Hero

18

Even without windows or clocks, there’s no mistaking the dead of night, the perfect stillness. My breath seems to catch with every noise as I wait for sleep. I listen for Calvin’s footsteps on the basement stairs. I’m staring into such blackness that neon pricks the space in front of me as though I’m squeezing my lids shut. Maybe I am.

Eventually my chest deflates, and my fingers unfurl from my palms. I peer toward the stairs. Whenever the door opens, light slices through the darkness. The cell has been unlocked since Calvin broke the gate almost a week ago, but Norman has been sneaking me upstairs for meals and showers. I don’t ask how he gets away with it.

I frown. Will Calvin still be angry with me? Or has he forgiven the way I shunned his help? Norman’s statement continues to ring in my ears, though I don’t know why. There’s no truth to it.

“. . . he is a good man.”

A good man. What would that look like?

If I peeled away the ugly Calvin, would I uncover goodness? I let the fantasy play out. It doesn’t make me cringe. He’s not angry with me but regretful. He tells me what’s broken in him, and why he lives within walls. He explains why he’s doing this to me. I relish the feeling of his hair between my fingers as I comfort and kiss him. We slowly learn the insides of each other through our mouths, our eyes, our fingertips, our words.

“You’re awake.”

I gasp inelegantly and vault upright. My heartbeat reverberates through my entire body as I shift my back against the wall. Calvin’s silhouette sharpens, and I hear the squawk of the gate. “How long have you been there?”

“No more than a minute. I thought you’d be asleep.”

I’m trying to decipher the tone of his voice as I sniff for displeasure. “I don’t . . .”

“What?” he prompts.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“No? Come on. Back to your bed. You’re free.”

My laugh is unnatural and base, something I’ve never heard from my mouth. “Free?” I ask. “I don’t think you know the meaning of the word.”

“I’m trying, Cataline.”

The sincerity in his voice that halts another snippy response. “I know,” I say. “It’s just that down here or up there, it’s all the same.”

“Why am I not surprised,” he mumbles to himself, “that after all this, you’re still fighting me?” His voice rises, an indication he’s now speaking to me. “I’m beginning to wonder if you even want me to be nice. Tell me, do you prefer me cross?”

“Nice,” I say. “I want you to be nice.”

“So then come to bed.”

My face flushes hotly; it sounds like an invitation, and I immediately picture the one time I’ve seen his bed. A woman on her hands and knees for him. There’s a pang low in my belly, something sharp and electric.

“Christ, it’s not like I’m inviting you into the pits of hell. You’ve been down here a sufficient amount of time to reflect on your behavior. Now it’s time to go back to your room.”

The heat recedes just as quickly as it flooded. For a moment I was there, at his mercy, just like her, scared but excited, pushing and pulling against him.

Hands under my knees bring me back to the moment. He pulls me from the wall and lifts me against his solid chest. His nose touches my temple as he inhales. “You smell awfully nice for being locked up over a week.” My shiver is a result of his breath near my ear and the insinuation that he knows of Norman’s and my indiscretions.

He carries me as though I weigh nothing at all. When we’re out of the basement and crossing the foyer to the staircase, my gaze shifts imperceptibly. Light hurts my dark-soaked eyes, but I can’t resist following the line of his strong jaw. I inspect the stubble shadowing his olive skin and the dimple in his chin before drifting to the hollow of his cheek. He’s always been incredibly handsome, but this close I can see the art in his beauty. We stop on the third floor landing.

He looks down, and cautiously, uncertainly, I reach up to pinch his glasses by their frame. They slide off into my hands in slow motion. Brightness still floods my vision, but now my world is an unearthly shade of green. His eyes are looking at my mouth, his own mouth slightly parted. I’m not only curious about how he tastes, but I want to know, and that thought catapults me back to reality.

“Put me down,” I demand in a hoarse whisper.

“We’re almost there.”

I’m upset, with whom I’m not sure. I push against his wall of a body. “I can walk.”

“Relax.”

My momentarily forgotten anger crashes over me all at once like a set of mad ocean waves. “Go to hell, Calvin. I mean it. I don’t want your hands on me.”

“Struggle all you like. It just turns me on.”

“You’re sick,” I say, stabbing my elbow into his chest.

“Sick?” he echoes, and his body vibrates against mine. “You’re the one who wants to sleep locked up in the basement by yourself.”

“Because in the basement I’m a prisoner,” I say. “Up here, I don’t know what I am. Am I your whore, your hostage, your toy?” My body pulsates from the tears I’m trying to keep inside. “I can’t live like this,” I continue, “not knowing my fate.”

“Do you want to be my whore?” he asks as he shoulders my bedroom door open.

“I just want to know what I am, whatever it is.” My voice breaks as heat pools at the edges of my eyes. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”

He stops mid-step when I break into tears, clutching his t-shirt to my face. His arms squeeze me even closer. “Cataline . . .” he says softly into my hair. “Don’t cry. I—”

“Stop,” I scream so loudly that he jerks back. I push against him with the entirety of my strength, and his immobility only infuriates me more. “I can’t take this back and forth. I don’t know who you are. Put me down. Now!”

“You want down?” His snarl stills my body. “I’ll put you down,” he says, “and that’s where you’ll stay until I’m finished with you.”

“Finished?”

With a stride forward, he tosses me so I bounce on the mattress. My pearl nightie bunches around my waist, and he’s staring between my legs, eyes riveted as his hands rip impatiently at his belt.

I gasp and slide off the bed, darting to his right. His arm shoots out to catch me, yanking me so my back is pressed against his front. He walks us to the bed until my thighs are flush against it.

“Get off me,” I screech. His hand pushes my upper back so my breasts mash against the mattress. His calm, controlled movements serve to remind me how easy it is for him to manipulate my body. He lifts my nightgown, exposing me as the sound of ripping fabric ricochets through me.

“What are you doing?” I reach up and claw at the sheets, trying to escape by pulling myself out, but he grabs my arms and forces them behind me. He secures my wrists at the base of my spine, and coarse lace digs into my skin as he winds my thong around them. He gives the fabric a hard tug and lets go, leaving me fighting against it, wiggling underneath him like a fish on land.

His hands slide between the mattress and my body, where they grasp my breasts roughly through the satin. He pulls me upright until I’m flattened against his body. “Relax,” he commands.

“No,” I say through gritted teeth.

He grips my hair in a ponytail and guides my head to the side. “Turn around.” When I don’t respond, he tugs so I have to swivel and face him. “Lie down,” he says.

“Calvin, please,” I say.

“Down,” he barks, and I flinch. I sit tentatively, pressing my thighs together so hard that they begin to perspire. I ease back onto the bed, my hair spreading everywhere, my eyes searching the ceiling. His hands push up the fabric of my nightie until it circles my waist. Firm fingers trail down my belly before parting my legs with little effort. The slide of his skin against mine pulls so deeply inside me that when it leaves, there’s a void, some dull, endless ache.

“It gets me so hard just thinking about touching you.”

My nightgown rides up underneath my breasts when he pulls me to the edge of the bed by my upper thighs. His hips find their place against me, and I feel the assault of his coarse pants between my legs.

“That feels amazing,” he says. “Don’t stop squirming.”

His words only bring my attention to the fact that my body is out of my control. The more I try to still myself, the harder my hips protest against his firm hold.

His eyes remain fastened to me as he removes his belt all the way. Metal clinks on the hardwood floor with finality. He leisurely continues undoing his pants while I snake myself backward against the mattress. I’m almost out of reach before he grabs one ankle and pulls me back. “I suggest you calm down, and try to enjoy this,” he says. “It will suit you best to relax.”

His pants drop, and with one hand holding my hips, he takes himself in the other. My whimpering is drowned by his long groan as he skims his crown slowly up my opening to brush my clit and then slides it back down. He squeezes himself between my ass cheeks and the bed, the length of his shaft rubbing my anus. After a split second of nothing, there’s considerable pressure between my legs.

“Spread wider.”

My legs shake in the air, unmoving. He grips my knees and forces them apart. He retreats with a large stride backward. “You should see yourself now.” His voice drips with amusement. “Hair all over the place, hands locked behind your back, tits in the air. Legs wide open for me.” He pauses to lick his upper lip. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sweet, pink pussy, Sparrow.”

My mouth dries with mortification, and just as I try to close my legs, he catches them.

“Do not, under any circumstances, close your legs unless I tell you to do so.” He lets go, and they hang there, trembling. “Very good,” he murmurs and crouches down. I feel his fingers pulling at my folds, opening me. He pushes one inside, pulls it out and when he inserts it again, it slides in more easily. “Getting nice and wet for me.”

He stands again and without warning, the pressure is back but it’s harder now as he pushes into me. He exhales, waiting there.

I take my bottom lip between my teeth, and my eyes squeeze shut. My legs are still suspended; they’re beginning to shake harder, but I barely notice because it’s taking all my concentration not to give in to the beg of my hips. My insides want this, to pull him deep and keep him there. But I don’t. “Please don’t,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything. I’ll be better.”

He anchors my hips to the mattress and thrusts hard, burying himself in me. I cry out just as suddenly, wiggling into the mattress, straining against my restraints.

“Oh, God,” I bawl. “My virginity.”

“Mine.” He stares down at my face as his chest heaves with deep breaths. My body adjusts to this thick piece of him that feels both foreign and familiar. When the pain lessens, I yearn for a soothing touch to replace it; hands on my face, a kiss, anything. He’s watching me so intensely that I think he might give me what I want, but his hips drag back instead and when he slides back into me, his abs flex.

“I’ve never had such a tight pussy.” He draws back again and thrusts harder. I squeal with each pinch of pain. As his rhythm increases, he falls forward onto extended arms. “I’m going to ruin you for every other man,” he says with gritted teeth. “You hear me?” His eyes fix on my chest, watching my breasts bounce with each contact of our hips. “Lock your ankles behind me.” It’s with relief that I rest my legs at the base of his back. “That’s it,” he groans. “God, I want this. To fuck you so bad.”

I’m overwhelmed with it all, the profound fullness of me, the rawness of his skin on mine, the shackle that keeps me from touching him. “But you are,” I say.

“This isn’t fucking,” he says. I gasp with a deep plunge, my head falling to the side. My cheek presses into the comforter to see his hand fisting it.

“What?” I ask, only half-aware.

“When I fuck you, you’ll know it.” One hand moves to my breast, and I yelp as he pinches and pulls my nipple. “You’re melting like butter.”

I am. I’m dissolving into the bed beneath me as a fierce and unrelenting force builds inside me. Each echo of a spasm draws me deeper into the recesses of pleasure.

“What is this?” I ask just above a whisper. “I need it.”

“Need what?”

“Fucking.”

He already fills me so hard and so deep that I can’t believe what I’m asking for. I brace myself for something that doesn’t come. Instead, he’s withdrawing, and I’m grasping desperately, my body and my mind, for what I’m losing. He steps back, his hardness glistening and bobbing between us.

“Why?” I ask. “Why are you stopping?”

He raises a menacing eyebrow at me. “Don’t forget who’s in charge here, Cataline. Get off the bed. I want you on your knees.”

It takes a moment for his command to reach me. I wriggle to the edge of the bed, but it’s so high that my feet don’t reach the floor. While he stands still as a statue, I slide over the edge and fall onto the ground.

“Faster,” he says. “Come here so I can stuff that smart mouth.”

At the hardness in his voice, I begin to tremble. My body contorts, and my ass juts into the air. I get on my knees as quickly as possible. I’m tempted to retreat under the bed and hide there until he leaves, but he looks just angry enough to snap if I disobey. I crawl to him. One hand finds the back of my head, and he presses his smooth head to my lips with the other. “Wider,” he says when they part.

He slides in, coaxing me open all the way, groaning as his shaft forces down my tongue and coats my mouth with my own sharp, metallic flavor. “I’m saving your pussy for last,” he says. “I bet you taste like goddamn cotton candy. Tell me how sweet you are.”

I flinch as I choke a response, my eyes watering. My wrists burn from fighting to get free. He uses my mouth faster, rumbling his approval. His eyes don’t leave me until he shuts them briefly and bites his lip.

He pulls out suddenly with an audible pop and grabs himself, pumping furiously. I wrench and twist my face, but he jerks my head back into place by my hair and comes on my mouth and chin. I try again to duck, but I’m immobile as he spurts all over my neck and collarbone, his cum dripping down my breasts. My cheeks flame, but the low, unearthly noise he makes almost sounds like a laugh.