by Callie Hart
It’s been six months and I’m still no closer to finding Alexis, and this really does feel like my last resort. Eli’s smart—he’s given me just enough information to keep my hope alive, but nowhere near enough to risk me backing out of our little arrangement.
Thud, thud, thud.
“Holy shhhh—” The door. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, trapping the curse word behind my teeth. It’s go time.
Mr. Hanson will have collected his key from the chirpy concierge downstairs. I was told to expect the knock. Let’s me know the guy I’m going to be sleeping with is here, and I have to wait in the bathroom until he comes to get me. I pull the door closed and for a brief second a rush of fear grapples hold of me. If I lock myself in here and refuse to come out, how long would he wait until he gets pissed off and leaves? I can’t do that, though. Eli would never hold up his end of the bargain, and besides…none of this matters anymore. None of it. It’s just something I have to get through.
I hear the electronic beep of the key card being accepted into the door, and the rough catch of the lock sliding back. Silence follows after that. The edge of the sink digs into the back of my legs as I remain frozen, leaning heavily against it, before I remember I shouldn’t do that. It’ll mark my body, and that’s against the rules, even temporary marks like that.
Thankfully the drugs begin to kick in, washing over me with a muted sense of peace. A good thing, too, because whoever is out there takes their sweet time in making themselves at home. Without it, I’d have been on the verge of making a run for it by the time a knuckle raps against the door. “Come on out. Turn the light off first,” a voice commands. It’s gruff and full of gravel, maybe the voice of a smoker? Fucking great. I’m going to have to spend the next two hours with my tongue down a smoker’s throat, and then I’m gonna have to bleach my mouth out. I turn the light off and open the door, and I’m perplexed by what I see beyond.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing. The room is pitch black.
“Couldn’t find the light switch?”
“Don’t touch it. Just come here,” the voice tells me. He sounds young enough, and he’s alone. Not that I was expecting more than one guy, of course. Eli swore it would only be the one guy. And only this one time. I step gingerly into the room, wishing I’d paid more attention to where the furniture was positioned before I’d locked myself away. I immediately stub my toe on god only knows what and hiss with pain.
“You okay?” There’s an amused lilt to his voice, which is kind of irritating. What kind of a guy gets off on a girl breaking her toes?
“Well…I can’t see a thing,” I mutter.
“That’s the point, I’m afraid. Come here.”
If I knew where here was, I’d probably be a little less turned around. I try again, and this time I manage to stumble to the bed without colliding with anything else. The mattress dips as I climb onto it, wondering where the hell he is. I’m not half as scared as I should be. In fact, I feel almost a little giddy.
“Sit in the middle of the bed with your hands behind your back,” he whispers. I wonder if he’s going to tie me up. That should bother me. Would bother me any other time.
“Do you need a name?” I ask him; Eli said I should ask.
A low rumble, deep and throaty, breaks the silence of the room and I realize he’s laughing. “Are you offering to tell me your real name?”
“Eli said that’s against the rules.”
“Then no.” The mattress dips again. He’s moving, coming closer. His hot breath grazes across the skin of my neck when he speaks. “I don’t need to call you Melody or Candy or some other fake-ass name. We’ll just be strangers for a while. That square with you?”
“Yeah, I—I guess.”
In the darkness my skin is alive. So are my other senses. My nose keeps on whispering to me, hints of mint and the ocean. Whoever he is, this guy smells incredible. Not a whiff of cigarettes on him at all, which means that voice…that voice is one hundred percent natural. I’m curious about him in the most detached way.
“You done this before? Like this?” he asks me.
“Never.” My breath actually catches in my throat. I’m so spaced out that I can barely think straight, but the lack of lighting in the room is making my heart race. Maybe it’s because this guy could be a serial killer. He could still be a serial killer with the lights on, but at least I’d have the chance to see it in his eyes and run for my life.
Mystery Guy exhales, sending another warm breath across my chest. My nipples harden even though I’m not cold. I’ve never experienced that before. Never. Probably because I’ve never been this close to a guy before. “Place your hands in your lap,” he tells me.
I do it. I jump a little when I feel his hand reach out and touch my leg. “Scared?”
“No.”
He laughs, and it’s a cruel and wicked thing. His hands gently trail up my leg until he finds my hand, where his fingers curl around my wrist. “You’re braver than most girls.”
“You do this with a lot of girls?”
“Yes.”
Well at least he’s honest. He lifts up my hand and brings it toward himself, and stubble prickles against the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist.
“You smell like flowers. What perfume do you wear?”
“Afresia,” I tell him.
“It’s clean. Not too heavy. I like it.”
So glad you approve. I feel like giggling. His nose brushes against my wrist and then the soft touch of his lips follows soon after. The kiss is barely even there, soft and gentle, but I can read a lot from it. His lips are full and he’s gentle with his mouth. That’s unexpected. I fidget on the bed, wondering where this is going. Where his mouth will be going next.
“Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be blind?” he rumbles.
“Why? Are you blind?”
“No. Answer the question.”
“I suppose so. Sometimes.”
He guides my hand upwards and takes it in both of his, un-curling my fingers so that my palm is open. He does it slowly, running calloused fingers down the length of my own, and I can’t help but shiver. It’s a fairly simple thing, but the way he does it feels intimate and considered, not just grabbing and touching for the hell of it. I hold my breath as he guides my hand again, until my fingertips meet his hair, and then down to his face.
“Tell me what you think I look like,” he says, his voice a resonating growl. He lets go of my hand, and I have to lean forward to reach him properly. I shimmy closer, tucking my legs under my butt so I can balance properly, and then I raise my other hand to his face, too.
His hair is short, a little stiff from the styling product he’s got in there; his facial features are strong, pronounced. Jaw’s
a little square, nose mostly straight apart from a slightly flattened part near the ridge of his brow. His eyelashes are surprisingly long, and his lips…I was right. His lips are full and way softer than any guy’s lips have a right to be. Especially a guy with a voice like his. From the tingling pads of my fingers, I can sense this guy has the face of an angel. A barbaric one—maybe like one of those guys who did a lot of smiting back in Babylon.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“I think you’re probably very attractive,” I admit.
He grunts. “And what about the rest of me?”
He applies a little pressure to my forearms so that they travel down to his chest, where my fingers meet with smooth skin and hard-packed, rippling muscle. His pecs twitch as my hands brush lightly over them, and then downward. I come across three horizontal ridges in his skin that shouldn’t be there, to the right of his abs spaced a couple of inches apart, and my fingers draw circles over them, trying to tease their story from them, trying to figure out where they came from. There’s an untold history of violence here, written in the planes of his formidable body. He shakes a little as I explore him, probing with a feather-light touch until I’ve traced my way acr
oss his washboard stomach and up over his obliques. He sucks in a sharp breath and tenses when I do that, and I smile a little. I actually smile. This guy’s ticklish. He doesn’t laugh or tell me not to touch him there, but his body tightens further still when I go over the area one more time to test the theory.
I move up to his shoulders, which are powerful and strong, and I lace my arms around the back of his neck, feeling over his shoulder blades. He’s huge, but I’m not really afraid of him. Of course I should be, yes, but I’m not. The valium has flattened out my fear, and besides, the way I’d imagined this, the guy was going to come in here and want to lay his hands on me; he’d poke and prod and examine every inch of me, and he’d most definitely want to see what he was paying for. So far, this guy has touched me sparingly and that was on the hand.
“Well?” he asks.
“Where did the scars come from?”
“I was stabbed.” He doesn’t ponder on whether he’s going to answer me; he just comes right out and says it.
“Did you nearly die?”
“Yes.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
I let my hands fall from his shoulders and find the scars again, one, two, three of them. They feel jagged and terrible under my fingers. “What happened to the person who did this to you?” I almost don’t want to ask. Mystery Man’s been unnervingly candid since we began this bizarre interaction five minutes ago, and I’m afraid his answer will finally put the fear of God into me.
“He got what was coming to him,” he says softly. The bed sheets rustle when he moves, his stomach muscles contracting under my hands; when he touches my hair, tangling his fingers into it, I’m still trying to decide whether he means he killed whoever did that to him.
“I’m very particular about what I want. You need to do what I ask you without question and this will go nicely for both of us, okay?” he breathes.
A shot of adrenaline finally lights up my nerve endings—the appropriate reaction to my situation. What the hell have I gotten myself into here? Valium or no Valium, I know that sounded like a threat. I’m in way over my head, but there’s little I can do about it. Besides, Alexis. Always Alexis. “I can do that,” I whisper.
“Good. Lie on your back.”
I let go of him and suddenly I feel like I’m afloat in the middle of an ocean, drowning, with no way of saving myself. The sensible, smart part of my brain that still clings onto a vague sense of self-preservation is screaming that I should probably get the hell out of here, and for the first time the wrath of Eli almost isn’t enough to keep me pinned to the bed. But the thought of finding Alexis is. My muscles are jumping, ready to explode into action, when the guy gently takes hold of my right ankle.
“Did you touch yourself today?”
What the?! “Do…do you mean—”
“Have you made yourself come today? Have you played with your pussy?”
My cheeks heat up to an uncomfortable temperature. No one has ever asked me that before. “No. No, I—I haven’t,” I stammer.
“Good. Then you’ll taste so much sweeter.” Instead of hook-ing his fingers under the waistband of my panties and pulling them down, he draws them to one side. My legs lock up when I feel his hot breath skimming over my exposed flesh. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with my hands. This is untrodden ground for me in a very big way. When a guy gives you head, it’s usually because he’s done something very, very bad and needs to make up for it, or at least that’s what Pippa, my only friend in the world, says. I’ve never had a boyfriend to treat me badly in the first place, so I’ve never experienced it myself.
“Do you want me to lick you?” His voice is even deeper now, laden with the promise of sex.
“I want whatever you want,” I gasp. That’s what he’s paying for, after all. That’s what’s going to help me get Lex back. He grips me hard around the top of my leg, squeezing until I cry out.
“That’s not the game we’re playing, here. Own me, or I’ll own you. And trust me…you don’t want that.”
Shit. “Y—yes, I want you to lick me.”
He makes a satisfied grunt and immediately moves, pushing his way between my legs. When his tongue darts out and laps at me, my leg muscles tense up. It feels hot and…and good. What the holy hell? I shouldn’t be reacting like this. Embarrassment prickles at my cheeks. What sort of person am I, enjoying a complete stranger giving me head? And under these circumstances? I can’t help it, though. My whole body feels like it’s being caressed.
His tongue moves expertly, applying a subtle pressure to my clit, stroking up and down in a rhythmic pattern that sends wave after wave of heat crashing through me. I’m just letting go, letting the tension in my arms and legs relax, when he stops lapping and sucks.
“Fuck!”
He doesn’t stop. He growls when I push back against him, rocking into his mouth shamelessly. I’ve never felt anything like this before. It feels…incredible. I’m panting and moaning like an animal when he pulls away, running his hands from the very tops of my knees, down the insides of my thighs to my panties. He rips them off in one swift motion.
“How badly do you want me to fuck you?”
I’m not here because I want to fuck him, but it is my job to make him think I do; yet the lines between acting and the truth are so blurred when I murmur, “Really bad. I want you really bad.”
“Spread your legs,” he commands. I spread them, wonder-ing what’s coming next. The room is like a black void, so dark I can’t even make out the shadow of him as he moves quickly around the bed. I hear a zip being undone and then the rattle of metal, like a buckle being undone. Sucking my bottom lip into my mouth, I wait for him to do whatever he’s about to do, worryingly piqued with curiosity. He restrains my left leg first, strapping something wide and tight around it and then affix-ing it to the bed. My right leg is next, and then he carefully does the same to my wrists. I’m starfished on the bed and completely vulnerable. His restraints aren’t the kind for show; they’re the kind made to stop people from getting away, and I’m sure as hell not going anywhere. Six months ago, I might have said a prayer. Now I just whimper, half out of fear and half out of anticipation.
He climbs up onto the bed, kneeling at my side, his breath still playing across me. I tense when I feel something cold and hard press against the skin of my stomach. “Are you still a brave girl?”
“Yes,” I exhale.
He doesn’t reply or tell me what he’s going to do. The cool, sharp object he’s leaning into my skin travels slowly upwards until it’s poised directly under my breasts. I gasp lungful after lungful of air into my lungs, trying to keep still, because I know what it is he’s got in his hand: it’s a knife. A really fucking sharp knife.
His fingertip lifts the underwire of my bra in the middle, and then in a single, clean sweep, it springs apart, freeing my breasts. He cut through my bra! This is the most exposed, terrified, exhilarated I’ve ever felt. My Mystery Man straddles me, and the material of his pants, rough, slides up against my sides. He lays the flat, cool edge of his knife against my right nipple, sending a bolt of panic through me.
“Don’t move,” he whispers. I don’t move. I am the stillest still thing ever. He leans down and touches me, his hand finally finding my breast. “You’re so fucking perfect,” he breathes. “So well behaved.” And then his mouth is on my nipple, licking and sucking, hotter than anything I’ve ever felt before. My back arches up off the bed, and he chuckles. “You want me inside you?”
“Yes.”
“You sure? Be careful what you wish for.”
I wish for death on a daily basis. I wish for pain and suffering and blood and misery upon the heads of those who took my sister. Wishing for this feels just as dangerous but somehow safer than all that at the same time. He wanted me to own him, and despite the fact that he’s tied me up now, I still think that’s what he wants. I brace, hoping this is the right thing, and I demand, “Do it. Fuck me now. D
on’t make me wait any longer.”
The knife vanishes from my skin. He shifts off the bed, and I hear him undoing his pants; slipping them off; the swish of him drawing something hard over something soft. Panic sings through me again when I hear another buckle.
“Ready?”
There’s no backing out of it now. “I’m ready.”
And he does something I hadn’t even considered. Not even for a second. He threads a loop of leather over my head—his belt—and cinches it tight. I’m in trouble now.
“Open your mouth.”
“I—”
“Do it.” The tone of his voice is firm yet gentle at the same time. He brushes a hand down the side of my face, a reassuring gesture —this is scary right now, but trust me. Trust him? I’d be fucking mad to trust him. And yet I do what he tells me to. He pushes forward and guides his cock into my mouth. I’ve never done this before, so I’m basically wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do now. He’s rock hard and tastes clean and slightly musky…and he’s massive. I can barely fit him inside my mouth. I can tell he only fits half the length of him inside before he hits the back of my throat.
“Shit!” He hisses as I suck, forming a vacuum around him. I think I got that part right. His hips rock back and he slides out of my mouth causing a wet popping noise. “Still think you want me inside you?” He knows just how big he is; he’s fucking smug about it. This is going to hurt like nothing else, but I don’t want him to realize I’m a virgin. Even Eli doesn’t know that part. I’m sure he would have charged this guy a whole lot more if he did, and that thought just turns my stomach.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Yes, I want you.”
“Good. But let’s do this first.” He fists a handful of my hair and lifts my head closer to him, and then he pushes back inside my mouth, thrusting in and out while applying a gentle pressure to the back of my head. I writhe on the bed, surprising myself with how much this turns me on. I’m floored when he tugs on the belt strap, though.