Chapter 17

Ophelia

Itossed and turned until the sun came up. After our conversation in the dark morning hours, I almost asked Alex to stay in bed with me. I longed for the comfort of his heat beside me, but I let him go. He'd seemed so lost in his head, traveling through whatever memories I'd drummed up from his childhood. He was in a constant state of turmoil, torn between the good part of himself and all the bad that had been beaten into him.

When I got up, he was still fast asleep, curled up on himself beneath the blanket that had been my only comfort on that floor. I held my chain to stop it from rattling and waking him. I hadn't heard Gunnir stirring around the house, and I worried the whole nail incident—coupled with the recent issues—had gotten Sam killed. I'd never forgive myself. I was so caught up in trying to escape the basement that I hadn't considered how my actions might have affected her.

I wrapped the blanket around my naked body and slipped my feet to the floor, my gaze shifting between the closet and the dresser against the bedroom door. It would have been easy to grab the gun and take out Alex, then Gunnir when he came into the room. My legs shook, but I took a step toward the closet. I could free myself and get help for Sam. I could end this awful—

I looked down at a peacefully sleeping Alex and found myself glued to the floor. The soft morning light caught in his hair and curved along his strong jaw. His lips—the same lips that had pressed against mine just hours earlier—parted slightly each time he breathed. He didn't look like the man who forced himself on me. He looked like the man who protected me.

I couldn't do it. As bad as my situation was, I couldn't bear the thought of taking his life before he had the chance to learn who he really was. I turned toward the bedroom door. There had to be another way.

"Ophelia?" His sleep-laced voice froze me in place. He reached over and flipped on a lamp sitting on the table beside the bed. "What's going on?"

"I heard a noise," I whispered.

Alex sat up and his posture stiffened. "Gunnir?"

"I don't know." I shook my head. I'd heard absolutely nothing, but I couldn't tell him I had just talked myself out of blowing his head off.

Alex unlocked my chain, got to his feet, and pulled the dresser away from the door. Before his hand reached the knob, his eyes rolled down my blanket-wrapped body. My current attire would send Gunnir into a rabid frenzy, so he dug through the drawer and handed me another pair of boxers and a t-shirt. He opened the door, peered out, then gestured toward the bathroom. I ran to the toilet and tugged down the boxers so I could pee. Gone were the days of caring that Alex was so close when I relieved myself. I'd been holding it for hours. Instead of staring at me, Alex looked at the porcelain sink. My eyes fell to the bathtub, but I shook my head, refusing to relive the piss-filled memory for even a second.

I got up and stepped around him to wash my hands. He went to the toilet, and the sound of his stream colliding with the water sent me back to the bathtub once more. When he finished, he didn't look at me. He was fighting to escape that memory too.

We walked into the kitchen to the sound of a bird singing its morning song near the window. Gunnir's cooking mess still covered the counters. Without being asked, I started to clean up. Like it or not, that hellhole was still my current residence, and I didn't want to live in a pigsty.

Gunnir's heavy footsteps approached from the hall, and my hand stopped its circular motion against the pan in my hand. I tried to steady myself, but every part of me trembled. I heard a second set of footsteps, and I focused my eyes ahead, too afraid to turn around.

"I want to play a game," Gunnir said with a rattle of the chain in his hand.

Sam?If she'd been brought from Gunnir's bedroom, she would have been in the epicenter of hell. She'd have been an arm's length away from the painful grasp of the devil himself. I turned around and looked at her. Black and blue splotches discolored the skin around her eyes, and if I'd ever thought she couldn't lose any more weight, I'd been mistaken. Her tongue tried to wet her cracked lips, but it did no good.

I tried to get her attention, but she wouldn't meet my gaze. I swallowed and let go of the sponge. No one spoke, and Gunnir didn't elaborate on what kind of game he had in mind. The look on Alex's face told me it would not be a fun one.

"Is no one going to ask me what I want to play?" Gunnir prodded.

"Not in the mood, Gunnir," Alex said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gunnir's sadistic grin said he didn't care if anyone else wanted to play. He wanted to, and that was all that mattered. He walked to the cupboards, dragging Sam along with him, and pulled two saucers from the bottom shelf. Gripping the chain in his fist, he led Sam to the table and placed the saucers beside each other in front of two chairs. "How about a friendly little eating contest?"

Alex cocked his head. "Depends on what we're eating."

"We're not. They are," Gunnir said, gesturing between Sam and me.

Oh god,I thought as I tried to take a step back, but there was nowhere to go. Gunnir grabbed my chain, dragged Sam and me to the hook on the floor, and locked us in place. He gestured for us to drop to our knees, and we obeyed.

Gunnir pulled Alex away from us, and I turned to Sam. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't think it through."

"Don't, Ophelia. I would have done the same thing," she whispered before shaking her head.

My eyes were drawn to movement. Alex and Gunnir were locked in a quiet argument. Gunnir pointed an emphatic finger toward us every so often, but I couldn't hear the words slipping past their moving lips. Gunnir motioned to his lap and then pointed at me. Alex shook his head. I didn't need an interpreter for that one. By the time they separated, my stomach was in knots.

Gunnir exited the house through the back door, and Alex gripped one of the saucers in his hand and stepped toward me. He kneeled and looked behind him before leaning into me. "You're not going to like this, but it's better than the original idea."

I closed my eyes. "What am I in for?"

"It's an eating contest, like he said. Whoever cleans their plate first—"

My eyes narrowed. "What are we cleaning off the plate?"

Alex's gaze fell. "Come."

"What?" I said, much too loud.

"Lower your voice, Ophelia." His lips tightened. "Remember what I've told you. Everything I do is to try to get you the better deal. Gunnir wanted us to swap, but I don't want you taking Gunnir's come. You'll get mine."

I shrugged my shoulders and sighed. "Well, that isn't too bad. I've swallowed your come before, so it's not anything new."

He looked like he wanted to kiss me, but he stopped himself. If Gunnir saw something like that, he'd change the rules of the game.

"What happens if I lose?" I asked.

He leaned forward and put his forehead against mine. "Don't."

* * *

Alexzander

"Ready to play!"Gunnir screamed as he closed the back door.

I pulled away from Ophelia, wiping my hands on my pants as I sat up. When I turned around, my stomach tightened. Gunnir held a branding iron in his right hand. I didn't want Ophelia to be a player in this game, but I'd given her the best chance at winning. If she'd been forced to eat Gunnir's come, she wouldn't have stood a chance.

Gunnir grabbed the other saucer and knelt in front of the girls with a heavy thud. He placed the saucer in front of him and unclipped his overalls. He pulled his cock from his underwear and tugged at it as he stared at Ophelia.

It would be hard to come with the risk of Ophelia getting branded hanging over me, but I unzipped my pants and pulled out my cock anyway. I had to try. With the way Ophelia looked up at me, though, I couldn't get hard. Her desperation tugged at me harder than Gunnir tugged at his dick.

Gunnir groaned. "Come on, girls. Get us hard."

"How?" Sam asked.

"Kiss," he said through a growl.

Ophelia and Sam looked at each other, but neither made a move. Gunnir tensed beside me and kept yanking his dick.

"Go on, Ophelia," I said. I didn't speak in a loving way, but she knew what she needed to do and that I was trying to help her, even if it didn't feel like it.

Ophelia played along like a good girl, leaning in and pressing her lips to Sam's. It was so forced and did nothing to help me, but it worked like a charm for Gunnir. Instead of getting hard from what was happening in front of me, my mind drifted to memories of Ophelia. The way she got frustrated when she realized she could have made a better move during checkers. How her breasts swayed and pulled together when she leaned over to snatch another one of my pieces away. That got me hard, and I stroked myself to the thought of her doing such an unsexual thing. Something that turned me on because it was Ophelia just being herself.

Gunnir's hand sped up and he lifted the saucer to catch his come. I focused on thoughts of Ophelia and leaned forward over the saucer when I came. With a satiated groan, Gunnir pushed his plate toward Sam, and the girls stopped kissing. I pushed mine in front of Ophelia.

Gunnir fastened his overalls and gripped the TV stand for balance as he hauled himself to his feet again. I stayed on my knees. He eyed the saucers for a moment and scratched at his double chin. "No, I don't think that's gonna do."

Ophelia's eyes went wide and leapt to me, but I couldn't look at her. Whatever Gunnir had in mind would crush her, and I didn't want to see that.

"Alex, when you think about an eating competition, the contestants have to eat more than that, right?" He turned his shit-eating grin toward me and walked to the fridge. "I mean, those girls can probably lap that up in two flicks of their tongues. There's not much sport in that."

Before his hand reached the busted handle, I knew what he had in mind.

The upper half of his body disappeared behind the refrigerator door, and he rummaged around for a moment. He knew exactly what he was looking for. He was only drawing it out to torture the girls more than he already had.

Realization dawned on Ophelia, and a small whimper slipped through her lips. That was all the encouragement Gunnir needed. He stood up with a mayo jar in one hand and a Coke bottle in the other.

"That's right," he said to Ophelia. "You remember this jar, don't you?" He wiggled it in the air and sent its gooey contents slopping against the glass.

She closed her eyes.

He pawed through a drawer and brought out two measuring cups. He turned to me. "You think a cup is enough?"

I glanced at the saucers. "I don't think those tiny plates will hold a whole cup, and I'm not cleaning our shit off the floor if it spills over."

"That's what they're for," Gunnir said, gesturing toward the girls. "They gotta eat it all, whether it goes on the floor or not."

"Just do half a cup, Gunnir. Damn."

Gunnir rolled his eyes and relented. As he squeezed the Coke bottle, the contents oozed out in thick globs. He tried to do the same with the mayo jar, but its sticky hold refused to let go. "Fucking A," Gunnir said. He put down the coke bottle, grabbed an old rubber spatula from a drawer, and scraped the sides of the jar, flinging the contents into the other cup. I paid attention to which one held my come. As I suspected, he went to tilt his cup over Ophelia's saucer.

"Wrong one, dumbass," I said.

Anger flared in his eyes, just as I'd hoped. If I could get him mad enough, he might abandon the game altogether and make a beeline for me. But it didn't work this time. He wanted to play this sick game more than he wanted to pummel my face. He swapped the cups and poured the aged come onto the correct saucers.

"Alright, ladies, hands behind your backs."

They stole a glance at each other before they interlocked their fingers behind their backs, took a deep breath, and leaned closer to the saucers.

"First one to clean their plate wins. Loser gets branded," Gunnir said.

Ophelia's eyes shot to me. I shook my head. I wasn't kidding her when I told her not to lose.

"Ready...set..." His twisted laugh cut through the tension, leaving them hanging over their plates like dogs waiting for the command to eat. "Go!" Gunnir hollered with a clap of his hands.

Ophelia hesitated, her hair drifting onto the plate, and I fought the urge to encourage her. I didn't want to see her perfect skin branded with a "B." Come on, O, I urged inside my head.

Ophelia licked at her plate, and my stomach tightened as hers lurched. She fought back gags as my cold come coated her chin. I drowned out Gunnir's sick encouragement and focused on Ophelia. Sam kept side-eyeing her to see who was ahead. Neither breathed through their noses, and air sputtered from their mouths between licks. Ophelia sat up a second before Sam, both their plates cleaned to a shine.

Sam whimpered as Gunnir grabbed her by the chain and unlocked her. He dragged her to the kitchen, heated the iron on the stove, and made the loser of his game face her punishment. Ophelia clutched her ears as Sam screamed, and I had to fight back the urge to cover my own, which was weird because I never shied away from their screams before.

The smell of burning flesh permeated the air and hung over us. In the mayhem, I grabbed Ophelia, unlocked her, and led her toward safety, but she couldn't stop looking back as she walked.

I brought her into the bedroom, closed the door, and pushed her against it. I brushed back her sticky hair and wiped the tears as they fell. "You did so good," I said. "Such a good girl." I pulled her into me until her body stopped lurching and the screaming in the other room quieted. I lifted her face, balancing her chin on my palm.

"I tried to let her win," she said between sobs. "She's been through so much. I thought I could take this punishment for her, but she wouldn't let me."

The hesitation. The way Sam kept watching her. I never realized just how brave Ophelia was until that moment. I pulled her against my chest and held her until her sobs quieted. "You really would have taken the brand?" I asked.

She shrugged and gave a weak laugh against me, but the tears surrounding it made it sound so hollow. "You already own me, and I already have scars. You can't see them, but they're there. What's one more?"

I held her away from me and looked into her eyes, afraid this game had broken her, afraid that her spirit had finally been crushed beneath Gunnir's cruelty. But what I saw before me wasn't a broken woman. The tears had dimmed the light in her eyes, but it still shined. How much more could she take, though?

She looked up at me, her lower lip quivering as the threat of more tears clouded her eyes. With shaking hands, she gripped the hem of her shirt and pulled it away from her body until she was down to only the boxers.

"What are you doing?" I asked. Was it some kind of test? If so, it wasn't fair. I'd fail.

"I want you, Alex," she whispered. "I go to other places in my mind when you take me because I need to escape what's happening around me. Now I need to escape what's happening by being taken." She took a step forward, pressing her bare chest against me, and waited for me to make my move.

She stood in front of me, wearing nothing more than my boxers, and I'd never seen something so beautiful. My gaze trailed up her body, and when I looked into her eyes, she looked more confident than when she knew she had the last move that would end our game of checkers. I would give her what she needed. What I needed.

I gripped her waist and pulled her with me as I sat on the bed, keeping her standing between my legs. I hooked my fingers into the waistband of the boxers and tugged them down her thighs. My lips moved to her lower stomach, and I circled my tongue around the sensitive skin. When I pulled her onto my lap, I brought my lips to hers, tasting the salty remnants of old come, and I could only think of her request as she straddled me.

She wants me.

Yeah, she made it seem like I was a distraction for her, but I didn't care because I'd never been wanted before. In any capacity. And she knew how much I wanted her. How much I'd always wanted her. Selfishly.

But I would be less selfish.

For her.

She lifted her hips, and I removed my boxers and lined myself up so she could lower herself onto me. I groaned as she slid down my length, engulfing me in her warm pussy and taking every inch of me inside her.

"Fuck, O," I growled.

Her head dropped into the crook of my neck, and the sticky ends of her hair brushed against my lips. I sucked her hair into my mouth, cleaning her of every reminder of what happened out there. When I released the strands, they were wet with my saliva instead of my come. I brushed her hair over her shoulder and lifted my hips to meet hers. The raw intimacy made my gut tighten with shame. This felt as wrong as it felt right. It went against everything in my very being. This closeness conflicted with everything I'd ever known before Ophelia. Women were to be used. They were soulless creatures who were hardly above a dog.

But that had been a lie. There was a soul inside Ophelia, and it beckoned me and encouraged me to find my own. Her body could be used while I still appreciated every curve of it.

Of her.

I raised myself to meet her and she came down on me. My hands fell to her hips as I let our bodies speak a language I'd never spoken. I'd never had a woman on my lap like that, chasing pleasure with her own speed and pressure. Having so little control over her felt foreign, but I welcomed the unknown.

My eyes kept moving to the door, expecting Gunnir to barge in and see what was happening. Ophelia on my lap, her velvet walls squeezing me as she grinded against me. Even with such a threat looming over our bodies, I didn't want to stop.

"Are you going to come, O?" I asked, but I knew. I felt the pulse of her excited heartbeat around my dick. The tensing and tightening that squeezed my base, coaxing my own orgasm forward.

"Yes," she panted.

"Come with me," I growled, raising my hips to give her something solid to grind against, to take us over the edge of a ledge we could never climb back to. "I want to feel you come around my dick for the first time. I need to feel it."

When her spasms stopped and the moans against my shoulder quieted, I kept her on my lap, staying buried inside her for as long as I could. But there was no time to bask in the moment. If Gunnir came in and saw what we were doing, he'd rain hell down upon us both.

"I'll figure out how to open the gates for you, O." I kissed the top of her head. "I promise."