Chapter Seventy-Six
SUNNY
I rustle in my sleep, trying to ignore the too familiar feeling of someone watching me. It’s only heightened since the phone call, revamping the paranoia I thought I had kept somewhat at bay.
I reach a hand out, realizing Tyler still isn’t in his place in bed. I’ve had to have been asleep for a few hours. Where is he?
Gasping, my phone flings from my hands as panic blooms my chest but settles just as quickly when I’m met with emerald eyes. He sits in the corner with his face painted like a skull, just like Halloween, twirling his knife in his hand effortlessly.
He doesn’t even react to me.
“Tyler,” I whisper, shuffling out of the bed.
He cocks his head to the side but doesn’t say anything to me as he continues twirling his knife, eyes gleaming brighter when surrounded by the hollowness of the black paint.
He mentioned the masquerade theme for Barton’s Babes, so the face paint makes sense. To keep the identity of all the higher ups masked in a place like that one. A secret no one else outside their circle can know or use against them.
“Little fire, you’re the bravest person I know because you face me daily.
I’m probably the scariest thing you will come across in your life, Sunny.
I’m fucking scarier than Ryan, yet you don’t run from me.
I’m a far worse person.” He gets up from the chair and takes slow deliberate steps towards me.
With his face inches from mine he asks, “Why?”
He grabs my face in his hand and uses his other forearm to pin me against the wall. He pins his hips against mine, the hard length of him pressing into my stomach.
“Because you don’t have a choice.” It’s breathless.
“Everyone has a choice.”
The glint of his knife catches my attention, ripping my gaze from his hollowed eyes. He runs the cold, sharp tip along my jawline. But it doesn’t scare me, if anything it has me squeezing my thighs together in a desperate attempt to stop whatever it is this does to me.
And maybe he’s right, maybe I have already met my most dangerous predator, yet I can’t get enough of him.
He drags the cool metal along my thigh, then uses it to slap my skin. “Open,” he growls.
I do as he says and part my legs. Maybe we all are fucked up in our own ways, but this feels freeing in a sense for me, because I know that no matter what he does, I will always have the control with one simple word.
Something I never had with Ryan.
He glides the tip of the knife along the sensitive skin inside my thighs.
The tip of the knife lifts his t-shirt I’m wearing, tracing along my bare stomach.
His eyes flick to where his knife and my skin meet then to my now hardened nipples that peak through the shirt.
He drops the knife and his t-shirt drops with it, covering up the skin that now has goosebumps all over.
“Answer me. Why aren’t you scared of me?”
I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to test me.
He’s trying to see how far I’m willing to let him take it before my limits are reached.
The thing is, I trust him completely. I know he will stop the minute I feel uncomfortable.
He wants to make sure I’m well familiar with all these dark and depraved parts of him, that way I can love him with no surprises. That way I can love him fully.
But little does he know, I already do.
“Because I trust you,” I say, swallowing hard under his grip on my throat.
“The power will always be yours. Do with it what you will, but don’t think for one minute I won’t bleed for you and not enjoy it.
You say the word, and I will stop. But first, the power is yours.
It always has been and always will be.” He flips the knife so the sharp edge is in his palm, facing the handle towards me, waiting for me to grab it.
I stare at it. “What do I do?”
“Whatever you want.” A smirk pulls his lips. “You can create scars on me. Scars I’ll look at and love.” He steps back from me, putting his arms out exposing his bare chest. “Brand me, baby.”
I can see what he’s doing. He’s scared that I have the knowledge of who he is and what he’s done. He thinks he is losing control, losing me. This is his way to give me a power he thinks I’ve somehow lost by our earlier conversation.
“I don’t know…” I stutter.
“Why is that? Because you’re scared this will make you cum instead of bleed?” He grabs the knife by the blade again, snatching it from my hand.
Blood starts to trickle from his palm, but he doesn’t react. Instead, he flips it and grabs the handle, pressing the knife to my neck. The tip of the blade is pressed under my chin, making me look up at him into those lethal eyes.
“Lay down.” His pupils dilate and flare.
I do as he says and watch as he sits on his knees between my thighs, knocking them open. Tilting his head, he brings the knife to the t-shirt I’m wearing and flicks it up, exposing my belly that is now filled with a kindling flame.
“Any marks I leave on your body will always be for pleasure, never for pain.” He removes the knife.
I nod, letting him know I understand.
“That’s my girl,” he says, fisting my shirt and slices the knife down it. He hooks a finger in my panties and slices those, too. And I’m convinced I’ll never have a wardrobe without Tyler ruining it. Maybe it’s his plan all along.
He removes himself from me to take off his jeans and boxers. “Open my legs.” He taps the blade against my thigh, urging me to let my bent knees fall open.
He shakes his head as his eyes fall between my thighs. “Baby, you’re already so wet.” He licks his lips, aching to taste me.
He runs the blade down my burning skin again, starting at my neck all the way down between my legs.
I swallow hard, feeling the cool metal press against my heated flesh.
It’s when he flips the knife so the blade is in his hand and the hilt toys at my entrance that my breath catches. Yet, I don’t want him to stop.
He pauses and his emeralds meet my stare, waiting for me to give him the command. And I fucking nod.
A gentle push and the hilt is inside me, making my head roll back in a mix between a moan and a cry.
“Beautiful,” he breathes as his bloody hand grips my hip, covering me in his blood.
My hips start to ride the rhythm he creates with the knife, inching deeper inside me. I test the waters by reaching for my breast, but his bloody hand snatches my wrist before I can make it halfway.
“You know the rules.” He presses his lips to my wrist as he picks up the pace with the knife.
My head rolls back as I feel the handle hit the aching spot inside me. And when I look down, I see his bloody handprint on my hip, and it does something wild inside of me.
“Cum on my fucking knife.” He grabs my face with his bloodied hand, forcing me to look at him, pushing my cheeks deliciously painfully together.
He brings his face inches to mine. I’m so close, but not quite there. He doesn’t stop the rhythm of the handle inside me.
“I said cum,” he says through clenched teeth.
And my body submits to his command. The fire in my core kindles throughout my body, rattling me as I clamp down around the hilt.
Tyler sits back up to his knees while he continues moving the handle inside me, prolonging the pleasure he creates in me with a fucking knife.
My back arches and my head rolls back as the pleasure seizes me. I grip the blankets, trying to contain the convulsing my body is doing. I feel his large, bloodied hand run over my possessed body, admiring the pleasure that takes it over.
He grabs my thigh, yanking me closer to him, pushing that handle so deep in me, I scream from the delectable pain.
My instinct is to grab his hand to stop it, even though I don’t want to. He snatches that wrist too quickly and pins it above my head as his face gets inches from mine. I’m pretty sure I have tears streaking my face, but it feels so fucking good.
“You will take my knife the way you take me.”
He lets up, pulling out only slightly so I can regain myself through my labored breaths.
When I look up from my body covered in his blood, I meet those emerald eyes and say so confidently, “Recreate my scar.”
He pauses. “What?”
“Make it yours with that knife. Your lips have done a good job. But make it permanent.” I didn’t even realize how much I needed this until now.
I want him to make that scar his. Officially. With his own knife. So that way it can no longer belong to Ryan, but to Tyler. That way the only scar on my body was by a man who only brings me pleasure, never pain. By a man who loves me.
“Sunny…” he starts.
“Please, baby. Please. Make it yours.” I give him pleading eyes.
Slowly he removes the knife from me. My arousal coats the hilt, and I watch as he glides his tongue along it with a deep groan when he tastes me.
He grabs my jaw, tilting my head to the side so he exposes the scar on my neck. Cool metal is pressed against the sensitive skin.
“This is what you want?” he asks, pressing the knife a little harder as a prelude for what’s to come.
I nod with a breathy, “Yes.”
“If you’re going to bleed, then I will too.” He flips the knife so I can take it.
“Where?” I ask.
“Exactly where yours is.” He kisses along my jaw, the column of my neck. Clearly this idea seems great to him by the way his hard dick is pressing against me.
I grab the hilt of the blade and arch my hips, begging for him to push inside me. A dark chuckle reverberates through his chest as he grabs my hips and does just that.
“I want you to brand me,” he whispers.
He tilts his head back, exposing his neck for me. So selflessly wanting to feel my pain and make it his own.
When I don’t move, he chuckles again as he takes a nipple in his mouth, making me moan and arch into him. I drag the tip of the blade down the lines of muscles that build his back, noting the way he trembles with it.
“Again,” he demands when he sits up, still inside me, guiding my hand with the blade down his chest and abs. He hisses, even though I haven’t even drawn blood yet.
“Good girl. Keep going.” He cascades kisses along my body as I continue. “Make me bleed.”
Once I’ve finally grown comfortable with the blade in my hand and feel myself about to jump off the edge he’s been pushing me towards, he wraps his hand around mine on the hilt. Anticipation lights in his eyes when he guides our hands to the crook of his neck.
“Just a little pressure, baby,” he encourages me.
I push the knife into his skin, but it isn’t as fragile as mine, so I have to give more pressure. Then his skin pierces, and I see the crimson blood start to trickle onto his tanned skin.
“Fuck, yes just like that.” His hips start to thrust wildly.
The power completely obliterates me.
Of all the times I was convinced that small flame turned into an inferno, I was wrong. This moment is proof of that. The flood of power becomes everything inside of me. From the way my heart beats to the air filling my lungs to the very way my mind is wired.
It burns so deliciously that I’m arching myself in any way I can as screams rip through my throat. Pleasure that I didn’t know could exist floods my veins in fiery tendrils of power.
The knife drops from where I have it pressed against his neck, but Tyler snatches it before it hits the bed. Soon enough it’s pressed to my neck, exactly where I want it to be.
When I finally come through the smoke of the fire that set flame, I look up at him to see his blood trickling from his neck and onto my body.
Hesitation is clear in his body. From the slow roll of his throat to the way his eyes bounce between the knife and my face. Still he moves inside me, making my labored breaths do nothing to bring me down from the high of adrenaline and power.
“Do it,” I tell him. “Fucking do it.”
His jaw flexes and then he pushes the knife into my scar. He makes it a point to continue moving in me, trying to tread that line of pleasure and pain.
And somehow, I love the pain. I love it so much that I find myself chasing that release again.
Fire licks through my veins, filling every part of my body as it engulfs me.
The world explodes and I’m met with a night sky clashing with a fiery sunset.
I can feel the warm blood trickle down my neck and wet the sheets below us.
Our now matching scars are bleeding together.
We bleed together.
Because his pain is my pain. And my pain is his.
Finally, what was once a brand of abuse is now a brand of love. This scar is filled with begging for more, not begging for less. This is no one else’s but mine and his.
I chose this scar.
“Mine, Sunny,” he murmurs, taking a tongue to the stinging cut on my neck. “Your pain will always be my own,” he says, using his bloody hand to grab my face, making me look at him.
Despite our labored breathing, he presses a gentle kiss to my lips where I can taste my own blood on his tongue.
And somehow, I feel a little more free.