6. Luna
LUNA
He smells like himself again.
Kneeling beside the bench so I’m level with Sawyer’s shoulder, I close my eyes and breathe in the pleasant woodsy smell dusted with the lingering scent of vanilla. An incidental marking—same as Zephyr’s strawberry shampoo, though far better suited.
My fingertips trail a path along the curved ridge of his tricep, bumping over red rope that secures his torso. I follow the last braid to the metal joint beneath the bench; give a sharp slackless tug.
“Sawyer,” I whisper, walking two fingers to his shoulder. He doesn’t stir at his name, but his face twitches with a gentle caress beside his eye, creases breaking out around it. “Wake up, sleepy head. We’re not finished.”
His eyes open slowly, brows already bunched in a glare—as if his body knows to be angry before his mind can remember. In spite of his injuries, his punishments, his near death experience. I expect nothing less.
Gandhi once said that strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
“There he is.” My lips stretch to imitate Sawyer’s signature grin—playful and cruel.
His arms jerk against the rope as his neck strains to take in his situation. It should be familiar.
Naked. Torso flat on the bench with his knees pulled forward, ass up in the air—calves wound so tight his heels have paled. A worm frozen mid stride.
He jerks his knees in an attempt to inchworm his way forward, but the rope is unforgiving.
My elbows dig into my thighs as I stay crouched and watch for the horror to cross his expression, for the helplessness to seize his chest.
He presses his forehead to the bench with a sigh. “You are one crazy fucking bitch.”
He speaks low and even—no sign of fear, none of strange humor. Just words that he means. Words I should expect.
My head turns so he won’t see my smile fall, though he isn’t looking at me anyway. I rub two fingers over my sternum and clear my throat before standing.
“I’m told you crumpled the paper I supplied for you.”
Sawyer shivers as I drag my nail down the curve of his spine, skirting the bandage at the center of his back. At his tailbone, I pause. Slip a latex glove from my pocket.
“I suppose that means you don’t intend to obey?” I roll the glove over my hand.
He huffs a quiet laugh. “For an inbred, you’re fast.”
“Bold thing to say for a man in your predicament.” The latex snaps lightly at my wrist.
“Well, we’ve both seen how quickly the tide can change.”
My lips curve as a tiny gust of air pushes through my lips. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
I step in close and press my middle finger to his anus. Pause. Peer at his face, half-turned and fearless. It doesn’t even flicker when I push in, his muscles lax as half my finger disappears.
“Is this my punishment, Your Grace? Because—full transparency—I’ve had a finger up my ass before.”
No surprise there.
I hum. “I suppose you aren’t quite as shy as I am.”
“Not quite.”
My chin moves with a nod he doesn’t see, my finger gently massaging deeper until there’s nowhere left to go. Each of my movements is a gentle stroke from an inexperienced hand. Not mine but a crude imitation of his. His movements, his strokes, his gentleness.
Throughout it all, he remains relaxed, his muscles loose for my touch out of spite. It should annoy me, but instead I feel a tingle in my chest, the tops of my ears warming with a blush. I try to think of the last time someone beneath my authority truly challenged me… But my mind blanks.
Of course, Sawyer doesn’t know me. He’s only ever seen me vulnerable; not once have I shown him strength.
If he was smart, he’d do the same.
Caressing the sculpted curve of his bottom, I gradually work a second finger inside of him while finally, he tenses. A grunt pulls from his lungs, and his breathing picks up through his mouth, slow and long like working through labor pains.
“Have you ever been fisted?”
When he clenches around my fingers, I force myself in deeper—my intrusion turning rough. My caress on his buttocks morphs to a brutal grasp when he tries to sway his hips away from my touch.
“You said I have until morning to give you the names… It doesn’t matter if the fucking paper is crumpled. I had a private moment of anger. I shouldn’t be punished for—”
A loud groan followed by a string of curses rushes from his mouth when I work a third finger into his puckered hole, straining violently. I bite my lip while my brow furrows with concentration as I lean forward and force the tips of my fingers past the sphincter.
“Stop! Stop! Holy shit, Luna, fucking stop!” He bucks his hips free from my grasp, but he can’t get away from my intrusion.
The panic that thins the air is so familiar, it almost feels like my own.
He jerks hard at his restraints while I let myself slip into the memory—Sawyer’s cold voice, his fingers stretching me wide while he forced me to beg for his cock.
“You crazy goddamn bitch, I will fucking kill you! Do you understand that?! I will fucking—Ah shit! Luna, please!”
His body stills and shakes as I get all fingers snugly inside. Surprising how difficult it is, how much power it takes to break past muscle without shredding it.
“Sawyer, baby, relax. I hear it can feel quite good.”
“Please. Please stop. Please, God, just fucking stop. Please.” His voice cracks with his last word and draws my eyes to his tortured face. His eyes are clenched shut which only makes the sharp, shaky breath he takes in through an open mouth more recognizable.
Humiliating, isn’t it?
I relax my grip on his ass and rub soothing circles over his lower back. All three of my fingers reach to my knuckles inside of him, but I don’t move. I just let them be, let Sawyer feel the sheer terror of the threat they pose.
“What is it you told me the first time I was on this bench and you had three fingers inside of me just like this? Do you even remember?”
“My fingers were in your pussy. It stretches. It’s meant for this shit. It’s not the same thing.”
I lean into Sawyer and lift my hand to deliver a heavy dose of pressure that has him yelling out.
A round of groans fill the cold, sterile space once his body adjusts to the new normal.
“I’m sorry, all right? Fuck, I’m sorry. Whatever I said, it was shitty, and I shouldn’t have said it.
You… I never wanted to hurt you. I was just giving Aurelius what he wanted the only way I knew how.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please. ”
The blush spreads from my ears down my neck. Across the tips of my nipples, sinking low into my belly button until I’m warmed from the inside out. Shameful, to feel so light while loading the back of the pathetic.
Wait.
Sawyer’s words.
‘I was just giving Aurelius what he wanted.’
Laughable. Wrong.
My skin cools, the single statement chasing away the vibrant blush as it occurs to me that Sawyer might still believe I’m somehow a victim. As if I’m not the one who ordered him to train a woman. As if I’m not the one who brought him here.
What right do I have to hold grudges or ill will for the things he did to me in this room?
None.
And still, this feels necessary.
“You told me if I ever called you a rapist again, it would be the last time I had the pleasure of getting fucked by your cock instead of your fist.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be honest. With me and with yourself.”
His face scrunches. “What?”
“Did you rape me, Sawyer?”
“No.”
No hesitation. No uncertainty. Not a moment of thought needed.
My head rears back at the certainty in that one word, as if it’s me who should question it. I blink at Sawyer; watch as his shaking gradually eases, and the wrinkles smooth from his face. It takes mere seconds for his vulnerability to be totally and thoroughly squashed.
No more weeping. No more pleas.
“Did you rape the women on your island?” I shift my fingers. He tenses, but his hips don’t try to buck away.
“No.”
“Don’t lie. This doesn’t end until you admit the truth.”
“Fuck you.” He barks out a laugh so bitter, I flinch. “You think I don’t know you just because you gave yourself a fake identity for a couple of weeks? I fucking see you, Luna. You’re goddamn pathetic.”
“I’m pathetic?” Ha! “You’re a grown man bound naked—”
“By an ugly, genetically defective, cold-hearted bitch.”
My mouth closes, lungs screeching to a halt.
“Mmm, hurts, doesn’t it?” Sawyer gives no pause. “I can see your low self-esteem from a mile away. You could not believe how easily I could rip you to—”
“You know nothing about me,” I growl, my heart thumping fast. “You know a character. But because you’re a narcissist and a fool, you can’t even fathom the idea that you might be wrong about—”
“Your mother’s dead.”
I pause, shoulders tensing.
“And you feel badly that you don’t care. Because you grew up in a cult who told you your skin color made you an unfeeling cunt, and you live your life terrified that it’s true. But it isn’t your skin color, Luna. It’s just you.
“You force men to fight over scraps of rotten meat and have them degraded and humiliated until they’re shunned by their own kind.
You know exactly how to keep slaves in line, and I bet you’re just as efficient with your brain dead people, and that is why you’re in charge.
Your people don’t follow you because they believe in you.
They follow you because they’re afraid not to.
“You’re a monster, and you’re going to do to me what you’re going to do, so fuck you, and good luck, you sadistic, evil cunt.”
My gaze draws to my hand as Sawyer’s muscles clench around my fingers—the glove shifting with a tremble that matches the hand at my side. Slowly, I pull out of him. Carefully lay the glove over the bench. Bring my hands to my stomach.
And stand.
A minute passes while I wait for pins to stop pricking my arms, for blood to flow back into my face. Sawyer doesn’t say another word, which is somehow both the greatest relief and an uncomfortable disappointment.
Maybe he wants to bask in my defeat.
Or maybe—like me—he doesn’t know what comes next. The appropriate next step in this game. If it’s a game at all.
My eyes close as I inhale a deep breath. Then I go to the bathroom to wash my hands. My palms splay as I watch water sneak between my fingers.
A half mile away, Thorne sleeps in my bed, his arm draped where my body was only an hour ago. By now, he’s snoring. Oblivious to my absence.
My fingers curl into fists beneath the water as the sound of his heavy breaths pound my ear as if he’s standing next to me.
As if I’m still in bed staring at the ceiling while he tries his best to pretend I’m my late sister.
Even his release carried an undeniable frustration we both chose to ignore.
Not a day has passed that I haven’t mourned Zephyr.
But today the space she left feels bottomless.