twenty-four -Brynn- #2
He raises my dress without breaking the kiss, and without even realizing it, we’ve made a few steps to a different corner of the room where an old training handle hangs from the ceiling.
By now, his eyes are fixated on me, dark with hunger. “Arms up,” he orders, and I comply without opposition.
He takes off my dress and throws it in the corner of the room.
It lands on some priceless artifact, but he doesn’t even spare it a glance, then he removes my bra with a flick of his fingers, not before taking off the small knife I kept between my breasts and studying it for a second, trying to decide if he has any use for it right now.
But he tosses that too, making me suspect his plans could be even more devious.
“Now, grab it,” he commands, looking at the ring, and I swear I just came a little.
I grab the ring without thinking. My arms up in the air as he walks around me, letting his fingers trace lines across my bare skin.
He doesn’t miss a single spot from my shoulder blades to my spine, then to my ribs, and finally stopping in front of me, anticipation has built up so much inside me that I’m going to end up begging him soon to fuck me.
When he completes the circuit to stand before me, he cups my breasts, every move calculated to draw a maximum impact. His thumbs brush across my nipples, one of them playing with the piercing there. And they are already hard, responding to their master.
“Fucking beautiful,” he whispers, but the word doesn’t come as a relief or a compliment. I feel it feeding his inner beast, and all of a sudden, his expression turns from calculated to something out of this world.
He drops to his knees before me, and I freeze.
But there’s no submission in his gesture, not in the way he grabs my hips, or how his teeth catch the hem of my panties, and he drags them down my legs.
His breath catches against my skin as he lifts each foot to remove my panties, then he looks up at me from that position, and I feel like I’m melting.
In an ideal version of how a perfect sex scene would play out in my mind, I should be resisting. Should make it harder for him. Make him the one who begs.
But I’m helpless in front of him. All naked and exposed in the flickering light of his treasure room.
He leans in and licks along the length of me in a straight line that makes me instinctively pull on the ring. Then suddenly, he rises to his feet, and I want to scream that I want—no, I need more.
I look at him, still fully clothed, as I stand on display like a rag doll at his service. The imbalance of power is on purpose. Another form of his control. One that I thought I would hate, but now I don’t even seem to care.
His fingers trace the mark beneath my breast. The brand he placed on me, claiming me as his from the very beginning. The skin is thinner there, and I can’t suppress the shiver that runs from me at his touch.
“Look at it,” he says, his voice deceptively soft, and I know he means the statue.
I look at it, arms still up on the ceiling ring.
Ares’ hands settle on my hips from behind, his fingers digging forcefully into my skin enough to leave bruises as he presses his chest flush against my back, his cock against the valley of my ass.
He’s still clothed, but I can feel the hard shape of his cock pressing against it, like a threat, and a promise all at once.
“Do you like it?” he whispers in my ear as I’m looking at the statue.
“It’s… you. Of course, I like it.” And I’m not lying. The piece of marble is a perfect representation of him, every detail captured by skilled hands. Even the same focused expression he sometimes gets when he’s fighting between control and arousal.
“Good,” he whispers again, this time they sound much more menacing. “Because you’re going to fuck it.”
The words are so unexpected that for a moment I think I’ve misheard them.
“What?” I turn to see his face, letting go of the ring. This must be some kind of joke.
But his expression remains serious, his eyes dark with lust, and something else. Something that could pass for jealousy, if that weren’t so absurd. “You heard me. You’re going to straddle that statue and fuck it while I watch.”
Yeah, sure… no way.
A startled laugh escapes me. “You’re crazy. That’s… that’s too perverted, even for you.”
He arches a brow. “Is it?” His hand slides from my hip to between my thighs, fingers finding moisture there that betrays my body's interest despite my verbal protest. “Didn’t think so.”
I jerk away from his touch, my cheeks burning with humiliation and some unwanted arousal I can’t admit to. “You really are crazy. I’m not doing that.”
He doesn’t argue, doesn’t repeat himself, and definitely doesn’t try to physically force me. He just steps back, creating space between us, and waits.
The patience in his gaze is unnerving. It’s the certainty of an immortal being who has all the time in the world, who knows that eventually, if he keeps me here long enough, I’ll give in.
That’s what infuriates me most. The knowledge that he’s right.
My eyes drift back to the statue, to its perfect marble reproduction of Ares’ body. The stone piercings draw my attention as they’re set with obscene precision.
My mouth goes dry with a curiosity that I try to push back, fighting with the last traces of my dignity.
“Why?” I ask, my voice way shakier than planned. “Why would you want me to do this?”
“Because you tried to kill me. I have to show myself that will never happen again,” he answers, his voice steady despite the intensity of the moment. “I need to assure you that you can’t live without me. After this, you won’t.”
I wrap my arms around my naked chest. I’ve never been shy, but I feel suddenly cold. “And if I refuse?”
“You won’t.” The certainty in his voice makes me want to defy him just on principle.
Yet there’s something else there, beneath my indignation.
A forbidden thrill at the thought of breaking a line.
The statue’s cold perfection calls something forbidden within me, some desire I’ve never acknowledged even to myself.
Would it feel like him?
Would the stone piercings create sensations different from his flesh and his metal?
The questions swirl in my mind without me even summoning them.
Ares’ eyes are on me, reading every hint of emotion across my face. He sees the moment my resolve begins to crumble. That makes his lips curve into a smile that has victory, but also hunger, written all over it.
“There are other ways to assure yourself I can’t live without you,” I say, rolling my eyes in a last attempt to maybe find a way out of this. Even though I’m not so sure I even want one right now.
“There are. But you’ll remember this one. So go on,” he says in a soft tone. “Show me how much you want me. How fucking much you want every version of me.”
“I’ll make you pay for this,” I breathe, though there’s no real threat in the words. It’s just a reflex against my own surrender.
“Looking forward to it,” he replies, and even though I’m not watching him, I know the smile reaches his eyes.
My feet move before my mind fully commits to what I’m doing, carrying me toward the marble figure that dominates the center of the room.
Each step feels like I’m about to do something unthinkable.
Expose myself in a way no other man on this planet, except him, could see me. And that makes me vibrate from within.
The first touch of my fingers against the statue's arm sends a shiver through me. The marble is cold, but not as unwelcoming as I expected, as if something is pulling me toward exploring it. I move my hand along the stone limb, feeling the perfectly sculpted muscles, each vein carved in its place.
Ares watches me from a distance, but his eyes never leave me as I go around the figure. My fingertips brush its chest, its abdomen, hesitating just above its raised member.
“Don’t stop now,” he whispers, his own anticipation betrayed by his voice. “You’ve come this far.”
My hand trembles as it hovers over the statue’s marble erection. One small gesture, and I cross a line I can never uncross. One touch and I admit to desires darker than anything I thought possible.
But I do it, my fingers close around the cold stone, trailing its Jacob’s ladder, piercing by piercing.
The marble is so fine it feels alive, instantaneously stealing all heat from my skin as I hover over the statue’s hips, my knees braced wide on either side.
For a moment, I can’t bring myself to move, fighting the mortification of being watched like this, and still convinced I should fight the curiosity that’s turned my limbs to water.
I sense Ares walking slowly behind me, the closeness amplifying every twitch and tremble. His excitement charges the air, crackling down my spine as I’m still deciding if I should lower myself or just damn run.
“Don’t rush,” he orders, voice low but still in control. “Take your time. I want to see you.”
I bite down on my lip so hard I taste the metallic hint of my own blood, then force my eyes open and my body downward, my whole existence reduced to where my flesh meets marble.
The first brush of it against my core is electric. It feels so much colder than I could have ever imagined, like plunging into arctic waters. I jerk reflexively, a gasp breaking from my lips as I clench around nothing, trying to retreat, but something keeps me in place.
Curiosity is going to be the death of me one day.
The sensation is nothing like human touch. The hardness is foreign against my skin, uninviting.
Ares is close, just out of sight, watching, breathing with me, for me. Suddenly, he walks next to me, then crouches down to my level. “There you go. Feel that?” His hand glides across my thigh. “Let it in, little curse.”
I want to swear, say something obscene that would hurt him. But at this point, I’ve already gone too far. I try to lower my body, leaning my torso forward to make the passage easier but it’s like impaling myself on a frozen blade.