He slides out of bed, naked to the waist down, and crawls over me. Before I can make a move, his gun is pointed at my face.
“Be nice, or I’ll blow your brains out,” he says.
But all I can think about is his backside rubbing on my erection, and his naked legs on each side of my waist. And he smells so enticing, like clean sweat and soap. He must have cleaned himself before bed.
He buries the tip of his gun under my chin and starts to jerk himself off on top of me. It’s the most degraded I’ve ever felt, and yet I can’t fucking breathe.
“I’ll kill you,” I repeat.
Because what else can I say? ‘I want to bend you over the bed’? My pride would never let me live it down.
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he jokes.
Except it doesn’t sound like a joke. Not when he’s speeding up. He’s getting close to orgasm. And I’m getting close to losing my mind. In this position, I can’t touch myself.
Jude moans and says, “Fuck…!” before coming all over my naked chest.
Thankfully, I left my shirt open. His semen drips from my bellybutton to my nipples, warm, wet, and smelling fucking delicious.
Jude composes himself for a moment, then says, “Thank you for your help.” And he climbs on his feet, taking the gun with him, and goes back to bed without even cleaning my chest. “Goodnight.”
Rage mixed with lust urges me to drag a hand into his semen and unbutton my cargo pants. I use it as a lube to make myself come, hard and fast. Even in the dark, I know that Jude is still watching. He must feel so fucking proud of himself.
When rapture comes, it’s not gentle. I arch my back and bite my lip so as not to make a noise and give him satisfaction. I dry my chest and hands with the blanket before throwing it at the end of the bus.
I hear a quiet laugh in the dark.
Sleep, against all odds, finds me this time.
We leave at dawn with a basket of food, courtesy of the two women. In exchange for the repairs, Jude gave them one of the guns he kept locked in theFireflyand a few boxes of ammunition. Fyfe flies us overGears and Giggles, and then we head north, to coordinates that Jude seems to know by heart.
“Where are we going?” I ask after a minute of flight.
We haven’t talked about what happened last night in the dark. I won’t be the one to bring it up. At least, until I have a gun over his head.
“To theHighwaymenbase. We’re going to Hell.”
I sigh. Of course, we are. “Why?”
“I know a hacker. She’s not as good as Perri, but he’ll do. And I also want to know if my brother said the truth, and if my parents are dead.”
I watch him, but his eyes are on the horizon. “I thought you wanted them dead.”
He frowns. “I do. But I wanted to kill them myself.”
He turns toward me, and there is a fire burning in his eyes. This kind of hatred, I know well. It runs deep.
“What did they do to you?” I ask.
“Mind your own fucking business.”
“You’ve made it my fucking business when you started keeping me as a pet and dragging me through the wastelands.”
He lets out a humorless laugh and turns back to the horizon. “So, you admit that you’re my pet? How delightful. And you know, all of this could be over if you only gave me full command of theFirefly.” I glare at him. “No? That’s what I thought. Then learn to enjoy your leash.”
A spark rises from my skin, the only sign of the storm rising inside.
Jude reaches for the gun I now know he always keeps at his belt, hidden under his shirt. He takes it out swiftly and points it at me.
