by Ace Gray
My name dripped from her lips.
“Holy shit,” I swore again when she bucked wildly, grinding herself onto my hand.
I slid a second finger into her and tried to slow her desperate body. She tried to thrust again, but I spread my fingers wide and pressed into the front of her. She gasped as she froze, back arched almost exorcist style off the bed. I leaned up on my elbow to get a better look at her.
Orgasm was written plain on her face. Her mouth had dropped into an O and her breathing ticked up. I used my free fingers to swipe at the fabric of her shirt, roving over her breasts as I pivoted at the elbow. Her nipples rose up as soon as cool air kissed them.
My mouth watered. And a moment later, I bent down. The tip of my tongue skated across the suede leather softness that was her nipple. I purred as I closed my lips around her and sucked. She groaned and her hips rolled, coaxing my hand to move in time with the gentle laps of my tongue.
“Brye,” she cried out so loudly I twisted toward my own siren song, her nipple still trapped between my lips.
She was beautiful in her vulnerability, her face contorted, her body rigid. There was something pure and precious about her. And as I watched, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d taken advantage of her defenselessness. I was used to being a force of devastation but not in this way. Not under the ruse of giving when I was really taking. Not under the ruse of being a dream guy.
I was a nightmare.
My hand slowed as I questioned not only what I was doing but why. Why had I let her think I was worthy?
Her wild howl broke through the raucous in my head and the relative silence of the night, her body shook. I sat back and watched her tremble, feeling the chatter of her body in my bones. Feeling that orgasm lock me up tight every bit as much as it unhinged her. She slowly sagged back into my mattress, her ragged breathing the only sign that she’d been at my mercy a moment before. She hummed, content, then turned to curl into my body.
“Oh my God, Brye.”
“God is not my biggest fan,” I answered softly.
Brye was silent beside me. As my heart slowed and stopped ping-ponging off my rib cage, I realized just how silent. And that he had been for the most part even as he fingered me.
I had been dreaming of him, of the perfect version of him when I woke to find him wrapped around me. I should have punched him or kicked him in the steel pipe of a dick he was pressing into me. Or slapped him. Or spit in his face. But if I was being honest with myself, I wanted affection.
And I craved it from him.
I had no right to, he’d earned nothing from me. But there were those honest moments. Those glimpses of the man that had bewitched me with his dark magic. His dark magic that I had craved. He spoke to me on an elemental level and for the briefest moment, I surrendered to that.
And thank God.
That orgasm had me seeing colors. Brilliant gold, glistening emerald, pure ice blue. I was Dorothy leaving Kansas and finding Oz, seeing in technicolor for the first time. Color reminded me of all the good in the world and it brightened my heavy heart. I couldn’t help but purr as I stretched and flexed my Jell-O limbs around him.
He didn’t even move.
“Brye?”
He turned toward me and I had to crane my neck where I laid to see his face. His face that was riddled with darkness and crinkled with frown lines.
“I can return the favor,” I offered even though the idea of living up to him—to that—made me tense.
As soon as I started sliding my hand down his body, he captured my wrist. “No,” he said sharply, but then he softened it with a kiss to my palm.
“What do you mean no?”
But before he answered, insecurity flared in my chest. This world of sex wasn’t something that I knew—hell, sex was barely something that I knew. I tried to pull away, but he just used his grip to yank me back into his body.
“I owed you,” he said, but there was another layer to his voice. “Tit,” he brushed my nipple. “For tat.” He pressed his cock into my hip.
I wanted to ask him what he wasn’t saying. I wanted to know the shape of what was between us. But then I realized the question he hadn’t answered before. I rode the high of his fingers without realizing the fall I’d suffer from his truth.
“What did that just mean to you?” I couldn’t help but ask; I was the girl with the shimmer and color behind her eyes, blinding her to the darkness incarnate beside her.
“Filly,” he started softly but couldn’t answer. Instead he reached down and wound his fingers in with mine. “Maybe just don’t say anything?”
Him using my words from earlier could have sounded like a high-handed shush, but there was something rich and sweet and eternally sorrowful about them. And my heart cracked a little further when he took our interlaced hands and rested them on top of his chest.
I’d dreamt more about Brye. About his technicolor touches. And his consuming kisses. When the sun warmed my eyelids enough that they fluttered open and I found my hand still in his, that was what I regretted about last night. I hadn’t gotten to kiss him again.
“Mmmm.” I turned on my side and pulled his hand to my lips. I let my lips brush his knuckles.
He nestled against his pillow and a slight smile plied his lips. I studied his chiseled chest in the morning light. My free fingers reached up as they liked to and ran along the contour of his perfect pecs. A hint of shadowed scruff clung to his chin, just a tiny bit shorter than his actual hair. Sunshine painted him a halo.
That was how I would paint him. With his darkness dissolving, with my hope that it could, on display.
I realized with a soft chuckle that I’d decided to paint him three or four different ways in the few days I’d met him.
“Better than the basement?” he asked with a husky, sleep-laced voice.
“You’re a jerk.” I smiled.
“You don’t really think that.”
“I do.”
He used his long legs to tangle up with mine and those beefcake arms to reel me in completely.
“You don’t. You told me so.” He leaned in close. Too close. His nose learning the curve of my face. “You destroyed that pillow wall then begged me.”
“You destroyed that pillow wall.” I shoved my pointer finger into his chest letting my smile spread and the brightness he’d given me last night shine.
“And does that make me a jerk?”
I studied him noticing that sleep still hung on his sharp features and softened them. His eyes met mine—the eyes of an inquisitive artist—but the sadness that had haunted our few words last night still lingered beneath his eyes.
“You told me about that painting, After the Bath, Woman Drying her Nape, that first night. I should have treated you more carefully in the tub last night.”
“What?”
“I should be gentle with you.”
“What if I don’t want gentle, Brye? What if I want you?” My body bent toward his all on its own, pressing my breasts against his chest and notching my hips against his. I let my hand slide between us, lower, and lower. “I’ll tell you what I want.” Everything that had happened between us urged me to do it. To say the words.
“You couldn’t say it with a straight face before.” A little bit of light flashed behind his eyes.
“I can tell you that I want your hands on me. That I want your…” I swallowed on the word dick then felt it press against my thigh and resolved to do it.
“Say it.” He smirked and slid on top of me. “Tell me you want my dick.” He dropped his face to mine and shifted so his cock was notched between the valley of my thighs. If he hadn’t been wearing clothes, he would have been close enough to tease me.
I pressed my thighs together on instinct. When I trapped him, he groaned and the ghost of his lips traced mine.
A deep but subtle cough followed by a few small knocks froze both our bodies. “Am I interrupting?” Emmett’s voice was more acidic than I remembered from the basement and my blood went cold.
Brye snarled as he rolled onto his back away from me and glowered at the doorframe. My eyes drank in the contours of Brye’s body before they lifted to the door.
“Oh my God,” I gasped as I shot up, clinging sheets to my chest.
Emmett’s face was misshapen and peppered with scrapes and bruises. The way he held himself spoke of pain, but he tried to straighten himself when he noticed my gaze.
“What did you want, Emmett?” Brye’s voice was barbed and ready to splice open Emmett’s skin.
“You father has requested your presence downstairs. Twenty minutes.” He folded his arms across his barrel chest and widened his stance only to heave a little.
“Thank you.” Brye waved him off, but Emmett didn’t budge.
“Bring her.”
“Fuck you.”
A shiver rolled up my spine and I cuddled into the sheet I was holding that much more.
“Messenger,” he said by way of an excuse as he narrowed his gaze and turned.
“Don’t they usually get shot?” The corner of Brye’s smirk pulled up and Emmett’s shoulders seemed to tense the slightest bit.
“Are you going to hurt him?” I asked, my voice trembling at the thought of more bloodshed.
“Already did.” Brye didn’t turn, and the shadow that had lapped at his skin had returned.
I drew my knees up and cradled my chin in the valley between them. His flesh rippled and rolled in front of me as I stared into space and I thought about fallen angels. About wings too broken to soar. It wasn’t until ice blue filled my gaze completely did I snap back. Even then I swam in the color for a moment, studying the white that laid down in small stripes next to varying shades of blue was somehow frosty and pure all at once.
“This is the life we lead, Filly,” he said softly.
“I’m so sorry for it.”
And I was. Down into my bones. That anyone slept with murder and breathed in hurt, picked at the edges of my being.
“Don’t be.”
“Haven’t you ever wondered who you could have been?” I couldn’t help myself.
“No.” He reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Not until you got here.”
Brye stood and snatched something Emmett had brought up before turning for the bathroom. He was gone before he noticed that he’d stolen my breath away. My chest tightened and my fingers pressed into my shins. The man from the museum was back and toying with my heart.
I stood, snatching covers to shield me, and followed Brye into the bathroom. He shoved his boxer briefs down and treated me to the most perfect sculpt of horseshoe-shaped flesh I’d ever seen. His long, muscled torso gave way to a scrumptious ass as if he’d been carved. The whipping scars had to mar his flesh, or he would have been too perfect. His wings were breathtaking and nothing less.
He bent with a wince and lowered himself into the tub with a louder, more violent curse. I got the tiniest glimpse of his manhood as he folded in on himself and almost swore myself.
Brye wasn’t an angel. He was a god. He just hadn’t decided whether to rule over Heaven or Hell.
“I’d ask you to join Filly, but…” His voice trailed off as he swirled his hands and small little cubes clanked against the porcelain.
“Is that ice? Why?”
“Easiest way to heal.”
“Can I…?” I gestured limply like I might hold him, like I might heal him.
“Help me?” he scoffed, stiff with cold. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Maybe this time you do.”
The floral dress looked perfect on Filly. Not because it was particularly fancy or the fabric luxe, but because she was wearing it. And mixed with her golden hair, I could picture laying in a field with no other cares besides the sun on my face and the smell of summer wafting through the tall wildflowers.
She’d be there.
I wouldn’t deserve her.
Because no matter what goodness she brought out in me, it was uncomfortable, pulling at my skin like the fresh bandages she’d placed on my back with a delicate touch. Something had shifted between us overnight. She’d found some modicum of forgiveness. I’d doled out some twisted version of affection. The ship we were on was still sinking just as bad as the Titanic, but for a moment, we’d plugged up two little holes with bubble gum.
“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” I warned as I adjusted the button of my suit jacket. “And remember being bait is a hell of a lot better than being dead.”
I glared at her awaiting a response. When she bit her lip, my teeth felt her flesh below them, my tongue could imagine her taste. I wanted more of her, even if I stole it from her like last night. Even if my father handed it out.
“I don’t want to hear more about my family,” she murmured, folding her hands in on themselves. “I don’t want to forgive them any more than I want to forgive you.”
My brow creased and I nodded once, unable to swim through the murky water that put us in. Instead, I simply gestured for her to follow behind me. My heart rattled in my ribs, my breath choked in my throat as my footsteps clapped on each stair. I’d faced him so many times but this time…
“Brye, my monster, my boy,” my dad called from his seat at the head of the table.
I studied him as I walked in. He seemed calm and cool as he templed his fingers over the top of his fine porcelain coffee cup. The limp smile that hung on his face was his most terrifying, the one that I could never quite decipher.
“You wanted to see us.” I crossed my arms on my chest and schooled my face into a completely disinterested mask.
“Tell me about her.” He cocked his head, waiting, then reached down to pop a single grape into his mouth.
“I’d rather not.”
“I’m going to find out.” He took a sip of coffee and flipped the newspaper page in front of him.
“Like hell.”
He didn’t look up. “I’m having the boys over for dinner.”
“Always enjoy a dinner party.” I shrugged even though my chest twinged. The idea of fucking another woman with Filly upstairs…
“I expect her to be there.”
“What?”
No.
She stepped closer and I felt her fingers clutch into my suit jacket.
“You heard me. I want her to watch.” The corners of his wicked smile seemed to curl in on themselves.
“She’s not a toy. We can’t break her.”
“That’s exactly what she is.” He stood and strode to us. I didn’t flinch when he stepped behind me. In my periphery, I saw him curl his hand and brush his knuckles along her collarbone. “Think of what good ole papa Ryan will do when his girl is raped, ravaged and bleeding on camera.”
She tugged on my suit jacket, but I stayed stock still. The card game we’d been playing had been Go Fish and she was what I was after. Somewhere along the line, the rules had changed, the ante had been upped and now bluffing was more important than ever. My father palmed her breast and an infinite and savage roar deafened behind my ears.
“I want to be the one that does it when the time comes.” The green beast inside me wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Perhaps.”
“What am I waiting for then?” I asked, uncaring, unfeeling.
Filly’s hands fell from my jacket.
“The right moment.” He shrugged and returned the way he’d come, folding into his chair with jerky movements. The twitch he got in his left eye and the set of his jaw told me how his body ached today. How heads would roll.
He picked back up the paper and reached for his coffee cup, sipping as if this was as natural breathing in and out. In and out. I turned to leave.
“I have a present for you Filly.” My dad spoke from behind his paper.
The loud clunk of something small but substantial accompanied the plastic tinkle of a few smaller items hit the table just beside us courtesy of some underling. I knew what he’d laid out before I turned. I took a deep breath and reached for her
just as she gasped. She stepped past me with a trembling lip and twinkle already shining in the corners of her eyes.
That painting would have been entitled The Loss of Hope and I saw the colors so vivid, felt the raw emotion as much as any of the masters. “Filly,” I breathed.
“That’s my phone.” Her voice wavered in time with her bottom lip.
“And your passport and your credit cards,” my dad added matter of fact. “Destroyed.”
I didn’t say a word, but she let me keep my arm around her stomach as her knees wavered.
“I can’t call them. They can’t find me. I couldn’t go…” Her pained whisper was harder on my heart than I cared to admit.
“I told you not to speak unless you’re spoken to,” I grit through clenched teeth.
“Would you really want to hear from them? Those filthy fucks that lied to you? I bet they’d keep lying to you.” She sagged farther, a dead weight on my arm full of tears and troubles. “They’re going to fight to get you back, I’ll make sure of it. You won’t want them to. You won’t want anything but death. I’ll make sure of that as well.”
My heart stopped. Flat. It physically hurt, like something had slipped from inside and the gaping hole was a whipping wind tunnel.
“Are we finished? I have shit to do today, particularly if I have to be home in time for supper.” I forced myself to say the words. They were as hollow as my chest.
He waved me off and I pulled her into me as I swept her broken things off the table. She was almost as weightless as them as I pulled her out of the room. Her feet worked for a minute, but then they bumbled on themselves. I took more of her weight in my forearm until she sobbed hard enough to make me lose balance.
“Hey,” I said softly as I balanced us against the nearest wall.
Sunshine fell across her face and turned her hair golden as gentle sobs shook her chest.
“Hey,” I repeated. “Where’s the girl that slapped me and spit in my face? You’re stronger than this.” I leaned against her, hoping the weight of my body would keep her falling to pieces. My lips brushed her hair.
“How much is one person supposed to take?”
