by Violet Blaze
“It's so … sad in here, Saint. It doesn't feel clean and empty because you just like things clean and empty. It feels neglected and lonely, like …”
“Like me?” I ask mildly and Serenity steps into the circle of my arms, moves her hand and puts her ear to my chest instead.
“See,” she says, ignoring the question, her lips moving and tickling my heated flesh, “I knew you had a heart, Saint.”
“Do you want to hear how I almost lost it?” I ask and she lifts her head up, blonde and red strands sliding over her shoulders and teasing my skin. The sensation churns my insides, warms my blood, pumps it straight into my cock. The swelling of my member helps drive the wild feelings crouched and ready inside of me. Ready to fight, to flee, to flail. Just like they've always done. It'll hurt to let them out, I know, but I've been waiting to do this for twenty-five years now and I won't wait a moment longer. I resisted Serenity for two; fought her for a month. I'm done now. I need no more time.
“I need to hear this,” she confirms as I take her by the hand, slide my fingers up her arm and slide the silver bracelets down slowly, one by one, removing them and setting them aside on the dresser. Once I've got them all off, I reach down and grab the fabric of her tank top, slipping it up and over her head, pausing with the fabric trapped across her face as I lean in and kiss that hot mouth through the black cotton. Our tongues fight against the shield between them, mouths working together but kept so cruelly apart. When I finally tear it off and toss it, Serenity's breathing is deep and desperate, small droplets of sweat slicking across her smooth skin.
The bra comes next, my palms sliding across her rib cage and around her back, unhooking the clasps and letting the red lace fall forward. I drag the straps down her arms and watch as her lids flicker closed with pleasure, tongue tracing over her lip, smearing her lipstick just a little. Serenity's breasts heave as she breathes in and out in a slow steady motion, my thumbs rising to rub across the hard pink points of her nipples. When I palm her breasts in my hands, they're heavy and full, weighted, plump. Large breasts then. I've never bothered to notice a woman's breasts before. But these? They're beautiful.
I release them and Serenity sighs, almost longingly, as I grab my leather cut off the end of the bed, rubbing my thumb across the word Enforcer stitched above the front pocket. I turn back and offer it up to her, help her slip into it and relish the moment. My cut, my patches, my whole world is stitched into this leather—is wearing this leather.
I take Serenity's hand and lead her over to the bed, helping her onto the mattress, making her comfortable. And then I pull the red silk from the nightstand drawer.
“My turn,” she says with a deep breath as she looks up at me.
“Your turn,” I confirm, my voice cold but with this underlying heat that I hardly recognize.
I wrap Serenity's wrists the same way she did mine, in a figure eight, and then around and around the center. It's impressive, how well she tied me up the other day. And trust me—I've tied a lot of people up in my life.
I decide to tell her that.
“This is the first time I've ever tied somebody up that I actually like,” I say and Serenity smiles warmly, breathing deep and closing her eyes as I secure her to one of the intact metal poles on the headboard.
“How many people have you killed?” she asks softly, almost randomly. Only I know it isn't random at all; she's been thinking about this for a long time. Years, maybe. Serenity, she knows all the club's dirt.
“I never bothered to count,” I say as I step back and examine her, stretched out on my bed, helpless and tied, trusting me not to hurt her. The only thing that stands between Serenity and pain is a single made-up word. Just one stupid word. This really is a dangerous, dangerous game. “Thousands, probably—but in general, only people who deserve it.”
“For the club,” she says and I nod, letting my eyes trail over her breasts, just barely covered with the leather edges of my cut. And then down, over a tiny scrap of skirt, red and black striped socks held up with … I flick the edge of the skirt up with my fingers and find an interesting little setup. “You've never seen garters before?” she asks and I smile. Another real one. At least, I think it is.
“No.”
“You're so dark yet so … innocent,” she says with a small laugh.
“Oh, I'm far from innocent,” I tell her as I sit down on the edge of the bed, the mattress creaking beneath my weight. I lift up my right arm and show Serenity the little black silhouettes on the underside of my bicep. Three adults, one child. My dead family. “It's no guess how I got to be the way I am. It's not a mystery to me, never has been.”
I drop my arm and watch Serenity watching me, reach up and rub my thumb down her lower lip, smearing red across her chin. It looks like blood and in a weird way, that comforts me.
“When I was five,” I say and my voice gets cold again, loses even that small undertone of warmth. The monster rears up and takes over everything: the animal and the man. It covers me in ice, disrupts the flow of emotions I'm starting to feel for Serenity. It should make it easier, shouldn't it, knowing what I know about my past? Only it doesn't. If there were some sort of magic pill that could make me forget what I know, I'd take it. “When I was five,” I repeat and I stand up, moving to the end of the bed and staring down at Serenity, her boots stretched out towards me. As I wait there, she pulls her knees up, sliding the rubber soles of her boots across the bed. “I was afraid of monsters.” An ironic smile twists my lips. “And sometimes, when my mother, my little brother, and my grandparents were asleep, I would climb out of bed, go downstairs and lock myself in the wine cellar beneath the pantry. It should've scared me down there, in the basement like that. But it didn't. The walls were made of thick stone.” I climb onto the bed on my knees and pause there in my jeans and boots, reaching up a hand to ruffle my blonde hair. “There were wine racks on every wall, filled with colored bottles. My grandma used to let my brother and me play in there.”
I lean down and put a hand on either side of Serenity's hips.
My muscles are trembling now, my eyes half-lidded.
“Are you sure you trust me?” I ask her and honestly, I'm waiting for her opinion. If she says no, I'll stop my story, let her go, let her walk away. That's how much I want to protect her; I'll even protect her from myself.
“Saint, I trust you,” she says and there's nothing but truth scrawled across her face. And I know truth when I see it. I've spent years deciding what's true and what's false, decoding the expressions on the faces of hundreds locked in the very same basement as my story, the one I used to feel safe in. “If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to.”
“You're the only person I've ever wanted to tell,” I say as I reach up under her skirt and unhook first one clasp of her garters and then the other.
“There are two more on the back,” she whispers as I lean forward and press my lips to the smooth, rounded skin of her breasts. The other two clasps come off and I sit back up.
“One night, I crawled into the basement and fell asleep. When I woke up, I went upstairs and …” I trail off and then slide back down the bed, grabbing Serenity's right boot and putting it in my lap, unbuckling the straps, loosening the laces. I pull it off and toss it aside, running my thumbs down the socked arch of Serenity's foot. I hope she's enjoying this slow, easy attention. Because as soon as I'm done with this story, I'll be borrowing back my monster's leash from her—and then letting it fuck her until it's satisfied.
“When I got back up the ladder,” I walk my fingers up Serenity's sole as her blue eyes rest firmly on mine, “I found … some of the furniture in disarray, the front door cracked open, the window next to it shattered into pieces on the floor. When I got upstairs, that's when I first smelled it.” I drop Serenity's foot into my lap, sliding my fingers up the red and black stocking and then slowly, slowly, slowly pulling it down and off.
“Saint …” she says, but that's it, nothing else. And her voice is s
ympathetic and gentle. Good. As soon as I let the monster out, we'll have to see if she can calm it. Self-control, I've always had that, but I've also never had to deal with emotions, too. And it looks like with Serenity around, I might just be getting some of those back.
“That was the first time I ever really smelt blood,” I say, starting in on the second boot, removing it just like I did the first one. My eyes stay locked on her face, on the tranquil blue of her gaze, the hot redness of her lips. “A vibrant copper tang, metallic, like pennies.” I toss the shoe aside, reach up and drag my fingers down the striped sock, slipping it off Serenity's foot. Looks like the beast has finally caught his beauty. Now she's all tied up and waiting. I run my tongue across my lower lip and pray that she's right, that it's not possible for me to break her. “I found my brother first and then my mom … my grandparents.”
“They were dead,” Serenity supplies as I set her foot aside and climb back between her legs, looking down at her with the monster crouching over my shoulder, waiting, watching.
“The men who'd broken in the house—my father being one of them—blew their heads off with shotguns.” Serenity gasps and I get the impression that maybe she'd cover her mouth or something—if she wasn't tied up. “I was young enough that I thought they were melting,” I say and there's absolutely zero inflection my voice, although Serenity's eyes prick with tears at the corners. “My father was in a gang. Thought he was a fucking big shot, tough motherfucker.” I bite all those words off, sharp, edgy, about to break. “A man that kills children while they sleep.”
I reach under Serenity's skirt and curl my fingers around the waistband of her panties, dragging them slowly down her hips, over her pale thighs, the splash of red lace like blood again. Must be a theme. Blood, blood, more blood. Always blood.
“What did you do after you found them?” she asks me quietly, voice still soft, like she's afraid I might spook.
“I ran down the road to the nearest house and told the neighbors that my family was melting.” I reach down and unbutton my jeans. Seems counterintuitive perhaps to want to fuck after a story like that, but it doesn't affect me anymore. Actually, it's never affected me at all. “After that … well, I grew up in foster care. Got lucky enough not to be raped, unlucky enough to be beat. The first person I killed after I patched in to the club was my old man. We cleaned his gang out of Trinidad and when I turned eighteen, I inherited the house by the cemetery, the one where my family was turned into red spatters on their pillows.”
“Oh, Saint,” Serenity says and she's fully crying now. I lift up a hand, rub one of her tears away with my thumb and bring it to my lips. It's salty, like the sea. “I wish I could wrap my arms around you.”
“Don't worry,” I tell her as I reach back and grab her thigh, push it up, open the shimmering wetness of her folds up to view. The story might've upset her, but I made her plenty wet for me before I told it. “You'll get your chance to calm the beast.”
And then I thrust into her, hard and deep, closing my eyes against the sharp sound of her voice as she cries out. I keep her leg pushed up so I can drive in with every last inch of my cock, the pink plushness of her body enveloping me, warming me up where there was only cold before.
I stare down at her, expressionless but hungry, empty but full of need. The sensations make me grit my teeth as I pump my hips, letting my head fall back as Serenity moans and whimpers, tugging against the silk restraints on her wrists. The slick warmth of her body holds me the way her arms can't, wrapping around me, melting the thinnest layer of ice from my monster.
I fuck her hard, without mercy, with fast and deep strokes, letting the strange new sensation of an orgasm crash over me, spilling myself inside of her with a grunt and a quivering of muscles. Immediately, I'm pulling out, standing up, raking the fingers of both hands through my hair as I struggle to breathe.
“It's okay, Saint,” Serenity tells me as I turn back around and stare down at her, the leather of my cut sliding off of one breast, revealing the vibrant pink of her nipple. It looks enticing, almost irresistible with the frantic heavy breaths that she's taking. “It's okay.”
I run my left hand down my right arm, feeling the slightly rough edges of scars where bullets zinged me. I have a half dozen more just like these—an even bigger wound in my right thigh where I got shot through and through last month by those cartel motherfuckers. None of it fazes me, none of it bothers me. Physical pain has long since ceased to mean much.
I grab one of Serenity's stockings from the floor and climb back on the bed, wrapping the black and red striped piece of fabric around her eyes like a blindfold.
“Saint,” she whispers, but she doesn't say the safety word, doesn't ask me to stop. Which is good because I'm just getting started. I sit back and stare at her, stretched out and vulnerable on my bed, the first woman I've ever had in it.
“That piece of silk that's wrapping your wrists, it was my mother's. It's literally the only thing of hers I have left, including photos. How fucked up does it make me that I'd use it for this?”
“I don't think it's fucked up,” Serenity stays, struggling to control her breathing as I push her thighs back and get down on my belly, grabbing her around the hips and putting my mouth to her warm pussy, tasting myself on her body as I flick my tongue out against her folds. She thrashes, struggles, moans. I fantasize briefly about gagging her, but I like the sound of her voice too much, crave the press of her lips. Maybe another time.
I go down on her until she's seizing in my arms, begging me to stop but still refusing to use that word. No matter what she says, I won't stop unless I hear it. My tongue works faster, tracing around her ass, up the pink swollen heat between her thighs, to her clit. When she comes, shuddering and gasping and bucking against my face, I don't stop. I keep going, even as she tells me it's too sensitive, as she screams, her voice echoing around the room. My hands dig into her hips, probably bruising in their strength; I squeeze harder.
Serenity comes a second time, her voice a whimpering sob, her body completely pliant in my arms. When I glance up at her, at those glossy red lips of hers parted and panting, I can feel this … rawness travel through me, this triumph for what I've just done, like it's some sort of accomplishment.
“Saint, Saint, Saint,” she murmurs as I sit up, leaning my body over hers and grabbing her right breast in my hand, kneading the flesh with stiff, angry fingers, feeling the monster's apathy ride over me, its coolness slowly morphing into rage. I have a lot of it, buried deep, and I never let it out to play. It wants out right now.
“If your mouth is full,” I ask icily, running my tongue in a circle around her nipple, “then how will you call out your safety word?”
“I … I don't know,” she whispers. “What would my mouth be full with?”
“My cock.”
I pull some pillows from behind her back, dropping her down enough that she's still propped, but low enough that I can straddle her and tease the full ripe redness of her lips with the head of my dick. I'm hard again, almost rigid, like my body's trying to make up for all those years of denial.
“If you need me to stop, bite down—hard.”
Serenity makes a slight sound of acknowledgement as I grab hold of her hair with my right hand, using every last drop of self-control in me to ease my cock between her lips. As soon as I do, as soon as I feel the slickness of her tongue, the scalding heat of her mouth, my head drops back and I start to thrust, fucking those bright red lips, smearing Serenity's lipstick down my shaft.
I know I'm being rough, too rough maybe, but she'll let me know; I have to trust her like she trusts me. My fingers tighten in her hair, pull her face to me as I move my dick in and out, wishing I could go deeper, knowing I won't be able to do this for long before I break. She whimpers against my flesh, makes these sounds in the back of her throat that drive me up the fucking wall.
My breath comes quick; sweat slicks down my chest and over my tattoos. I can feel that wave cresting again, snea
king up on me, and I start to move harder, faster, more frantic, hitting the back of Serenity's throat. She takes it for a good thirty seconds and then I feel this sharpness around my shaft, the edge of her teeth against my skin.
Within a second, I'm pulling out with a growl, my heart clenching as I hear her gasp and suck in several big lungfuls of air. As she struggles to catch her breath, I slide back down, position my cock at her opening and thrust inside. This time she's so aroused that her sex almost immediately clamps down around me, her back arching in sheer pleasure as she comes again, washing me in hot heat, tearing a second orgasm from my cock. I explode inside of her, my muscles shuddering my mouth dropping to hers as I grab the back of her head again, invade her mouth with my tongue and kiss her long and hard and deep.
“Saint,” she says again, and I notice that tonight, she doesn't call me Glacier. Not even one time. Smart move on her part.
I sit back for a moment, studying the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, my leather vest slung over her shoulders, the smear of red across her mouth. And then I reach up and untie her, letting the red silk scarf flutter across the smooth paleness of her belly.
Serenity tears the blindfold off of her face and looks at me, tears teasing the corners of her eyes as she flings her body against mine and wraps her arms around me, hugging me with a wild fierceness that draws a growl from my throat.
“I'm not done just yet,” I say, but she's burrowing into my neck, climbing onto my lap. I pull her down onto the mattress with me. “Not by a long shot,” I whisper as I bite the edge of her ear and she shivers in my arms.
“I'm sorry for all the things that happened to you, Saint,” she says as she nestles against me, “but I'm here now. I'm here.”
I return her gesture, hugging her back as tightly as she's hugging me, giving us both a moment to breathe, letting the monster roil and rage inside of me. I can feel him thrashing, but I can also feel something else: that warmness inside my chest. Those urges. They mix together inside of me until I get some idea of what I might be looking at: love.