by Marni Mann
When I met Arin at the bottom of the stairs after her walk, her eyes were puffy and red. Her cheeks were flushed. I’d never seen her look this emotional, and I wanted to do something to fix it.
I didn’t know where to start, so I said, “Are you all right?”
She nodded slowly. “I’m just so tired.”
“Tell me what I can do.”
I hoped that was the truth, and she wasn’t upset by something. The last thing I wanted was for her to hurt worse than she already was.
“Carry me upstairs,” she said. “Bed will feel so good.”
I wrapped an arm under her legs and one around her back, and I lifted her against my chest. Her face fell into my neck, and I felt each breath she took as I climbed the steps. She fit so fucking perfectly into my body; I didn’t want to put her down. But knowing how much she wanted her bed, I took her right to it and pulled back the blankets, slipped her inside, and covered her up.
As I started to pull away, her hands stayed around me, her gaze telling me she wanted me to kiss her.
I scanned those puffy, red eyes once more, removed her hands, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Where are you going?” she asked as I made my way to the door.
“I have work to do.”
“Now? But…”
She wanted my tongue again. She just didn’t want to say it. She must have felt uncomfortable. For as loud as she had moaned yesterday, today, she was much quieter and more reserved.
I had a feeling that had something to do with the tears.
And, based on how shitty her eyes looked, I suspected there had been lots of those.
“But what?” I asked.
“I thought you’d stay, and we could shower together.”
Her skin was even stickier than yesterday, and I knew she was sore, so the water pressure would feel unbelievable. My tongue would, too. She’d get both. She just had to wait.
“I can’t right now, Arin.”
“Are you coming back?”
“Get some rest,” I told her before shutting the door behind me.
I left my apartment and went into my office, making sure the adjoining door between the two was locked, so Arin wouldn’t be able to get in here if she tried. My head bouncer was already inside, waiting for me. I knew he’d returned. He’d texted me before I met Arin at the bottom of the stairs.
“Did anyone bother her?” I asked him in Thai.
Arin was my responsibility. I could make sure nothing happened to her in the brothel, and I sure as fuck could make sure nothing happened to her while she was outside of it. Her safety was just as important as my curiosity. So, I’d had him follow her during her walk.
“No, sir. But some interesting things went down.”
I sat in my chair and rested my hands on top of the desk. “Tell me.”
“I followed her through the market,” he said in Thai. “She walked straight through the middle of it, turned in one of the alleys, and went into a closed market. She said something to the casher, and he gave her a phone to use.”
I’d given her a cell to use.
And she hadn’t used it to make a phone call. Not even once. She’d browsed the Internet and looked at the site for the US embassy and at my website. She’d checked her email, but she hadn’t responded to any of the messages, and she hadn’t logged in to any social media accounts.
“Who the fuck did she call?” I asked in Thai.
“Someone named Daddy.”
Daddy?
“If you’re fucking lying to me—”
“I’m not, sir.”
She’d told me she didn’t have anyone back at home, no one to call to send her any money. And, now, she had…a daddy?
“She was crying, sir,” the guard said in Thai. “She said she missed him, and she would see him soon.”
“Did you hear his voice?”
“No, sir. I can’t confirm that it was a man on the other end.”
I ground my teeth together. “What else can you tell me?”
“They spoke briefly. She seemed upset the whole time. It all took place in the back of the market. I figured she’d gone there to get some privacy since the front of the store was busy. They finished talking, she returned the phone, and she came back here.”
This didn’t make any fucking sense.
I reached into my desk drawer, pulled out a wad of baht, and handed it to him. “You did good. If she goes on any more walks, I want you following her.”
He nodded, bowed, and left my office.
Once he shut my door, I pulled up the feed from Arin’s room. She was standing at the window, holding the ledge and looking down at the street.
What the fuck are you up to, Arin?
She pulled her face away from the glass and glanced over at the picture of the snake. Something about that snake intrigued her. So did the tattoos on my body.
I was about to find out why.
I went into my apartment, and as I was about to grab Yellow from his tank, wrapping all one and a half meters of him around my arm, my cell vibrated from my pocket. I checked the screen, and there was a text from Uel.
Still no word on Jack. Sorry, man.
I shook my head and dipped my hand into the tank. I twirled Yellow around my forearm, and then I carried him to Arin’s room and knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she said.
As I walked in, I held Yellow’s face up to mine. His tongue slithered out a few inches, his beady eyes not moving from my stare. He’d eaten a rat pup yesterday, so I knew he was full. After he fed, he tended to be a bit more affectionate.
I lowered him to gaze over at Arin. “This is Yellow.”
Standing at the window, she backed up until she reached the corner of the room. It was the farthest spot from me.
“Please don’t bring that thing over here.”
Thing.
Not what I had expected.
Still, I stayed in the doorway, letting Yellow move up my arm and around my neck. “I thought you’d want to hold it.”
“Hold it?” I could hear the shakiness in her voice. “No. Definitely not.”
“You didn’t seem this scared when I took you to my snake pit.” As Yellow circled around my neck and across my other biceps, I ran my fingers down his body. I loved the feel of his skin.
It calmed me.
It kept me from getting straight to the fucking point, which was asking Arin if Daddy was really her father. But demanding answers wasn’t the way I needed to go about this.
I had to handle her much more carefully.
“I can tolerate them when they’re inside glass or in a picture.” She looked at Yellow, and I swore she shivered. “But, in person, I don’t trust them. I feel like they’re going to bite me.”
She doesn’t have that fear about me?
Because I would fucking bite her, too. I’d go straight for her nipple and sink my teeth into that sensitive flesh, and I’d keep on gnawing until she moaned.
“This one won’t,” I told her. “Come pet it.”
It was the same kind of snake and the same coloring as the one she’d stare at in the picture. The one she’d gotten off to multiple times now. She should want to touch it, to know what it feels like, so she could think about the roughness of his body the next time she was rubbing her clit.
“No way.” Her arms hugged her waist. “Get rid of it, Huck. Please.”
“Nah, I think we’ll stay here for a little bit longer.” I pulled Yellow off my neck and wrapped him around my arm again. “Look at how perfect his coloring is.” He slithered up to my shoulder and smelled around my throat. “And his skin, Arin, is so fucking smooth.”
“Huck!” she shouted. “Please get him out of here.”
I’d found her weak point.
And she was way past it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to give him a good-bye tap?”
“Huck!” she yelled again. “I mean it; put him away right now.”
“You’re hurting his feelings,” I said as I brought him to the door. “He doesn’t want to—”
“Huuuck!”
I laughed as I took him into my room and put him in his tank. When I returned to Arin, she was on the bed. Her back was against the pillows, her arms resting on the blanket that was pulled up to her chin.
I sat on the bed by her feet and held them, rubbing the tops through the covering. “I didn’t know you feared them that much.”
It appeared as though she was thinking about my question, as it took her several seconds to answer. “We don’t have snakes in New York City. At least none that I’ve seen, and I don’t really go to pet stores where they’re sold. I saw one recently though and…” She focused on her hands, gazing at them and zoning out, like she was recalling a memory. “I just don’t like them.”
I lifted her chin, so her eyes returned to mine. “My body is covered in them.”
“I know.”
It hadn’t seemed like a problem when my tongue was licking her cunt. But that was before I’d taken my clothes off, and she hadn’t seen all of my tattoos yet.
“If it bothers you—”
“It doesn’t.” She leaned forward and grabbed my hand. Her eyes began to change. The sadness and fear was gone. In its place was hunger. Need. Desire. “I’m fine with it, I promise. I was just a little shocked when I saw how many you had.” She looked at my fingers and continued, “I’ve never been with a man who’s made his body a piece of art.” Her stare deepened, and she started to eye-fuck me. “But, now, I want to see more of your ink. I want to see all of it. Up close. And I want to touch it.”
This was going just the way I needed it to.
“I don’t have ink on my cock, Arin. Do you want to see that up close, too? Do you want to touch it? Do you want to feel it inside you?”
She blushed as I climbed forward, my upper body hovering above hers. Knowing she couldn’t take all of my weight, I gripped the headboard to keep me steady.
My other hand grabbed her face, and I rubbed my beard against it as I whispered in her ear, “Your pulse is hammering away. Is this what I do to you?”
“I can’t stop thinking about yesterday and what you said to me.”
“What did I say?”
“You told me I could have your tongue again and…”
“You want it.”
“Yes,” she moaned as I breathed over her neck. I could smell just how wet her pussy was. “But I want more than that, Huck.”
My plan was going so fucking perfectly.
“What do you want, Arin?”
As my lips pressed against her throat, her pulse throbbed even faster. She pushed the blanket down to her feet, so she could circle her legs around me and bring herself closer.
“Say the words for me,” I urged.
With two fingers, I found her nipple and pinched it.
Her back arched, and she groaned, “I want you to fuck me.”
That caused me to smile so goddamn hard.
But she couldn’t see that, not with my face buried in her neck.
Twenty-Seven
Arin
The second I told Huck that I wanted him to fuck me, his mouth moved up my neck, over my ear and cheek, and finally landed on my lips. Then, his hands were at my sides, and he lifted us from the bed and moved us out of my room.
He tasted so manly, so clean, his citrus scent filling my nose, his whiskers roughing up my skin, as I stayed glued to him.
I knew how good he was going to make me feel, and I couldn’t get my mind off of him.
Or those snakes.
Suddenly, our bodies were lowering, and my back hit something soft. My eyes opened, and I saw the bed beneath me, a TV on the wall across from me, a couch on my left, and a massive tank for his snakes on the right. This tank was smaller than the one downstairs and only a few feet tall, but it ran the whole width of the room. It had been too dark to see most of this last time, but I was sure I was in his bedroom.
With my back now fully on the bed, Huck stood at the end of the mattress and grabbed at my shorts, pulling them off with my panties. Fortunately, I had changed since I got home from my walk and was no longer wearing those hideous scrubs. Once those hit the floor, my tank top came off next. I hadn’t bothered putting on a bra. By the way he stared at my breasts, I knew he liked that.
As I sat up and reached for the button on his jeans, he clenched my wrists and held them still.
“You want this?” he asked. He was holding them right over his cock, so I knew that was what he was talking about.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day.”
I stared at him, waiting for his next direction. It never came. So, I stuck my finger out to reach his jeans and rubbed up and down his hardness.
“That’s all you’ve got, Arin?”
I slowly looked at his face. “I want to put you in my mouth.”
“Show me without your mouth.”
I pushed harder with my finger until he wouldn’t let me do that either.
“And without your hands.”
He doesn’t want me to use either to show him how much I want him?
“Be creative,” he added.
He must have seen the confusion on my face.
I glanced past his body, and I took a look around his room.
I had an idea.
But, first, I had to slide a little to the side to give him some room. “Sit down,” I told him.
“You’re giving me orders?”
I stood next to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
As I guided him to the mattress, he had the sexiest smirk on his face. It fueled my courage, and for this, I would definitely need it.
“All the way,” I said as I pointed at the pillows.
When he got to the top of the bed, he flipped onto his back and crossed his arms behind his head as he spread his legs. “I’m here. Now, show me.”
With nothing covering my body, I went over to the tank of snakes. There were three inside—the yellow one he had brought into my room, a red-and-black one, and one that was brown and green.
I was all about Yellow.
It was sunning under a lamp in the middle of the tank, and I moved next to it. It didn’t slither away. It didn’t flinch. It didn’t even make a sound.
On this side of the glass, I was safe. Yellow couldn’t get any closer to me. He couldn’t bite me. But, the second I opened the top of the cage, it was just me and him. I had nothing with me to protect myself. Nothing to stop it from killing me.
Huck had said I didn’t have to worry, that it wouldn’t hurt me. There was no way for him to know that. Yellow might have been a part of him, but the snake acted on its own.
A fucking snake.
One that meant everything to Huck.
Enough that he’d made his skin look like one.
I shifted the top of the cage several inches to give myself enough room to slip my hand inside. My heart was beating out of my chest. My fingers started to tingle as I dipped them in. I felt Huck’s eyes boring through me. I couldn’t wait another second. I had to do this. So, I gently brushed my fingers down the side of Yellow.
I held my breath, trying to slow my heart.
Yellow looked at me as I gave him a second stroke. His texture was coarse and ridged, not smooth like I had thought. He almost got rougher, the more I touched him, and his body began shifting forward a few inches. The sound of him gliding over the woodchips sent goose bumps to my flesh. With him now a little further down, I focused on his tail. It got thinner toward the end.
It curled around my pointer finger.
Huck growled.
I exhaled very slowly. When I felt my heart rate slow even more, I took my hand out of the cage and closed the lid. I walked over to the foot of the mattress and looked him straight in the eyes. I was already naked, so there was nothing to str
ip. But there were plenty of things I could do to my body to show him how much I wanted him.
Using the same hand I’d touched Yellow with, I started at the lower part of my navel. My fingers rubbed circles over the bare skin, teasing their way lower until I felt the soft scratches of my nails on the top of my clit.
“Yellow turned you on,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.
Yellow looked like the one in the picture that hung in my room and the one I’d blown to pieces.
The one I had loved killing.
I gasped from the sensation, at how good it felt, even though my own touch wasn’t a surprise. “Yes.”
My fingers continued to slide until they found my entrance and did quick, shallow plunges inside of it.
“How wet are you?”
I pulled them out and dragged the pads of my fingertips over to my clit. “Dripping.”
I heard his gentle moan as I did a hard, fast sweep across it, my other hand working toward one of my breasts.
“Pinch it,” he said, referring to my nipple.
I tugged it. Hard. “That felt amazing.” Keeping my palm on my clit, I inserted into my wetness, stretching to my furthest knuckle. “Huck…” I groaned.
“Harder,” he roared.
I drove in with more speed, grinding against my clit at the same time, squeezing my nipple to the point where I screamed.
“Harder,” he barked.
Wetness now covered my whole hand and the inside of my thighs. “Oh God.”
He stood from the bed and came up behind me. He didn’t touch me. He just leaned his face into my neck, so I could feel each of his exhales. “Are you going to come?”
He circled around me once as I said, “Please. I want to.”
And then he walked around me a second time and stopped when he was behind me. “Let me hear you,” he demanded in my ear.
I rested my cheek against his chest. My lips pressed into his shirt. I gave him every sound that came through me, every breath, every feeling that entered my body.
“Huck,” I groaned as the orgasm began to build.
“Tell me.”
The warmth from his mouth made me shiver.
I was seconds away from losing control, and I reached behind me and pressed my hand on his cock. He didn’t need to give it to me to make me come. I just wanted to hold on to it, feel its hardness beneath my skin.