Chapter 6 #2
Felix didn’t so much as glance his way. He simply smiled into the rim of his goblet and said, “Let him rage, Poppet. His jealousy sweetens the performance.”
Why did he insist on egging him on? Did he want me to fail? That was a dumb question. Of course, he wanted me to fail. Not that I had much time to think about it because Flynn lowered his head, bringing that painted-on smile to the grapes strewn across my chest.
When his breath grazed my breast as he plucked one with his teeth, a shiver tore through me.
That burst of heat felt like fire on my cooled skin.
It was a stark contrast to his monotone appearance.
Black and white covered every inch of him from the shoes on his feet to the fedora on his head. Even his hair was black.
A soft pop filled the air as the grape burst against Flynn’s tongue. Juice dribbled from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto my chest, leaving a thin sticky trail that caught the candlelight. He didn’t wipe it away. He merely tilted his head and watched as another drop fell onto my breast.
No emotions toyed with his face. He gave me no arched brow or sinister sneer. He was simply there. Yet underneath that exterior, a dark storm raged. I could feel it in the way he slid the knife up my thigh, and I could see it in the hunger blazing in his eyes.
The Mime didn’t talk because he didn’t need to. His feast wasn’t the food laid across my body.
It was me.
Don’t move, Mazie. I silently told myself as the edge of the blade scraped my skin.
What they were doing was sick and wrong.
Yet a part of me enjoyed the depravity of it all.
The sharp, threatening edge of the knife, the man—who was a victim himself—forced to watch, and the cool kiss of the air on my naked body.
They all called to something inside me that I buried a long time ago.
A dark, twisted desire that I gave in to once, and never would again.
Felix’s chuckle rolled across the room. “See how she quivers, brother? Even the simplest taste is enough to make her sing.”
I wanted to snap that I wasn’t singing. That this wasn’t arousal but dread. But the flush spreading over my chest betrayed me. I could feel their eyes dragging over me, peeling me open in ways no hand ever had. It was worse than any kind of physical torture.
Flynn leaned over me, and I watched as his mouth closed around a piece of candied fruit. His painted grin brushed the side of my breast. The bristles hidden underneath his makeup caused a wave of goosebumps to trickle across my skin. I’d been denied touch for so long that it felt like heaven.
The dishes on me clattered as my back tried to arch off the table. My body wanted to give in, but my mind regained control before anything fell.
All the while, Flynn slowly chewed and watched my reactions, as if every twitch were part of their fucked-up performance.
“Exquisite,” Felix purred while rising from his chair.
He strode closer, circling the table until his shadow fell over me.
“Do you know why you tremble, Poppet?”
My voice cracked with my lie. “I’m cold.”
Felix smiled down at me. “You tremble because the line between desire and terror is thinner than silk. Flynn tastes your fear. I taste your shame. And you…” He dragged his gloved finger down my sternum, smearing the trail of grape juice into a sticky sheen. “You taste both.”
Austin thrashed in his chair. “Leave her alone.”
Felix silenced him with a lazy wave while Flynn’s tongue slid over my chest, licking up the grape juice with obscene precision.
My thighs trembled despite myself, and the knife pressed firmer against my skin—a silent command to stay still.
“Ah, see?” Felix bent in to breathe in my ear. “Even now, you bloom for us, Poppet. Fear, guilt, hunger, desire, it’s all the same tree. And tonight, we’ll make you taste every fruit it bears.”
I don’t know how Flynn switched his hold on the blade or when, but when his hand slipped under the bowl balanced on my thighs, the handle of his weapon bumped my clit.
I tried desperately to stop the spark of euphoria that shot through me, and I might’ve been able to if I didn’t feel the knife handle press inside me.
It felt so good that I had to bite my lip to stifle a moan. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to be this person anymore, except my body didn’t care. It liked this. It wasn’t Flynn pumping the handle in and out of me that it got off on. It was the depravity of it.
The blood staining the Mime’s shirt, the danger in Felix’s smile, Austin tied to the chair, forced to watch my violation, and how I might meet my end at any moment. All of it heightened the pleasure coursing through me.
I tried to fight it. Told myself that I wasn’t this person anymore.
I wasn’t the girl who watched videos of people dying while her boyfriend fucked and her sister drowned in the pool.
I wasn’t the woman who couldn’t stop herself from climbing on top of the man whose throat she slit.
That man deserved to die. I didn’t smear his blood over my body while I rode his cock.
That was someone else. Someone who died when she did. She was gone, and I only let her come back once, when I killed the man who hurt my sister. She would never come back again. I wouldn’t let her.
“Stop lying to yourself, Poppet,” Felix murmured in my ear. “She was never gone.”
I shook my head and resisted the urge to arch my hips into Flynn’s thrusts.
My pussy ached for more. The sloppy sounds of my desire filled the air, but I refused to give in.
I fought with everything I had. I fought so hard that my entire body began to shake.
It was torture, and Felix was enjoying every minute of it.
He leaned in and dragged his tongue up the side of my neck. “You feel her, don’t you? Her pleasure. Her clarity. Not despite the danger, but because of it. Be honest with yourself, Poppet. Admit who you really are.”
No. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t her.
Flynn twisted the handle inside me while flicking his thumb over my clit.
I could feel that dark need clawing inside me. It was right there, waiting to consume me. And I so wanted to give in.
“Why are you doing this?” I hissed out through gritted teeth.
Felix propped his elbow on the table next to my head and dropped his chin in his hand. “Why, to feed on your anguish, of course.”
“This isn’t anguish.”
It was torment.
“Isn’t it?” Felix asked. “Anguish comes in many forms. For some, it comes with pain. For others, sorrow. But for you… It comes from living.” He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.
“Every breath you take is filled with guilt and shame, because you’re still in this world, and she isn’t. ”
Every word he said was true. And that truth still couldn’t stop the need from coiling deep inside me.
“Just kill me already.”
“Careful, Poppet. If you smile too long at death, he might smile back.”
Who cared? I wanted death to smile back. Any dream I had of having a fulfilling life died with her. Now, I just wanted to be done. If I gave in just once and angled my hips, maybe the knife would cut me, and I’d bleed out.
“You sick motherfuckers!”
My eyes snapped over to where Austin was trying to fight his bindings. He barely knew me, yet was so desperate to save me. I couldn’t abandon him to these psychopaths. I could fight a little longer and do one good thing before I left this world.
Felix’s smile sharpened as his gaze slid down to the head of the table. “Ah, I see. You think he’s your penance.”
“He’s suffered enough.”
My statement seemed to anger Felix. The smile fell off his face as he grumbled down at me, “Has he?”
“Let him go, and I’ll do whatever you want.” I’d be their star, or serving platter, or fucktoy. They could use me however they wanted. I was already damned. But Austin was innocent.
The smile snapped back on Felix’s face. “Oh, Poppet…” His voice dropped into a mockingly tender tone. “Are you trying to bargain with me?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he moved before I could get a word out. His hand swept across the table, plucking up a silver skewer from one of the platters, then he drove it into my left shoulder.
White heat tore through me, exploding behind my ears at the same time a violent orgasm ripped through my body.
My scream came out thin and broken. The weight of the food shifted, throwing plates everywhere as it jerked from the pain and pleasure.
Blood spread out and soaked into the tablecloth beneath me.
“Stars don’t negotiate,” Felix hissed into my ear. “They perform.”
The room started to tilt as my vision tunneled.
Through my narrowing haze, I saw Felix stroll to the head of the table where Austin writhed. He tore a handful of meat off the severed leg and crammed it between Austin’s clenched teeth.
He gagged and choked, but Felix kept cramming fistful after fistful into his mouth while growling something I couldn’t hear over the roar in my ears.
The last thing I saw before the dark swallowed me was Flynn’s painted-on grin hovering over me like a mask over a nightmare.