by Esme Devlin
“You would?”
“I would.”
He lets out a slow laugh, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck, and I can’t even fully explain why. “Very well. I shall have to relieve you of such foolish desires.”
He reaches out, grabbing hold of my arm before I can make any move to dart back.
My reactions are slow due to being away from him.
Due to the fact it’s not really him.
Well, it is him, but it’s not. I don’t know.
He yanks me with him toward the bed. My heart beats inside my ears. “What are you doing?”
Nothing.
Silence.
I’ve learned to fear what he’s thinking more when he says nothing at all.
“Baron?”
“You want my face? You shall have it. You shall have everything you want, precious girl. But I won’t have you gazing at it with love hearts for eyes. No, none of that.”
He lifts me up and perches me on the wooden footboard of the bed, nestled in between two of the bars.
“You can learn to both loathe and crave this face as much as you did the last one.”
“Wait,” I cry.
“No.” He pushes me back but grabs hold of my legs before I can topple all the way over.
My body tilts up at the most unnatural angle, and I try to get up on my elbows, try to pull myself back up, but he leans over and locks his arm across my rib cage. “Stay. Don’t make me threaten you, little girl. You know what that does to me.”
My insides twist as I bite down on my lip and watch him drop to his knees.
His hands lock around my legs, spreading them wider than I thought possible, short fingernails digging into my skin.
“Beautiful,” he whispers, trailing kisses up the inside of my thigh. “Tell me,” he says, biting down hard and making me squirm. “Did anyone put their hands on you while you were gone?”
“No.” The word comes out hoarse, and I try again. “No.”
He chuckles. “Good. But tell me they did. Tell me someone else put their fingers right… here.”
He brushes over my clit with a single featherlight finger, and I gasp at the sensation. “Why… why would I do that?”
His other hand joins in, fingers dragging down my slit, and nothing can stop me from squirming. “Because someone could have. Someone could have touched what belongs to me.”
“But they didn’t.”
“But they could have,” he snaps. “You chose to follow. You would have left, had Celeste not wagged her tongue. Someone else could have had this because of those choices. And they were your choices.”
I try to get up, to shake my head, to argue, but he drives his fingers deep inside me and my actions, my words, turn to nothing.
“Hmm, what was that? Were you trying to say something?” He curves his fingers around inside me, fully aware of what he’s doing to me and reveling in it.
“I’m sorry.”
He lets out a laugh. “No, sweet girl. No, you are not. But you will be.”
“I am—”
“I’m going to remind you who this—” He drags his fingers out and slaps me between the legs. Hard. “—belongs to. I’m going to force you to the edge, again and again. And all you have to do is tell me to stop… just before you get there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if you come, sweet girl, you lose. And if you lose, I win. And if I win, I’m going to take a knife and scratch my name into your thighs. And if you let me win a second time, I’m going to scratch it into your stomach. Your back. I’m going to mark every fucking part of your beautiful little body so you can’t even open your eyes without seeing my name. Understand?”
He doesn’t wait for me to reply before ducking down and burying his face between my thighs, lapping and swirling over every exposed part of me.
He won’t do it.
Threats.
I know he won’t.
All this time and he’s never properly hurt me physically. Not like that.
I’m mostly convinced about that, but it doesn’t stop me screaming the word stop as soon as I feel the first stirrings of an orgasm.
He pulls back the same moment the word crosses my lips, leaving me panting and gasping for breath. Gasping for more.
“Already? It’s going to be a long night.” He exhales, harshly and deliberately, over my spread wet pussy, and my ass lifts even higher in the air from the sensation.
I believe that threat. And I can’t do this all night.
My thoughts swirl as I try to think of a way to outsmart him. To make it so that I don’t have to lose, and he doesn’t have to win. Because there is no way for me to win this game.
Or at least if there is, I can’t figure it out.
So I choose to do the only thing I can do.
I change the rules.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, my voice as sweet as chocolate. “You’re just so much better than the last guy.”
He laughs without opening his mouth, a cruel throaty sound that I feel in the pit of my stomach.
His grip on my legs tightens as he gets to his feet and then he lets go of me completely. “A rather risky strategy… wouldn't you agree?”
I smile up at him. “I would have tried hard to win, and you wouldn’t have let me, but neither would you have let me lose, because then you’d have had to follow through on your threats.”
“You think I wouldn’t?”
“You don’t get off on my pain,” I tell him, shaking my head. “You get off on my discomfort.”
He tilts his chin, as if he’s inspecting me, and I feel even more exposed—if that’s possible. I shuffle up the bed, unhooking myself from the headboard and closing my legs.
“You’d have just thought of another game where the result could only be exactly what you wanted in the first place,” I continue.
He looks at me like he’s just taught me a new trick, the way a proud owner looks at a beloved pet. Then, as if remembering I can see all of his expressions and catching himself, he rolls his eyes dramatically. “I think I rather preferred you before.”
I let out a single laugh as he walks around the bed and pulls back the heavy drape. “Then you can learn to both loathe and crave this new me, just as you did the old one.”
He chuckles at that before pulling his bloody shirt over his head and undoing the buckle on his belt.
I look him over. He’s going to be bruised tomorrow.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He glances down at my mostly flat stomach before removing the rest of his clothes and sitting down on the bed.
“I don’t know.”
He shifts down, splitting my legs apart and lying down, eyes level with my belly. “Then think about it until you do know.”
I shake my head. “I guess I felt like I needed to protect him.”
“From me?”
“From what you would make him.”
He smirks before glancing up at me through long dark lashes. “You would rather he was weak?”
I shake my head. “When you put it like that…”
“I’ll never hurt him, Sapphire. I said I’d never hurt you, either, and I haven’t. Not really. Everything I’ve done to you has made you smarter. Faster up here. Stronger up here.” He points to his temple.
“I know.”
He leans down and kisses just below my belly button.
“Don’t leave me again, sweet girl.”
“I won’t.”
He gives a lazy smile and crawls up the bed toward me, kicking my legs apart with his knees.
“Tell me again,” he says, lining himself up with my entrance. “Tell me again while I fuck what’s mine.”
I open my mouth to speak, but that turns into a gasp when he forces himself, and all three of those metal bars, inside me.
“Tell me,” he demands, pulling back an inch just to drive into me again even harder.
My hands grip the sides of his body, face buried into his
chest. I know he doesn’t want to hear it, but he needs to. “I love you.”
His whole body freezes for a moment and then he lifts himself up on his hands. “Don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the one who loves you. All you have to do is stay with me. Promise me that. Promise me you’ll always be mine.”
I nod my head just as he catches it between his hands and crashes his lips down against mine. “I promise.”
Continue the story in Torment……
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Esme-Devlin/e/B07QVFC6LS
USA: https://www.amazon.com/Esme-Devlin/e/B07QVFC6LS
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As always, thank you so much for reading and sticking with me while this book dragged me over the coals. These characters are SO special to me which, unbelievably, makes them harder to write. I basically wrote this while battling insomnia, lying in bed at night wide awake and taking my mind for a wee wander down dark paths just for something fun to do. Then I’d drag my ass out of bed and hammer out a chapter with no idea where I was going.
