Chapter 8
WINNIE
Vane lights a cigarette, flicks the lighter closed on the curve of his thigh. He tips his head back, pulls in a hit on the cigarette, then exhales smoke at the ceiling.
Without looking at me, he says, “Start running.”
Excitement pools in my belly and sinks to my clit immediately. It takes no context at all for me to know what he’s asking of me. But still I play the game.
“Why?”
He levels his gaze, pinning me with his bright violet eye.
A shiver wracks my shoulders.
“You’re going to start running, and I’m going to chase you, and when I catch you, I’m going to press your face into the dirt and fuck the brat out of you.”
It takes only words, suggestions, from him to have me buzzing and pulsing and ready.
“Get up, Darling.”
The cigarette burns between his knuckles.
“Now.”
I stand. Swallow. “Do I get a safe word?”
He takes another drag, then breathes out the smoke through his nose. “Do you need one?”
The challenge is apparent in his tone of voice. When it comes down to it, he’ll know if I’ve had enough. But the game is not to ever reach that line.
Vane just likes to test me and I like to be tested.
“I’m counting to ten,” he says. “Best get moving.”
My tongue flicks out, licking my lips, adrenaline already pounding through my veins.
“One.” He takes a hit.
How much distance do I want between us?
How far do I want to run?
How quickly do I want him to catch me?
“Two.”
Smoke ribbons in the air and outside the treehouse, crickets fill the night.
“Three.”
I turn around and run.
I burst out of the treehouse like a Shadow. Cool, wet dirt presses between my toes as I run for the woods.
The moon is thinning but it feels like it’s particularly hiding tonight so that I’m already stumbling over roots and fallen branches, losing my footing. I could fly, but that’s not as much fun as being chased on the ground.
There is a primal feeling that rises up along with the adrenaline when your bare feet meet cool earth in a game of cat and mouse.
I cut to the left, finding the path that winds through the trees, connecting the treehouse to Darlington Port.
But the moment I sense Vane is out of the treehouse, when the Neverland forest goes still, I realize the path is a mistake. He’ll find me in an instant.
I cut back into the woods, ducking beneath a branch.
The hair along my neck lifts.
Fuck, he’s already too close.
I wind around a cluster of evergreen trees as the sound of footsteps grows nearer, his pounding against the earth with the confidence of someone who’s hunted often.
My breathing quickens, heart pounding.
There’s nowhere I can hide from him.
Nowhere at all.
He closes the distance quickly.
The Shadow pulses between us, delighted at the game.
Vane grabs me by the hair and yanks and I lose my momentum. But I’m not through yet.
I spin and punch him in the gut.
He drops my hair and staggers back, laughing.
I don’t wait. I’m running again, chasing deeper shadows in the forest, trying to find some cover.
Vane wastes no time, back on my trail. And as I run and as he chases, every huff of air, every lick of the cool night air, every thud of his footsteps chasing mine is amplified until I feel, for once, like a god.
A god of the Neverland forest, getting exactly what she wants.
Vane catches up to me and tackles me to the forest floor.
We hit the dirt, skid across a litter of wet leaves. His hand claws into my hair, pressing hard against my scalp while his hips press against my ass.
Within seconds, the leather of his belt is snapping free of his pants then winding around my wrists, now held at the small of my back.
The belt is yanked tight, binding me in place.
I huff out, leaves skittering over the dirt.
Vane bares me, tearing off my panties with a quick flick of his wrist.
I’m wound up, throbbing between my legs.
This is my most favorite game.
His thighs press mine together as his hand slips between me and the earth, forcing my ass up. He presses in, finding resistance as I squeeze my thighs together.
“Playing it the hard way, I see,” he says.
He shoves in, presses my face in the dirt, just as he promised and I can’t help but moan in delight.
I can barely hold myself back.
I conjure images of a dry desert or a shriveled pear. Anything to quench this relentless thirst. But nothing works. Nothing quiets the burning need pulsing between my thighs.
Vane fucks me hard and fast, one hand on my bound wrists, the other buried in my hair keeping pressure on the back of my head.
The Shadow swarms around us, blotting out any hope of light.
But I don’t need it.
I don’t need anything but this, Vane and I chasing our darkest needs in the darkest places on Neverland.
“You’re fucking dripping wet,” Vane says. “Fuck, Win.”
He slows his rhythm as if he wants to savor the feel of me, but the shift lessens the pressure building in my clit.
“Are you being gentle now?” I challenge.
He laughs and disentangles his hand from my hair, clamping it instead over my mouth. Dirt grits in my teeth.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up and come on my cock like a good girl, hmm?”
He picks up his pace again, punishing me.
It takes nothing at all to shove me over the edge.
I come hard. Fast. The orgasm pounds through me like a flash flood and my toes curl, my body arching beneath Vane, squirming.
I moan against his hand.
He follows me quickly, filling me up. He can’t hide the tremor that shakes through his entire body.
When we’re both finished, he undoes the belt, freeing me, and we collapse in the dirt on our backs.
There’s so much cum, it immediately leaks out of me.
“Oh my god,” I breathe out, and laugh, a little delirious. “That was more than I deserved.”
“That was exactly what you deserved.”
I roll my head, glancing at him, where a smile is glittering in his eyes.
“You’re right.” I crawl over the forest floor to him. “I deserved that punishment.” I lift a hip, straddling him.
“Christ,” he says, laughing.
“I hated every minute of that.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” he says. “Get off of me.” He catches me around the waist and rolls me over, pinning me to the ground. I laugh at the sky.
“You are the worst brat I’ve ever met,” he says.
“You love it.”
He blows out a breath. “You are the bane of my existence.”
“Sure. Sure. I believe you.”
He gets to his feet and holds out his hand to me. I take it so he can lift me up, then he swats my ass. “Get back to the treehouse and clean up.”
“Or you’ll what?”
“No cock for you for a week.”
I drop my mouth open in mock distress. “You wouldn’t.”
Hands on my shoulders, he steers me to the path. “Don’t test me.”
“Oh Vane. You know, testing you is my favorite pastime.”
He laughs again and pushes me forward. “Much to my dismay.”