12. Riley
RILEY
My eyes are glued to the ear. Pale and rubbery, a few greying hairs protruding from the lobe. The gravel beneath is stained with crimson.
Conflicting emotions assault me from all sides.
Disbelief.
Horror.
Anger.
But relief, too. Relief that it’s just an ear and not something worse. There was nothing stopping Aron from bringing me the whole head. An ear is only a warning.
How fucked up is it that a part of me feels grateful to our captor for only chopping a non-essential body part off my best friend? How fucked up am I?
Beyond repair is the answer.
It’s a symptom of our age, of our society: we’re so used to truly terrible things happening that when we see something bad happen, we don’t think “this is bad”. We only think “it could have been worse”. We’re like a dull blade. No longer capable of outrage.
But he isn’t. The Necromancer. Everything he does, everything he’s told me, it all speaks to a deep-seated anger. By doing the outrageous, he is challenging our complacency. Like a whetstone.
“Fuck it.” His voice sounds from the front of the cave.
His steps echo like the cave’s heartbeat. He comes into view, tall, sculpted, his mask still on and his eyes blazing.
“What else do you want from me?” I snap at him, my hatred resurfacing fast.
He harmed the only person in my life who’s ever been truly good to me. I don’t care what he does to me—I want to hurt him back, if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.
I bend down, fingers outstretched, reaching for a stone.
“Don’t even think about it!” he hisses at me. “Throw it at me, and I swear to fucking god I’ll bend you over my knee and shove it up your ass.”
Chill creeps up my spine at his words.
“You hurt him!” My fingers close around the jagged piece of gravel, and I straighten. “You cut off his ear, you fucking psychopath!” My voice is accusing, almost hysterical—I sound like I’m on the verge of crying, and I hate that.
“Do you really think that’s the worst I could have done?” Aron echoes my earlier thoughts.
He is fumbling with the keys, inked muscles bulging, hands shaking. He drops the keys and mutters under his breath as he picks them up. What is up with him?
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.
“You’re nothing more than a sadistic bastard!” I bring my arm back, readying for the throw.
“Don’t do it.” His voice cuts through me—a sneering, sing-song voice. “Trust me, Hotshot, all you’d get out of it is a punishment.” He finally manages to unlock the door, and he steps inside, large, looming, oppressive like a descending storm.
Despite the nonchalant tone, there is unease in his posture, a strange disquiet buzzing around him like an aura.
I hesitate, my bravado fading as quickly as it surfaced, replaced by fear and frustration. There’s not a thing I can do to him. Not a thing it wouldn’t be in his power to repay a thousandfold. I’m completely powerless against him.
Groaning, I lower my arm.
His menacing eyes fixed on me, he closes the distance between us.
The way he moves is mesmerising; the grace of the large bulk of him, the interplay of muscles, the coordination ...
The effect on me is unsettling. It taps into something primal deep inside of me. Something that won’t let me look away.
“Drop it,” he orders me, and when I obey like I’m hypnotised, he drones with grim satisfaction, “Good girl.”
“Fuck off.” I bite my lip.
His hand shoots forward fast, fingers closing around my throat in an iron grip. I gasp for breath, eyes going wide in shock. I claw at him, my nails scraping across his knuckles.
“You’ve got a filthy mouth, Hotshot,” he tuts, his grasp on me relenting as he runs his thumb over my lower lip.
“You’re one to talk,” I retort, my heart galloping.
“I like it.”
My breath catches, and he chuckles, the sound low and ominous. He moves his hand up slowly. Releasing my throat, he grazes my cheek with his knuckles before his fingers tangle in my hair.
“Kneel,” he orders me, bringing me down.
“What? Not this again,” I yelp when my knees, still tender from the last time, land on the gravel.
“Stay,” he growls.
“Stop talking to me like I’m a dog.” I want to protest, but the words melt away from my lips when he reaches for the zipper of his trousers. “Aron, what are you doing?” I demand, my creeping dread stealing force from my voice.
“Did you think there’d be no consequences, Hotshot? No punishment?”
His voice is thick and scalding like melted caramel. It lacks its usual hateful edge. Seeing I’ve gone docile, he loosens the grip on my hair in favour of coiling a strand around his finger.
“A punishment for what?” I snap, unnerved by the sudden change in him. “For being careful with the most dangerous piece of intel this century has seen?”
“For driving me insane every chance you get.”
He pulls out his cock, and my breath hitches when I see that he’s rock hard, beads of precum glistening on the tip. That thing is huge. It’s thick and straight, veins popping. The tip is pierced—something I’ve never seen. It looks scary. Like it would hurt even more than it usually does.
Like it will hurt more than it usually does.
Shit!
My terror clicks into a familiar place, my mind going into overdrive. But before I can bolt, Aron’s hand is back in my hair.
“Stay like this.”
“No!” I protest frantically. “Don’t touch me!” I try to pry his fingers away, but it’s no use.
“Stop moving and shut up. Do as you’re told.” He pulls on my hair harder, almost lifting me off the ground.
I screech with the sudden, blinding burst of pain. It’s unbearable. I can’t help but stop resisting.
Aron is stroking his dick, slowly and leisurely, like he’s got all day.
I’m about two seconds away from crying. I’m biting my lip, my eyes already watering.
“That’s it, Hotshot.” I’m shocked by the softer note in his tone.
I look up at him and blink. One tear rolls down my cheek, but no more follow it. Trying and failing to process all that’s happening, I go completely limp.
“Yeah, just like that,” he croons. “There’s a good fucking girl. Fucking beautiful.”
Heat floods me from head to toe, adrenaline coursing through my veins, all senses on high alert.
I’m paralysed. But it isn’t just dread that settles deep in my belly.
Some sick, twisted part of me wants to keep watching.
Because if I forget who he is—what he is—the sight of him is something to behold.
Those smouldering eyes, the mask, that bulk of bulging muscles towering over me, the well-defined ‘V’ of his lower abdomen ...
and tattooed fingers wrapped around his massive cock, working it to give himself pleasure.
A thought flickers through my mind before I can chase it out. What would it feel like—if it would even fit inside of me? It would hurt. It always hurts. But I’m also imagining how full I’d feel, stretched to my limits, completely dominated ...
What is wrong with me?
Aron increases his pace, his strokes firm and regular. More precum leaks from the tip. There’s so much of it. Some of it rolls down, and as he keeps going, he spreads it across his hard length.
Something inside me clenches at the sight.
I don’t think he wants to fuck me. He just wants to degrade me.
But if he were to have sex with me, all this clear, slick moisture would help it go in easier.
The thought sends an inexplicable jolt through me—the thought that Aron’s body is doing something that would help my body take his brutal intrusion better.
“Have a taste if you want.” Noticing my attention, he dips forward, his cock inching closer to my mouth.
I snap my teeth together with a sharp click, shaking my head. He chuckles, the sound rumbling from deep within his chest.
“Asshole,” I mutter.
“Asshole?” he repeats after me, his voice raspy but amused. “As in, Aron, can you please fuck my asshole?”
“No!” I barely manage to force the word out before it happens.
He hits my cheek. With his cock! It doesn’t hurt, but the humiliation of being on my knees for this bastard while he’s dick-slapping me sets my blood boiling. Angry tears well up in my eyes, and I ball my fists, but before I manage to react in any way, he does it again and again.
“Stop speaking.” Smack. “Don’t make me tell you again.” Smack. “Just fucking obey.”
Clearly satisfied with my murderous glare, he goes back to getting himself off—faster, his chest heaving and hand flying over his erection.
The strokes make indecent, fleshy sounds that echo.
He throws his head back and groans, loudly, a little desperately, like he’s pleading for mercy.
There’s something about the Necromancer losing it like this that gets my pulse racing, even before I spot my chance to strike.
While he’s not looking, I shoot my hand forward and grab his balls. They fill my whole palm, round, swollen, and tender. I close my fingers around them, the implied danger clear in my touch.
“I will gu—” The rest of his threat dissolves in a moan when I knead his balls carefully, rolling them between my fingers.
“Fucking hell,” he forces through his clenched teeth. “Riley, that feels so good.”
I hesitate. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to squeeze his balls hard enough to cause agony. I wanted to rip them off.
But the way he reacts to me? The way he says my name? His sudden vulnerability more than just tickles me. It teases a very dangerous, irrational wish out of me. The wish to give him pleasure, to gratify him, to do well for him.
Forgetting all about self-control, I continue playing with him, drunk on his moans, the sharp hisses of his breath, the way his tempo grows erratic ...
he lets go of my hair in favour of cupping my face, tracing my mouth with his thumb.
And when I don’t protest, he pushes it between my lips, the pad rough on my tongue.
The next time he says my name, it sounds like he’s praying, “Riley ... oh fuck, Riley!”
He shudders, his chest heaving madly. His knees dip, like he’s about to collapse. His cock jerks violently in his hand. And then he’s coming all over me, rope after rope of hot cum landing everywhere—my face, my shoulders, my breasts.
I know I should feel disgusted. Violated. Dirty. But instead, my heart is racing. I’ve as good as melted on the inside, and there’s an embarrassing amount of wetness between my legs.
Why the fuck did I enjoy him using me like that? Probably because ... I didn’t feel used. It felt more like he desperately needed something only I could provide. I liked seeing the cracks in his rough facade. But even more, I enjoyed ... serving him. And serving him well at that.
It’s better not to dwell on this. I’m clearly losing my mind.
I jump to my feet. Aron stands frozen, his breathing ragged, his eyes just two sleepy slits in his mask. I barely make it two steps before his fingers close around my arm.
“Where do you think you’re going, Hotshot?” he demands.
“To wash your mess off me.”
“Did you get my permission?”
I roll my eyes, sighing heavily. “Pretty please, can I go wash your mess off me?”
“Na-ah,” he croons, keeping his gaze on me. “I like my mess on you. My mess stays.”
He pushes me backwards, and then, zipping himself up as he goes, he walks out of the cell door and clicks it shut.
When he turns around to glare at me victoriously, I act on pure instinct.
An instinct telling me that he doesn’t get to turn what just happened into his victory.
No way in hell was this not a zero-sum game.
I stick out my tongue and run it around my mouth and chin in a wide circle, licking his cum off. His eyes widen. I scoop more of it off my chest with my finger and bring it to my mouth.
The centre of his mask ripples, his gaze darkening with growing hunger as he watches me clean myself off until there’s nothing but some residual stickiness left on my skin. The taste of him on my tongue is overwhelming and strangely empowering.
I shrug with a jubilant smile, thinking I have won. His eyes narrow and he tilts his head, his gaze scanning me all over.
“You’ve got a bit of something left on your lips,” he says, and when I swipe my fingers across my mouth, he adds, the devilish smirk clear in his tone, “No, no. The other lips, Hotshot.”
I blush violently, heat creeping into my face, sizzling right under the surface of my skin.
He laughs, walking away. It’s only when he’s out of sight that I reach down, touching myself.
I’m so sensitive that a shiver runs through me upon the contact, and I wish for nothing more than for the ground to open and swallow me whole.
Because when I take them away, my fingers are completely covered with my arousal—a glistening, visible amount of it.
Damn it.