Page 59 of Roped

It gives him pause and his eyes focus on me. “No?”

I swallow and go to speak when he moves his hand down below. Brushes against that barrier again, making my whole pelvis clench. Fear is heavy in my belly, just like lust, and I bite my lip, whispering, “N-not like this.”

His fingers on my jaw flex. “You know I could just take it, don’t you?”

I twist my hips again. “You w-won’t.”

His chest shudders. “And make you like it.”

“No, please.”

“Won’t take much,” he says, his eyes boring into mine. “You’re already hot for it. You’re already drenchin’ my hand, Princess. Sittin’ on it like it’s your throne, like it’s the best seat in the house. You’re already writhin’ on it with my finger stuck in your slutty hole. I could very easily make you dance on it, too, and take it from you. Take the thing you won’t give me, fuck knows why, when this may be the last time I ever get to feel you this way.”

My chest feels tight and I shake my head. “Please, just—”

“Just one flick of my finger”—he moves his finger inside of me, curls it, and holy God, this is the best thing I’ve ever felt—“and my sweet, sweet, slutty Princess won’t be a virgin no more.”

I look at him, trying to pace my breathing, my heart. Trying to pace the mix of emotions and hormones running rampant in my veins before I whisper, “But we haven’t even… k-kissed yet.”

He goes still.

More than before. My words not only make him pause but also suspend his breathing. They turn him into a stone and I don’t know why. I don’t understand his reaction about a mere kiss when he’s got his hand up my dress and in my pussy. But then he speaks, and if I thought my chest was tight before, it’s strangling now.

“You sayin’,” he begins, his voice so rough and so low it’s unbearable, “if I put my scarred, ugly mouth on your pink, puffy, fuckin’ dreamy lips, you’ll let me bust through your cherry and make you bleed on my fingers.”

I move my hands then. And move them with a purpose. I don’t know why I haven’t done it before when I’ve wanted to for so long. Since the very first time I saw him in that dark alley, the night he saved me and, unbeknownst to me, killed those men for me. But I’m doing it now. I’m brave enough to put my hands where they belong.

On him, his face.

I start at the very top. At his forehead, and he flinches at the first contact of my thumb. I don’t let it deter me as I trace his scar down his face, slowly, so slowly. Tenderly. The raised skin is hard and bumpy. Rough, but it doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t make me want to take my hand away or not touch it. It makes me want to love on it, get close and put my mouth on it. Shower it with soft kisses. Shower him with soft kisses.

Especially when his eyes flutter as if no one has ever done this to him. No one has touched him this tenderly.

My throat is jammed with emotions by the time I make it down to his mouth. It always looks so plush and full from afar, and it feels that way too. His mouth parts when I run my thumb along his scar, and his hot breath on my skin makes my heart pound.

Slowly, I look up and into his eyes; they’re molten and staring so intensely into mine that I can’t breathe for a few seconds. I gather myself and whisper, “No, I am saying if you put your beautiful mouth on mine, the one that I’ve been dying to kiss ever since I saw you that first night in that dark alley, and finally give me my first kiss ever, I’ll let you do anything you want to me.”

Because you’re my Phantom and I’m your Princess.

I don’t say that because it would be too cruel. To say something like that on our last night together. Too cruel to put us together in a sentence like this. We don’t belong together, even though it feels like we do.

But for some reason, I think he hears it. He hears my unspoken words and his grip on my jaw flexes. He comes closer and I crane my neck up. He aligns our faces together, brings our mouths so close that we may as well be kissing. We may as well be tasting each other.

Instead of finally giving me what I want, though, his hand starts working down below. My eyes go wide and I gasp at his resumed pumping. My gasp becomes a moan when he speeds up, when his thumb becomes relentless on my clit. I want to stop him. I want to say no, but it feels so good. It feels like I’m ready to come apart, and he only just restarted. My thighs are back to shaking, and the pressure in my lower belly increases so much that I don’t know how it’ll ever come back down. I don’t know how to stop dancing on his fingers, writhing on his hand like he said. I don’t know how to stop myself from coming.

So I do. I come.

Within probably ten seconds of him playing with me like this. Of him fingering me and watching me so intensely, like he’s memorizing my face. All through this, I do notice that he obeyed my rule. He didn’t bust through my cherry like he wanted to because I didn’t want him to do that, not without kissing me first. Because somehow, it felt important, vital, that we kiss in this moment, before anything else. Panting, I try to focus on him. “Why didn’t you…” Kiss me.

I’m too wrung out to finish my sentence, but he answers me anyway, his words cryptic and his features doused in an unknown expression. “’Cause for the first time in my life, I don’t wanna act like a monster.”

I frown in confusion. “What…”

My words trail off when I feel a pinprick on the side of my neck. A sting that I know I’ve felt before. But it takes me a few seconds to realize when and where. And those few seconds make all the difference. Because by the time I realize he’s stuck a needle into my neck and drugged me again, like he did at the parking lot all those weeks ago, I’m already falling into darkness.

PART II

THE CAPTURE