7. Luna
LUNA
Ishut off the water. Dry my hands.
When I return to the training room, Sawyer is just as I left him. Body still. Breaths heavy. His face showing unbreakable composure.
His eyes never touch my back as I go to the workbench and open a bottom drawer, grating metal ominously cutting through silence. I pull out a purple dildo with a girth the size of a fat orange.
When I turn, I find Sawyer’s glazed eyes pointing straight ahead. Gone to hide in his mind while somehow managing to keep that righteous, hateful look on his face.
Truly impressive.
“What exactly were you planning on doing with this?” I tap the instrument against my palm as I walk to the bench.
Sawyer doesn’t answer until I kneel in front of his face and rest the dildo beneath his chin. Murderous eyes meet mine.
“I like to be prepared.”
My brows raise as I nod. “Ah.”
“I can tell you what I’d do with it now… If you’d like.”
I set the dildo on the floor before pulling my knife from its sheath at my ankle. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Luna.”
When I glance up from the knife, my breath catches. His glare has softened, baby blue irises on full display.
No follow up to my name. No plea, no threat. Just… Luna. It takes too long to realize he thinks I might cut him.
I force my gaze to the rope binding his wrists and carefully fit the knife beneath it. “Hold still…”
I saw one wrist free before making my way to the rest of his body. Once I’ve resheathed the knife, he sits up on the bench, his eyes averted as he rolls his ankles to return blood flow.
I point to the spot at my feet. “Kneel… Face the bench.”
Unsurprising: he doesn’t move.
Surprising: he doesn’t glare.
He holds my gaze for a beat too long, his expression impassive.
Slowly, he shifts onto his knees, face twisted in a cringe as he turns. Sore and bruised, but not even close to beaten.
Pressure loosens in my chest as I rake my eyes over his back, traveling a path from the nape of his neck to the tension in his shoulders. To the angry slices marring the rare patch of otherwise pristine skin.
As I approach, I reach for his hair—wild strands of sandy blonde somehow more tempting than freshly groomed waves. But I pause. Let my hand hover.
Then ruffle the blond locks. “Good boy.”
I sit on the bench with my boots inches from his knees. My hands press firmly against my lap lest they dare tremble. “Now… I want you to kiss me.”
His brow wrinkles.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Hansley, you are not a guest nor a brother in the Shadow Sanctum. You are a Dreg, or, as you called it, a slave. I can give you food, shelter, a longer leash, and I can even give you kindness, but I can’t allow you to disrespect my orders.
You are to submit to me, always… If an electric bath will not do the trick, we’ll need to practice in ways that you can understand. So… Kiss me.”
He blinks. Seconds pass.
“Where?”
My pulse jumps.
Silly. Childish.
I breathe evenly, slowly, calming my heart rate before I speak. “Where would you like to kiss me, Dreg?”
Sawyer squints.
And it’s as if my skin is translucent.
My throat thickens, but I don’t chance him seeing me swallow. Inescapable heat creeps over my cheeks.
“My feet,” I blurt because it’s stupid to give him choices. Choices are control. Choices are power.
He looks down at my feet before flicking his eyes at the door. The knife at my ankle floats into my mind, but I suspect it never left Sawyer’s.
Would he kill me if he knew there was no Keeper on the other side of the door?
Would he consider it?
“Well? What’ll it be, Dreg? Submission or defiance?”
“That depends, Head Keeper. What happens if I choose defiance?”
I turn my eyes pointedly to the dildo and don’t elaborate.
A slight grimace tugs at the corner of Sawyer’s mouth before he shifts onto one knee. Then pats his thigh. “Let’s have it then.”
Pulse jump.
Dear God.
I clear my throat and raise my boot to rest on his thigh—a king waiting for a shoe shine.
Domineering, if not for the sweat clamming my hands.
Powerful yet powerless as Sawyer looks up at me, crystal irises searching my face as he unties the black laces of my boot.
He makes no contact with my flesh, and yet, I feel his fingertips slide up my legs.
I steady my breath while he removes the boot, then my sock—and sets both on the floor.
He carefully plants my heel on his thigh, searing my naked ankle with his hand.
His gaze drifts to my foot, to unpolished nails, toes a bit too long.
To skin that is, like the rest of my body, far too pale, made grotesque by a fat, blue vein that spiderwebs toward my toes.
No complexion hides the harshness of bone protruding from skin.
I’m an actual skeleton from the ankles down, seeing my feet for the first time.
I should’ve had him kiss my hand.
Sawyer gently lifts the sole of my foot to his lips. His touch is delicate, eyes holding vicious intimacy as he stares into mine. Daring me to look away. Daring me to watch. Cinderella, rewritten. No glass. Just teeth.
Warm lips plant to my heel before moving up the arch in slow, measured pauses. He takes my ankle and bends my foot forward until my big toe grazes wet, hot flesh.
He looks up at me.
I hold my breath, my posture coming into awareness—leaned forward, lips parted, grasping the edge of the bench.
He’d be right to mock me.
Instead, he takes my toe into his mouth, thumb massaging the arch of my foot while his cheeks cave at the force he uses to draw me in. I jerk upright with a gasp, but don’t pull away.
I stare wide eyed as his tongue traces a light path to the base of my toe. His thumb presses into the arch of my foot as if he’s tuning an instrument, coaxing sound from bone and nerve.
Stop.
I should tell him to stop.
But my lips seal as thoroughly as his, and I tip my head back while he nibbles a slanted path along delicate bone. His enthusiasm refuses to falter until every inch of sickly flesh has been explored, every vein stroked by his tongue.
I don’t feel the moment it happens, but something in the air shifts.
The back of my neck prickles as the sheath at my ankle moves. I jolt straight, but don’t jerk my leg back like I should.
I look to Sawyer for meaning. For guidance. As if it isn’t his hand that’s there.
Moronic choice.
But I make it.
He kisses the bridge of my foot one last time before retrieving my sheath. “Relax,” he whispers, tossing the leather pocket with my knife several feet behind him. “If I were going to make a move, it wouldn’t be that obvious.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out a breathy huff. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
He smirks as he replaces my damp foot with the boot-clad one. No intention of responding. Every intention of unsettling.
He is an ant, Luna.
My foot curls against the rough hardwood, cool air kissing the gap between my toes. His phantom tongue still prods as he removes the second boot and repeats the performance.
This time, he starts with a lick from the bottom of my heel to the tip of my awkwardly long middle toe. He gives each appendage attention—nipping, licking, sucking like he’s reciting a nursery rhyme.
If he’s waiting for my cue to stop … I could not be crueler.
“Enough.” The single word is a shattering of syllables. I clear my throat; jerk my foot against Sawyer’s unyielding hold on my ankle. “That’s enough.”
A moment passes while he stares.
Then with one last kiss to the top of my foot, he sets it on the floor and looks at me expectantly.
“Next?”
Next…
For several seconds, I’m genuinely silenced. My windpipe stuffs with throbbing tension I dare not name, but I don’t clear my throat—again.
I avert my eyes; look down at his crotch only to note he isn’t aroused. Yet my skin flushes at the mere idea of next. At the memory of his lips skittering across my collarbone, the feel of his hands circling my waist. His whisper in my ear, you’re so beautiful.
This was a mistake.
“The neck, perhaps?” Sawyer asks.
I shake my head, eyes never meeting his. “No, that’ll be all… You may go.”
He stays put. Every second of silence peels me open until I’m certain he sees it all.
And I let him.
With anyone else, I’d scoff. Bark. Shatter the silence with strength and a dismissive sigh.
With Sawyer, I don’t even pretend to squirm.
I sit with my eyes glued to the wall while I wait for the emotions to fade. They will. It’ll pass faster once he’s gone.
Finally, he rises, and I think I’ll be able to breathe easier. But my lungs shrink.
He doesn’t leave. Instead, he sits on the bench directly in my line of sight.
My head twitches with a partial turn, but it’s too pathetic to look away a second time. My gaze stays on him while he hikes one leg over the bench so he’s straddling it with incredible confidence. If he’s the least bit uncomfortable with his nakedness, he doesn’t show it.
“I gave you an order, Dreg.”
He stares at me a moment before puffing out a laugh. “I know, Head Keeper. I’m following it.”
His hand tucking behind my knee, he guides my leg over the bench so I’m facing him. I gasp—sharp and quiet.
“What are you doing?”
His eyes trail my body with a lustrous gaze before nodding like he’s pleased with his assessment. He wraps his hands around my waist just as I’d imagined earlier and drags me until our knees touch.
“Sawyer.”
“You want me to fuck you.” His tone is so matter of fact it makes me quiver.
“Or kiss you… Either way, you brought me here because you wanted an orgasm. So… How about we get it over with? The next time you want to summon me in the middle of the night, we can skip over the torture and your false sense of indignation. Yeah?”
Turning from him, I go to stand, but his hands on my shoulders shove me to the bench. “Sit. Down,” he commands, his voice full of authority. Laughable authority—but it buzzes the hairs on my neck none-the-less.
I settle onto the bench and stare into his eyes while pretending my chest hasn’t seized.
“Good.” He nods once. “Now, where would you like me to kiss you, Your Grace?”
“Sawyer, please.”