Brutal Game

by Cara McKenna

  “Take me out. Get me hard.”

  She knew those words as a penitent woman might know a Bible verse. She tugged his jeans low and he shifted, pushing them to his hips. The second half of his order proved moot; his erection looked obscene even through black cotton, and again Laurel felt that prickle in her mouth, thirst spiking. She stroked him with the heel of her hand, but he wanted more. He pushed his waistband down, exposing every ready inch. The breath left her in a huff.

  “That what you wanted to see?”

  She nodded, meeting his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Stroke it.”

  She wrapped her hand around that fevered flesh. His pulse throbbed in her grip, impatient. Insistent. She kept it slow, kept it tight, measuring him with her fist. His scent was so strong now. She’d find his excitement gleaming at his slit before long, evidence of his need so like the wetness already slicking her lips.

  “You like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I love your cock.” I love you, exactly like this. It was like loving a stranger—impulsive and thrilling.

  “Show me how much you love it.”

  She gripped his root and lowered her mouth. He tasted as he smelled, potent and personal. She swallowed him halfway—as much as she could without gagging. Then again, again, stroking the underside with her tongue, letting his head nearly slip from her lips only to claim him again, a little deeper, a little deeper still.

  “More.”

  I know what you want. What every man wanted, it often felt, but only this one had ever managed to make sexy, as far as Laurel was concerned. Words from three seasons back echoed in her ears—spoken to another woman but meant for her. Of that she had no doubt.

  Good girl. I wanna see you choke on that cock.

  She gave what he asked. Slid her lips past the point of comfort and his crown bumped her palate, triggering that first reflexive gag. She felt the spasm but not the sting in her sinuses, not the roiling in her stomach. She knew this act too well.

  A cool, heavy hand came to rest on the nape of her neck, sending a shiver trickling down her back. She took him deep again, reveling in the way her muscles clenched, unafraid. While the sensation wasn’t strictly pleasant, the result was reward enough to go there, tenfold. She might tense with every fresh violation, but it was nothing compared to how her reaction affected him.

  Like an electrical pulse, his entire body jerked each time she gagged. Sometimes a “yeah” or a “fuck” rewarded her, sometimes a half-swallowed moan. Her mouth was awash with spit, a reflex she’d once found embarrassing, but now welcomed part and parcel with the rest of this act. It bathed his flesh and eased the motions, slipped from her lips in warm ribbons. It made her feel sloppy but that only sharpened the taboo. The biology of his desire was ugly, and these were the things that turned him on like nothing else. She welcomed the wet heat as it slid along her jugular, welcomed his deepening moans as his hips began to work.

  The hand on her neck moved to her hair, fisting her ponytail. “Take that cock. Nice and deep. Show me how bad you fucking want it.”

  Held this way, her chance to own some part of this act was gone. Her only options now were to submit or to flee, and that choice needed no deliberation.

  In time she felt her face flushing, her nose growing runny. Just as she was beginning to hope he’d finish soon, he eased her off him by her hair. She sat back on her knees, resisting an urge to sniff, or to flex her aching jaw. She kept her eyes on his chest, watching its quick rise and fall and awaiting whatever came next.

  “On my bed,” he ordered, face and voice both cold as January.

  She got to her feet, legs tingly. She could feel his eyes on her every step of the way, found them studying her hips or thighs when she turned and sat. His cock was hidden by his shorts once more. He fisted his jeans and belt and approached, stopping before her, seeming mountainous. He peeled away his sweater and undershirt in one pull, then slid his belt free with a slow, smooth motion. It looked like a bullwhip in his fist. He tossed it behind her on the bed. She’d expected him to keep his jeans on, but he pushed them down along with his shorts, stepping free of the pile and stripping his socks. Usually when he was playing the cold and controlling stranger, he kept his pants on. It seemed that power play wasn’t needed tonight, and it made her wonder exactly who this was.

  Whoever he might be, he looked powerful and impenetrable even without of stitch of clothing hiding that pale skin. Whatever he might want, it was as dark as his shaded eyes or the hair framing his ready cock, or the stitches marring his brow.

  “Take your top off.”

  She undid each button on her blouse, revealing a plum-colored bra patterned in white vines. Her panties matched. She’d dressed as she’d felt only hours ago—womanly, sexy, confident. She couldn’t say what she felt now or what underwear would best embody it, only that this wasn’t quite right.

  “Your bra,” he said.

  Reaching back, she freed the hooks. She let the straps fall from her arms just as he reached down to grab one of her legs. He lifted it, unzipping her boot, sliding it off. It hit the floor with a thump, a little jangle of its decorative buckle. Next came her sock. Again, on the other side. If it excited him, that face didn’t give away a thing.

  She expected her skirt to come next, but he said, “Hands and knees.”

  She obeyed, moving to the middle of the mattress on all fours. The belt was there, close enough to touch if she splayed her fingers, and she doubted its presence was accidental.

  His weight shifted the mattress beneath her, an ages-old trigger that had anticipation winding tight inside her. Heavy hands sought her thighs then rose, pushing her skirt up, kneading her ass, her hips, roaming along her sides and ribs and finally cupping her breasts. He taunted with grazing caresses of his calloused, workingman’s palms, then mean tweaks of her nipples. She gasped from the pleasure and pain equally, that balance he could navigate like a tightrope walker.

  Her skirt had fallen back into place and he shoved it roughly up to her waist. His thumbs slid under the hems of her underwear, bunching the fabric into a strip between her cheeks. She waited for it—the first spank. Instead she got his short nails dragging over her skin, then the teasing, pleasurably demeaning sensation of her panties being pushed up farther, wedged tight in her cleft, damp cotton cleaving her labia.

  “You look good, girl.”

  She swallowed.

  “You wet for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gimme the belt.”

  She passed it back, nerves flashing cold, then hot.

  “All the way down.”

  A familiar order. She lowered, laying her shoulders and one side of her face on the sheet. The rumpled cotton smelled of Flynn, of both of them, and she extended her arms back along her sides. A muscle in her neck whined as he brought her wrists together at the small of her back and wrapped them in the leather. It had always been an awkward position for her, but she settled into the discomfort as she’d learned to. There was a tug as he secured the buckle, then he let her hands go.

  He pulled her underwear down some but didn’t take them off. Instead he yanked the crotch to one side, and there it was—the smooth, blunt head of his cock, seeking entrance. She was mindful to take a deep breath and release it slowly, to will her body to relax. She’d been crampy on and off since she’d had the IUD put in, and she didn’t relish that pain on top of the contortion.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, pushing inside. “So fucking wet.” He wasn’t patient, but as he sank in fully on the third thrust, her body settled without a twinge. He felt obscene, the thick intrusion of his cock underscoring the scent of the sheets, the sounds of his deepening grunts, the true bondage of her wrists and the added constriction of her twisted panties.

  Laurel had a private name for this sensation—trussed. It unleashed a flurry of emotions when they took things here, the experience at once humiliating and exhilarating. The sort of thing s
he might glimpse in pornography and find both demeaning and titillating, but on balance feel too squicked by to keep watching. The sort of thing she’d always held against a lover, should she discover it was his taste. Until Flynn.

  He was so up front, so guileless, his desires didn’t threaten her. She followed him places she never would have imagined she might, never bumping up against a kink that didn’t repay her discomfort at least twofold in pleasure or gratification.

  At least not until tonight. As the thrill of the initial penetration faded, her excitement ebbed, outshone by a growing strain in her shoulder, a nagging itch where the wool of her skirt’s waist rubbed her skin. A nagging worry in her head, one she’d never encountered in this bed before.

  Even deep inside her body, he felt so far away. It made her ache to free her wrists and turn over, to wrap her arms around him, hold him tight. But that was merely what she wanted. What he needed tonight looked far different, but she’d give him that all the same. She’d endure it, and come out sore and probably uncertain, but not hurt. Not where it counted. Under all the worry, she felt strong. Strong enough to be whatever release he needed. Strong enough to trust this was still the same man she loved, even as he felt undeniably like a stranger.

  She was sweating now, the wool chafing, the elastic of her panties pulled taut against the seam of one thigh and promising a mark. She shoved those details aside and instead pictured his face, cheeks stained dark with effort, eyes at once wild and stony, lips parted and flushed. The image struck that flint deep inside her belly, the first spark that told her an orgasm was possible. It’d take more though, and it felt foolish to hope that her pleasure was on his mind, tonight.

  “You feel good,” he told her again, his voice like water to a woman lost in a desert. She drank the words down, dying for more.

  “I want to plea—ease you,” she said, jolted by his hammering hips.

  “You do nothing tonight but get fucked.” His reply was coarse but quenching all the same.

  “Yes, Sir.” She hadn’t called him that in ages. The formality of it had always seemed corny to Laurel, but it felt right tonight, somehow. She’d read a book about D/s sex after they’d become a couple. Was this subspace? Wait, no—she was thinking far too much for that. She was thinking far too much, period. She needed more. She needed pleasure to let her endure the discomfort. And there was no choice but to spell it out for him.

  “I want to come for you.”

  His hips kept pumping but his sounds changed, grunts muted to huffs of air. “That so?”

  “Yes, please. On your cock, just like this.”

  “Beg me again. Beg me again, and maybe I’ll give you exactly what you need.”

  “Please, Sir. Touch me, please. I want it so bad it hurts.” She wanted it so badly, just to balance out the hurt.

  “You want my touch,” he echoed, his tone maybe mocking, maybe just cocky. One hand moved from her hip to her crack, thumb drawing a shocking line down and over her hole.

  Her breath was gone, body tossed between misgiving and excitement, as it always was when he took liberties back there. He reached around to wet his thumb where his driving cock met her slick lips. He swept his fingertips over her clit for a single second’s torturous tease before returning to her ass.

  She gave herself over to this moment, still intimidating after all this time with Flynn, but familiar. The faint sting of the intrusion, the warped pleasure of the transgression. It wasn’t the touch she craved, but there was no denying it solidified the need pulsing in her belly.

  “That what you wanted?” he demanded.

  “I’ll take whatever you give me.”

  His thumb twisted, retreated, delved deep again, feeling better by the second. “Good answer. But don’t lie to me, sweetheart.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Tell me what you want.” Such words could have felt reassuring, except he sounded cold, so cold.

  “My clit,” she mumbled.

  “Tell me.”

  “My clit. Please. Please.”

  He shifted, knocking her knees wider with his own for balance, then inching the hand still holding her hip forward, seeking her cunt.

  She cried out the moment he glanced that blazing, aching spot. There was a spit-damp patch of sheet spreading under her cheek. Her neck was wrenched and her hands were numb, screaming for blood, but all at once she felt none of it. The universe shrank to the point where his fingertips met her clit, blinding bright, nearly too much to bear.

  She moaned like a crazy woman when he stroked her there, suddenly breathing so fast she could be hyperventilating. “God. Please.”

  “Say my name.”

  “Flynn. Fuck, please, Flynn.”

  He gave her exactly what she needed—tight, rough circles falling into sync with his punishing cock, his plundering thumb.

  She was long gone, half-aware of the mantra of her voice, a pitiful chant of “Please, please, please.” Mere seconds and she was moaning, trembling, begging with every cell in her body.

  “Good girl. Come on that cock.”

  It was that familiar praise that did her in, plummeting her headlong into oblivion.

  Through the quaking of her release she felt him succumb to his own. His cock drove as deep as it went, fingers digging into her hips and promising bruises. Any pain she endured was worth the price to feel the familiar rhythm of his hips as he emptied inside her, to hear the pained groans as pleasure turned him helpless.

  Their bodies fell still, rocked in tiny frissons by their pumping hearts and gulping lungs. When he pulled out, Laurel felt the dirty-sweet heat of their mingled sex wetting her savaged panties.

  He stretched out on his back, eyes shut, one arm cocked above his head. Laurel got up to use the bathroom and abandon the last of her clothes. When she joined him on the bed, she was spent enough to not overthink things and to take what she wanted—contact. Skin to skin, so quiet after the force of the storm.

  She laid her arm across his chest, feeling his heart beating under her palm, under his warm, slick skin. So close, and yet he still felt miles away.

  “I miss you,” she whispered.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You feel so far away… I understand why. I’m not asking you to be any different. But I miss you all the same.”

  “I need time.”

  “You can have all you want. Do you need space?”

  “I dunno yet.”

  “You can have that too. Just say.”

  “I don’t know what I need. I’m not used to being this fucking…” He struggled for the right word.

  “Vulnerable?” Laurel hazarded, just as he settled on, “Torn up.”

  She held him tighter.

  “I’m gonna tell you something right now,” he said, “and I want you to remember it every time I’m angry with you, for as long as we’re together.”

  “All right.”

  “I wouldn’t be this ripped up if I didn’t love you. I don’t waste my time feeling pissed or hurt or let down unless the person who managed to make me feel it actually matters to me.”

  “Okay.” She wished it were more of a consolation.

  “I’m not looking to change anything we’ve got. I just need to figure out what the fuck’s up with me. Or to sit and stew in it for however long it takes me to get over it.”

  She nodded.

  “You’re stuck with me,” he said, “same as always. Even if I decide I need some space. You prepared to believe that?”

  Again she nodded, hoping it was true. No matter what he told her, if they took some time apart she’d never quit worrying if he might decide to end things. Not for a minute. She trusted him with her life, but this felt like another matter entirely.

  Still, she’d suck it up and play it cool, if that was what he needed.

  Even if inside she’d be dying anew every hour of the day.

  11

  Flynn lay awake for ages after Laurel dropped off, mind buzzing despite
the release, flitting from resentment to guilt and back, endlessly, the latter steadily eclipsing the former.

  He wasn’t proud of what had happened tonight.

  Though he didn’t doubt Laurel had been up for it, even enjoyed it… He shouldn’t have gone there. His kink was barbaric, the sex he liked best cruel and crass, but he’d never done that before—let his true emotions feed his fantasies. It felt unmistakably disturbing in the wake of the orgasm. Shame settled around him like a bad odor, one he’d not caught a whiff of in ages.

  It was tempting to blame the alcohol, but too easy. Too cowardly. It was all on him. No matter how badly he’d needed the relief of sex, he shouldn’t have taken things there, not while he’d been upset with her. It didn’t matter that she’d welcomed it, or that she’d not used their safe word, or that she’d come. What mattered was how different it had felt, and if he’d picked up on that, there was no doubt she had as well. Normally when they got rough he wouldn’t hesitate to slap her ass or her thighs, call her a bitch or a cunt or any other mean thing, but something had held him back. He’d known it would’ve been wrong, feeling the way he had. That should’ve been warning enough. Even with consent, even with a history as intimate as theirs, there were limits within the limits. He’d stopped short of the harshest ones, but it didn’t make him feel any more justified now that his sweat and come had cooled.

  He’d brought actual anger into bed with them. He felt actual anger toward her still, and laying here stewing in it with her body so close felt as toxic as the guilt.

  He slipped from the covers and found his jeans and sweater in the dark, got his boots laced in the strips of light slipping in between the window blinds. He scrawled a note by the glow of the microwave clock. On the roof. Need to think. He set it atop his pillow, hoping she wouldn’t find occasion to read it, or to discover he’d left her.