62. Memphis

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

memphis

“ T hat’s the spirit, angel!” Utah yelled from fucking somewhere. “Don’t get me wrong, you’ll pay for that one. But it’ll be more fun if you fight me every step of the way, girl.”

I had no idea how I still heard him over the sound of my own heartbeat, but it made the pounding in my ears even louder. I’d picked a different direction from the one Trista had. I wasn’t running back toward where I imagined the entrance was, but rather where I thought might be the nearest edge of the field.

He had a mask on, in the dark. He wasn’t using a flashlight. There was no way he could see out here any better than I could. I forced my legs to just stop moving for a second. All I really had to do was stay quiet. And the loudest thing about me at the moment was my breathing. I tried to suck in a giant breath just to let it back out slowly to calm the rest of me down. Then I tried just walking. It’d be so much quieter. And so much less painful. Nothing in the world could’ve prepared me for how much it stung when the fucking leaves from these cornstalks whipped me in the face while I ran through them. Most of the rest of my body was covered by my clothing, but I imagined my face was bleeding in a couple places from that shit.

I stopped cold when I took a single step out of the corn. As best I could tell, there was this little three-foot wide strip of grass between the edge of the field and the start of a motherfucking wooded area. I couldn’t see far enough in either direction to know if there was an end nearby to either the field or the woods.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I whispered to myself.

Running into the trees felt like a bad idea. Game or not, I didn’t know where I was. Utah might not know where I was. I might end up in there all night, regardless of the game we were playing. When I turned to look back into the field, my whole face smacked right into Utah’s chest.

“Fuck me!” I hissed in panic and tried to push away from him.

“That’s the plan, sugar,” he said, catching both my wrists before I managed to move anywhere. I tried to twist both arms out of his hold, but his grip only tightened. “I’m going to need you to pick a safe word. Now.”

He started to walk toward me until I was backing away from him. This was a super fucking weird conversation to try to have when I couldn’t see his face.

“Something you’d never think to say during sex unless you really needed me to stop, but something you’d never forget in case you have to use it.”

I just stared at the holes where his eyes should’ve been.

“A word, baby. Now. Because telling me no and telling me to stop aren’t going to do you much good in a few minutes.”

“Jersey,” I whispered.

Something I wouldn’t say during sex unless I needed it to end.

Jersey .

He breathed in deeply, like oxygen was the only thing in the world that could prevent him from bursting into flame right then.

“Repeat it,” he said roughly.

“Jersey,” I whispered again, and then gulped.

“Remember it, Memphis.”

It dawned on me that he’d slipped this conversation into this specific moment to give me another minute to acknowledge that even if this was happening out here—in the dark, while he was in a mask, and I’d just spent an absurd amount of energy running from him—that this was still the same Utah underneath.

He started to back me toward the trees again.

“Wait,” I whimpered.

“No.”

“Please, Utah.”

“You already used the scared girl bit on me once to get away, baby. It won’t happen again. You know how to stop me.”

I almost smiled at how easily he’d caught on to what I thought I was doing, but his hand covered my mouth before I could.

“You might be smarter than me, angel,” he whispered and leaned down until his mask nearly touched my nose. “But I know which one of us is more fucked up, and you’re about to learn it too.”

The sudden lack of oxygen in the entire great outdoors was a fascinating side effect from those words.

Utah walked toward me until he’d backed me into a tree and then he took a step back. I should’ve taken that chance to run again, but I was wholly entranced by every move the man’s hands made while he unbuckled his belt. And then this terribly embarrassing squeak came out of me when he snapped the thing as he jerked it through the belt loops of his jeans. I slapped my own hand over my mouth in embarrassment, and that giant bitch of a man chuckled at me.

“No need to be quiet out here,” he said while he grabbed one of my hands to start wrapping his belt around my wrist. “I’m not really interested in how well you can hide the things that I do to you. I fucking love the way you say my name, sugar. But tonight, I want to hear you scream it. I don’t want you to drown it out, or bury it, or keep it hidden. Tonight, you’re going to come to life. You’re going to live for me, Memphis.”

He wrapped the belt around my wrists in this mesmerizing infinity shape before he tied the ends together, binding my hands in front of me. I stopped breathing entirely for a few seconds once I looked down at my wrists and it really hit me that I was unable to move them because a man intended to have sex with me.

“Remember your word,” he whispered.

I looked back up to the mask after that and found myself desperately wishing that I could see his eyes in that moment. How was it even possible that he could always know exactly what I needed when I needed it?

He waited just long enough to make sure I understood what he was really saying.

That moment was loosely translated to: I see your concern, Memphis, but if you don’t say that magic word, you’re about to get fucked within an inch of your life.

In an even more fucked up moment of total clarity, I stood there and nodded at the man.

Some part of him must’ve needed that tiny moment of consent too to be sure that I was still on board for this game because as soon as it happened, he turned the intensity right the fuck back up.

Utah immediately bent at the waist to put his shoulder in my stomach, and he hoisted me right off the ground.

“No, no! Why are you carrying me? Where are we going?”

Rather than responding, he laughed. He was walking through the trees a second later while I clawed at the back of his shirt with my bound hands to try to find a place to hold on. My heart rate kicked into high gear when he stopped walking, though. His hands went to my hips to lift me off his shoulder and drop me to my feet in front of him. And I felt like an absolute dumbass for the couple seconds that I considered asking him what was supposed to happen next.

He stalked around behind me. “On your knees, Memphis.”

I knew what that meant. And I was terrified of it. We’d been playing this kink exploration game for weeks now, and I read pure fucking filth. He was about to make me suck his dick. Something that hadn’t really happened up to this point. Not because I didn’t want to, I just wasn’t overly confident about how to.

Everything about me was small. Mouth included.

Everything about him was…not.

“Um—”

His arm wrapped around me so he could slam his hand over my mouth.

“I wasn’t asking a question. I don’t want your words.” He moved his palm so he wasn’t covering my mouth anymore and he forced two of his fingers into my mouth. “I want you on your knees with your mouth open. I want to feel that tongue stud on every inch of my cock, angel.”

Alright.

But fucking how, bossy britches?

How in the absolute fuck would that thing fit far enough into my mouth for him to feel my tongue stud at the base of his dick?

How?

As soon as he removed his fingers and his arm, I dropped right down into the dirt. When Utah walked around to stand in front of me, I raised my bound hands to try to get his jeans undone. He grabbed the belt between my wrists to stop me and I just sat there and stared back up at him to wait. He knelt in front of me and ran his hand down between my breasts, along the buttons on his flannel. He grabbed the fabric on either side of the buttons and ripped it open. I wish I could’ve seen his face because I absolutely imagined him frowning at the discovery of the tank top that I wore under his flannel. He reached behind him and raised something metallic between the two of us. And I freaked out hardcore when he opened it to reveal a giant fucking knife. I shook my head and pretty well fell backward in my attempt to put space between us.

“I don’t know what you think you’re planning to do with a knife , Utah,” I warned, pushing myself backward across the ground with my feet. “But no.”

He laughed and fucking demon crawled right at me to close the distance I’d created. He didn’t stop until he had me pressed flat into the ground beneath him with my hips between his legs. He grabbed the belt between my wrists and raised it, so my hands were over my head.

“Keep those there,” he growled. “I need to use both hands to make sure I don’t hurt you, baby. Don’t move.”

“Utah.”

“Wrong name.”

He grabbed the tank top at the neckline, held it up off my body, and dragged the blade of the knife right through it all the way down the front of my body. I didn’t breathe for even a single second of it happening. I was surprised that I was able to feel the chill in the air through the way my entire body was panicking. But my nipples tightened so fucking fast that I could feel the sting from the posts through them in a matter of a second or two.

“That’s better,” he said while he put the knife away. One hand went to my wrists to pin them harder against the ground and his other went right to my chest. “If I’m going to fuck your pretty face, I want the whole view while I do it.”

His right hand cupped my breast while his thumb brushed back and forth over my nipple and the post, making the tightening almost fucking painful.

“Fuck, Colt,” I whispered.

That thumb stopped instantly. He lowered himself until he was between my legs, and he could thrust his hips against me. I bit into my own lip when he pinched that nipple between his fingers.

“The things that you make me want to do to you when you call me that, Memphis.”

“Syn,” I gasped out when he rolled his hips another time. “My name is Ellasyn.”

He ripped that mask off his face so fucking fast.

“Sin,” he repeated. He’d nearly choked on it, like he was suddenly the one who couldn’t breathe.

“Sin. But with a Y,” I said and nodded. “Everyone used to call me Syn. It was the only cool thing about me.”

“I’ve been calling you angel all this time, while your actual fucking name…is Syn.”