“Hey, wait!” She scrambled along the shore, hopping toward the edge as I waded deeper, the chain pulling her with me.
“You’re the one who wanted to stay fully dressed.” I ducked under, letting the world go quiet as water lapped around me. It blocked the buzzing in my ears, and it ran through my dirty hair. It fondled my cock, mimicking Gemma’s wetness without the heat.
A splash sounded beside me, the ripples of displacement rocking me beneath the surface. I kicked off the bottom and popped back up, blinking away droplets as my gaze latched onto a drowned girl.
A hazel-eyed, golden-haired, entirely vexing and insanely beautiful girl.
“You bastard.” She splashed and shoved hair from her face, her beigey shirt billowing around her. “You could’ve said something.”
“I told you to undress.”
“I thought you wanted—”
“I want to fix the hydro generator.” I arched my chin at the large manmade structure in the middle of the rapids. A concrete box that’d been built by whoever Storymaker had enlisted to create Fables. “It ferries the current through smaller channels, pouring over a turbine that constantly turns, generating friction which causes electricity.”
She glowered. “God, you annoy me. All of you. Every single piece of you drives me up the wall. Just so we’re clear.” She huffed, her fingers flying to the delicate buttons of her shirt. She undid one, then two, then three.
My mouth suddenly went very, very dry.
I couldn’t look away, not even if an asteroid chose that moment to smash us into dust. I would be happy dust. Dust with a hard-on for the stunning, infuriating girl currently tugging off her soaking wet shirt, leaving her in a tight teal sports bra.
Her eyes glowed with green and shadow as she threw the wet shirt toward the shore, deliberately slapping it onto my dry clothes.
I narrowed my eyes. “Witch.”
“You deserved it.” With a quick inhale, she ducked beneath the surface. Her hair continued to float on the surface as her curves beneath the waterline twisted and contorted, yanking off soaking boots and pulling her skirt over her head.
I shuddered as a wave of debilitating lust shot down my legs.
My hand strayed to my thigh. My cock pulsed for touch. It would be so, so easy to come. A single stroke. One delicious pump.
“Stuart!” Ms. Blain yelled. “Get in here.”
The door opened, depositing Storymaker directly into my current nightmare. I was bound and cuffed to a wooden cross. Ankles spread, arms wide, my neck chained in place so I couldn’t move. I was merely a thing to be ridden. To be taken against my wishes. To be molested however Ms. Blain decided.
This was her favorite game. To tie me up and torment me for hours. The awful thing was, she wasn’t even supposed to be my guest. I’d begged to be her plaything the night Zanik couldn’t stop vomiting in fear when he saw her name on the registration book. He was normally stoic and quiet. The one who helped me keep the others calm. But seeing him like that? Watching him flinch each time the door opened and Storymaker summoned a new Fable slave to serve, broke my damn heart.
So, I’d gone to her on my own. I’d knocked on her door. I’d strode past her when she opened, and I let her use me in every way she wanted.
I had no one else to blame for the blood running down my chest or the fact that I’d pissed myself when she’d shoved a dildo up my ass after ten hours of keeping me bound.
My bladder had given up. And with the release of pressure from needing to piss, my cock had turned soft.
In punishment, she’d shoved the phallus so deep inside me, I was sure I’d rip in two. If she was trying to get me back in the mood, bleeding out of my ass ensured I’d never get hard again.
“What? What is it, Annette?” Storymaker frowned, looking at me in my naked, piss-covered glory as if I was nothing more interesting than a boring book on a nightstand.
“He’s gone soft, and no matter what I do, he won’t get hard again.” She leaned into him, whispering loudly. “I gave him a Viagra a few hours ago. Aren’t those things supposed to last all night?”
Storymaker strolled in, eyeing up my flaccid cock with disgust. “Unfortunately, those wonder pills don’t seem to work as well on Kassen as the others, do they, boy?” He tapped my cheek, ending with a harsh slap.
My head shot sideways, sticking to the wood of the cross. I didn’t care. I was past caring.
“Unbuckle his right hand.” Storymaker spun to face Ms. Blain by the door. “Make him jerk off. Mr. Wilby showed him how to arouse himself.” Turning back to me, he grinned. “He knows the consequences of not being able to serve a guest in all ways they require, don’t you, Kassen?”
He grabbed my chin, jerking my face to him. I hoped he didn’t see the tracks of my tears or hear the brutal pain howling in my chest. “You’ll masturbate good and proper. Get that thing stiff. Annette here hasn’t finished her fun, and you know how important it is to keep our guests entertained.”
My right wrist was released, my shoulder flaring in agony.
Storymaker snatched my hand and shoved it between my legs, forcing fingers to wrap around my abused cock, squishing the softness until fresh tears sprang to my eyes. “Fuck yourself, Kassen. There’s a good boy. Don’t disappoint me. You know what will happen if you do.”
“Kas! Kas!” Hands on my chest, fingers in my hair, a warm curvy body against mine. “You’re okay. It’s just in your head. You’re here, with me. Not there. They can’t touch you—”
Touch?
Fuck, no.
Not again.
Never again.
I grabbed the person who dared to touch me. I latched around their throat.
I squeezed.
Nails sliced across my face as a reedy scream sounded. “It’s me. It’s Gemma! Stop—”
A choking sound. Legs kicking against mine. Cool water lapping around my body.
That name.
It wasn’t a guest’s name.
Something about it tugged me, called to me, whispered that it was the most important name in the world.
“Sto...p.” The kicking grew softer. Their fight fading...
Gemma!
My eyes shot wide.
It took a split second for everything to pour through me. Her arrival, her imprisonment, her kissing me, wanting me, talking to me. Her kindness, and her perfect, perfect heart.
“Fuck!” I ripped my hands off her.
She slipped under the water.
I snatched her back, wading to the shore, oblivious that my broken arm blared with fresh agony or that my legs struggled to stay upright with the vertigo in my mind and the river pushing with its currents.
All I focused on was getting Gemma, getting my friend, to safety.
It took all my strength to climb from the weightlessness of the water and back onto dry land, hoisting her body until she lay like a dead bride in my arms. “Come on. You’re okay. Open your eyes. Please, for God’s sake, open your eyes.” I kneeled next to my clothes, laying her gently in the grass, placing my hands over her heart to do CPR.
I pressed my mouth to hers, exhaling hard into her lungs, bracing with power to compress her chest.
She coughed.
She convulsed upright.
I helped turn her onto her side as she spewed up river water. Nasty red marks lined her throat, yet another collar of goddamn bruises left behind by my fingers. Spluttering, she pushed me away, her hands shaking and lips blue from shock.