19. Luna
LUNA
My arms squeeze Sawyer tight, my cheek snug with his pec as he smooths a palm over my back. Small, gentle circles meant to comfort me, console the pitiful casualty of his noble mission.
It isn’t until his lips press to my hair that I allow myself to smile.
Two weeks. For two weeks, I’ve done everything I could think of to open him up. I’ve prodded him with anger, tried to appeal to him with pity, and even warmed to his advances all in the name of figuring him out.
Now, finally … a breakthrough. Ironically, one that’s been in front of my face the entire time.
Sawyer Hansley is a liar.
An impeccable one.
One so good he could brainwash more than a hundred women with very little fight. One who can conjure tears, look you dead in the eye, draw up a story with all the details of a novel without thought.
He lies like a man who’s forgotten the truth, and it is wildly impressive until you realize that the one person Sawyer fools most…
Is Sawyer.
He is not soulless. He has a conscience.
He’s a thief who believes he’s stealing for a good cause.
He was a human trafficker who believes he built a paradise for the vulnerable. Believed it so much he convinced them of it too.
He can sell delusions because he is delusional.
And those susceptible to their own delusions are susceptible to manipulation.
My dress snags on splintered wood when I shift onto my knees, pulling my hair from my face with a sniff. My eyes still feel puffy from assaulting them with my fists, and I let my eyelids be lazy, hanging halfway while I ‘pull myself together.’
Sawyer looks me up and down, assessing me. Lips curved upside down.
Both of our gazes draw to the ground as a woman yells out for the children to come inside. Playtime is over.
“You about ready to head back?” Sawyer asks, recapturing my attention.
Head back.
When we’ve been making so much progress.
“No,” I say, leaning forward, resisting the urge to press my breasts into him.
Not too eager.
Nose to his neck, I breathe him in, the smell of smoked wood sweetened with feminine soap. Her soap.
Closing my eyes, I press my lips to his neck—subtle, light. Gratitude dressing up a pile of ash.
I kiss him again and let the tip of my tongue graze the slope of his throat as I descend, then rise again. His skin cools beneath the thin gloss of saliva, but the hand that slips up my thigh feels hot. It disappears beneath the thick material of my dress.
He cups beneath my jaw and brings my mouth to his, so close but not quite a kiss. He has to tease me first.
Breath tickles my lips before I feel the softest graze.
The faintest trace of warmth along my lower lip.
He releases my jaw and moves his hand up the back of my neck, fingers threading my hair before I’m tilted back.
He yanks, sharp but slight, my scalp tingling just enough to remind me he’s in charge—or at least that he believes he is.
I gasp, caught off guard. And he uses my open mouth as the perfect opportunity to sink into my lips.
It’s tense—tense enough to hint at the controversy in his mind. He looked me in the eyes when he told me he’d stop my training, but the victory comes at a cost. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sawyer became more assertive, just to soothe the ache of relinquishing control.
I don’t care.
He could go back on his word, sure; but the fact that he agreed to my terms?
He’s breaking down. Becoming more open to suggestion.
That’s success.
As soon as his lips relax, I lean into him, my tongue finding him hesitant. He’s slow to let me guide, but after a moment of both my hands pressing against his chest, he scoots us backward, away from the edge of the platform.
We lower to the wood, my legs bracketing his hips. I kiss his jaw and find him tense—again. Suspicious.
We’re two poker players at a table, feeling out the other’s bluff. I could shove him to his death if he wasn’t so crucial for my cause, and he could shove me off just to get rid of an inconvenience.
But neither of us try.
My palms flatten beside his head while I seek out his lips. I find them stiff, but it doesn’t stop his greedy hands from working their way up my dress and into my panties. He palms my rear but doesn’t squeeze. Not yet.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
It’s a question he’s asked many, many times, but not until now has he truly meant it.
His concern is almost concerning.
“Of course,” I say, staring into gorgeous blue eyes. My whole life, people have been stunned by my eyes. I’ve never felt the same until Sawyer.
He blinks—the smallest sign of surrender—and closes his eyes while I go back to kissing him.
Slowly, he unravels.
First in his mouth, his tongue coming alive, his lips moving in rougher waves.
Then in his hips that wiggle, fidget. Thrust—light, more of an invitation than a demand.
Finally, in his hands. His fingers dig divots into my rear before he releases and works his way around to my front.
His knuckles lick up my inner thigh in a seductive caress that I know is merely a trick but that I fall for anyway.
I sigh into his mouth as the muscles in my thighs twitch with anticipation.
He tucks himself inside my panties; finds my poor, abused clit.
When he rubs, I moan, breaking away from his mouth so I can hide in his neck.
It’s too hard. Too fast. More torture.
But like always, it works. My core twists and turns for him, my hips wiggling, my palms grinding on wood. I hiss when I get a splinter and lift my palm to my face.
Sawyer doesn’t stop rubbing. He doesn’t even let up.
He takes my palm and quickly inspects it before sucking the splinter from my skin. He yanks back with it between his teeth and spits it out before grabbing the back of my neck and dragging my lips to his.
I moan into his mouth while writhing on top of him until his hand pushes me over the edge, and I come for what must be the fifth time today.
But it’s different this time. Welcomed. The invited agony of war instead of the feeble crunch of a mouse inside a lion’s jaws.
Sawyer brings both hands to the button on his shorts while I pant against his neck. His hot length warms my lower belly as he frees himself, and when he jerks my hips into the right spot, I grip his shoulders and lower myself onto him.
He fills me completely, just before the point of pain. The exact amount I need to make my jaw drop and my lungs expand. I grind, my hips moving in ways my brain couldn’t manufacture, and it feels wrong to compare Sawyer to any other man, but my mind does so automatically.
I’ve had sex with two other people in my life. Never have my hips moved without my instruction. Never have I even considered the appeal of sweaty bodies joined for the sake of orgasm—weaker than I could give myself in my own bed.
Both men have suggested I’m incapable of letting go.
Sawyer has never given me any other choice.
“Oh, God.” I cover my mouth and tilt my head toward the sky—disrespecting the heavens while taking the temptuous taste of Eden. Because Sawyer is most certainly the Devil and this sort of pleasure is most certainly forbidden.
Is this the point of forced orgasms?
Is this what he’s been trying to accomplish?
Give a mouse cocaine, and it’ll starve itself for another taste of sin.
“Say my name.” Sawyer yanks my head back down to lock eyes with him. “Tell me you love it.”
He looks as drunk as I feel. I tell myself he feels it even more.
That this is the first step to truly worming my way into his head, maybe even his heart.
To forcing him to see that he wants me. Needs me—the woman who finally understands him, the real him, and accepts him as the ‘noble’ and ‘virtuous’ man that he is.
He couldn’t possibly let me go. He couldn’t possibly leave without me.
It’s good that he’s a maniac.
They’re not as hard to fool.
“I love it, Sawyer,” I say, breathless as I grind my hips into his, feeling every thrust shoot through my core, up my spine, and down my arms. I feel it in my hands. I feel it in the curl of my toes. I feel it everywhere.
“Come for me, baby.” Sawyer’s hands find my hips before he drags me against him. Slow and hard, my body waving like the sea. I tuck my hand between my legs and put pressure on my clit so I can do what he says. Make the puppet happy.
“Oh, Sawyer,” I cry out as I come apart, my hips jerking as pleasure climaxes. His fingers dig into already bruised hips, and he grunts as he comes with me, our bodies so in sync you’d never know how poorly we fit together.
He lets out one last gust of air before his head falls back and his eyes close.
He stays inside of me as I lay down on his chest, cum leaking onto a trimmed patch of hair.
Again, I compare him to the other men I’ve been with, both far more beast-like, more natural.
I didn’t know how much I liked a man who grooms.
Strange self-consciousness swells when I think of my own all-natural ways, but I let it pass. Because it’s ridiculous.
The shell Sawyer wears around his neck catches my attention when I turn my head and lay my cheek on top of it. I roll off of his cum-covered length and curl against his side. Drag the necklace from his shirt.
I finger the little shell, its surface chipped and weathered. It’s a strange choice to make into a necklace. I don’t see a billionaire buying this and simply wearing it out.
“So why psychology?” he asks, though I don’t imagine his curiosity is genuine. Only a distraction from the necklace in my hand. I tuck it back into his shirt and prop myself on my elbow.
He watches me with a sleepy, satisfied look. Like I am truly as pleasurable for him as he is for me.
That could be a look all weak men have after sex… But I find myself blushing.