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Probably because, no matter her denial, I’d never actually forced her. That time by her car had been entirely fucking mutual. And the second time in her car...shit, that’d been hot as hell, devastatingly erotic, and Christ, I needed back inside her.
Ru
Her hands balled at my slur, but she kept her chin high and voice clipped. “My point, oh incredible master, is just like I don’t seem to have the power to kill you, you do not have the power to kill me.” She marched into me, stabbing my T-shirt with her finger. “Ergo, we are both doomed to live with threats and ultimatums but both too stupidly weak to do anything about them.”
“Speak for yourself.”
She snorted. “Okay, fine. Good luck proving me wrong.” Stomping off, she only got a few feet before the chain around her ankle yanked on the one around my waist, making us both grunt with discomfort.
Swallowing back rapidly unfurling anger, I stalked to her side. “I’m glad you’re so full of energy. That’s going to be convenient for the next task.”
She scowled. “What task?”
“That.” I pointed toward the river with its crystal water. Parts of the blue waterway followed sedately with barely a ripple, while just before the calm pool, rapids danced and bounced over rocks. Those rapids were responsible for eighty percent of all electricity power at Fables, and whatever had damaged the hydro plant needed to be fixed well before ice arrived.
Luckily, the rapids were the last part of the river to freeze, normally waiting until early spring to turn solid completely, meaning the solar panels could pick up the slack as sunlight hours increased. However, during the dead of winter, every kilojoule generated by this river was valued and sorely needed.
“Come.” Tugging the leash around my waist, I gave her no choice but to follow me to the water’s edge. She came grudgingly, her body tense and lips pursed in frustration. My heart chose that moment to skip a stupid beat as the memory of her in the foyer slammed into me. “Tell me what we need to do.”
We.
In that second, she’d accepted that there was a we. That whatever separate paths we’d been on were now unarguably threaded into one.
That memory vanished as quickly as it’d arrived, dumping me back by the river.
And fuck me, I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there or why.
For a terrifying second, I glanced around at a foreign land, and I didn’t have a goddamn clue who I was, where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing.
Oh, God.
Clammy sweat drenched me.
I sucked in a shallow breath.
Panic flowed swift, only to screech to a halt as my mind suddenly flooded with answers.
My valley. My river. Me.
Gemma.
I spun to look behind me, my heart unwilling to beat in fear that she’d been a mirage this whole time. That I’d made up the past few weeks. That I didn’t have anyone to call my own.
But she was there.
Watching me warily, her forehead pinched and teeth chewing on her bottom lip. “What? What happened?” She balled her hands as if she didn’t want to ask but felt like it was her duty after nursing me through the worst. “Are you...are you okay?”
Was I okay?
I don’t know.
What just happened?
I was used to my mind being riddled with barricades and embargos so memories couldn’t suck me down, but I’d never been so vacant before. Never forgot the fundamental pieces of my life.
It’s over.
You’re fine.
Don’t let her know.
Grunting, I cocked one shoulder as arrogantly as I could. “Of course, I’m okay. It’s a beautiful day and I’m with a beautiful girl.”
“Beautiful prisoner, don’t you mean?” she muttered.
“Beautiful regardless of ugliness between us.”
She sucked in a breath.
I didn’t like how I felt...tight and hot and needy. And I definitely didn’t like the words that’d spilled uncontrolled out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say such things. I hadn’t meant to have a blackout while still awake. I hadn’t meant to be this screwed up, fucked up, and totally floundering for help.
“Get naked,” I snapped. With our eyes locked, I reached behind my neck for my T-shirt and yanked it over my head. “Now.”
Her eyes trailed over my chest despite her a
I smiled thinly, unbuttoning my jeans and shoving the zipper down. “You saying my body could drive you to swoon?” I kicked away the denim and, in the same move, shoved my black boxer briefs down my legs to join them on the pile.
She choked as her eyes fell on my naked cock. My very hard, very eager cock. “So this is where you plan to force me—”
“I told you, I have more important things to worry about.” Of course, if she showed a minuscule amount of interest in having me, I’d pounce on her and have her on her knees before she’d even said my name. The name she still hadn’t earned the right to use.
Do you want me like I want you, Gem?
I paused, searching her face for any sign that, beneath her exhausted fury, she was as wet as I was hard. The moment stretched, then ended. I nodded with disappointment, slowly growing black inside.
How long would I let her deny me? How soon would I snap and take her anyway? How would I cope knowing she’d hate me even more when I finally did? Did she think living with me came for free? She was only alive because I found her irresistibly attractive, conveniently arriving at a time when my body was making my life a living hell.
She’d been the pawn in which to bypass all the dirty shit inside my head. She could touch me; I could not. She could make me climax; I would never give myself that pleasure.
That was all I wanted from her, regardless of all the messy new thoughts and strangeness inside me. The moment my heart got in the way of my orgasms, then we had a whole other disaster to deal with.
“Undress,” I barked.
She bared her teeth. “No.”
“Fine.” I was in too much pain for another argument. Heading straight to the river, I waded in and exhaled heavily. God, it’d been too long since my last swim. The water never failed to calm me, clean me, and give me a sense of clarity from the tar inside my mind.
“Hey, wait!” She scrambled along the shore, hopping toward the edge as I waded deeper, the chain pulling her with me.
“You’re the one who wanted to stay fully dressed.” I ducked under, letting the world go quiet as water lapped around me. It blocked the buzzing in my ears, and it ran through my dirty hair. It fondled my cock, mimicking Gemma’s wetness without the heat.
A splash sounded beside me, the ripples of displacement rocking me beneath the surface. I kicked off the bottom and popped back up, blinking away droplets as my gaze latched onto a drowned girl.
A hazel-eyed, golden-haired, entirely vexing and insanely beautiful girl.
“You bastard.” She splashed and shoved hair from her face, her beigey shirt billowing around her. “You could’ve said something.”
“I told you to undress.”
“I thought you wanted—”
“I want to fix the hydro generator.” I arched my chin at the large manmade structure in the middle of the rapids. A concrete box that’d been built by whoever Storymaker had enlisted to create Fables. “It ferries the current through smaller cha
She glowered. “God, you a
My mouth suddenly went very, very dry.
I couldn’t look away, not even if an asteroid chose that moment to smash us into dust. I would be happy dust. Dust with a hard-on for the stu
Her eyes glowed with green and shadow as she threw the wet shirt toward the shore, deliberately slapping it onto my dry clothes.
I narrowed my eyes. “Witch.”
“You deserved it.” With a quick inhale, she ducked beneath the surface. Her hair continued to float on the surface as her curves beneath the waterline twisted and contorted, yanking off soaking boots and pulling her skirt over her head.
I shuddered as a wave of debilitating lust shot down my legs.
My hand strayed to my thigh. My cock pulsed for touch. It would be so, so easy to come. A single stroke. One delicious pump.
“Stuart!” Ms. Blain yelled. “Get in here.”
The door opened, depositing Storymaker directly into my current nightmare. I was bound and cuffed to a wooden cross. Ankles spread, arms wide, my neck chained in place so I couldn’t move. I was merely a thing to be ridden. To be taken against my wishes. To be molested however Ms. Blain decided.
This was her favorite game. To tie me up and torment me for hours. The awful thing was, she wasn’t even supposed to be my guest. I’d begged to be her plaything the night Zanik couldn’t stop vomiting in fear when he saw her name on the registration book. He was normally stoic and quiet. The one who helped me keep the others calm. But seeing him like that? Watching him flinch each time the door opened and Storymaker summoned a new Fable slave to serve, broke my damn heart.
So, I’d gone to her on my own. I’d knocked on her door. I’d strode past her when she opened, and I let her use me in every way she wanted.
I had no one else to blame for the blood ru
My bladder had given up. And with the release of pressure from needing to piss, my cock had turned soft.
In punishment, she’d shoved the phallus so deep inside me, I was sure I’d rip in two. If she was trying to get me back in the mood, bleeding out of my ass ensured I’d never get hard again.
“What? What is it, A
“He’s gone soft, and no matter what I do, he won’t get hard again.” She leaned into him, whispering loudly. “I gave him a Viagra a few hours ago. Aren’t those things supposed to last all night?”
Storymaker strolled in, eyeing up my flaccid cock with disgust. “Unfortunately, those wonder pills don’t seem to work as well on Kassen as the others, do they, boy?” He tapped my cheek, ending with a harsh slap.