I lay in the arms of the devil, wondering if I’d been wrong to think of him as inherently evil. Cruel maybe. But perhaps he really had been an angel once and sometime long ago, he’d lost his wings.
Sleep hadn’t come easy to me in as long as I could remember. It was a problem born of the conditioning my father had subjected me to when I was growing up. He said he did it to make me strong. But in some ways I knew it had made me weak. Not being able to sleep properly was one of those ways. And being perpetually tired impacted on the rest of my day too. I knew it affected my moods, shortened my fuse – basically, it kept my demon angry and its appetite insatiable, because the one thing it needed most was often illusive and sometimes impossible.
Insomnia was a medical condition. I knew it. And I could have sought all kinds of help for it. But that would have meant admitting that it was a problem. Medical records. Pills, counselling sessions, whatever. Father wouldn’t stand for that and the possible scandal it could cause if it was revealed. Not to mention the fact that I’d never stand for him to know that he’d damaged me that way.
So, night after night, I closed my eyes at midnight and refused to open them until six am. Sometimes I slept for a few hours. Others none at all.
Even though it had been years since I’d been rudely and loudly awakened in the night to face some upheaval or challenge meant to strengthen me, I still couldn’t switch off the part of my brain that expected it to happen.
At least, I hadn’t, until now.
The scent of vanilla honey blossom caressed my senses as the warm heat of a soft body pressed against mine. Her head lay on my chest, one leg curved over my hips so the weight of it pressed down on me in the most delicious way. Her arm wound around my body and her fingertips were woven into the tight curls of my dark hair.
But the most surprising thing of all was the way I was holding her too, my right arm beneath her, hooked around her body with my hand resting on her hip. And my left hand cupping the back of her head, her blonde hair tangled around my fingers like I’d been holding her that way all night.
I almost didn’t dare to open my eyes as the utter peace of that moment washed over me, afraid of breaking the spell I’d woken in and realising it had really just been an impossible kind of dream.
I cracked my eyes open slowly, frowning as I found us laying on the floor in the dark, only the dim light spilling beneath the door at the far end of the closet giving me anything to see by.
I took a second to process how we’d ended up here. The strange moment we’d shared, locked away in my closet where the world couldn’t see us and I could be honest about some of the secrets I’d been hiding from her. I didn’t know what had caused her tears and I didn’t feel it was my place to ask her about them. I hadn’t earned the right to question her sadness when I’d caused so much of it myself.
I could only imagine how hopeless she’d been feeling to take comfort in my ungodly arms, but I was also strangely honoured by the fact that she’d done just that.
We were destined to be together always now, after the oaths we’d sworn on the sacred stone. But sometimes it felt like more than just an obligation. Like fate had guided us together. Five lost souls in need of each other more than any of us would ever be willing to admit.
I breathed in deeply, inhaling that sinfully sweet smell which clung to her skin, wondering if she tasted as delectable as she smelled.
She murmured something, wriggling even closer to me, her thigh tightening over my hips for a moment and making me groan in the back of my throat. I’d never woken up with a woman like this. Never had the slightest inclination to do so. But now that I was holding onto her, I had the strongest desire to hold on tight. To lose myself in this moment and never again come back to reality.
“Saint?” she murmured, her voice husky from sleep and laced with confusion like she couldn’t figure out how she’d ended up here.
“We slept on the floor,” I replied, because apparently stating the obvious was the only thing my brain could muster.
Her fingers flexed in my hair and she slowly slid her hand down my neck until her palm landed on my chest, right above my heart which was thumping solidly as I watched her.
“Are you surprised to find I have one?” I asked as she lingered there, feeling the beat of my heart beneath her palm.
“A little,” she replied. “Though less so after last night. My letters…”
She pushed herself up, using my chest as leverage and I was surprised as she slid over my lap, straddling me as she looked down into my eyes with a frown.
I rested my hands around her waist, my touch loose and gentle, just wanting to reassure myself that she was actually there. Last night seemed like some strange illusion. But this moment here said it had been real.
“I felt sure I knew the only things that mattered about you, Saint,” she said slowly. “And now I’ve woken up with a new perspective on everything you do and I don’t know how to process it.”
“Perhaps its best you don’t,” I said. “Because I certainly can’t help you to figure my psyche out. I’ve had no luck at doing so myself in eighteen years.”
She bit into her full bottom lip and I frowned at the wild mane of blonde hair that fell around her shoulders. She was still wearing my shirt and I had my pants from yesterday on too. The mere thought of sleeping dressed in old clothes, missing out on my nighttime ritual and curling up on the fucking floor of a closet should have freaked me the fuck out, but, for the moment at least…I just felt eerily calm. And the only thing I could attribute that to was her. Tatum Rivers. Master of my agony.
“You look kinda cute when you’re all sleepy, you know?” she teased, reaching forward to ruffle my short hair.
I caught her wrist to stop her, a grunt of protest passing my lips and she laughed at me.
“I’ve never been called cute a damn day in my life,” I growled.
“Well, I’m willing to bet that there aren’t many people who have seen you all sleepy and well rested. You look like a lion cub who’s been snoozing the day away in the sunshine.”
She smirked at me and I huffed as she caught hold of the hand that had been restraining her and twisted it so that she could look at the watch on my wrist. Knowing I’d slept wearing it made my jaw tick and I suddenly wondered what time it was too. I was willing to bet it was the middle of the night, or my music would have been playing in the bedroom beside us.
“Shit, it’s eleven thirty,” Tatum said with a laugh. “We slept for like, fourteen hours!”
My heart leapt. No – it stopped. Ceased to beat. Forgot to pump blood around my body or oxygen to my brain. My ears rang and my breath caught in my throat with enough force to drown me. Here was the panic I should have been feeling from the moment I woke up in this fucking closet. Here was the thing that would drown me in suffering for the rest of the fucking day and beyond.
“No,” I growled.
Tatum looked down at me with wide eyes as she seemed to catch on to my mood.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” she began, but I sat up so quickly that she cut herself off with a gasp of fright as she suddenly found me in her face.
“Not that big of a deal?” I hissed, wrenching my wrist out of her grip and turning the watch to face me.
She was right. Eleven thirty. Thirty minutes past eleven.
It’s gone to shit.
There’s no fixing this.
There’s nowhere to hide from it.
No, no, no, nonononononono…
I gripped her waist and dumped her out of my lap onto her ass with a thud before standing and striding to the drawer which held my watches.
I pulled out the closest box and glared at the time on it before checking the next one. And the next.
“If four of them say it’s eleven thirty then it must be true,” Tatum pointed out. “But it’s really not so bad, it could be wor-”
“If the word worse leaves your lips, I swear to Christ, I won’t be held responsible for my
actions,” I snarled, whirling on her.
Her.
The girl with the blonde hair and blue eyes and a smile that could cut right through me. The girl with a body I couldn’t stop thinking about and the balls to go toe to toe with me again and again and again. The girl who came to me last night with her tears and her sorrow and her fucking mind games, who’d managed to trap me in this closet and allowed me to wake up in hell.
“Did you plan this?” I demanded, rounding on her and my breaths came in harsh pants as a vice seemed to tighten around my chest.
“Plan for you to find me sobbing with grief so that I could get you to sleep in a fucking closet with me?” she asked incredulously. “How the hell do you figure that out?”
I stared her down for a long moment. Every second I wasted threw my day off more. Each beat of my heart brought more chaos into my existence.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, grinding my jaw before twisting away from her and ripping my pants off without taking the time to release the button, just popping it right off with brute force and kicking them off as fast as I could. I threw them into the laundry basket in disgust as my hands started to shake with fury.
“Take it off,” I demanded, refusing to look her way while she was still wearing clothes intended for yesterday. “Right now.”
I threw my boxers into the laundry basket next, keeping my back to her as I quickly selected a new pair from my drawer along with clean sweatpants before pulling them on. I felt marginally better once that was dealt with, but it wasn’t enough.
She stayed silent behind me but movement in the corner of my eye told me she’d dropped my old shirt like I’d requested.
I refused to think about the fact that she was now naked behind me as I stalked towards her clothes, selecting a matching red silk bra and panties for her and tossing them over my shoulder.
This was her fault, she’d lured me in here. Intentionally or not. Without her I wouldn’t have ended up sleeping in a fucking closet. I wouldn’t have slept through my music and I wouldn’t have…slept…
I looked over my shoulder at her with wild eyes and she tilted her head like she could fucking see me.
“I should have slept in your bed last night,” she said slowly. “And I didn’t.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I turned to face her fully. She’d pulled my shirt back on over the bra and panties, only hooking a few buttons back up and it looked so…perfectly imperfect on her.
“I feel like the demon in me will burn me alive from the inside out sometimes,” I rasped, wondering why I was even telling her that.
“It won’t,” she disagreed. “You just feel like that because your ritual has been sabotaged. By me. I broke your rule about sleeping in your bed. You just need to take back control.”
“Control?” I asked slowly, trying to make my brain function around this cloud of rage and chaos which was threatening to fucking consume me if I didn’t do something. If I didn’t-
“Punish me,” she said breathily and every part of me fell still. Even the darkness in me stopped and took note. Because I wanted that. I wanted that so fucking much it hurt.
“I…” I stepped back and pushed a hand through my hair as I tried to figure out if this was a good idea. I was so fucking angry that I didn’t know if I could control myself, yet I was tempted, seriously fucking tempted because the voices in my skull were screaming that this could be the answer I craved. “You need a safe word.”
Her eyes lit up. Honest to fucking God, lit up as I suggested that.
“Can it be utterly ridiculous?” she asked, biting her bottom lip.
“No,” I growled.
“Can it be cock-munching-honey-badger?”
“No.”
“Super-dicks-unite?”
“No.”
“Hail-Saint-Lord-of-spanking?”
“How many times do you want to end up being punished?” I demanded as her eyes danced with amusement.
“As many times as you think I deserve,” she replied hungrily.
How was that possible? That she would want this like I did? That she’d receive something a hidden part of her needed from it too?
“Give me a minute,” I growled as I tried to get my rampant thoughts in order. “Go and wait in my room and think up a suitable safe word before I get there.”
Her eyes flashed with excitement and she took a step towards the door before pausing and reaching into one of my drawers. She pulled a black, leather belt out and handed it to me with a heated look in her eyes.
My throat tightened as my fingers curled around the supple leather and she licked her lips before turning and heading out of the closet like I’d asked.
I glanced at my watch again, cursing as it drew closer to midday. But some of the panic was easing in me. Some of the demon’s worst impulses were calming and as I ran the belt between my fingers, I knew what I needed to do to sate it.
All I needed was control. Complete and utter dominion. I needed her to submit to me entirely, give her body over into my keeping and let me decide when enough was enough.
I released a slow breath, revelling in the cold sense of calm which filled me at the thought of what she was offering. I didn’t know how she’d figured out what I needed. And I couldn’t even begin to fathom why she needed it too. But I knew she did. In the same way that I craved control, power, domination, she wanted to release those things into my care. Give her body over to the chaotic rule of another. Submit to my desires and let them fulfil hers. So why the fuck was I still standing in a closet?
I strode to the door and opened it slowly, my skin prickling with a rush of pleasure as I found her kneeling at the foot of my bed, head down, long blonde hair spilling around her face and concealing it from my view.
“Tell me,” I commanded, knocking the closet door shut with a harsh snap. She flinched at the sound and a wicked smile graced my lips as my demon purred.
“Mercy,” she said in a firm voice and I nodded.
“You say that word and I’ll stop instantly,” I swore.
“Okay.”
I moved towards her, admiring the view as she stayed there, kneeling on the carpet for me and awaiting my instructions. It didn’t seem possible that we’d found this strange place of peace between us. This perfect balance of violence and release, but I was starting to believe it was real. Especially as my grip tightened on the belt she’d handed me.
I moved beyond her and stood looking down into the main body of the church which was thankfully empty. Kyan and Blake would be in class, probably wondering where the fuck we were. But I didn’t care. Because the only thing that mattered right now was that we had the place to ourselves.
“Stand up,” I commanded, turning to look at her as she rose to her feet. “Hold on to the railing and bend over.”
She instantly moved to do as I said and I sighed at the complete and utter control I had over her in that moment.
She gripped the railing and I watched hungrily as she bent forward, spreading her legs just enough to balance her as my shirt rode up over her ass and revealed that scrap of red lingerie beneath. I moved to stand right behind her, leaning over her so that my dick ground into her ass as I slightly repositioned her grip, making her fingers line up perfectly.
“Next time, do it like this,” I growled in her ear and she nodded as I ran my fingers down her spine, appreciating the perfect arch of her back before I stepped aside.
I folded the belt in half, gripping the buckle in my fist before trailing the supple leather over the round curve of her ass and placing my other hand on the base of her spine.
“Ready?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“I’ll strike you three times, just like last time. Do you understand why I’m doing this?”
“Because I broke the rules and made you oversleep,” she replied instantly, her grip on the railing tightening in anticipation.
My dick was throbbing with need and for a moment I wonder
ed what it would be like to take this fantasy to the next level. To pleasure her after punishing her and own her body in that way too. But that fantasy was destined to remain idle. Her own rules forbid it. Though that only made my imagination more vivid.
I raised the belt slowly, my heart pounding with anticipation then I cracked it down against her ass, being careful not to be too rough. A groan of satisfaction escaped me as she gasped, rocking forward to escape the sting of it.
“Again?” I asked, my muscles bunching as I forced myself to hold back, waiting for her to confirm she still wanted this as much as I did.
“Yes,” she moaned, her back arching in anticipation once more.
The second strike hit her a little lower and she moaned so loudly that the sound echoed off of the vaulted ceiling in a way that had my entire body begging for hers.
The third strike clapped against her ass and she cried out again, sagging forward so that she was leaning over the railing, panting in what seemed a hell of a lot like relief. And that was definitely what I felt too. Like the angst and havoc and carnage of the world had been calmed by that single act. As if all of the shattered, fucked up pieces of my soul had found harmony in it and I’d been remade in the aftermath of it.
I dropped the belt and moved forward to rub my hands over her pink flesh, soothing the sting of the strikes and fighting against every impulse in my body as I ached to take this further.
My dick was straining with a hungry, carnal need and as she pushed her ass back into my hands, I was sure she was craving the same thing.
My fingers slid over the red silk which covered her pussy and she ground back against me with a needy moan. I continued to stroke her flesh to sooth the bite of the belt, devouring the feeling of the heat beneath my fingers and the sounds pouring from her lips which said she wanted more from me. All of me.
“Fuck, Barbie, where the hell did you come from?” I groaned, forcing myself to pull back.
She turned to face me and I met her eye as she stepped closer.
“The bigger question, is why haven’t I left yet?” she breathed.
Her gaze dropped to the serious bulge in my pants and she looked up at me again with mischief in her gaze.
Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2) Page 35