Chapter 43
Sean
“Sean, I’m not ready for bed yet,” Lou complains as I lead her into our bedroom, closing the door behind us with a snick.
The busted bedframe was a lost cause, and I cleaned up the pieces this afternoon.
With our mattress pushed against the wall, beneath the window that’s covered in frost and snow, it leaves the rest of the bedroom clear, save for the weapons I dropped in here earlier, a lone wooden stool, toolbox, the eyebolt I screwed to the ceiling, and a small cardboard box I filled with everything I’d need.
It didn’t take me nearly as long as I thought it would to get things set up.
“Good.” The squint she levels me with is filled to the brim with diagnostic curiosity, her full lips pressed together. “Undress and sit on the stool.”
She lifts a single dark eyebrow, her face brightening at the suggestion. I should probably be embarrassed by how hard I am already, and she’s only begun to strip.
Her back is to me when I grip the back of my T-shirt and yank it over my head, then reach into my pocket and pull out the olive-green mesh mask I nabbed from the dead soldier at Ex-I and yank it over my head.
It smells like the detergent I washed it in, but it reminds me of the way I’d string Lou up in the playpen.
I was meant to be torturing her—and I did—but she tortured me right back.
Now naked, Louhi’s perched on the three-legged stool in the middle of the space. Her eyes flare with heat, and she bites her lip as she takes me in, her gaze lingering on the mask. Then, the little fucking minx smirks at me, her feminine, toned legs swinging gently amid the rungs.
I retrieve a length of chain and two short ropes from the box, then prowl over to the beautiful creature waiting patiently for me, and squat in front of her.
Grasping one of her delicate ankles, I pull it out to the side as I secure it to one of the legs of the stool with one of the ropes, the rough fibers grating against her skin.
I seize the other ankle and repeat the process, spreading her legs wide.
I was shocked when Louhi agreed relatively easily to let Mercer handle things on his own, but I want to live a long, full life by her side, and embarking on a suicide mission would snuff out that dream.
While she’s shoved her concern for her brother down deep, it’s still there in the set of her shoulders and the glimmer of anxiety that swirls in her gaze. This’ll be good for both of us.
“Hold out your wrists,” I order, the chain hanging loosely from my fingertips.
She obeys, offering them as an overt sign of limitless trust. Lifting her hands to my mouth, I maintain eye contact with her as I brush my lips over the delicate skin covering the inside of her wrists. Her gaze is soft and warm. How is it possible to come to love someone more every day?
Begrudgingly, I abandon her attention and thread the chain through the eyebolt in the ceiling until it dangles above her head. Raising her arms, I secure them so that the cold metal bites into her warm flesh.
My dog tags are perched between her perfect tits, and I grasp the rectangular end that’s stamped. She tucks her chin, studying the way I finger the necklace, the backs of my knuckles grazing the side of her breast. They look better on her than they ever did on me.
I lean down and press a kiss on her forehead as though I can imprint my love on her skin so that the knowledge will sink into her mind.
Lou is warm, and she smells so much like a crisp, sunny winter’s day, just after a snowstorm.
It makes me want to run outside to test my theory, despite the fact that it’s now pitch-black outside.
My eyelids shutter for a moment, and it requires zero effort to summon the darkness that lives within me, the sadistic wolf baring its teeth as it hovers over a kill.
When I finally pull back and fix my attention on her, the illicit violence thrums through my body, imploring me to cut Lou open and make her weep for me.
Taking her in, I notice that her nipples are rock hard. My voice is rough and husky, shrouded in tenebrous obscurity. “Is your pussy about to flood this stool?”
“Yes.” An arched smile creeps over her features. I stroke a hand gently over her cheek before dropping it. “I want this, Sean.”
I smirk, my body thrumming with excitement as I circle the stool. At her back, I dip my head so that I’m speaking directly into her ear. “Be careful what you wish for, baby.”
I ignore the harder-than-stone organ throbbing beneath my pants that’s a result of my mind mapping out the specifics of everything I plan to do to Lou.
I designed this entire situation, from the chains to the erotically heinous things I’m about to do to her, to remind us both of our time at Ex-I.
Even the gray walls of the room look a bit like the playpen.
Kneeling between her splayed legs, I can’t pass up the opportunity to slide my fingers over her slick pussy, and she shifts her hips, leaning back slightly to increase my access, which likely only makes her shoulders squawk.
The corner of my mouth twitches, knowing what she wants from me right now: attention. She’s about to get plenty of that.
I coast my fingers through her slickness before sinking both fingers inside. She tosses her head back, moaning. The chains clank with the movement.
Rising to my full height, I abruptly withdraw my hand.
She pouts at the loss, but that’s short-lived when I tug up the bottom of the mask.
My tongue darts out, and I slide my fingers over the pad of my hot tongue before closing my mouth around them, sucking.
She tastes like sugary venom, and I lap up every last drop.
I open my mouth, making a lewd show of swirling my tongue around the tips of my fingers before removing them. “I thought we could play a game.”
“A—A game,” she repeats, words failing her as I weave my hand into her raven hair and tug on it simply for fucking fun.
I right the mask on my face, then orbit the stool slowly, the silky strands still in my grasp and come to stand on her other side. With my free hand, I rattle the chain above her head, the metal restraints making her likely stiff shoulders screech.
“You seemed to enjoy our last game in the playpen so much that I thought we’d play another round.”
That gets her attention, and she snaps, “The last game we played ended with me kneeling on bloody rice for fuck knows how long while you peppered me with questions that I couldn’t answer because your dick was down my throat.”
I chuckle, the sound low and throaty, as I jangle the chains once more. “Don’t act as though you didn’t like that. And if I recall correctly, you came so hard that you sent yourself to the infirmary.”
She doesn’t reply. I go on, explaining, “The rules of this game are simple: for every question you choose to answer honestly, you’ll be rewarded. For every question you choose not to answer, you’ll be punished. I’ll even keep your mouth unoccupied in the spirit of fairness. Will you play?”
Moving to stand before her once more, still fisting her hair in a vise, I yank her head back so that I can see her face. She’s mostly stopped masking her emotions from view with me, and right now I can clearly see her curiosity eclipsing her stubbornness.
Glaring at me skeptically, she nods. I tighten my grip and jostle her head. “Use your words tonight, Lou.”
“I’ll play.”
Releasing her short hair, I let it fall around her face before tucking it behind her ears gently. “Always so eager to entertain your sadist’s compulsions, aren’t you, baby?”
When she doesn’t answer my rhetorical question, I slide my hands down to her breasts and tweak both of her rigid, pointed nipples sharply. “I asked you a question. Angling for a punishment already?”
The dark, arcane part of me is begging her to give me a reason to punish her this early, but I force myself to exercise some motherfucking patience.
Her gaze flicks to mine, defiance and capitulation warring within those warm brown irises of hers, but I wait her out, wanting to see which reaction will triumph.
“Yes, sir. I want to be my sadist’s little whore.”
Her words cause my cock to stir in its fabric cage, imploring me to let him free so he can find his way inside Lou. “So obedient,” I praise her.
“Only when it comes to some of your orders.”
I shake my head, fighting a smile as I move over to the box sitting on the floor. Selecting the pair of pliers, a delicate chain, the small weights, and two clothespins, I carry them toward her. Lou tilts her head as though she’s a pet attempting to decipher the language of her master.
Her tits are incredibly sensitive, and I’d be remiss to neglect them.
After rolling her nipple between my thumb and forefinger, I fasten the weights to the chain and attach them to each clothespin.
She hisses. I bracket the makeshift clamps to each peak, inundating her nervous system with delicious torture.
Her proud nipples hang there alluringly, and I succumb to the urge to press a kiss to her smooth skin.
“You’ve not asked me any questions yet,” she complains, obviously thinking this is a punishment, but she couldn’t be more wrong.
“For now, this is only a steady reminder. What happens after I remove them can either be sweet or salty. The result is entirely up to you.”
She scowls at me, but I ignore that as I ask my first question, now leaning against the wall across from her, making a show of toying with the pliers in my hand. “Do you still know your kill count?”
“Of course. Two hundred thirty-seven,” she answers without hesitation, her eyebrows creasing slightly. Damn, that’s a lot considering it was one hundred seventy-three last time I asked.
“How are you feeling about your brother?”
She blinks. Once, then twice.
This seemed like the most interesting way to have this conversation. I hope she’s more forthcoming with information than she was at Ex-I.
“I don’t know,” she grits out.
Don’t shut me out, Lou. Approaching her, I tug on the chain between her breasts at the same time I jostle the thick metal links securing her arms over her head, and she groans.
“I think you do.”
She aims a sharp look at me that I don’t blame her for. Unlike at Ex-I, she’s not required to answer me, but I hope she does. She needs to talk about this, to unburden herself.
Bright, crisp surprise ripples through me though when she timidly states, “At the end, I was angry with Mercer for abandoning me in that place. I feel…guilty for that.”
She shifts on the stool and quietly seethes over what’s likely an intense burning in her nipples as she adds, “I’m worried for him.
I’m trying to shut out the worst of my thoughts.
I wish he’d leave it alone, but I know him well enough to know he won’t.
Couldn’t he wait to see if The Shadows do what they say?
I just got him back. Losing him now…” Would be painful, I finish for her in my mind.
The sadistic beast within me shares a heartbeat with the vicious snake within Louhi.
I’d kill for her. I’d slaughter every one of her enemies and blot out their light with my own darkness.
Her demons are now mine to demolish. There’s not a force on earth that could stop me from standing at her back.
Maybe I should try talking to Mercer and explain what losing him would do to her. He must see how much she loves him. After all, she volunteered to help him kill her friend.
This is about getting Louhi to confide in me, to use me the way she should. If this, our relationship, is to thrive, we need to be a partnership. That starts with her peeling back the curtain that covers her clever mind.
We’re both aware that I’d do anything for Lou, but I want her to remember to talk to me, to give me the chance to fight for her. I want her to become accustomed to leaning on me and trust that I’ll deliver every time. I want to remind her that I’ll travel any road for her, no matter how dangerous.
“What about Conall?”
It’s far easier to glean information from her tonight than it was just three months ago. I haven’t even had to torture her yet, even if it’s no secret that’s the prize now, not the punishment.
She captures her bottom lip between her teeth as her attention drills into me. When she finally speaks, it’s sotto voce. “He’s not who I thought he was. That’s going to take some time for me to accept. It makes me wonder if everything was a lie.”
Dropping to one knee before Louhi, I tug off the mask and set the pliers on the floor before encasing her face in my hands.
My thumbs gently brush over the soft skin of her cheeks as I tell her, “No, baby, not everything. We’re as real as gravity or the snow outside.
I’m so proud of you for talking to me that I think you’ve earned a reward. ”
Her breath hitches as I pick up the pliers. I cleaned them, so I’m not worried about where they’ve been. I’m fucking certain that the things these pliers are about to see are far more pleasant than anything else they’ve been subjected to before, though.
Gripping the rungs of the stool, I drag it forward, the chains forcing her to slant back slightly.
She mewls, her eyes falling closed and resting her head against the inside of her arm as I lean forward and lick a long stripe up the length of her cunt with a flat tongue.
When I get to her clit, I wrap my lips around the tip of that bullet and suck it into my mouth like a damn vacuum, feeling it elongate in my mouth as the blood rushes to it.
I thrust two fingers into her saturated pussy as I work her over with my tongue. Once she’s on the edge, I pick up the pliers with my free hand and release her clit with a soft pop. I’m still plunging my fingers in and out of Louhi’s core as I bring the tool up to her mouth.
Squeezing the handle, I pry open the jaw of the metal pliers and command Lou, “Spit.”
Her eyes flutter open and widen as she processes the situation she’s been presented with. When she doesn’t follow my directive quickly enough, I growl more authoritatively, “I said, spit.”
She gathers saliva before spitting a long line down onto grooved metal. I open and close them a few times, making sure that they’re nice and wet. Her pouty lips are parted, her eyes wide, as I bracket the metal teeth on either side of her sensitive clit.
She needs this as much as I do. If I were to strip out of my boxer briefs right now, I’d find my dick so engorged, it’d probably be a deep purple color.
The pliers are spring-loaded, so I can control the amount of pressure I apply, but I’m already dying to see how much Louhi can take. Her pain is my pleasure, and I’m going to bathe in that as I drain her dry with a fusion of pain and pleasure.
“Don’t forget to scream, Lou,” I remind her, clamping the pliers around her sensitive clit.
And she fucking does.