipe, pressed vertically against it, bordering the edge of pain.
I don’t drop my hand, though. I don’t let go of that connection, however fleeting it may be.
The moonlight grazes one of his eyes, illuminating a shard of amber in the deep brown.
My breath catches, and I want to kiss his eyelid.
I want to smother him with my want.
“Sullen.” His name is desperate on my lips, trembling the way I am with need.
He stares at me blankly, and I’m not even sure he’s seeing me. I wonder what horrors play inside his head. The ways he needs pain to get close. Control to give in.
I think I will have to throw myself at him to get anywhere.
I think I don’t care if I do.
Slowly, I brush my thumb over the hollow above his top lip. I feel his warm breath on my skin. The way his fingers tighten marginally around my neck.
I don’t care.
I don’t fucking care.
I step closer, into his hold, choking myself, and it doesn’t matter at all to me. In fact, it only heightens my lust.
Hurt me. Strangle me. Bite me. Touch me.
Just give in to me, Sullen Rule. You could take all of my blood so long as it dripped down your throat.
With my other hand, I press my palm near his heart, over his hoodie. I feel his pulse thundering against his ribcage and I want to snap the bones open, if only to reach him the way he’s infected me.
“Sullen,” I say again, begging. “Kiss me.”
He takes a shuddering breath. I hear it, see it, feel it with my thumb over his lip and my hand on his chest.
Then he says, “I’m so sorry, Little Sun,” the moment before he grabs me by the neck, forcing me closer at the same time he bands an arm around my hips and lifts me up.
He turns, setting me on the windowsill, his body between my thighs, his fingers splayed over my jawbone, forcing my chin up as he dives his head down, teeth pressed to my skin.
My eyes nearly roll back as I cling onto him, my fingers curled into the material of his hoodie hugging his biceps, my legs spread for him, the back of my skull against the cold window behind me.
He sucks on my neck, his teeth scraping and puncturing and I don’t care at all. His tongue laps at my skin, then he’s biting me again, one arm still around my waist, forcing me close to him.
I cross my legs behind his back, dragging him closer, desperately wanting him to fuck me right here, just like this.
But part of me knows he’s deflecting.
He didn’t kiss my mouth.
He’s biting my throat.
He didn’t strip me down or take me to the bed.
He’s got such a firm hold on my face I can’t look down.
He’s hiding while he hurts me.
He’s giving me only half of what it is I want.
For a moment, I wonder if that’s what he’s sorry for.
But then he unthreads his arm from around my waist. My eyes flash open but I’m staring at the high, gilded ceiling above us. I hear a metallic sound and try to push away with my grip on his hard, solid arms.
But he doesn’t let me move.
And a second later, there is a bright, slashing pain along my bare thigh, something cold and silvery on my skin.
My legs start to tremble around him. He moves his fingers from my jaw to slide back into my hair, pulling strands from the braid as he forces my head down so I’m no longer staring at the ceiling. My eyes lift to his.
He presses his temple to mine, his nose lined up with my own as he drops something to the carpet with a small plink. His gloved hand circles around my thigh, pressing on the wound he made.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, his breath on my mouth.
He doesn’t sound sorry, though. He sounds cold and detached.
Strange. His fingers tighten in my hair, along my scalp.
He pulls several strands, twisting them and tugging, making me wince as I stare at him, a heavy weight of exhaustion starting to blanket me.
His hand shifts up my thigh and I can no longer keep my legs around his waist.
They fall, dangling from the windowsill, his fingers sliding under my shorts.
“So very sorry, Karia,” he whispers in my mouth, his breath light, delicious even, like toothpaste. “But this time,” he tilts his head, lips brushing mine, fingers dancing over my upper thigh. “I promise I’ll give you everything you asked for.”
I feel strange, like I’m drunk. A little dizzy, a lot tired, but my eyes don’t close, and it isn’t like when he put a needle in my belly. My hands are still on his arms and I marvel over how solid he is. The thought makes a smile form on my lips, one I don’t remember wanting to put there.
I look up at him through hazy eyes, his handsome face so close to mine. “I feel weird,” I tell him, and my tongue is heavy but the words come out clear.
He nudges his nose to mine. “Oh?” he asks, and there’s something teasing in his question.
“What did you do to me?” The pain along my skin.
It’s faded now, but he… did something. I think of Cosmo.
The chain around Sullen’s neck. The scrape on his face.
I can put it all together, but what I can’t figure out is how he would have gotten the scalpel or needle or miniature knife back from his father.
“Nothing yet,” he says quietly, once more brushing his nose along my own. “But I will soon.”
I laugh a little, because he means to threaten me. But good times don’t require warnings. “Hmm,” I say, holding his gaze as the room seems to darken around us. “Do you promise to touch me?”
He slides his hand higher up my thigh and I widen my legs as much as I can, giving him more access. A startled breath leaves his lips and I know he’s always discounted my begging, but maybe now he’ll see.
“I am touching you, Little Sun,” he rasps, but some of the cockiness from his voice is gone.
I can rise up to meet you. You don’t frighten me.
“Do you promise to kiss me?” I ask as he squeezes my inner thigh. His body is in the way of touching more, but he doesn’t want to move, I can tell.
He drags his lips over my jawline and I lift my head up, letting him suck on my neck again. Then he follows the same path, facing me once more.
“I am kissing you,” he says, and I don’t clarify that I mean on my lips.
He knows that.
“Do you promise to fuck me, Sullen?” I ask instead.
He slides his hand to the back of my neck, gripping me tightly, the leather cool on my skin.
He drives me back by leaning in closer, my neck crunching from the angle of my skull against the window.
Then he turns his head until his lips are at my ear and he says, “Even if you’re unconscious…” He bites my earlobe, sending sparks under my skin. “I promise, I won’t stop.”