Her skin tastes of sweat, and it’s perfect. This is how animals fuck. I move to her other breast and bite down on the plump, smooth, pale skin, leaving teeth marks. She lets out a little shriek, and I bite harder. Only when she subsides, when she submits, do I release her.
“Beg,” I mutter.
She shakes her head on the grass.
I take one of her wrists and flatten it to the ground. Then the other. Her hands are beside her head, exactly like they were all those years ago. Except then we were younger and more innocent and fully clothed. I was bound by basic human decency. All of that’s gone now. I’m straddling her stomach naked, my heavy cock resting between her tits.
“Beg or I won’t fuck you, and you’ll never know. Always wonder.”
Her fists clench. “I hate you.”
“You don’t have to stop hating me. You just have to say please.”
Her tits bounce so pretty as she tries to buck me off. She’s burning up for this. The flush is all over her body, red and warm. “Please,” she whimpers. And then louder. “Please.”
“Fuck yes.” I pull back between her legs and use my palm to spread her wide. She’s already swollen and wet and ready for me. “How many men you let inside, sweetheart?”
“That’s none of your business.” Prim. She’s fucking prim, and it’s hot.
“One? Two?”
“Two, if you have to know.”
“They ever slap you?”
Her eyes go wide. “What?”
I place a well-aimed slap to her pretty cunt, and she jolts. “No!”
“No, they didn’t slap your pussy? Or no, don’t do it again?”
“I don’t know,” she moans.
She may not know, but I do. This pussy needs to be slapped well and often. I place another slap right against her slit, my fingers coming away wet. Another one, this time aimed right at her clit, and she almost has an orgasm. So I help her hold it at bay by slapping the inside of her thigh. Then the other one. She sucks in a breath at the sharp pain.
Only when she’s braced for another slap do I finally notch my cock against her pussy.
“I’ve waited long enough for you. Eight years of wondering what your pussy felt like. Eight years of regret. I did the right thing once but not again. You’re mine now.”
She’s drenched and throbbing. Physically burning from the slaps, and it encloses my cock in a tight, wet slide. I shove myself into her in one hard thrust, and she cries harder.
I don’t pause. She doesn’t want that from me, and I don’t want to give it. Instead I grasp her hips to hold her steady and pound into her with every ounce of strength left. Starvation and beatings. My heart could stop at any fucking second, and this is the way I’d want to go. Something drops down between her tits. Sweat? Tears? Maybe both. I probably needed recovery time, too, but I’m not going to get it. Not when she’s moaning and bucking and clenching on my cock, goddamn, and then she’s coming. I let myself spill over in a glorious, painful, blinding climax.
The aftershocks ripple tight around my dick, and I yank myself out. It’s like leaving a plug. I go from burning electricity to the cold morning air on my cock. I tumble myself to the grass—so I don’t smother her. That’s the excuse I use in my head. The truth is I’m not ready to cuddle and have an after-sex chat. The only feelings inside me are feral. I want to drag her by the hair to the nearest cave and fuck her again—raw and hard, until her cunt’s overflowing with my seed.
This is what happens when you torture a man, when you keep him in the dark for days, for weeks. I’m stripped down to my basest nature.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Holly
I lie on the grass, sweat cooling on my body, both mine and his. My cheeks heat, my body still imprinted with the feel of his. How many men you let inside, sweetheart? There had been two of them, but they had never touched me like Elijah.
“Do you think they’re behind us?”
“We’ve walked a good six miles, and I’ve been covering our tracks. So, no. I don’t think they’re about to burst through the trees, if that’s what you mean. On the other hand, I wouldn’t linger. We have a long way to go before we can stop.”
“Adam might not have made it.” I can’t believe I’m hoping someone died. I should be hoping he survived, but I’m so tired. The kind of tired that feels like physical pain.
“Maybe. Maybe not. He wasn’t the only man there, though.”
I can’t help the whimper that escapes. “I’m not sure I have much more left.”
“You’ll walk. You’ll walk because you have to.”
My eyes close in exhaustion. It’s embarrassing to feel weak in front of this man. Even with more days of captivity he’s clearly stronger than me. Stronger than most men, probably. A warrior, like the kind who fought with a sword and shield in ancient Greece.
“We have a few minutes,” he says gruffly. “Tell me about your next book.”
“What next book?” I ask automatically, though I’m stalling for time. Of course I have a next book. The question is only whether I’ll tell him about it. Sex is intimate, but telling him about my unwritten book is letting him even deeper into my mind.
“More tooth fairies? Or are they teeth fairies in plural?”
My lips curve in a reluctant smile. He’s trying to distract me. My feet scream in pain, my side aches. Every muscle shakes even as I’m lying on the ground. I’m a wreck of a human, but when he cracks a stupid joke, it doesn’t seem so horrible.
“It’s not about a tooth fairy.”
“What, then? Mermaids? Dragons?”
“Not a fantasy creature. This book is about a human woman.”
“Human women are my fantasy.”
I ignore this. “She’s been dropped into a strange world where everything is upside down and colorful. It’s terrifying, but it also makes her feel alive. Like an Alice in Wonderland except more violent.”
“More violent? I thought she chops off heads in the original.”
“That’s the Queen of Hearts. But in my version, it’s Alice who’s violent. She’s like a kickass heroine in a blue pinafore and a leg strap for her dagger.”
“That’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard.”
“Anyway, it’s not actually Wonderland, where she ends up. There’s no white rabbit or Cheshire cat. They’re only figments of her imagination, because she’s actually walking through the dark parts of her own mind. She’s locked in an asylum, you see. She’s insane.”
He sits up, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “Is that what’s happening to you?”
“I don’t know.” My eyes squeeze shut. “What if I’m still in that prison cell? What if the plane crashed on some tropical island and this is all some fever-induced dream? What if I’m actually locked in a padded cell, and I only imagined you?”
“You really are a goddamn delight,” he says softly, echoing the same compliment he gave me eight years ago in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. I’d had a priceless diamond in my backpack at the time, only I hadn’t known it then. He’d known it, though. And he’d let me walk away with it. It was a huge freaking risk, even if he was pretty sure he’d see me again for our date.