“Why can’t you people get my name right, huh?” I ask, deflecting the tension and unease which sticks to me like sweat on a breezeless summer’s day, my skin tight and itchy. “It’s Lark. A nightingale is a different type of bird.”
“Ah,” he starts, picking up an already cut piece of pancake and letting the syrup drip down his fingers. I track the moving liquid, my core tightening.Fuck’s sake. “But I’m going to make you sing like a nightingale, my little songbird. Just as soon as you’re healed.” He holds out the piece of pancake, hovering it just above my lips. A shiver cascades down my body, my nipples peaking at his words. I can't tell whether I'm more scared or…excited?
A drop of sticky, golden yumminess falls onto my breast, my eyes darting down to watch its path as I swallow his words with a lump in my throat. I believe him; you don’t get far in the life I’m in without hearing Jude Taylor’s name whispered with terror and fear. It's just a case of whether I'm strong enough to hold out.
“Eat up, precious,” he insists, and I swing my gaze back up to his, taking a final deep inhale as I open my mouth and let him place the morsel on my tongue. The sweet taste has my eyelidsdrifting closed, a low moan falling from my lips as strawberry and sugar fills my mouth. I gasp when a warm tongue laps at my breast, and I open my eyes, looking down to see Jude licking the syrup off. “Fucking delicious,” he mumbles, straightening up and picking up another piece in his still-dripping fingers. “More.” I follow his instruction, and soon we’re both sticky and panting as the heat between us flares, the room feeling like a sauna. Jude looks at me, a frown marring his brow. “Aeron said that I’m not allowed to fuck you,” he tells me with another very cute pout.
“You always do what he says?” I ask, a hint of challenge in my tone. His face hardens, and my heart beats wildly as I get a glimpse at the Tailor boy who strikes fear in grown-ass men’s hearts.
“No,” he says, setting the plate on the side table and crawling over to me on his hands and knees until he’s hovering above me, his thick, pierced shaft millimeters away from where I want it. “But I will not play with you yet, Nightingale,” he whispers, nuzzling the side of my neck, a full body shudder making my skin pebble. “Not until you’re tied up and bleeding. Then I might.”
He gives me one last lick, pushes up, and walks from the room, hard-on and all.
What the actual fuck have I got myself into?
I fall asleep not long after that, even with Jude's ominous words caressing my ears. My dreams are filled with dark-haired boys making me bleed and come in equal measure, and I wake up with feverish skin and a sharp ache between my thighs.
I half gasp, half moan when a cool soothingness flows across my back, bringing me to consciousness and when I crane my neck, I see mismatched eyes staring intently at my exposed body. I take a sharp inhale, my body frozen as I watch his face cast in the gentle, yellow glow of the lamp beside me, his skin glossy and the color of my favorite caramel hot chocolate. It must be dark again. The curtains are closed, and I can't see any light filtering round the edges. Saying that, what the fuck do I know? Aeron might just have fantastic fucking blackout blinds.
I remain still, a hiss of pain whistling through my teeth when he passes a really fucking sore spot, probably one of the deeper lashes, and suddenly I'm trapped in this beautiful monster's intense gaze. I'm fascinated by them, the sharp, pale blue in contrast to the deep jade green.
“I'm sorry if I hurt you,” he tells me, his voice a delicious purr that leaves my toes curling. He has the hint of an accent, Middle Eastern perhaps, that makes his tone caress like smoke from the finest marijuana.
“That's okay,” I reply in a breathy whisper, cursing the Tailors and their porn star genetics. I'm not sure why I'm trying to reassure him. It was his gang who tortured me, after all, and Jude has made no bones about the fact that at least he plans to hurt me again. “What's your name then, handsome?”
There’s a slight twitch of his lips, the barest of smiles, but it's gone in the next blink.
“Tarl.”
And fuck me seven ways’ til Sunday. The way his name slips from his lips is fucking sinful. It winds around me in a sinuous whisper, heating my skin and slicking my core.Why the fuck am I panting for these men?My captors? I mean, I know I'm a horny bitch, but I never get this worked up. Must be Stockholm Syndrome. Though I guess normally it's less of a choice, which isalways a mood killer. We learn to deal with the hand we’re given or some shit.
“You been drugging me up, Tarl?” I ask, my voice repeating his name in a brush of sound, elongating the syllable. A slight clench of his jaw and a flaring of nostrils is my only sign that maybe, just maybe, he likes his name on my lips.
“Just to take the edge off, pretty bird,” he murmurs after a moment, again with that fractional tilt of his lips on his face.
“The good shit, yeah? I don't want no second-rate narcotics,” I sass back, kind of grateful that he has been giving me something to help with the pain. I know, how fucked up is my life when I'm grateful to my captors for giving me drugs to ease the pain they created? It's more than my father has ever done, that's for fucking sure.
I earn another mouth twitch, and I'd pump my fist if it wouldn't hurt so damn much. I feel that Tarl gives out smiles as rarely as a teenage boy finding your clit.
“Only the best for our pretty little bird,” he tells me, stepping back and gathering up bits of bloody cotton wool and placing them in a plastic bag before snapping off latex gloves, the sound sharp in the quiet room.
“Our bird?” I repeat with an eyebrow raised and a tilt to my own lips. He turns that intense gaze back to me, laughter dancing in the depths of his eyes.
“You belong to the Tailor boys now, beautiful,” he informs me, stepping up to where my head is and crouching down, his face level with mine. “All of this pretty flesh is ours to play with. Worship. Destroy. To do with as we please.”
A tremble takes over my entire body, and as with Jude, I don’t know if it's from terror…or sweet anticipation.
The next week passes much the same, Jude feeding me whilst Tarl tends to my wounds. Apparently, I'm not allowed a shower—Dr Tarl’s orders—so Jude takes one for the team and gives me a sponge bed bath, mostly leaving the bed wet and the place between my legs dripping and not with just water.
He refuses to ease the ache he creates there, and I don't see Knox at all. Jude laughs and tells me that Aeron is punishing Knox with blue balls after sinking balls deep inside me when he was meant to be collecting me.Fucking cuntblocker.
I don't see the stoic leader of their band of cunt teases at all during the next seven days. Well, apart from one night when I wake up from another of my usual nightmares, panting and the pillow damp with tears that I refuse to let escape when I'm awake. I'm shaking all over. I haven't had a dream this bad since being in Aeron's bed. In the basement, sure, but ever since I landed in this bed, my dreams have been filled with pleasant demons with dark hair, sexy smiles, and mismatched or ocean eyes.
Still gasping, I push up to sit on the bed, untangling my legs from the damp, sweat-soaked sheets, and come to a complete standstill as I lock gazes with devil man Aeron himself. My chest heaves as we stare at each other in the faint light of dawn, the weak sunshine filtering around the edges of his curtains.
“Who hurts you in your dreams, Dove?” he asks, his voice a violent whisper. The skin around my nipples puckers with the sound. Yep, I'm still naked. Jude laughed when I asked for clothes.Fucking pervert.
“Too many men to keep track of,” I answer truthfully, bringing my knees up to my chest and wrapping my armsaround them. I ignore the sharp tug on my back, the bite of pain somehow a comfort. The lashes are still healing, though they've mostly closed up now. I don't know what makes me answer him so truthfully. After all, he's going to be one of those men before my time here is done.
