Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Glory

“WHERE IS YOUR father?” Ambrose asks again.

I shake my head.

“You don’t know? Or you won’t tell me?”

I swallow, knowing I can’t answer that question.

“This can be easy or hard, Glory. Are you going to tell me where your father is?”

I almost have an urge to shout it out, to tell him that my father is dead because I killed him and Huxley buried him in the woods. But I don’t say a word.

Ambrose steps closer, his body pressing against mine. The rope sways as I struggle to keep my footing, my feet slipping across the hardwood floor as my shoulders twist and my body turns.

His hand snaps out, quickly darting between my shoulder and my ear, snaking around to grip the back of my neck. With a sharp jerk, he drags my body to his and holds me against him.

I gasp at the feeling of his hard muscles against my curves, my modest breasts flattened out by the way he pushes into me.

He opens his mouth to speak, but then his lips clamp shut again. Soft lips…so perfectly formed, with well-defined curves and plumpness in all the right spots. They’re so different from Huxley’s—his are wider and thinner.

Both mouths are beautiful.

I shut my eyes, trying to focus against the distraction of lips and thoughts of kissing them.

How could I ever think of kissing the lips in front of me?

I tug on my arms insincerely, trying to prove to myself that I want to fight, that I want them free, that I want to run far and fast. I should want all those things. The man in front of me is dangerous and sick—he kidnapped us when we were only seeking help and kept us in a cage in his home. A cage he must’ve built at some point. He’s twisted with intention and there’s no telling what he’ll do to me, what he’ll do to Huxley.

Scream.

Kick.

Fight.

My body remains motionless.

“Where is your father, little bird? This is the last time I’m asking.”

“Why do you want to know?”

He cocks his head and a condescending smirk curls the corner of his lips. “She speaks.”

I clear my throat and try to sound more confident, more intentional. “Why do you wanna know about my father?”

“That’s not information you need to know.”

“I’m not telling you where he is.”

He nods a little and releases me, taking a step back, moving away so quickly that it makes me sway again. My feet scramble along the floor, seeking purchase to stop me from spinning on my wrists. I lift my head to look above me, to see how my skin turns pink beneath the coarse rope as it drags over my skin, my weight harshly pulling down.

The click and spark of a lighter catches my attention, and I level my chin to see him lift a cigarette to his lips, leaning forward with his head tilted over the small flame to spark it up. White smoke rolls from the end of it as he caps the lighter and shoves it back into his pocket. His eyes remain locked on mine as he takes in a long drag before blowing it out slowly, evenly.

I don’t miss the way he looks at me, strung up like a piece of meat for him to do with as he pleases. I feel nauseous at the thought of it, but with the nausea is still that peculiarly pleasant tightening deep in my core. The tug of it shoots an aching need through me each time, a flurry of desire creeping through my veins and darkening my blood with lust.

It’s lust.

I’ve been touched, licked, and fucked probably hundreds of times in my short life—both consensually and not. Even consensually with the boys from school, I never really cared for it. Choosing to be sexual with boys my father didn’t approve of was an act of rebellion against everything he’d done to me—I never really desired it. I never felt that same explosive moment they had when they grunted, went rigid, and came inside me. I never felt pleasure.

I thought it wasn’t possible for me.

I’ve never needed in this way before, never wanted, never felt anything physically…good. And I haven’t stopped feeling it since I kissed Huxley.

It’s because of Huxley, isn’t it?

That desire?

It has to be because of our bond, how I feel so safe and protected in his arms.

Then why do I still feel it with this mysterious, twisted stranger as his eyes rake over my body?

Ambrose steps closer, holding up his cigarette between two fingers. “Do you smoke, little bird?”

“No.” I swallow, hoping to shove down the gruff tone of desire that seems to be clawing up my throat. “It’s bad for you…it will kill you.”

He shrugs a shoulder, so carelessly cool that my eyes flutter at the sight. “So will I. But I still need to know where your father is. And since you’ve decided we should do this the hard way…” He reaches around me and grabs hold of my hair, fisting it at the base of my skull and tilting my head back with a sharp tug. I yelp as he moves in close again, our bodies kissing as he stares me down, his eyes narrowing on the tender flesh of my exposed throat.

I breathe deeply through my nose, feeling my nostrils flare at my rushed breaths. He shifts his cigarette in his grip, pinching the end of it, then he brings it down slowly, intently. The sparking end hits my skin at the sensitive spot just beneath the back of my jaw, near my ear. I hiss as he presses, then let out a yelp as he lifts it but immediately presses down again. It burns, searing heat shooting out from the spot, feeling like torn flesh. He does it again and again, burning a line down my jawline.

My skin burns, sizzling with each press, but after a few moments, I’m numb to the pain because it’s second to the feeling of him against me, the feeling of his hard, masculine frame holding me in place and forcing me to take his torture.

This should hurt me far more than it does.

It should frighten me, but it doesn’t.

I’ve been tortured enough in my life that I’ve grown accustomed to it.

But this…this is different.

I hear his heavy breathing, feel his pounding heart, see his jaw clenching with tension. It’s different because he doesn’t just burn me, he follows the hissing trail of burnt flesh with his lips, caressing my skin, softly peppering a line of kisses over the line of cigarette burns beneath my jaw.

His hand falls from my hair to my back, fingers splaying between my shoulder blades and pulling me closer.

What is he doing?

What amIdoing?

Why am I feeling this sickness?

“This place, this fucking forest…” he whispers near my ear, “it plagues me.” His lips trail down the side of my neck. “It makes me want you. I don’t know you, and it makes me fucking want you.”

His hips shift and I feel his erection against my stomach, hard and growing thick beneath the barrier of his jeans.

A vision snaps to mind—my hand wrapping around his thickness and tugging him to pleasure. It clouds my vision, pulling that pleasant thread of tension to my belly once again. I part my lips to let out a building breath and it comes out with a strangled moan that surprises the both of us.

I’ve never made a sound like that before.

It drags something urgent from me, something hot and desperate, something that takes my mind from the danger of my situation, the fear of this stranger, and burns it all to ash.

Slickness pools between my legs and I gasp at the feel of it. I’m overwhelmed by it, light-headed from the way my breaths quicken, aching from the pull of my arms above my head, adrenaline flooding my veins for being at his mercy.

What’s happening to me?

“Stop…” I half-heartedly breathe the word as he drops the cigarette to his hardwood floor and crushes it with a sharp turn of his boot.

He could’ve stepped away, put it out properly in an ashtray, but the way his hands come around to grip my waist with tight fingers and his tongue licks a line across my collarbone speaks to the frantic, confusing, disorienting energy between us.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my eyes fluttering shut at the sensation he creates.

“I don’t know,” he mutters into my skin.

“Am-Ambrose…” I stutter out his name.

He lifts his head and looks down at me, panting with perfect, parted lips. His dark eyes are hooded. His tousled, raven hair and the scruff of his black stubble make him appear almost feral—as if he’s something more than human—and somehow, that makes me feel safer.

I must be broken.

How could I feel safer strung up in an isolated cabin with a feral creature than I could in my own home?

It’s his eyes, I think. There’s a softness to them, even though he tries to cloak it in shadows. I can see myself reflected there—a kindred spirit who’s been battered and broken by those we were meant to trust.

“Who hurt you?” I whisper.

He blinks and jerks his head back.

I can feel his broken spirit tugging back, trying to pull him away, wanting to flee. Though I’m used to others pulling away from me, leaving me in my darkest hour, not truly caring about me as anything other than the heiress to the Tolliver fortune, somehow, I can’t stand to think of this stranger disconnecting.

“Please,” I say, though I don’t know what I’m begging for.

Quiet falls between us and slowly, gradually, I feel his spirit come back. I feel it settling inside his bones. I feel it push against mine and his body is there, too. He molds to me, hands splaying across my back, arching me into him.

His lips crush mine, and it sets off an explosion within me. That stomach-clenching pleasure twists and coils, rushing good feelings down into my core. His tongue drives past my lips and it surprises me, but what surprises me more is that I don’t recoil. Instead, I taste him.

God, I hate the smoky tobacco flavor from his cigarette. I hate it as much as I hate that he’s my captor, someone who means to hurt me. Yet behind that awfulness is sweetness, like maple syrup on pancakes on a lazy Sunday morning.

Ambrose is like rotten fruit—still sweet to taste, though his sickness infects me.

The infection feels so good.

His hands are on me, moving roughly over my body, groping and gripping and touching. His fingers pull at the button of my jeans, tugging down the zipper. My hips jerk away on instinct to avoid unwanted touch there, but I swing them forward again the moment I realize that I do want his touch.

There’s a painful ache between my legs, my pussy throbbing as more wetness than I’ve ever had before pools and drips. His body shifts along mine, moving beside me, his hard-on pressing into my side, just above my hip as he breaks our kiss. He shoves his hand inside my panties, and I cry out, my body swaying as I rock against the unexpected touch.

“What are you—”

His fingers curl, dipping low, stroking across my slick folds. “What is this?” he murmurs, his lips against the shell of my ear. “Why are you wet for me?”

For him?

Am I wet for him?

“I…” I breathe out as his tongue slips out and licks beneath my jaw.

I have no words.

His hand slips lower, the heel of his palm brushing across my clit, making me whimper as his fingers curve and press slowly inside me.

I sway in the binding, my hips rocking into his hand, my body driving me to seek this unknown pleasure he grants me. His other hand snakes around my waist, fingers gripping my side almost painfully to hold me in place, to keep my hip pressed to his cock. The way he pants against my cheek is unsettling in an utterly delicious way.

His desire for me is growing, thickening his cock, which he rubs against my hip as his large fingers stroke inside me.

Dark magic.

His lust is a potion he fed me on his tongue.

His fingers draw runes inside me, summoning a demon of pure, painful pleasure.

His heated breaths against my skin whisper an incantation to strengthen his spell on me.

Dark, dark magic.

It whispers within me, creeps beneath my skin, grows in strength and volume until I’m filled with it—so filled that it threatens to burst from me.

My head rolls against my arms, my weight heavy through my shoulders as my body slumps and trembles in his hold. The magic swirls low in my belly, sparkling like black diamonds that pile up and grow heavy.

“Come for me,” he whispers. “Fucking come.”

His words slash like a ceremonial knife, slicing across my insides and spilling that dark magic down, down, down. The black diamonds explode, shattering his sparkling magic into brilliant shining particles that shoot through my pussy and make my body convulse in raw, perfect pleasure.

I hear my scream as it rips through me, but my voice sounds so far away. The tingling pulsing perfection goes on and on…the way his fingers work inside me draws it out, pressing hard against a spot that feels like a magic button.

My body trembles and I go limp when the squeezing tension breaks its hold on me and lets go, as if the pleasure demon he summoned has been expelled from my body and released into the world.

I want it back.

I want to feel that again.

My eyes lock on his as the hand that stroked me leaves me, coming up to touch my chin and turn my face toward his. My scent on his fingers fills my nostrils and pours instant shame down my throat.

“No,” I whisper, too little, too late.

His hand leaves my chin, and he brings his slick fingers beneath his nose. I watch him with hooded, sated eyes as he inhales my scent, gently brushing my wetness over his perfect lips.

“I want to taste you. I want to lick your dripping cunt until you’re begging me to make you come like that again.”

I whimper, the mere thought of it tightening through my core, though the shame of my vulnerability scatters the ashes of my heart.

“Wh-what do you want from us?”

He blinks, then again. He shakes his head and it’s as if the spell is broken.

No…I want to remain spellbound in this twisted curse.

He steps back, ripping himself away from me, but I want his heat against my body again. I blink, the reality of him and what he’s doing to us coming back into focus. And then I hear Huxley screaming for me, his voice troubled and aching and desperate.

He could hear us.

He could hear what was happening to me.

He doesn’t know how good it felt and how much I want to feel it again. I’ve never felt anything like that before. I’ve never known pleasure before. I’ve never come before. God, I gave my first orgasm to my kidnapper, my captor, bound to the rafters and forced without him asking my consent.

But really, I did consent. I wanted it. I just never said the words out loud.

As if that matters. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t say.

Did Ambrose know how much I wanted it?

It’s wrong, so wrong.

I should’ve given it to Huxley—he deserves my pleasure more than anyone—yet Ambrose took it.

No. Ambrose earned it.

He caused it.

He made it happen.

And I want more.