Deviant (Blood & Roses #1)

My cheeks heat up to an uncomfortable temperature. No one has ever asked me that before. “No. No, I—I haven’t,” I stammer.

“Good. Then you’ll taste so much sweeter.” Instead of hooking his fingers under the waistband of my panties and pulling them down, he draws them to one side. My legs lock up when I feel his hot breath skimming over my exposed flesh. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with my hands. This is untrodden ground for me in a very big way. When a guy gives you head, it’s usually because he’s done something very, very bad and needs to make up for it, or at least that’s what Pippa, my only friend in the world, says. I’ve never had a boyfriend to treat me badly in the first place, so I’ve never experienced it myself.

“Do you want me to lick you?” His voice is even deeper now, laden with the promise of sex.

“I want whatever you want,” I gasp. That’s what he’s paying for, after all. That’s what’s going to help me get Lex back. He grips me hard around the top of my leg, squeezing until I cry out.

“That’s not the game we’re playing, here. Own me, or I’ll own you. And trust me…you don’t want that.”

Shit. “Y—yes, I want you to lick me.”

He makes a satisfied grunt and immediately moves, pushing his way between my legs. When his tongue darts out and laps at me, my leg muscles tense up. It feels hot and…and good. What the holy hell? I shouldn’t be reacting like this. Embarrassment prickles at my cheeks. What sort of person am I, enjoying a complete stranger giving me head? And under these circumstances? I can’t help it, though. My whole body feels like it’s being caressed.

His tongue moves expertly, applying a subtle pressure to my clit, stroking up and down in a rhythmic pattern that sends wave after wave of heat crashing through me. I’m just letting go, letting the tension in my arms and legs relax, when he stops lapping and sucks.

“Fuck!”

He doesn’t stop. He growls when I push back against him, rocking into his mouth shamelessly. I’ve never felt anything like this before. It feels…incredible. I’m panting and moaning like an animal when he pulls away, running his hands from the very tops of my knees, down the insides of my thighs to my panties. He rips them off in one swift motion.

“How badly do you want me to fuck you?”

I’m not here because I want to fuck him, but it is my job to make him think I do; yet the lines between acting and the truth are so blurred when I murmur, “Really bad. I want you really bad.”

“Spread your legs,” he commands. I spread them, wondering what’s coming next. The room is like a black void, so dark I can’t even make out the shadow of him as he moves quickly around the bed. I hear a zip being undone and then the rattle of metal, like a buckle being undone. Sucking my bottom lip into my mouth, I wait for him to do whatever he’s about to do, worryingly piqued with curiosity. He restrains my left leg first, strapping something wide and tight around it and then affixing it to the bed. My right leg is next, and then he carefully does the same to my wrists. I’m star-fished on the bed and completely vulnerable. His restraints aren’t the kind for show; they’re the kind made to stop people from getting away, and I’m sure as hell not going anywhere. Six months ago, I might have said a prayer. Now I just whimper, half out of fear and half out of anticipation.

He climbs up onto the bed, kneeling at my side, his breath still playing across me. I tense when I feel something cold and hard press against the skin of my stomach. “Are you still a brave girl?”

“Yes,” I exhale.

He doesn’t reply or tell me what he’s going to do. The cool, sharp object he’s leaning into my skin travels slowly upwards until it’s poised directly under my breasts. I gasp lungful after lungful of air into my lungs, trying to keep still, because I know what it is he’s got in his hand: it’s a knife. A really fucking sharp knife.

His fingertip lifts the underwire of my bra in the middle, and then in a single, clean sweep, it springs apart, freeing my breasts. He cut through my bra! This is the most exposed, terrified, exhilarated I’ve ever felt. My Mystery Man straddles me, and the material of his pants, rough, slides up against my sides. He lays the flat, cool edge of his knife against my right nipple, sending a bolt of panic through me.

“Don’t move,” he whispers. I don’t move. I am the stillest still thing ever. He leans down and touches me, his hand finally finding my breast. “You’re so fucking perfect,” he breathes. “So well behaved.” And then his mouth is on my nipple, licking and sucking, hotter than anything I’ve ever felt before. My back arches up off the bed, and he chuckles. “You want me inside you?”

“Yes.”