“You make such great promises,” she retorts, a brow arched as she tilts her head, blonde hair lengthening over one shoulder. Another glance at the knife she walked in with. What did she plan to do with it? Is she truly afraid of me? “You never keep them.” There is a challenge in her words.
I can’t stop my smile from widening. “You want me to hurtyou?”
“Don’t,” Cosmo says harshly, his fingers tightening on her upper arm.
She winces and something pulls in my gut. But she says, “I’ve been begging for it for nearly a week now.”
She admits it, in front ofhim,and warmth spreads through my chest.
But before I can speak, or decide what to do, Cosmo snorts. When I look at him, he is staring at my naked body, eyes roaming over every inch of me, reminding me exactly how exposed I am.
“Is this the first time anyone aside from yourdaddyhas seen you naked, Sullen?” He lifts a dark brow, eyes piercing. “You’re more muscular than I thought you’d be, covering up in those hoodies, you know. But some parts of your skin look a little…” He wrinkles his nose, staring below the stitches on my abs. He leans in toward Karia, his mouth by her ear, but his eyes stay on mine. “Imagine how that would feel onyourperfect body. You are so smooth,gorgeous,soft, and he…” He shakes his head, as if dismissing me.
Karia’s cheeks turn pink as her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak.
“He’s fucking disgusting,” Cosmo finishes, his tone serpent-like as he whispers the words.
I am trembling, but I can’t stop it. The way I lunge forward, knife in hand, intending to make him just like me.
But he grabs her throat at the same moment, jerking her body back into him.
Her breath comes out hitched, her arms still lifted, like in surrender. “Cosmo, let me go, don’t?—”
He slaps his hand over her mouth, silencing her as he stares at me. “Shut the fuck up, Karia.” He presses his face to hers, cheek-to-cheek as he watches me. “Now, you’re going to put the knife down, and you’re going to hide yourself, or I will make you watch how she likes to be touched. Here’s a hint.You’ve been doing it wrong.”
I think of Dreary.
She seemed to be satisfied. She felt so warm and wet and the sounds in her throat and how she clung to me, it was pleasure, wasn’t it? I don’t think she faked it like I’ve sometimes seen inporn, when the actor’s eyes were empty but their moans were bright.
But she could have.
She must have.
What we did was nothing compared to what I’ve seen her do with the man holding her by the throat now.
I glance down at her thighs, the way her sleep shorts expose so much of her pretty, tanned legs.
She’s probably growing wet right now, in his arms, and his cock is probably pressing against her spine.
She wants him.
I am only in the way.
I am only nothing.
I don’t know what I’m doing with women. Withher.I don’t know anything.
And they are both staring at me now. I don’t remember doing it, but I am crossing my arms, knife in hand, covering myself, turning away.
“Good boy,” Cosmo says quietly, enunciating the words in a snarl.“Hide.”
“No, Sullen,don’t.”
But it doesn’t matter what she says.
I am already retreating. Shrinking back, and back, toward the shadowy corner of my room that I have pissed in so many times. It is like second nature to return there now, to crawl in my own filth as I sink to my knees, bowing my head, curving around myself to hide my skin, bloated wood beneath me from years of liquid. Even when Stein was not here, his guards faithfully kept his humiliation techniques.
She is not mine. She will never be.
