25. Pleasure Through Pain

25. Pleasure Through Pain

Skylenna

The cold water runs throughthe open wounds on my back like chilled acid.

“Breathe through it,” Dessin says softly.

We stand under the broken pipe in the community shower, surrounded by other naked inmates, including our friends. I woke up this morning in my own vomit, shivering, hungry, and thinking someone had dropped a burning torch on my back.

“It burns,” I tell him through a strained breath.

“I wish I could make you feel better, baby.”

“Like you did when Meridei whipped me?”

He pauses in a bubble of his own thoughts, then groans. “Yes.”

The sound of the rumbling in his chest vibrates down to the base of my spine, right between my legs. I look up at him, squinting as droplets of water splash across my cheeks.

“Would you do it in front of all these people?” I taunt.

His pupils dilate to wide saucers. “I would.”

“Jesus, fuck, Dessin. Put it away,” Warrose grumbles in disgust, abruptly turning his back to us. My eyes dart down to see his thick erection nearly grazing my lower belly. The head is a light shade of pink with precum glistening at its entrance.

I blow out a breath, meeting those hooded, dark-mahogany eyes.

“You can blame Skylenna. She’s painting a very vivid picture for me.”

“Maybe art isn’t her calling,” Niles snickers to Ruth.

“I wish I could get on my knees for you right now and take care of that,” I whisper, feeling my nipples grow hard, puckering toward him.

Dessin growls at the idea, looking around at the many bodies minding their own business. And as his gaze drags across the room back to me, I know this is going to be a terrible decision. Because his mind is made up. His chest rises faster, lips parting, and he takes a step toward me.

“Dessin…” I warn.

“Greystone got to fuck you last night. It wasn’t me,” he justifies.

“But…”

“Please?” His brow wrinkles inward, and he looks kind of desperate. I melt a little, smiling at the yearning clouding his gaze.

“Did you just ask nicely?” I gasp.

“I can be nice.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say please. I was confident you didn’t know that word existed. In fact, I’m still unsure if you understand its meaning.” My cheeks flood with heat as I smile, fighting the need to release the laughter in my chest.

“Skylenna…” Dessin lifts his chin, using the deepest baritone of his voice. “I am so fucking horny. Will you please let me run my tongue over your clit? Let me take care of my girl.”

My pussy slickens instantly, clenching in an unsteady rhythm. I should say no, and Dessin would respect my decision. I mean, I was fucked in front of so many horny soldiers last night. I was fucked against a horny inmate.

The thought of doing this in public should make my stomach turn like it’s digesting rotten food. Right? I shouldn’t be getting wetter and warmer thinking about doing this…

“Our friends…” I utter.

“Warrose, Ruth, Niles, and Marilynn. Will you form a perimeter so I can get on my knees for my girl?” Dessin commands the backs of their heads calmly. Like his request is natural. Simple.

Niles is the first to laugh.

“My god,” Ruth gasps with a giggle.

“Fuck, really?” Warrose grits.

“Anybody want to deny me this after we’ve just been whipped?” Dessin growls in irritation.

Our friends form a circle around us, but there are only four of them. There are large gaps that anyone can see through.

“Are we having an orgy?!” Helga Bee bustles toward us with her huge breasts and beaming red face. Gerta pops up beside Niles.

“Ah, damnit.” Niles drops his head.

“Just turn your backs to them and pretend like you don’t hear anything,” Marilynn says.

“This is an assignment? Gerta and I are happy to serve!”

Dessin skims his hands down the sides of my thighs as he lowers himself to his knees, lustful brown eyes boring up at me. He’s so dangerously attractive as he caresses his hands up and down the backs of my legs.

“Sling your leg over my shoulder,” he orders in a low voice.

As I lift my foot, I catch a glimpse of his standing cock. He’s loving this. Basking in the view of me bearing my pink opening to him.

“Just lick once,” I whisper sternly.

He bows his eyes to me in acceptance. Though it’s not hard to spot his defiance as he squeezes my inner thighs. There’s a wickedness as he stares into my exposure. A potent, primal haze bludgeoning his self-control from every angle.

“Fuck, I can see it slickening your entrance, baby.”

“Are you going to gawk at it all day?” I clench up, suddenly very aware of the honey of my arousal seeping out of me.

“I just might.” But he leans into me, using two fingers to part my lips gently, breathing me in as his eyes fall shut. I’m quivering, zapped with bursts of euphoria under his fingers.

“Dessin,” I whisper-moan.

“One lick.”

He kisses my clit adoringly, nuzzling his mouth against my wet center, as if he’s stalling, prolonging, and building himself up to savor that one lick.

But the tease is blazing under my skin, firing up my lower belly. Muscles wind up tight, roasting as I slam my molars together at the irrepressible surge of energy funneling through my bloodstream.

I hear our friends making loud conversation to tune us out, triggering a sense of urgency in me to move this along. The teasing is a form of torture he loves to wield at my expense and now, at our friends’ expense.

“Dessin,” I scold under my breath.

He kisses my wet lips again, exhaling a gust of hot air against my tender clit. A spasm ripples up my pelvic bone, and my thigh twitches on his shoulder. How have my legs not given out yet? How am I still standing?

As if drunk, Dessin moves slower than he’s ever moved, running his tongue up my center, slipping over my hole. It clenches open and closed in a teetering violence. My mouth forms an “O,” and I have to grip his hair so I don’t fall over.

The vibrations of his groan buzz straight up my soaking channel. It’s mind-melting. A fever dream. An incineration of endorphins and drugs.

His movements stop, and I can feel his resolve slipping along with my own.

“One more,” he justifies in that rolling, growly tone.

I don’t stop him. How can I? He licks again, this time faster, with a ravenous aggression. The way a starving animal would devour its first kill in a cold winter. And it doesn’t stop at “one more.” No, because Dessin’s eyes turn a shade of bloodshot, hazed and hooded, as he laps up the honey of my arousal. Primal growls humming against my clit.

And as I edge toward my orgasm, Dessin’s tongue spears inside me, fighting the way my hole clenches randomly. He’s gripping me so hard against his mouth that his hands spread my cheeks as he lifts me higher above him. My feet actually dangle an inch above the wet floor.

“I’m going to—” My face pinches up, mouth gaping wide.

But Dessin nods at something on the other side of me. And suddenly a thin hand covers my mouth, blanketing the howl blazing out of my chest. My orgasm ripples along my inner walls, fluttering happily against his tongue still inside me.

As my feet touch the ground again, I sigh contentedly at the way that orgasm, even if it was only for a short while, took away the sting in my back.

Ruth lifts her hand from my mouth, smirking with raised eyebrows.

“My bad,” I say with fire cooking my cheeks.

She snorts and turns around once more.

It takes my eyes a moment to adjust from their dilated state, but as they shift downward, I see how engorged Dessin’s dick is.

“Hey,” I say, reaching to help him stand.

“It’ll go down.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want it to.”

He’s standing at his full height now, gripping his long shaft in his fist in an attempt to relieve the tension. Desire reignites in my chest, and my mouth waters as I imagine tasting his tip. Hot, feverish electricity ripples through my channel, still coated with his saliva and the wetness of my orgasm.

“One taste?” I ask quietly.

His brooding eyes flick to me through the shower mist. He has no self-control in front of my naked body. The way his half-crest gaze slides down my legs tells me he’s trying to find the strength and failing.

“Yes.”

I’m dizzy as I lower to the ground, knees touching the concrete. My eyes trail over the dusting of hair across Dessin’s legs, the water droplets puddling around his feet. A finger hooks under my chin, lifting my face. The spray of cold water blurs my vision, but I can still make out the hard lines of his face.

“Show me the inside of your mouth, baby.”

Something tight and needy grows inside me. A knotted, dirty form of pleasure. I open my mouth wide, sticking out my tongue.

“Wider. I want to see your throat.”

I unhinge my jaw, finding it difficult to continue making eye contact with my mouth stretched to the point of discomfort.

“Good,” he rasps, taking the base of his erection with his fist. “Lick up the shaft. Clean the length of it with your tongue.”

The muttering conversations, trickle of water, and feet splashing through puddles fills the room around me. It’s as if I’m on the drugged gas all over again. My eyes roll back in my head as I clean the precum off the head of his cock.

Dessin groans, deep and coarse, like he’s in pain.

My hands knead his balls as I lap my tongue over every inch of his shaft, leaving shiny trails of saliva. I try to keep quiet, but the moans of frustration come out in a hurry. I bounce on my heels, shifting forward to take in more of him, savoring all of it. The taste. The scent. I’m alive and drenched in flames, consumed by the high, yet still sodden and boneless from my last orgasm.

“What do you need, Skylenna?” he asks.

I’m delirious as I answer, “I want you to fuck my mouth.”

I know, I’m a really bad friend for doing this here. In front of them. But we need this to survive. Our love. Our touch. It ignites fuel inside our souls.

“Please,” I beg.

Dessin’s muscles bulge, and his dick pulses with pent-up energy. He lets his head fall back. “Yes. Fuck.”

I don’t give him time to adjust. In one quick maneuver, I take him in my mouth. I nearly gag as his impressive length bumps the back of my throat. Dessin’s large hands twitch, then wind through my tangled, wet hair, pulling it in a death grip. My tender scalp screams at the pressure, but it all feels so good. The pleasure and pain, the tension, and the aggression.

In slow thrusts, Dessin fucks my mouth. I only gag twice, drawing out long strings of drool that hang from my lips to the tip of his cock.

“Fuck,” he growls.

My arousal drips down my inner thighs at his baritone turning to gravel.

Dessin’s fingers wrap around my chin again, forcing my gaze up. “Let me see your eyes water,” he commands.

I squirm, hot and humiliated, as I catch wandering eyes landing on me between our friends’ legs. My clit aches at how wrong this is. People know what we’re doing. And there is no gas falling from the ceiling to dictate our actions.

With another firm thrust, tears are dripping down the sides of my face, swirling together with the cold water from the ceiling pipe. I taste the slimy precum at the back of my throat, moaning at how good he tastes. Trying so hard to swallow him down. Take more of his length.

“Baby, I’m going to come.” His breathing is erratic, heavy, and labored. “My cock gets so hard when I see you with your mouth full.”

“On my chest, please.” I pull away, stroking his hardness in between both palms, slowly, sensually, without taking my eyes off him. My other hand slides up the beautifully carved muscles of his abdomen. The trail of dark hair. His erection tremors, growing hard as he jerks forward, and a long white rope shoots over my breasts.

Dessin does his best to silence the deep sounds that rumble up his throat. Without breaking our gaze, I wipe a hand across my nipple, gathering his cum and reaching between my legs to spread it on my clit.

“Jesus,” Dessin exhales. “I fucking love you.”

“I love you back,” I whisper.

We quickly use the water to clean my breasts, so our friends won’t see. But that ship has kind of sailed, huh?

“I might have nightmares about this,” Niles warns as we get changed back into clean uniforms.

“Leave them alone.” Marilynn uses her elbow to bump him. But I glare at her a moment too long. I can’t help but revisit my suspicion of her.

I understand Kaspias was probably just trying to create a divide in our family. It was a clever tactic. Because we need each other, our trust, our loyalty to make it out of here. What he said, and when he said it, was strategic. But that doesn’t make it false.

Marilynn is the only person here who isn’t an open book. Dessin has known Warrose since he was a child. Ruth and Niles are my very best friends. I trust them with my life.

But Marilynn was Aurick’s fiancée. She hated Vlademur Demechnef for how he treated her. What’s to say she didn’t switch sides to Vexamen? What’s to say her arrival in our lives wasn’t at the exact time she knew we would get captured?

I shake my head, wincing as the fiery sensation washes over my back again. Being intimate with Dessin really did a lot of good as a distraction. But it’s still here, like an unwanted shadow, pain, a familiar acquaintance that keeps resurfacing in my life.

As we walk to the commissary, Ruth thumps her shoulder to mine. She beams at me with humor and fondness blushing her cheeks.

“What?” I ask.

“I think our friendship just got elevated to another level,” she states with a sweet smile.

“What kind of level?”

“The one where I’ve heard what you sound like with a penis in your mouth.”

“Oh, god.” I drop my face into my hands. “Between you and Niles, I’ll never live this one down.”

Niles pokes his head in between us. “It’s true. Even when you’re on your deathbed, I’ll whisper in your ear just before you pass and say, ‘Remember that time you had a pee pee in your mouth, and Ruth and I slowly bled out from our ears?’”

Ruth cracks up as I shove him. “I have no one to blame but myself.”

“That is true,” Niles says, not helping at all.

“Okay, but I’ll say this. I’m happy you and Dessin have such a strong connection and a good sex life. The only experiences I’ve had in the past have made me question if sex is only for the man.” Ruth gives me a once-over look. “But clearly that’s not the case with you two.”

That’s not the case at all. Sometimes I question if I want it more than he does. But then he does something like this in the community shower, and that thought flies out the window.

“Hey, so do you think I should compliment Dessin on his dick size? Or is that weird?” Niles asks genuinely.

“It’s weird,” Dessin calls before stepping foot into the commissary.

“He’s a fucking witch! An alien with exceptional hearing!” Niles gasps.

“No, you’re just really loud.” Ruth and I giggle.

Walking into the commissary is strange. It isn’t the normal noise levels, with conversations we can’t understand from table to table. Everyone is quiet, watching, standing.

I look to the assembly line waiting for food, and I blink as they shift out of our way, letting us move to the front of the line.

“What’s going on?” Warrose asks.

“I think it’s because of last night. The punishment Skylenna and I took for that woman,” Dessin responds as he inspects the food being handed to us.

“Teserëzex,” one of the cooks says to him.

“Teserëzex.” They hand the last plate to Marilynn, smiling and nodding at us.

“What were they saying?” Dessin asks Ruth as we stride to our table.

“Thank you,” Ruth translates in a whisper.

The large room comes back to life with conversation as we sit to eat our food. It appears to be brown mashed potatoes, a gray hard-boiled egg, and a slice of stale bread.

“Not bad,” Niles chimes, digging in.

Sitting in this cold, hard chair, I’m trying to keep my face expressionless. But these wounds from each grating lash I got last night are biting into my flesh with a red-hot agony I can’t ignore. The pain radiates down my spine, curling into my scalp, tightening the muscles in my shoulders.

“Baby?” Dessin stops eating to peek at my expression.

I sigh. He always knows. “It really hurts.”

He nods once. “When we get to the Regale Hour, let’s ask Helga Bee for more of that honey milk stuff that she gave to Marilynn.”

I blow out a pent-up breath, closing my eyes against the blazing sting.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” I say.

Dessin places a hand on my inner thigh, drawing small circles with his thumb as he thinks about this. “Do you remember that time you hugged me in the abandoned Demechnef building?”

I open my eyes, look down at my food. The time he found that homeless man on top of me. He snapped his neck. He saved my life.

I smile at him weakly. “Yes.”

“That was the first hug I’ve ever gotten,” he admits. That dark brown gaze sweeps over my face and shoulders before returning to my eyes.

I blink in surprise. His first hug?

Dessin rolls his two vastly muscular shoulders back. It’s a subtle tell for him. A hint that he just became the slightest bit embarrassed about this fact. I was his first hug. Me.

“Really?” A slow blush creeps up my neck.

“I’m not exactly a huggable person, Skylenna.”

“You’re the most huggable person I know.” In fact, I’d hug him right now if it wasn’t for the pain beating into my spine. “I feel safe when your arms are around me.”

The corners of his mouth tilt into a smile.

“You know…that moment you pressed your body against mine, hugged me like I wasn’t the most dangerous person you’ve ever met…that’s the first moment I started falling in love with you.”

I bite my lip to hold back my grin. Why is that the most amazing thing to hear? Knowing what he was thinking at that exact moment. Pairing that thought with my own memory of holding him close, thanking him for protecting me. It’s blissful.

“And what was the second moment?”

“When you came into my room and fell apart after Aurick—hit you,” he grits out the last part.

“Why?”

He runs a hand over his jaw. “You started to cry; it reminded Kane of the times you’d cry to him after Jack did something bad. And I realized hearing you cry was the first moment I’d felt real heartbreak. It nearly took me to my knees. I wanted to kill Aurick and take away your pain at the same time. I wanted to make you laugh. Hold you. Kiss you. Heal your bruises.”

Dessin exhales slowly, trying to rein in his anger and hurt.

I remember that day well. Sliding my hand over his, I give it a gentle squeeze.

“I didn’t get emotional about that incident all day. Not until I saw you, Dessin. Just seeing the concern flash across your face made me break. It was like I finally felt safe, finally felt I could stop pretending.” Tears gloss over my eyes. Relief courses through my veins as I remember this, confessing how much of an effect he had on me.

“You are the love of my life, Skylenna.” He brings my knuckles to his full lips, leaving soft kisses on my fingers. “I’ll be madly in love with you until the day I die.”

“And even then,” I promise.