25. - Corey -
Chapter twenty-five
- Corey -
T here was just enough light that Corey could see Jason’s room clearly. After calling the waitress and confirming that she would come over, Jason had left her tied up in this chair in his room, alone.
And she was fuming.
She fought the rope in her mouth with her tongue, but she couldn’t dislodge it. She pulled against the ropes on her ankles, but those didn’t budge either. Though she didn’t doubt Jason’s skills with a rope, it would be dumb not to at least try.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, following him up to his room, but it hadn’t been this. Internally, she berated herself for her stupidity. Clearly, the wine at dinner had gotten to her.
Jason had been so hot and cold all night. For the last week, every time she thought she was making progress with him, he went back on the attack again. She hadn’t asked Kayden about it, unwilling to let him know how much his brother was getting under her skin. But he was. In his own twisted way, he was giving her attention and then torturing her with it. Their power dynamic had her constantly on edge, but she was determined to get the upper hand at some point. She just hadn’t quite figured him out yet, and she was usually very good at figuring people out.
Corey didn’t want to admit that she’d felt a pang of jealousy as he flirted with their waitress, who he was now bringing over to fuck. She knew he was going to make her watch. Whether the waitress would be okay with that was up for debate, but judging from the way she’d looked at Jason, she’d take what she could get.
She tried to lift her arms, but they were securely fastened to the chair, and they were too sore from that morning’s training session with Kayden for her to put any genuine effort into it. Corey had spent everything she had learning proper punching and climbing technique, to the point where she’d barely been able to carry their bags when Kayden had taken her shopping again.
But that was what she wanted. She wanted her arms to get as strong as her legs, and that rope climb to get out of the grotto was the push she needed to take it seriously. Sure, she’d been in many physical altercations, but she wasn’t trained. Kayden could train her, so she was going to use that to her advantage. She never wanted to be in another situation where she was defenseless, present state notwithstanding.
The door to the bedroom opened, but the small flicker of hope that it was Kayden coming to her rescue was dashed to ashes by the lustrous laugh floating through the doorway. Jason and Payton walked into the room, Jason leading her in the same way he had with Corey.
Payton was still in that stupid black dress from her shift, but she’d taken the sheer tights off and she was all legs. Jason walked her to the foot of his bed and smirked at Corey over Payton’s shoulder.
Corey decided then that she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of protesting, of making any noise around the gag. He may have won the last battle, but she would win this one. She just looked back at him with indifference .
He grabbed a remote from beside his bed and changed the lighting to an ambient red colour.
“I hope you don’t mind. My little pet will be watching tonight.”
“I never mind an audience,” Payton said coyly.
Jason used another remote to turn music on low, an atmospheric soundscape of another Sleep Token album filtering through the speakers. It was extremely annoying that he was playing another of her favourite albums. Also extremely annoying that she and Jason had the exact same taste in music. She knew this because Jason was always putting music on. Whenever they were in the kitchen or the gym, he was in control of the speakers, and it was always music she was happy to listen to, mirroring the thousands of songs that had been preloaded on her phone.
The thought struck her hard, leaving her reeling. She had assumed it was Kayden, but could it have been Jason who had gotten her the phone and meticulously hand-selected every song she could ever want? Some of them were songs she didn’t even know, but had enjoyed discovering nonetheless. He had been the one to make a comment about her running shoes, and then new running shoes had appeared in her room the next day. She couldn’t reconcile that idea with everything she knew about the man.
Corey shook herself from her spiraling thoughts. Jason had stripped Payton bare. She had ornamental tattoos adorning her sternum and thighs. She was also perfectly manicured down there, not a hair in sight. Even Corey could admit the woman had amazing tits.
She flushed with discomfort as she noted Jason’s attention was also on Payton’s breasts. He caressed her attentively where they hung, and she preened under his touch. Corey refused to peel her eyes away. She would not fidget, and she would not give Jason any sign that this was bothering her as much as it was, because she knew that’s what he wanted. And she was far too stubborn to give him what he wanted.
Jason opened the leather trunk, pulling out more coils of rope. God, he has a lot of rope .
Slowly, he tied one of the ropes around Payton’s neck, just as he’d done to Corey on the first day they’d met. But where he’d been rough with her, he was intentional with Payton. He looped the rope and brought it down her torso, tying a knot just at her sternum. Then he separated the two pieces, bringing them under the curve of her perfect breasts, tying another knot behind her back. The rope pressed her tits up, so they sat even more impressively on her chest. Jason turned Payton around and tied a few more elaborate knots, creating a criss-cross design down her back. He brought her hands together behind her, tying them off and then tying them to the rope secured to her torso, so she wouldn’t be able to move her arms.
Jason ran his fingers along her skin, tracing the rope and then tracing her spine. He went lower, tracing the divots above her ass before turning Payton to face him once again. She was smiling, and Corey hated that Jason was smiling back at her.
He teased her breasts and ran a thumb over her nipples, which hardened under his touch. The ethereal melodies and guitar riffs of the music only added to the sensuality of the moment. Jason walked her over to the side of the bed that was furthest from Corey and pushed Payton onto it. She laid back compliantly, her hands tied up beneath her body, her shoulders straining. With them on the other side of the bed, Corey had a perfect view of Jason from the corner she was stuck in. Jason didn’t look up at her, though. His focus was on the waitress laying on his bed.
“Butterfly for me, Payton,” he said, his voice audible above the haunting vocals of the music.
Payton brought the soles of her feet together, her knees falling open wide to either side of her body, spreading herself open before him. Corey was happy she didn’t have Jason’s view.
Jason took another coil of rope, and starting on her left leg, he wove it under her knees and around her thighs and shins, making knots as he went so that she wouldn’t be able to straighten her legs at all. Her eyes traced the veins in his thickly muscled forearms as his hands flexed while he worked .
When he finished, he moved to the other side, coordinating the same patterns. Payton was entirely tied open for him, unable to move out of the position even if she wanted to. With the excess trail from the ropes around her legs, Jason tied her knees to her elbows. The soles of her feet separated as he tightened each side, so that she was spread even wider, her heels digging into her ass cheeks as she lay there, open for him. Corey wanted to look away, but she wouldn’t. The scene unfolding before her was captivating.
She was stunned at how Jason had manipulated the rope, like he was an artist with a paintbrush. Fluid movements had turned it into a complex web around the woman on his bed, a tortoiseshell pattern across her legs and torso. It was an incredible aesthetic, just as much as it was obviously sexual.
Finally, Jason looked up at her, their eyes catching. His smile sharpened and her breath hitched. She tried to keep her face neutral, even with the rope shoved in her mouth. He was still fully dressed while he had two women tied up in his room. The worst part was, he had been mostly an asshole to both of them, and yet he was reaping the rewards of his good looks.
Jason let his hands roam across Payton’s skin. If she could see that he wasn’t looking at her, she clearly didn’t care. More likely, she wasn’t willing to say anything about it. He teased her until she was writhing under him, and Corey could feel the ghost of his touches across her own skin, which had begun to feel too tight.
His fingers ran up Payton’s entrance, over and over, distributing her wetness. And then he was fucking her with his fingers, the lewd noises combining with the intricate musical arrangements of the song that was playing.
Heat was pooling in Corey’s core, watching his fingers while he watched her. She was burning up. Her own wetness soaked the lace of her panties .
Payton’s moans drowned out the guitar riffs, and Corey tried to ignore the sound, fixating on Jason’s darkened eyes. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, and she forced herself not to squirm.
Jason’s thumb found Payton’s clit as he continued the hard pace of his fingers. It wasn’t long before she was screaming his name, her body shaking in the restraints.
The jealousy was like battery acid in her mouth, unbidden and unwanted, but there nonetheless. She had no claim to him, no right to the rage that was now coursing through her veins while she watched him make another woman come in front of her. She realized with a sickening twist in her gut that Payton’s orgasm had only turned her on more.
She needed friction like she needed air. She needed Jason to go to her, to forget about the waitress on his bed and touch her , and she pushed those thoughts to the forefront of her mind as if she could make him hear them. But he only held her gaze as he removed his fingers from Payton’s cunt and stuck them in her mouth.
Payton sucked on his fingers, and he finally looked down at her.
Pulling his fingers from her lips, Jason unbuckled his belt. With a flick of his wrist, the whole thing came out from the belt loops, and he dropped it on the floor. He stripped his pants and boxers off, his shirt coming off next.
His cock was standing rigid against the thick planes of his abs, and Jason took it in one hand, giving himself a few tugs. He was just as big as Kayden.
Corey’s eyes tracked back up to Jason’s. He was still watching her, and it seemed like there was determination on his face, the snarky smile from earlier gone with the harsh set of his jaw.
Jason let himself go, using his strength to push Payton farther back on the bed. Jason climbed on the bed, lining his thick cock up with her entrance, and rutted into her quickly, wasting no time. Payton was moaning and babbling nonsense as Jason fucked her, her body straining against the ropes, but she had utterly lost any control with the way she was tied .
Corey’s blood was boiling with more than just anger that he would put her through this, that he would make her watch. Skin slapping on skin echoed over the music, Jason’s own pleasure mingling with the symphony of sounds that were now assaulting Corey’s ears. Jason’s hands were on Payton’s hips, holding her to him as he pounded into her over and over. She couldn’t stop herself from watching where Payton was stretched around Jason’s girth, and she couldn’t help imagining it was herself stretching around him.
After what seemed like forever, Jason pulled out, flipping Payton over like a rag doll so she was pressed face-first into the bed, her ass up in the air for him. Jason brought his attention to Payton’s body, running his fingertips over ropes and skin once again, before slowly sheathing himself in her. When he was fully inside, he started up a relentless pace, a steady pounding rhythm, Payton’s moaning and keening was that much wilder with the new angle. Jason’s attention locked back on Corey, his eyes like the night sky.
Corey watched him in a daze as he fucked into Payton. Never before had she been so mad and so turned on at the same time. She didn’t know if she wanted to kill him or fuck him. She settled on fucking him and then killing him. She was on fire. She wanted to cry. She could feel the flush in her chest, her neck, her cheeks. And he must have seen all of that on her face, because he smiled at her, picking up his pace.
Saliva had built up in Corey’s mouth, and she tried to swallow it down, but the rope stopped her mouth from emptying, and she could feel some spit collecting on her lips. She wiggled her tongue to try to lick it, and Jason’s eyes tracked the movement. He groaned. She let out a whine of breath, unable to control her arousal any longer. Whether he heard her over the music and the sounds, she wasn’t sure, but not a moment later and with his eyes still locked on her, Jason was panting his release, his muscles contracting up his abdomen .
He stilled inside the waitress, eyes still blazing, his full lips parted. In the heavy glow of the red light, he looked like the devil himself smiling at her from the bed. And Corey realized that maybe she was in hell after all.
Jason pulled out of Payton, grabbing a towel from his bedside table and cleaning them both up. She felt the first tear slip down her cheek and fought the rest from falling.
Payton looked like a damn mess on the bed when Jason flipped her back over and started untying his ropework. He was gentle with the rope in a way he hadn’t been with the woman—in a way he so rarely was with Corey.
Once untied, Jason helped her sit up. Both of them were quiet. Payton reached her hand out to brush his hair, and Corey didn’t miss the way he pulled back just slightly before letting her.
He got her dress from the floor and helped her into it. Then he pulled on his own jeans.
“That was fun!” Payton said.
“Yeah.” Corey could have sworn he forced his smile. “Let me walk you out.”
Jason led Payton out of his room, leaving the music on. Neither of them spared a glance at Corey as they left her sitting there, the red light bearing down on her as the floodgates finally opened on her tears.
It wasn’t long before Jason sauntered back into his room, but Corey’s tears had already dried, and she was in desperate need of her own release. Her skin was crawling to get out of the ropes.
Jason stared at her, and her heart hammered in her chest as he approached. Then he reached behind her head and undid the rope.
She spat the rope out of her mouth, her jaw aching from being held open for so long, and her anger swelled into an infinite rage.
“What the fuck, Jason? Why would you do that?” she yelled at him. “You had no right! ”
“No right? You came in here willingly. What did you think was going to happen?” The same question she’d asked herself earlier was thrown back in her face.
“Not this! Not you making me watch as you fucked some other girl senseless!”
He still hadn’t untied the rest of her limbs, and she strained against them now, frantically trying to get herself free.
“You’re jealous,” he stated, his face close to hers, almost nose to nose, as he leaned down into her.
“I’m not! Untie me, Jason, or I swear to god!”
“You’ll what?”
She didn’t have an answer. She wasn’t really in a position to do anything.
“God can’t help you in here, sweetheart.” He kneeled down before her, and she was still too hot, her blood simmering under her skin.
“You’re a piece of shit!” she screamed at him.
And then she spat in his face.
Jason gave a wicked laugh and wiped at her saliva. “Oh, I know, sweetheart. But now you know it too. The question is, is that going to keep you away from me, or do you need a little more?”
Jason put his warm hands on the crease of her hips, let one hand caress to the apex of her thighs. He ran his fingers along her saturated underwear, feeling the product of her desire.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the pleasure that zinged through her body, her racing heart.
He just laughed again. “You want this.”
“I don’t.”
“I know you do.” He was still stroking her over her underwear, the contact sending unwanted shivers through her body, pleasure already building in her core.
“You can’t know that. You can’t read my mind. ”
“No, I can’t.” He said it like that idea delighted him. “But I don’t need to. Your body is telling me enough.” Jason pushed the lace to the side, letting his fingers trail through her wet folds. She stifled a moan and tried again to pull her arms out from the restraints.
Jason kept going, and after a few deft strokes, she stopped protesting, unable to do anything about the pleasure he was forcing on her. The careful and precise movements of his fingers were strumming her like a guitar, and her strings were wound so tight that the pattern had her gasping for breath. She closed her eyes as he continued to tease her pussy and rub her clit, over and over, the friction overwhelming her almost instantly. With his tender caresses, her orgasm built, and she was powerless to stop it. Jason brought her to climax quickly, the wave of pleasure crashing over her in a crescendo of sensation that left her limp and shuddering.
She opened her eyes, looking at him kneeling before her. She was still shaking—from the anger, from the pleasure, from the desperation that had clawed its way to the surface.
Without a word, he untied the ropes. Finally, she was free.
“I hate you,” she whispered, tears wetting her cheeks once again.
“Good.” He stood up. “Now get out of my room.”
Corey didn’t need to be told twice. She left her clothes in a pile on the floor where she’d dropped them, and walked to the door on trembling legs, stopping herself from bolting like she wanted to.
She slammed the door behind her and submitted to the pressure behind her eyes, crying in earnest. Each step down the staircase echoed in the quiet house, and she longed to curl up in the comfort of her duvet. But she saw Kayden standing in the kitchen. She’d been so wrapped up in Jason that Kayden hadn’t even crossed her mind, and guilt hit her like a punch to the gut.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Kayden went to her immediately, catching her and pulling her into him, wrapping his arms around her mostly naked body .
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Kayden, I’m so sorry.” She was sobbing now.
“Baby, it’s okay, it’s okay. Shh.” He held her tightly in his arms, running his hand through her hair, comforting her. She burrowed her face into his sweatshirt, unwilling to meet his eyes. He held her until her shaking finally settled.
Kayden pulled her chin up, and she let him. “Look at me, baby. It’s okay, just tell me what happened.”
She didn’t want to go through it all again, but she did. And as she spoke, she realized that Jason getting her off had been what she’d been wanting the whole time he’d been with Payton. Jason had been focused on Corey just as much as she was focused on him, and maybe she’d overreacted. If she hadn’t been protesting so hard, it would have been the most erotic thing she’d ever participated in.
Or she was just gaslighting herself to make herself feel better that Jason had taken what he wanted, consent be damned.
“You’re not mad at me?” she asked him, after divulging everything that had just happened.
Kayden cocked his head at her, surprised by her question. “Mad at you? Why would be I be mad at you?”
“I basically just slept with your brother.”
He laughed. “Well, from what you’ve told me, there was very little sleeping going on.” How was he amused by this?
Corey punched him in the shoulder half heartedly. “It’s not funny,” she choked out, a strangled sob breaking through, sounding awfully close to a laugh.
“If you wanted Jason to get you off, I’m not mad, Little Fox,”
“I didn’t, though,” she tried. But she didn’t sound convinced, and Kayden didn’t look convinced either.
Kayden just squeezed her tighter, and she let out a long sigh.
“What are we?” She didn’t know what she expected him to say to that, didn’t know the answer herself, but Kayden’s blasé reaction to his brother touching her had surprised her almost as much as the amount of guilt she’d felt over it had.
“I don’t know,” he responded simply.
Even with his arms still holding her, his words almost felt like rejection. She pushed on, needing to know where she stood. "If I wasn’t stuck here with you, would you still want to see me?”
“Stuck here? You haven’t asked to leave or for us to take you anywhere. You haven’t even told us you had anywhere to go.”
That was true, she supposed. They hadn’t given her a way to leave, but she also hadn’t really asked. Over the weeks, they’d fallen into an easy routine, the three of them. “And if I did? Would you let me go?”
Kayden’s eyes narrowed, and a possessive look finally came over him. He wouldn’t let her go. She saw that plain as day on his face. “Would you want me to?”
“No,” she whispered honestly, a few tears still slowly tracking down her cheeks.
“Good. Because you’re mine, Little Fox, and I would chase you to the edges of this earth. No matter how long it took, I would find you and I would catch you.” Kayden held her face in his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumb. “And I think Jason feels the same.”
“Maybe, but it would be for a very different reason than you.”
Kayden clicked his tongue. “That’s not true. I’ve never seen Jason look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
Corey’s jaw almost dropped. “He looks at me like I’m dirt.”
“No. He looks at you like you’re a threat.”
She shook her head, not understanding. “Because of what I saw at that house…?” She trailed off, unable to wrap her head around the implication of Jason, a king in his own right, feeling threatened by some girl off the streets.
“No, not because of that. It’s because he cares about you, and Jason hasn’t cared about anyone in a very long time. ”
“He cares about you .”
"Other than me.” Kayden smirked before his face turned serious again. “Jason learned early on that the things he cared about could be used against him, exploited and taken away. Jason considers caring about someone a weakness. I believe he’s set on trying to make you hate him.”
“Well, it’s working.”
“Is it?” he asked with a knowing look.
She rolled her eyes, because even though she’d just spat those words at him, she didn’t really. She just couldn’t reconcile the two sides of him. But if what Kayden was saying was true, if the war between those sides was some perverse form of self-sabotage, she could understand that—could relate to that a little too closely.
“Jason has his own way of showing he cares. It was him who brought you clothes on that first day. It was him who bought you new running shoes and a phone.” Corey had started putting that together earlier, but it still shocked her to hear. “He’s a little bit of a mess, but if you can give him some grace while he figures it out, I promise it’ll be worth it.”
Kayden smiled down at her, and she felt herself smiling back.
He kissed her softly. “Let’s go up to bed. I think you need a cuddle.”
She laughed. How this strange, caring, wild man had embedded himself so deeply into her heart this quickly should have been concerning, but she was more grateful for him than she’d been for most things in her life.
Kayden scooped her up and carried her bridal-style back up the stairs, turning in the opposite direction of Jason’s room.
Kayden’s room was similar in size to Jason’s, but where Jason’s had been dark, Kayden had the same cream-coloured walls of her guest bedroom, and similarly coloured accents. He pulled the sheets down with one hand and laid her on the bed.
“Do you need anything? Water? A shower?” She could probably use a shower, but she wasn’t feeling up to it .
“No, just you,” she said, reaching out for him. Kayden stripped down to his boxers and cuddled in beside her.
She draped herself over his body and saw a picture frame on his nightstand. It was clear that the two young boys in the photo were the twins—they had the same floppy black hair, big, mischievous green eyes and happy, dopey smiles that she hadn’t seen on Jason’s adult face. They’d been downright adorable as kids, but she guessed cute kids grew up into beautiful men.
There was a little girl in the picture between them, with matching dark hair and green eyes. The twins had their arms slung over her shoulders. If the girl didn’t look so much younger than the boys, she would have thought they were triplets.
“Who’s that in the picture?” Corey asked Kayden.
“That’s our sister.”
“Oh wow, you guys are so cute together. Where is she now?”
“She’s dead.” Resignation clung to his words like dust, each syllable a finality.
“What? Oh my god, Kayden, I’m so sorry. I never had a sibling, but I can only imagine what you guys must have gone through.”
Kayden pulled back from her, looking into her eyes. She could see some deliberation playing out across his face. “I think it’s worse than you could ever imagine.”
She brushed a finger along his cheek. “You don’t have to tell me.”
He seemed to come to a decision. “I want to.”
He bit his lip before going on, trying to wrangle some resolve. “Our parents sold me and Jason to a genetic testing facility when we were eight years old. We still don’t know if it was government-run or if it was private, but that was basically where we grew up. The organization had no interest in June, but Jason, he wasn’t compliant. I kind of just did what they asked, let them do their fucked up testing week after week, month after month. But Jason fought like hell in there .
“After a year or so, they were able to get their hands on June. I don’t know if our parents sold her to the organization or if they took her, but… she was only six and half when they brought her in. They used her to coerce Jason.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, pulling at the tendons of his neck.
“She didn’t make it. They killed her, and he blames himself for her death. It broke something in him.” A tremor ran through his voice, pain lacing the next few words he choked out. “She was our little sister, and we couldn’t protect her, but Jason blames himself more than anything.”
Corey was speechless. She hadn’t been expecting any of this. She thought her childhood had been fucked up, but this was on another level.
“You were just kids, Kayden. That wasn’t your responsibility—not yours, and not Jason’s. That facility was clearly illegal and demented. That’s beyond fucked up.”
“I know.” Devastation marred his beautiful features, and her heart ached for him. “There were so many other kids in there with us. It was hell on earth. We were subject to experimentations almost daily, constant monitoring, all kinds of fucked up stuff. But we should have protected her. I know Jason believes if he’d just done what those people wanted, Junie would have been safe. Truthfully, she probably would have. They used her as coercion. To make him stop acting out, they would torture her in front of him. They couldn’t use me like that with him. I was too valuable to them. But with June? They could do what they wanted.”
She had so many questions about what he’d just disclosed, couldn’t even wrap her head around the picture he was painting for her. “How did you get out?”
“They kept most of us on sedatives, but when we were 18, we finally managed to flush them from our system by faking the doses. We were able to coordinate with some of the other kids in there, and we blew the place up. We burnt it to the ground. After that, everyone that got free went in different directions. We only keep in touch with a few of them. It was just too much to deal with. Me and Jason haven’t looked back.”
She caressed his cheek, not breaking the eye contact he was holding, refusing to shy away from what they’d been through. “I’m sorry, Kayden. No one should have to live through that.”
“Jason hasn’t really let himself love anyone since. His venom is a defence mechanism as much as it is a weapon. He’s too scared that if he lets someone in, they’ll be used against him again like our Junie was. Believe me when I tell you, Corey, he’s trying to make you hate him so that you’ll stay away from him. And it’s only because he cares too much about you.”
“I guess we’re all broken, then,” she murmured softly, brushing his dark locks off his forehead.
“I don’t want to lose him, too.” It was almost a sob, a choked, broken sound barely audible above the silence.
“You won’t lose him, Kayden. He’s right here, just down the hall.” She stroked his hair, a small gesture of comfort he usually used on her. “Are there other facilities like this that are still around?”
“I don’t know.” Kayden said, and she could see shame cloud his eyes over that. The agony etched across his face was breaking her heart. She smoothed his hair away and held him closer, and he shuddered in her arms.
“Thank you for trusting me with your story, Kay.” He huffed a sad breath into the crook of her neck. It was such a contrast to the Kayden she’d grown used to, his shadows hiding so deep that she’d had to pry them out of him.
Her fingers found the dog tag necklace that he and Jason always wore, fiddling with it while she thought about everything he’d just told her—how shocking it was, and how angry it made her. He didn’t stop her from touching it this time, and she ran her thumb over the cold metal tag, finding an engraving on the back. She traced the word a few times with her finger before peeking a look.
Thick block letters engraved the word Junebug .