Faithless

by E. S. Carter

  I nod. I can’t ask him the one thing I’m desperate to know—if Alice is okay—so instead, I say, “Thank you for coming for me.”

  When my eyes once more find his, his gaze burns and I’m not sure if it’s fury or lust.

  “I’m not done with you yet.”

  “Yet?” I ask, needing to poke the beast.

  “Yet,” he issues the word like a decree.

  “And what if I am?” My cock, bless its poor deprived heart, tries to twitch despite the fact I likely don’t have enough extra blood for it to get a boner.

  “You’re not,” he says simply, a twitch tickling the corner of his lips before he pointedly looks at the not so discreet rising of the sheet at my hips.

  I feel my face burn, but I don’t turn away.

  This man turns me inside out. He makes me feel alive, and after years of only pretending to be present, he makes me vital, animated… real. Not a ghost—a shell of a man going through the motions.

  And with that knowledge comes shame.

  Alice should be enough for me to be alive. And she is. She’s the only reason I didn’t swallow the business end of my revolver. But, he’s awoken something in me. Yes, it’s dark, but there’s something beautiful about it, too.

  I feel.

  It’s not merely sexual. I feel everything. It’s like he’s unlocked something inside me and life has burst free in glorious technicolour whereas before it was only shades of grey.

  “I’m not,” I finally confess, and I feel him come closer still.

  The wound in my side twinges as I shift. The gleam in his eyes suggests he’s likely to pounce and fuck whatever life I have left in me out of me.

  That is until thumping footsteps bound up the stairs and Grim bursts into the room.

  He stops half in half out of the threshold. The gleam in his eyes borderline maniacal.

  “He’s awake,” he says when his tongue catches up with his brain.

  “Yes,” Luke says sarcastically. “James, your brother, has awoken.”

  Grim seems to lose his tongue once more, and when he recovers he shifts and I can see he’s hiding something just out of sight.

  “Good,” he says giving us both a toothy grin and the scar on his face puckers and crinkles. “I have a present for you, so be grateful because I don’t normally share my trophies.”

  Luke stands and opens his mouth to halt Grim, but the other man ignores him and happily tosses first a decapitated head, and then two hands into the room from a rucksack at his side. The hands land with a thump, but the head rolls once and then settles with the face staring up at the ceiling. It’s then I notice the person is missing an ear and an eye. When I look back at my brother, I see a fresh ear around his neck on an extra chain. It hangs lower than the trophy he never removes—the diamond studded ear of our mother.

  “Thanks for the show and tell,” Luke mutters as he stares down at the three body parts. “But you could have just told us with words that you’d found Federov.”

  “I’ve found Federov,” Grim retorts.

  “Good job, Grim,” I say easily. His moniker slipping naturally from my lips as I slide quietly back into the depths of sleep, fatigue and the realisation Federov is finally dead seeps into my bones. “Wait,” I splutter, my eyes shooting open. “The girl I was supposed to collect?”

  I look from Luke to Grim, and both remain silent.

  “Did you find her at all?”

  Luke shakes his head. “Always the bleeding heart. That’s what got you stabbed.”

  “That’s not an answer,” I grit, shifting on the bed and muttering a curse when my side twinges.

  “Cole and Faye are tracking down where Federov moved his stock. After your call to her and the message she sent Cole when we were stuck playing Federov’s game, she flew over.” He shakes his head and looks off to the side with a face filled with disdain. “Cole allows her too much freedom.”

  “She’s his wife, not his pet.”

  His eyes flash to mine, and I spare a brief glance at Grim who is watching our exchange with perverse fascination.

  “As much as I wish to discuss the fine details of this with you, you’re in no fit state. Go to sleep.”

  My cock once more twitches at his tone. I want to slap it for being such a traitor.

  But sleep I do, and not because he commanded it.

  Twenty-Two

  Luke

  * * *

  Finding him unresponsive on that river bank did something to me.

  I expected rage. I waited for it.

  Fury was there in the darkness, but it was secondary to panic, worry, and… devastation.

  It was unfamiliar and yet familiar.

  I’d only felt like this once before, and it was seared into me like a brand.

  After the doctor had done his job, likely made harder by me hovering at his shoulder, I’d slept in the chair at his bedside like a worried lover.

  For two days, I held vigil, shooting awake any time he shifted or moaned. He’d dreamed, too. Calling out the name Fiona in despair and begging for a Louis to come back.

  My monster stalked the perimeter of its cage, slashing at my ribs in jealousy. Until it was my name whispered on his lips.

  Luke. Luke. Luke.

  Hearing it made time stop.

  Even my monster laid on his belly and listened.

  He’d stilled then. My name the last thing on his lips until he’d awoken.

  I wanted to crawl into the bed next to him. I wanted to mark him, but not only in the way you’d expect. I’d wanted to scent him, to wrap myself around him until he became me.

  It was unsettling.

  All I should want from him was to fuck. To ruin and take. To bruise and cut. To own.

  * * *

  When James had the all clear to travel a day later, we’d left behind Grim, Cole and Faye.

  Cole made a lot of promises before we left.

  To James, he’d vowed to find the girl he’d been searching for, and to Faye, he’d promised to recover the body of the sister whom she’d never got to meet.

  I had no investment in either of those promises, and, contrary to James’ beliefs, he wasn’t being taken back to his headquarters but to Hunter Lodge.

  I’d told him I wasn’t done with him yet, and I never say things I don’t mean.

  So, here we are, a week later, and I’ve done nothing more than keep him.

  He’s getting antsy to leave, and I continue making excuses why he must stay. He can go when I’ve had my fill, and the way I feel right now, unable to take what I want from him when I want it, my appetite for him is limitless.

  * * *

  “I’m leaving this afternoon,” James announces as he walks into my study without knocking. “I’ve been here ten days. I have a business to run and people that need me.”

  “The doctor hasn’t given you the all clear,” I say flatly without raising my head from the documents in my hand.

  “And, I don’t give a shit. I’ve called for a driver. He’ll be here in two hours,” he says equally toneless.

  I fight the urge I have to show him my basement, but when I look up into his challenging stare, the urge wins.

  I stare at him a beat watching him refuse to back down. His defiant stance and complete confidence in himself has me wanting to break him into tiny pieces.

  Decision made, I push abruptly up from the table, my heavy chair screeching across the polished wood floor.

  “Two hours,” I muse, my monster coiled and ready to attack. I slip off my dark-framed glasses and carefully close them before placing them perpendicular to the papers on my desk. James watches my every move. “A lot can happen in two hours. Come. Let me show you something.”

  His eyebrow quirks, but he follows as I knew he would.

  I lead him through the maze of Hunter Hall rooms until we get to the security door that leads to my underworld. The place I rule. The place where everything inside belongs to me. My thumbprint opens the bio-entry lock
, and the door cracks open with a hiss.

  “I have no interest in seeing your pets,” James says at my back, and as I glance at him over my shoulder, he takes a step away.

  “My pets have been released. I have no use for them right now.” I didn’t want to give him this confession, but needs must. I’ll drag him into my lair if I must. My monster agrees, bearing his teeth.

  The look on his face says he doesn’t believe me, but he can’t hide his eagerness. He’s greedy for the knowledge hidden behind this door.

  “Come, James.”

  I see the spark in his gaze at my command.

  “Don’t make me tell you again.”

  He shifts on his feet at my warning, and I bet if I cupped between his legs, he’d be hard. He’s probably been hard since I told him to follow me out of my study.

  Indecision paints his face, and I allow myself a brief pause to drink him in. His brown eyes are like melted chocolate, not almost black like mine, they contain heat and warmth. Stubble covers his strong jaw, not cultivated and trimmed as usual, more rugged and unkempt, and his brown hair is a little longer than he typically wears it. It begs to be fisted while I force my cock down his throat.

  “James.” I use his name as a warning. My patience is thinning.

  He visibly swallows and I watch his throat ripple, my desire to either grab it or sink my teeth into it nearly overwhelming.

  “Lead the way,” he says after a moment’s pause. “But I will be leaving in two hours.”

  I force down my grin of triumph and the words ‘That’s what you think.’ Let him believe he still has some say in this.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  By five, I can hear his composure slip as he quietly clears his throat.

  Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

  His steps sync with mine, but his breathing is becoming uneven and I smile knowing what I have planned.

  Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

  “Surely you can afford to run electricity down here,” he jokes, but it’s a weak attempt at feeling in control.

  Fourteen. Fifteen.

  My shoes hit the polished concrete floor, and I see no point in further delay. My hand finds the switch on the wall, and the single bare bulb sizzles with electricity as it spotlights the new piece of furniture I’ve had installed beneath.

  James steps past me and walks towards it, his hand reaching out to trace the supple leather.

  He laughs. His smiling eyes finding mine with a mixture of relief and disappointment.

  “A bed?” he asks disbelievingly. “You have this place locked down for a leather covered bed? How vanilla.”

  His words aren’t mocking, they are teasing.

  I look and try to see what he sees. An emperor-sized bed, the mattress covered in soft, supple, black leather. The pillows black silk. Four posts, one on each corner, could make it seem innocent. Until I push a button to raise them, then another that slides a metal canopy from the wall. It locks in place like a roof, the crisscrossed metalwork both beautiful and darkly alluring, especially when James turns at the sound of chains.

  “Strip,” I order him before I pull my ace card and show him what I have in store. If he weren’t still healing, I’d have his firm body stretched taut from the canopied ceiling, every inch of muscle and skin on display. All his holes ready to accept whatever I wished to fill them with. But he wouldn’t get to come. Oh, no. He’d be there for hours. I’d use him until he was poised at the very edge, then I’d paint his flawless skin with my cum. I’d leave it there to dry and flake. Then I’d come back and do it again, and again, and again.

  His cock would grow angry, red and painful. His balls a hair-trigger from bursting. But I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t allow it until he begged. And something tells me it would take a long time for James to submit to me this time.

  Whatever happened to him after Lily stabbed him in Hungary has changed him.

  But, I’m here to bring him back.

  He blinks at me as if he didn’t hear my command, so I walk to one of the counters lined up against the back wall and select a tool for the job. Keeping it concealed at my side, I walk straight up to him and stare him down.

  “Did you not hear me just then? Or did you choose to disobey?”

  “I’m not staying,” he throws back.

  The item in my hand is out and slicing through the front of his shirt from neck to waist before he can process what I’ve just done. The two halves of the fabric split, and using the tip of the small, sharp knife, I push the material off his shoulders to gather at his wrists.

  He smirks at me. Not the reaction I was expecting.

  “It had buttons.”

  I ignore his teasing tone.

  “Every time you refuse to obey, I’ll take. You need to learn that.”

  “You don’t want me to obey,” he states, his voice catching on the last word as I carefully scrape the tip of my knife around his left nipple, watching as it puckers into a tight bud.

  “I enjoy your submission as much as I do your fight.”

  It’s a truth. One I’m again surprised I offer him willingly.

  “I’m leaving in under two hours,” he voices again as I move to do the same to his other nipple, only he flinches, and my knife nicks a perfect centimetre long line beneath his dark areola. Blood blooms but doesn’t spill. It lays there in enticing small bubbles, ready for me to taste.

  “Ahhh,” he cries out as I lap at the small cut with my tongue, drinking down his essence before sucking his nipple into my mouth and working the tip with my teeth.

  His body shudders, the stiff length in his pants pressing against my hip.

  “You’ll leave when I let you,” I declare, ending all contact and stepping back from his body. It leaves me feeling oddly bereft, and I chastise myself for craving the heat of him. “When I tell you this for the final time, I expect you to obey. You wouldn’t want me nicking anything below your belt, although I would quite enjoy it. Now, strip.”

  James glares at me. His defiance is an aphrodisiac, but when I raise my small knife only an inch in warning, he begins to move.

  His shredded shirt goes first. His chest is toned and lightly muscled with a trail of hair that dips between his pecs, dusting his abs until it disappears beneath his belt. That stripe of dark hair would look good matted with my cum.

  “And the rest,” I order when his hands still.

  He obeys after a beat and his long, agile fingers go to the buckle of his belt. Soon he’s dragging the strip of leather through the hoops.

  “Give it to me,” I demand before it slides free and his eyes flash to mine. I raise an eyebrow waiting for his compliance. Will he push me to take or will he offer it freely?

  He dangles the belt before me, his eyes taunting. The move is halfway between an offer and challenge for me to take.

  I take.

  My hand snaps out to grip the leather but he doesn’t let go, and the next second he’s dragged me towards him until we are flush. My monster snarls and gnashes its teeth.

  “Would you enjoy it if I made you beg?” he asks.

  “You could try,” I counter. “But you forget—” I push the tip of the knife to the side of his neck “—I made the rules of this game. You are merely a player.”

  He smiles at me then. It is not the smile of prey. It is one of a predator.

  “I thought you were a wise man. Have you not yet learnt that underestimating me is foolish?”

  “I am the one with a knife to your throat.”

  “Look down,” he taunts. “I am the one with the knife to your balls. Now, it’s time for us to play this game my way, Luke. So, please do me the honour and strip. I’m afraid you may end up with more than a nick if I have to cut your clothes from your body.”

  He’s faking.

  “The look you’re giving me says you think I’m bluffing.” He smiles. It’s all teeth. My monster wants to bare his in return, but my cock finds it enjoys this show of force. Because, that’s al
l it is, a show.

  I drop my knife to the concrete floor with a clatter, making a show of my acquiescence. Then, with sure movements, I remove each item of clothing and drape them across the foot of the bed

  When I’m stood hard and completely naked before him, he takes his time, and his eyes devour every inch of me.

  I can’t remember a time where someone saw all of me. And I don’t just mean my naked skin. He looks at me like he’s starved. But what squeezes my chest and burrows into cracked places, is his eyes always come back to find mine. To connect. To tell me he likes what he sees. To let me know he will take it, even if I fight.

  And I will fight.

  Once he has drunk his fill, his eyes harden and bore into mine when he says, “Bend over the edge of the bed. Spread your legs.”

  I remain still. I bend for no one.

  He takes a menacing step forward, but I don’t budge.

  “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  Another menacing step, but I still stand tall daring him to make me. The sick thing is, I’m finding I want him to make me.

  His hand snaps out and grips my hard, leaking cock. He squeezes tight, bordering on painful. But still, I stand tall and unflinching. He’ll need to work harder than that to get a reaction from me.

  He takes the last step, until his shoe-clad feet touch the toes of my bare ones, and begins to pump his hand seductively up and down my length. With his knife to my neck, he rests his forehead on mine, and we both watch as he works me.

  Then, he slowly lets a long string of spit fall from his mouth until it spills over my throbbing cock head. His hand stops all movement for us to watch his spit as it rolls over my bulbous head and trails down my veiny length.

  “Fuck, that’s hot,” he growls as he resumes milking my cock. The extra lubrication accompanying his tight fist makes me struggle to keep my breathing even.

  My cock gets wetter and wetter as pre-cum trickles from my slit greasing the slide of his calloused grip.

  “Your silence says you’re not enjoying this, but your weeping slit tells another story.” His tone is full of arrogance, and my cock rewards him with more wetness.