7. Luna #3
Another minute. He sighs.
“You should know that the more you torture me, the more motivated I’m going to be to search for a way out.”
“There is no way out.” I swallow a lump that tries to form and shift on the bench, uncrossing my arms to lay my hands on my thighs. “Zephyr is… She’s dead.”
I watch his expression for remorse. For grief. For something.
All he does is frown. I can’t tell if I hate him or if I’m relieved.
“Is every other young, impressionable woman dead?”
“You won’t have access,” I snap.
His lips purse as he gives a slow nod. “Okay, well… What do you want me to say, Luna? Torture away?”
I lower my eyes to the scars on his chest, my fingers itching with the urge to trace them. Funny how we covet the ugly once familiar.
“No… No more torture.” I tuck hair away from my face before looking over at the pole. “No more games or … late night summons… I apologize.”
“Don’t apologize.”
I turn back to him with my nose wrinkled.
His head tilts as he roams his eyes over my chest, more curious than intimate. I fight the urge to cover myself.
When his gaze meets mine, he must see my confusion. “It makes you look weak.”
“One could argue, refusing to admit when you’re wrong is weakness.”
Not a concept he would easily grasp.
But I think he reads between the lines anyway, his lips curving into a bitter smile. Something flickers in his eyes. So fast I almost miss it.
Head turning, I rub my thumb over my lashes. “You may go, Dreg… We’ve said everything there is to say.”
“No.”
I look at him. He tries to smile, but it looks more like a sneer as he rubs his knees against mine, eyes drifting to my chest once again.
“What are you doing?” I ask, shoulders tense beneath his gaze.
When his knuckles creep up my inner thigh, I grip his wrist. Try to get up. Get caught on his legs wrapped around mine.
“Sawyer.”
“You lied to me,” he says, using my own hold on his wrist to jerk me into him. My chest bumps his as my neck arches. His palm slips in the dip of my spine and holds steady when I try to pull away.
Hit.
Fight.
My nerves squirm with the impulse to attack, but it’s an impulse I’ve had plenty of practice suppressing. Especially around Sawyer.
“Maybe you got scared when I crumpled that paper, but you didn’t bring me here to hurt me… You want me. If you weren’t such a coward, you’d admit it.”
Bait.
It’s just bait.
I don’t respond.
“Tell me where to kiss you, Your Grace,” he coos, voice softening.
When his hand skirts up my neck, I close my eyes and hold still as he cups my cheek; glides a thumb down the bridge of my nose.
It pauses on a bump, as if sensing the imperfection.
As if drawn to it. He traces one smooth circle, the pad of his thumb warming rounded bone.
By the time his thumb slips off the tip of my nose, my face is on fire.
“Do you only enjoy bossing me around while you’re humiliating me?” His voice is like silk. As if requesting sugar for his tea. “Does it spoil your fun if I ask for it?”
“I don’t hurt you for my enjoyment.”
He hums. “Tell me where to kiss you.”
“You aren’t aroused.”
“So?”
So.
I laugh, eyes opening to find him too close. Our foreheads nearly kiss while he fingers a strand of my hair and stares at my lips. Every exhale brushes across delicate pink flesh—somehow more fragile than a moment ago.
“So you’re playing me,” I say, voice even. Controlled. Despite the thread loosening inside.
“How could I be playing you if you know what I’m doing?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Jesus, Luna, it’s just sex. You want it. Take it.”
“Why?”
Not: no.
Just: why.
He isn’t quick to answer. That flicker returns to his irises again, though this time it lingers. And it’s obvious.
Hatred.
My hair slips through his fingertips as he abandons the strand in favor of playing with my chin. Light at first, his thumb just a whisper. Then harder as he pinches bone with his thumb and forefinger. He tilts my head even higher.
“Because you want to,” he says as if that could ever be reason enough. “And I want you to know what it’s like for someone to beg you to fuck them… then have the nerve to call you a rapist.”
A sigh drags from my lungs and flutters against his lips. Tension loosens in my shoulders. Not all the way. But noticeable.
“You want to be even.”
He gives the slightest dip of his chin, almost imperceptible. There’s no conflict in his expression. No sign of uncertainty. He knows what he wants.
Not desire.
Punishment.
It should be enough for me to say no.
But the burn I’ve felt for weeks, staring at my ceiling night after night takes a seat at the forefront of my mind. His phantom touch—too light to satisfy, too heavy to ignore. Lips peppering my thighs. Feeling desirable. Feeling wanted. Feeling something.
Father has always said the strongest of demons are purged by flesh. And only the purest can bear that cost.
Sawyer is anything but pure—but my father’s philosophy is flawed anyway. The demons are fed, not purged. And the cost is sin.
But unlike Sawyer, I don’t avoid guilt.
I just live with it.
“Then beg.”