Chapter 12
I kissed Jenny Hobbson when I was fourteen and as we pulled away, she giggled with bright red cheeks.
I felt nothing. A glorious emptiness.
I got up, telling her, “no, thank you.”
She cried.
Again, I felt nothing. A glorious emptiness.
Richard Briggs. Tall, gorgeous, an unalloyed gentleman, his family owned three islands. I had heard people tried to electroshock their hearts around him to force a connection.
We kissed in his bed, his hand roamed to my breast. It felt like a doctor’s examination. I promptly left.
Nothing. A glorious emptiness.
Many people dripped into my life, all of whom I tried to feel and all of whom I placed back where I had found them like a packet of pasta on the grocery shelf that looked too plain.
Magnus told me he had a similar problem.
He said some people were meaningless, most of them, in fact, probably all of them.
To Magnus, people were numbers. Each of them was, “one.” One vote to keep him in power, one dollar to send in support of his cause, one body to stand in front of him to be lectured to when he spoke upon a podium.
But me? I was not “one,” I was worth thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, trillions.
He told me it was natural, to feel nothing for others, but then there will always be someone special who would make you do senseless things.
That person would be my Soulmate.
When he found Cynthia, I thought I would be envious, but no, it gave me hope.
I wanted to feel.
Anything. A glorious something.
“I'm going to touch you,” Dig said. “Right up your thighs and see if you’ve got anything hiding under there for me. You let me know if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“Okay!” Heat tingled up my legs as Dig Graves coasted his fingers down my thighs, yanking up the delicate silk of my dress until my legs were naked. Just one stroke of the pads of his fingers along my skin forced my eyes to roll into the back of my head.
His pelvis dug into my ass. The cold sharp edge of the knife rested just under my jugular promising a slice if I defied him. The smell of fresh blood and leather from the man who kept me hostage filled my lungs like spring breeze.
His thumb stroked up my leg.
I felt everything. A glorious everything.
“Princess.” His lips kissed my ear. “What do you have under here?”
“Hmm?” I frowned through closed eyes.
I was trying to enjoy this moment, and he was asking me metaphorical questions.
As his fingers roamed around my thigh, I responded through a slight arch, I lifted my ass to him, pushing into his pelvis, a natural instinct that I could not control.
A prick of a blade dug into my ass cheek.
Oh. It would be easy to grab.
From memory he had quite a few weapons on his belt. I was fast and had the ability to contort my arms the way I needed. He would not know this. After a brief distraction I could reach behind and grab a blade from his belt and angle it under his cock and there, we would be at an impasse.
His knife under my jugular. My knife under his cock.
We would argue at first to see who would cut, to see what was more important to the other. My life or his cock.
I would win.
He would let me go.
We’d stalk around each other.
I’d flee out the door, but not before locking him in.
I would shout and scream, drawing attention to his location and others would come running for an easy kill, keeping him busy with guests, while I went elsewhere.
I thrummed my fingers on the desk.
I should probably do this.
Probably now.
It was a perfect moment.
Easy. Very easy.
Yes, I would do this right now.
But… his fingers stroked higher up my thigh. I almost whimpered from their sweet caress. I wished I could see his sunglasses.
After feeling around my thigh his hand coasted across my pelvic bone. Blistering heat scorched between my legs, and I swear to all the old gods and new that a river was close to gushing out from me. His fingers wandered over my clit.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
His hand patted my next thigh.
What? No!
Go back!
I sprung my eyes open, dancing with fury.
He fumbled around my other thigh, searching for something. Realisation hit me. He was looking for a blade. The first time we had been alone I had stabbed him with my hidden blade I had strapped to my leg, and now, he was merely being careful of whatever weapons I had.
He wasn’t feeling me up!
He was only searching for blades.
“I don’t have any weapons,” I said into the shimmering moonlight. “None at all.”
“Thanks Princess, but I think I’ll check myself.”
“Oh, yes.” I smiled. If those fingers continued their roaming, he could do as he so pleased. “Go ahead. Touch where you please.”
I re-closed my eyes, settling back into the moment, enjoying his fingers and their travels, hitching with mild irritation as they roamed up and up and up—but not up enough to where I needed them to be.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, lifting my hand from the table.
“Hands on the table.” A warning.
“Uh, it’s just, hold on—”
“Hands on the table!”
“Well, I just, I need to—”
“I said— ”
I promptly grabbed his wandering hand and removed it from my thigh, pressing his fingers right over my underwear where my clitoris was banging on all the doors in my body.
I grinded into his hand. Sweet, pure, incredible, needy bliss rocked into me.
A long, high-pitched whine slipped from my throat.
He paused. His hand stiffened. “What are you doing?”
I also paused. “What are you doing?”
“No, what are you doing?”
Locked into each other, with the knife under my jugular, his stiff hand on my clit, my hand on his hand, we stayed like this, letting the silence lecture for the both of us.
He was the first to speak. “That's sexual assault.”
“Well…” I wriggled, my voice weakened. “I don’t mind you putting your hand…on me.”
“Huh?”
“You're welcome to touch—”
“No.” He unleashed a low growl. “You sexually assaulted me.”
“Wha— ”
“You can’t just grab people's hands and put them on yourself!”
Realisation slapped me. “Oh, I deeply apologise, I…wait, hang on. You’ve got a knife under my throat!”
“Because you just fucking stabbed me!”
“Because you chased me!”
“Because I need to fucking talk to you!”
“You assault people all the time!”
“I only kill them!”
“Oh, okay.”
“I make a lot of threats, maybe a little torture sometimes, but I don’t sexually assault people, that's yuck.”
“Well — ”
“Hands on the desk.” He spoke with a voice that could have commanded armies.
I shivered with a healthy dose of fear and a confusing mix of desire, promptly slapping my palm back on the desk.
I should probably grab the blade and stab him in his—Oh!
His finger swirled across the fabric on my underwear, licking over my clitoris hiding just underneath.
I bucked into him, drowning under the precious stroke, resting my head into his collar bone and ignored the tension of the blade under my throat.
I no longer cared.
Sever my vocal cords. Gut me into pieces. Just touch me again.
“You like that, Princess?”
Obviously.
Do it. Do it again.
He did.
His thumb drew a long teasing circle around the outer of my clitoris, flirting with the prospect of touching it a second time. I whined. A long, pathetic whine. All I needed was for him to move his thumb just a dash inward and he’d be back to bringing me to the edge of delirium.
“Is this what you want, Princess?” he asked again.
I had dignity and self-respect and pride, so I did not answer. I would never answer this creature a single question. Not even torture could make me answer.
“Answer me!”
“Yes!” I screamed the word. “Yes, I do, I really do. Yes. Yes. Yes. Is that good? Any other questions?”
“Do you consent?”
“Do it again!”
“Do you consent?”
“Please, do it again!”
“Answer me!” he shouted. “Do you consent to me touching you in a sexually intimate manner? I need to hear verbal consent.”
“Huh? Oh, yes. I consent.”
“Are you currently inebriated in any way that may affect your true feelings of consent?”
“No, I’m very much sober.”
“If at any point you would like to withdraw your consent, please tell me.”
“I will. Just do it—oh freckles!”
His thumb swirled over my clit, bringing me into an uncontrolled whine. My thighs quivered. My spine locked tight against his chest, I inhaled his scent of leather and steel and blood and death and kept my legs open, needing him to continue.
He laughed.
A sinister laugh that should have me assessing my options, but I did not care. His fingers slipped under the band of my underwear touching me raw, right down to my entrance.
I almost collapsed against him.
“Holy fuck,” he said. “You’re wet.”
Heat hit my cheeks.
“You’re dripping, Princess.”
His finger stroked again, lapping up my wetness that was all utterly and completely his fault.
“Is this how you touch yourself?” he asked.
I nodded against his chest, the knife piercing under my jugular. “It’s never this good.”
“The only person who can make you feel this is me.”
“Well—”
“It’s me.”
“And the sunglasses.”
“The what?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s me who makes you get wet,” he said deeper. “Me.”
“Okay.”
“Say it.”
“I agreed.”
“No, say my name.”
“Dig Graves.”
“Dig.”
“Dig? Dig what? Oh. Dig. Just the first name?”
“Yes.”
“Dig!”
“Good girl.”
“Dig! Dig! Dig!” I was an overachiever.
He sunk the first notch of his finger inside of me while brushing his thumb over my clit.
Flames sparked over my skin. I was burning alive at the stake for Dig Graves.
“More?” he asked.
“More.”
“Manners.”
“Please. Please. Please. Please.”
He sunk his finger in deeper.
I think I hallucinated.
“That’s tight.” His breath was warm against my cheek. “My cock is going to tear it up.”
I knew that it was a threat, but it sounded more like a proposal, and I made room for this on my agenda. “Okay.”
He pulled his finger halfway out and plunged it back in causing my body to quake. I dug my fingernails into the skin of the desk. Each time he thrust his finger, he ran his thumb over my clit.
Again, and again.
The delirium built.
My need grew teeth.
Whines sung from my throat.
I started a choir.
Under my jugular the sting of the cold metal on the knife sparked through my skin.
My hips moved on instinct under the duress of his fingers, thrusting back and forth, back and forth.
“That’s it, fuck my hand.” He breathed poetry down my neck. “Fuck my hand.”
“Alright.”
“Who’s making you feel this?”
“Dig.”
“Who do you want to fuck you?”
“Dig.”
“Who’s going to be really mad if you ever let anyone else touch you?”
“Dig.”
“That’s my girl.”
Just as I was about to erupt, he took his finger out of me and his thumb off my clit and slipped his hand from out of my underwear. The absence of his touch had me on the verge of fainting. “No!”
He chuckled, licking his finger. “Mm. You do taste like strawberries.”
I twisted my neck behind the blade. “Go back!”
“Manners,” he growled.
“Please.” I smiled meekly. “Please go back.”
“And do what?” His voice filled with hilarity.
“Make love to me with your hand.”
“You’re going to have to do something for me first.”
I groaned.
He reminded me who had the power in this coupling by tapping the knife under my throat.
“Fine,” I said. “What do you want?”
What nasty horrible thing? Get on my knees and suck his cock? Crawl around naked? Defile myself in some way? I licked my lips, ready.
“Answer a question.”
“What? What?”
“Do you love me?”
Tension demolished from my shoulders. I blinked through the dusk of the room, twisting, and tried to find his face, but he was concealed under the hood.
Though I could not see him, I felt him. The rise and fall of steady breath from his chest, the strong grip of his arm across me.
The tease of his fingers wandering over my hip bone eager to go back to where all my heat was flooding to.
“Love…” I wandered off. “Do I…”
“I need to know what all this means.” His fingers dipped back into my underwear. His thumb swirled over my clitoris spreading my need to grow more frustrated, recapping what was at stake. “Tell me, and then I’ll make you come. I’ll make you—ah!”
He pushed me to the side.
The knife fell from his hand and clattered on the desk.
I toppled onto the ground and looked up.
Dig hunched over the table with a dagger sticking out of his back.
Through the doorway, a man came running in with an axe.