50. Brian

FIFTY

brian

I glance at my watch before heading downstairs. Part of me wants to punish Mina for skirting the edges of our agreement outside the dungeon. She was discreet, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure even the best acting performance by both of us could ever change who has the real power here.

And even though I didn’t know it at the time, she had it from the moment I first saw her—the night I brought a tray of food up to the damaged, terrified woman in the tower, the night I saw the scars monsters very much like me left on her back. Everything else has been mere pantomime.

I shelled out millions of dollars to buy her, to possess her, never understanding why I had to have her. But she has owned pieces of me I didn’t even know existed from the very first moment. I’ve been shifting toward her like a plant bending toward the rays of the sun, but my roots are deep in the dirt and filth and there is no way I can join her or ever truly rise to her level. Still, one has to try.

I open the door to our dungeon room and let out a low whistle. The lights are off, the room illuminated only by candles. She’s still wearing the leather corset from half an hour ago, but the pants are gone. She sits in a chair in the middle of the room, facing me. Her legs are spread wide, revealing secrets only I am allowed access to.

Spike heeled leather thigh-high boots with lacing all the way up encase her legs. Her hair is in a messy upsweep, and her lips are a perfect enticing blood red—like she just killed a guy and feasted on his blood. Her nails match her lips.

My vicious dark goddess.

She smirks at me. And with her next words, it’s like she read the thoughts right out of my mind. “Have you come to pray at my temple?”

I nod. Then I say, “You know, anyone could have just walked in here.”

“Yeah, Gabe did earlier this morning. Did he find you?”

“I’ll kill him.”

She laughs. “Jealous?”

“Never. He’s not monster enough for you. He wouldn’t know how to handle you.”

“True.” She crooks a finger. I start toward her.

She puts up a hand. “Wait. Lock the door. People are taking liberties with their hall passes around here.”

I nod. Probably for the best. The deadbolt slides into place, and I turn back toward her, a predatory smile sliding over my face. I am not a submissive. But the past couple of months I’ve slowly discovered the delicious nuance of surrender… and not to sound like a self help book but… the power of letting go.

When I reach her I bend and press a kiss to the top of her head. “Tell me what you want,” I whisper against her hair.

She looks up at me, her eyes far too guileless for the predator she has become. “I want you to worship me, of course.”

“Of course,” I reply. What else could she possibly want at her temple?

She squeals when I scoop her up from the chair. I lay her out on the bed and carefully unhook the corset. I love the ones that hook in the front, so much easier to get into.

My gaze shifts to the edge of the bed, and I notice a black card poking out from under the folds of the blanket. The death card from Benjamin Barker’s costume shop. His blood stains the skull.

A trophy? Did she just take that one card? Why is it out? A chill runs down my spine. And I don’t chill.

“Brian? What’s wrong?”

I shake my head and turn my attention back to her. “It’s nothing.” No way am I going to interrupt this to talk about fucking tarot cards. I may be many things, but I am no fool.

I watch her for several long minutes, the glow of her skin in the candlelight, the way her cat-like green eyes glimmer, the rise and fall of her chest, those perfect nipples.

She sighs in mock annoyance. “Maybe I should find some new worshippers.”

I chuckle. “I suspect this is your blood lust talking. Why else would you put innocent people’s lives in danger?”

“Would they really be innocent?”

“If they tried to fuck what’s mine? No.”

I take my time with her. Goose flesh pops out over her skin as I slowly encircle first one nipple, then the other with my tongue. They jump to attention.

“Cold?”

“Freezing,” she whispers.

I kiss and lick a trail down her body until I find the spot I know needs attention. “Did you touch yourself like a bad girl this morning?”

“No,” she whimpers. Her hips buck up against my mouth as I begin to devour her sex.

I push my tongue inside her and she lets out a guttural sound. I have always loved how responsive she is to my touch.

I pull away.

“Brian…”

“Still looking for new worshippers?”

A wide smile spreads across her face as she slowly shakes her head. “No.”

“I thought not.”

I return to my mission and lick her until she screams.

“I want you to fuck me,” she says, still wanting more.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“I think you can,” she whispers. “You won’t hurt me. I know you won’t.”

My mind flashes back to Halloween. Chasing her. Hunting her. Deciding in a single split second to fuck her instead of chase the madness and kill her. I shake the thought out of my head.

“Mina, I can’t.” I get up and go to the dresser and pull out the rope. “But you can.”

I see her face fall, and I know I’m never going to be enough for her because I can’t move past the fear that I’ll break her, that I can’t control the beast inside me, that all I know when it comes to sex is violence and anger. And I don’t want to do that to her. I can’t. She is the one light I have, and I can’t snuff that out.

She takes the ropes from me and I pull my T-shirt over my head. My jeans quickly follow. I lay in the middle of the bed and she begins to tie the ropes.

“Hey, look at me.”

She does.

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“I know.”

When she’s finished tying the knots, she straddles me. I let out a hiss as she sinks down, her warm wetness from her recent pleasure guiding her to impale herself deeper on my cock.

She rides me—rougher than normal—and I know she’s trying to punish me, but it just doesn’t work that way. The harder she rides, the better it feels. And because she just came on my tongue, I don’t feel bad that I won’t be able to hold out long.

She leans down near my ear and whispers. “Brian, I have fantasized about you chasing me and fucking me in that pumpkin patch every single day since it happened.”

And then I come. I don’t even know whether it was how hard she rode me, or the words that just tripped off her tongue, but I grip her hips and hold her in place while I spill inside her.

Her fierce gaze holds mine, and she’s flushed.

“Noted,” I say.