Saved from the Cult

by Winter James

  It turns out there’s more than one way to be a good girl.

  Tentative or not, it doesn’t matter. Jake’s eyes fly open wide and I suck in a breath. I thought I’d seen him on the verge of losing control before. I was wrong. Now his green eyes flash and roil with animal need. And unlike before, at the rest stop, there’s absolutely nothing to stop him. The rush moves out from between my legs to the tips of my fingers. He’s almost vibrating with effort. He’s clearly trying to stop himself. And I don’t want that.

  I put my lips as close to his ear as I can get them and whisper please.

  Jake lets out a frustrated growl, and then he’s all motion, all man. He shoves my enormous t-shirt up, exposing all of me. There’s nothing under it and the cool air of the room makes my nipples peak. I have exactly long enough to register the sensation before Jake’s mouth comes down on one of them, then the other. It’s electric. The scrape of his teeth there, there, is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I arch up off the bed to feel more of his rough palms on my hips. His mouth travels down, down, over my belly button, and then those huge hands spread me wide.

  Jake’s eyes rake over me, as possessive as I’ve ever seen him.

  “Fuck, yes, pretty baby.” Does he say the words or does he only mouth them? I don’t know, because my heart is beating so loud it hides all the other sound from the house. I’m a raw bundle of nerves. It’s so wrong, the way he’s looking at parts of me I’ve kept hidden for years.

  He bends and licks between my legs.

  If it weren’t for Jake holding me in place, I’d be off the bed. Is that me making that sound? His other hand reaches up to catch the noise in his palm. He licks again. Desire explodes into white-hot pleasure.

  Jake groans and shifts above me. A belt buckle clinks. Fabric slides against fabric. And when I open my eyes against the onslaught of pleasure still rolling over my body, I have to swallow the world’s loudest gasp.

  He’s all muscle, hard and taught, his skin a canvas of tattoos. I didn’t know abs could look like an actual washboard. I’ve never seen a V at the bottom of a man’s torso like that. And I’ve never, never, seen a dick like that.

  He’s huge. I should have expected it, but a virginal flush overtakes me and I can’t stop looking.

  A dangerous smile quirks Jake’s lips and he takes it in one hand. “Consider this your warning.”

  “It won’t fit.” I gasp another breath, then another. “It can’t fit.” The words coming out of my mouth don’t matter at all. I spread my legs wider despite a pins-and-needles fear making its way down my spine. That fear collides with pure want and blooms into desperate anticipation.

  “It will. I’ll goddamn make it fit.”

  That’s it—that’s all the warning that he gives me. And in the animal heat of this I become an animal myself. A panting, writhing animal with my fists in the sheets and my t-shirt balled up at my neck.

  Jake moves over me, movements quick and decisive. He’s going to do this. We’re going to do this. And I will never, never be pure for Leader Michael again. The thick head of him teases at my entrance. It feels a hundred times bigger than it looked. It feels impossible. It feels like I need it.

  His hips tense and draw back, and for one intoxicating moment, everything is still. I breathe him in. Clean and spicy, like adventure.

  Then he drives himself into me in a burst of pain and stretch and pleasure, and nothing will ever be the same.

  Chapter Ten

  Jake

  I break her open and make her mine all in one stroke.

  It feels so fucking good that I barely remember to get my hand over her mouth in time. If somebody else at the halfway house hears her cries, we’re both fucked. The only solution is to cover her sweet little mouth with my hand while I fuck her the way she was meant to be taken.

  She’s slick and hot, her thighs trembling, hips jerking frantically from side to side. And tight. So fucking tight. I drag myself out of her. One glance down at where we’re joined together yanks the breath out of my lungs. Blood. Virgin blood. On my cock.

  I haven’t thought about that shit in years. I haven’t let myself think about the way it would feel to take a woman so completely this way and mark the moment with blood. And tears. Fuck, that’s even nicer. Not that I want to hurt her—I don’t. I only know that pain is tied up with pleasure for her. Dove moans into my palm while tears gather at the corner of her eyes and slip down over her cheeks.

  It should make me want to slow down, to be gentle with her, but it does the opposite. I brace one hand on the flimsy headboard and fuck her harder. Longer strokes. More deliberate. I’m going to be relentless. I’m going to destroy her.

  And. She. Likes. It.

  Dove’s first orgasm takes her by surprise. Her eyes go open wide and she bites down on my palm, her little noises getting louder until it’s one long oh. She tenses tighter around me, her sweet pussy reacting to the pummeling I’m giving it.

  I can’t stop.

  I don’t want to stop, ever.

  I lean down at the tail end of her orgasm, her pussy still working around me, so I can speak into her ear. “You like that, you dirty girl? It’s a big cock for somebody as small as you. You sure you can take it?”

  “I—I—”

  “That’s right. You don’t have any choice.” Dove struggles to open her legs another inch, to give me more room, but she can’t because she’s already at her max. She’s so small, and I’m so huge, that pinning her is only a matter of physics and not effort. “You have to take it because you can’t get away, even if you tried.”

  Her eyes flutter closed and I’ll be damned. A sweet, innocent thing like Dove is the last person I’d expect to want to hear those kinds of things. But they’ve built up in the dark parts of my mind for years. They spill out over her like slick oil over her skin. It’ll be a bitch to get clean. I doubt she ever will, but from the pulse of her muscles around me, she doesn’t want to.

  Dove turns her head away from my hand. “I like it when you hold me down.”

  I thought I couldn’t get any hotter for her. I thought I couldn’t lose any more control. I’m a fucking idiot.

  I ease myself off of her, my nerves gone wild with the secret she’s just told me. Dove’s huge blue eyes follow every movement. Her tongue pokes out to wet her pink lips.

  “Is that what you think I was doing?”

  Before she can answer I turn her over and jerk her hips up off the mattress with one hand. Her face goes down into my pillow and she turns it to the side, breathing hard. The pillow might as well be a lifeboat. She clutches the sides with everything she’s worth.

  Fuck, she looks good with her pussy exposed to me and her toes digging into the sheet. I press one hand against her upper back and cover her body with mine. She might have had a few options before, lying on her back. Now she has none.

  “This is holding you down, little girl. And you’re fucking hot for it. You’re wet. It’s dripping down your thigh.” I sweep my fingers through the blood and sweetness there and she spreads her legs wider, a tiny groan escaping her. “Close those lips or I’ll teach you how to suck cock right now. Would you like that?” She opens her mouth to answer, but I’m faster. I work three fingers between her teeth. “Show me how much you’d like it.”

  And Dove, the girl with the white dress and the prayers and the cult, sucks on my fingers like it might save her life. My dick is painfully hard, and she’s painfully innocent. She swirls her tongue and works over my fingers like they’re a lollipop.

  I crash back into her from behind and her mouth clamps down hard on my fingers—but she doesn’t bite.

  I reward her for being such a good girl by thrusting in from behind. Going deep. Then going deeper.

  The air goes out of her around my fingers, her hands go tighter on the pillow, and then Dove goes back to her task like she was born to be a filthy girl just for me. For all I know, she was.

  And I want her to keep proving herself, just lik
e she is now, but I need both hands for what my body demands next.

  It demands to feel her slim hips under my palms. It demands to force the breath from her on every stroke. We’re not two civilized people in a civilized world anymore. I learned a long time ago that the civilized world is an illusion, a fucking lie. But this? This is real.

  I hold her tight, her hips bucking in my palms. I force her to be still for a moment, my cock buried in her. Her pussy pulls me in another fraction of an inch.

  “Tell me how it feels, little girl.”

  She moans.

  “Use your words.”

  “It’s—huge.” Dove has her eyes squeezed shut tight, her cheek pressed flat against the pillow, her blonde hair tumbling out behind her like streaks of sunshine. “It’s—stretching—me—” I silence her again with another vicious thrust.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Her lips part, and Dove turns her head just slightly. I can see myself reflected in those enormous blue eyes of hers. Five minutes ago, they were endless pools of innocence. Now there’s something far more complicated under the waves. She whispers something that’s tough to make out. Sounds close to what?

  “It means you’re mine. You’re all mine now, little girl. Nobody else can touch you ever again.”

  This turns her wild, and for the first time she fights back a little against my iron grasp. At first I think I might’ve scared her enough that she’s trying to get away. Dread tumbles down like falling concrete. Fuck, fuck—

  But then she arches her back, the delicate line sending me into another frenzy, and fucks back against me. She has no experience. An hour ago she was a fucking virgin. There’s no rhythm to it, only a soul-deep desperation. I feel the same fucking thing.

  I’m a nice guy, even when my vision has gone dark at the edges from the intensity of fucking a pussy as tight and fresh as Dove’s. That means that while I take her with vicious strokes, so close to the edge I’m about to die from it, I reach around in front of her and search out her clit.

  That’s all it takes to send her over the edge. Her hips go crazy, rocking back against me so relentlessly that I don’t have to drive into her to get what I want. She’s fucking herself on my cock, crying out into the pillow, coming hard. She’s a filthy little thing. She’s my filthy little thing.

  Possession sweeps over me like a bucket of cold water, and the contrast between that violently awake feeling and the heat of her slickness on my cock makes it impossible to hold back another second.

  If there is a God, he’s a tricky motherfucker. Because he created shit like jail, and those creepy cult members. But he also created the feeling of emptying myself into the virgin pussy I’ve claimed as mine with so much force that I have to swallow a grunt that would be a dead giveaway to the rest of the halfway house. Now. Now she’s mine. Now there’s no taking it back. I’ve filled her up in every possible way.

  A low laugh rumbles up from my chest as Dove collapses to the bed and fumbles for my arm. She wants me next to her, and why the fuck not? I’ve got a few minutes. We squeeze together on the twin-size bed, the small wings of her shoulder blades pressing against my chest with every breath she takes.

  Every one of those breaths belongs to me now. It’s up to me to make sure she keeps breathing, and keeps living, and keeps herself safe. It’s up to me to make sure she never goes back to that fucking place again. I’m going to need a plan as soon as I get up from this bed.

  But Dove stretches, her perfect skin gliding against mine, and rolls into my arms.

  I’ll figure the rest out later.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dove

  I wake up in an empty bed again, tangled up in a cocoon of sheets and comforters. How long has it been since I fell asleep? I have no idea, and I don’t care. Every inch of me aches from what Jake did to me. From what we did together. Even my heart aches.

  But that’s not because I have any regrets. I don’t. I only wish he was still here.

  The door opens softly and Jake steps back in, footsteps light. He cradles a bowl in his hand, holding a spoon in the crook of one finger. His eyes land on me there in the blankets and his face breaks into a smile. I can’t help smiling back, the ache in my heart washed away. He has the kind of grin that could make a whole room smile with him. My pulse throbs and stutters. I’ve never seen him smile like this before in all the hours we’ve spent together. I wonder who else has. A stab of bitterness cuts through my heart. Who else had the chance to see this rough ex-convict grin like he didn’t have a care in the world while I was at the House of Rapture?

  I cuddle down into the blanket and shove away that strange jealousy. Envy is a sin. That’s what Leader Michael always said, and even though I’m out of that place, it had the ring of truth to it.

  “I hope I didn’t sleep too long.” My limbs feel heavy, like I’ve pushed myself to the limit working in the garden. “Is it—”

  Jake puts a finger to his lips and comes to sit on the bed. He helps me sit up with one hand, then presses the bowl and spoon into mine.

  “You’ve gotta be quiet,” he says in a low voice. “You were only out for about an hour, so it’s still—you know, it’s still morning. But I’m not allowed to have guests here. Eat that before it gets soggy.”

  The bowl is filled to the brim with cereal. Little Os in bright colors. I recognize it from a long time ago, back when I still lived with my own parents. We never have this at the House of Rapture. The flood of memories distracts me from what Jake said, but not for long.

  “Where’s here?” I take a bite of the cereal. I can’t hold back. Sugar bursts to life on my tongue, so intense I almost have to lie down. I take another bite. “Why can’t you have guests?”

  An emotion I can’t name flashes through his eyes. “It’s a halfway house, little girl. Where convicts go when they’re out on parole.”

  The cereal turns to ashes on my tongue. The flavor steals away. My mind struggles to make the pleased, sleepy feeling match up with the twisting, tugging work I have to do to understand what this means.

  He can’t have guests here.

  Because he’s on parole.

  I can’t stay with him.

  A howl works its way up my throat and I have to swallow it down. It’s like swallowing a knife. He saved me, only to tell me that actually he can’t save me after all.

  His worried gaze flickers between the bowl and my lips. “You don’t like the cereal?”

  “I’m in trouble.” I mean to whisper but the words come out closer to a wheeze. “I’m in big, big trouble. Because they’ll take me back the House of Rapture, and I’ll pay so much penance. So much penance I won’t survive it, Jake.”

  My spoon knocks into the bowl, one-two-three-four, and I’m not even seeing all those colorful loops anymore. Fruity loops. Froot Loops. That’s what they were called. The name slips out of my mind as fast as it arrives, chased down by a fear that makes my stomach lurch.

  “I don’t have anything to take with me.” Desperation comes next, a storm at the middle of my chest, heart pumping all the terror out into every part of my body. “I don’t have any money. At least I knew what to expect at the House of Rapture.” The sound of my spoon against the bowl is like a wind chime out in a tornado. “Maybe if I went back—if I beg them—”

  “Shhh.”

  Jake’s big hands come into my field of vision and take the bowl and spoon away. As soon as they’re gone I wish I still had them—I had something to hold on to, which is better than nothing. The sound of cloth hitting the floor barely registers. The bed dips, and then all I can see is Jake.

  He’s bigger than my fears. He’s so overwhelming that the horrible fact of being alone in the world very shortly hurts a lot less. The ache from last night reappears, popping back into existence in my muscles. He tips me backward until my head meets the soft pillow. Then I have no choice but to meet his green eyes. There’s nothing but his eyes now. His eyes, and a glimpse of abs chiseled ou
t of prison and exercise and taut biceps.

  I reach for his abs and trace along the lines like I’m running my fingertip along the line of a map. Jake shivers. Goose bumps rise on his skin. But he doesn’t look away from me. He lifts one of those enormous, calloused hands of his and strokes the loose strands of hair away from my face.

  “It’ll all be okay, little girl.” His sandpaper voice is rough on my skin but soothing to my soul. “You hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wasn’t going to cry, but Jake runs a thumb over my cheek and it dissolves the last of my resolve. Tears spill out with every blink. I bite my lip, hard, to keep more from falling. Sobbing will only get us found out. I need every minute I can get with Jake before I have to leave him behind. Because I do, in the end. I can’t stay here, and I can’t go back.

  “Don’t think about that now.” How did he know? Jake presses his mouth against mine. It’s not gentle, but it’s not the vicious crash of the sex we had last night. It hurts, but it’s good. He kisses me thoroughly. He works his way over every swollen inch of my lips, rubbed raw by his stubble and kisses last night. He chases my fear away. Even fear itself is no match for Jake, the terrifying ex-con.

  He lingers on my lips for so long that the brush and scrape of his face on mine, his teeth nipping and biting, his tongue working against mine—they become the only things that exist in the world. There can be nothing else, as long as he’s kissing me. Everything comes down to one point of focus, and it feels so good.

  I don’t even realize that my nipples are begging for him to touch them until he does.

  They’re so hard and ready that when he reaches down and pinches one, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, I see the stars. And when he follows that pinch with a sweep of his tongue and the gentle pull of his teeth I see the entire night sky. Jake lowers his head and plants a constellation of nips and kisses all across my collarbone. The rest of my body cries out for him but I bite back the actual sound. Can’t risk it. Not if I want another few hours here, in the only safe place left.