Page 74 of Wicked Vile King
"A fight, a death, who knows?" he answers.
I swallow, and it's loud, even beneath the blare of the alarm.
"Why are we still here, Saint?" I ask.
Hot breath carries his answer across my ear and makes me shiver. "You know why, pet."
Can he hear my heart battering against my ribs? I think I can at least.
"Why did you hide in your room all weekend and avoid me?" he asks to the side of my face again, his hands never moving from where they cross together, wrapping around me at the front of my bathing suit.
"You scare me," I say, a half-truth. "You're a psychopath."
"Everyone else in your life tells you what you want to hear, that you'll get better, you'll get to come home, that you're a good girl. Is that what you need? For me to tell you pretty lies?"
"I am a good girl," I whisper.
He chuckles darkly. "Good girls don't stand in the dark with me, pet."
His words make me shiver. I don't want to think about it. I deflect.
"What happens next?" I ask him.
He ignores the question. "It's dark right now, and you aren't even hyperventilating."
"Because I'm more scared of you," I say.
His low laughter flits across my skin. "No, pet. It's because you like the things I do to you in the dark."
Abruptly, he releases me and grabs my hand. Then he yanks me back, sending me stumbling, and pulls me into the water. I don't see it coming, and the water swallows the both of us like a lead balloon released from the sky. In the dark, it's hard to tell where the surface is, but a moment later, I am grabbed by the collar and dragged up. When I break through the water, I cough and sputter, sucking in a deep breath. I cough again, and it's so loud over the sound of his slow, steady breathing. I barely have a moment to blink before I am pressed against the concrete wall.
"What are you doing?" I demand.
"It will hurt less in the water," he remarks.
What did he just say? I stop moving.
"What will hurt less, Saint?"
With two fingers, he tips my chin up to make me look at him. It's hard to see him in the dim light, the room lit only by the sunlight filtering in through the glass doors at the front of the building, but I watch his mouth utter the words.
"It will hurt less when I fuck you."
Then he kisses me, and the sour taste of chlorine bursts across my tongue. Our teeth clank together on impact as he lifts my legs and circles them around his waist, one after the other, locking my ankles low at his back. He kisses me until I can't breathe, until I'm sure he can't breathe, and then finally breaks away when I'm sure I'm going to pass out.
"Admit it," he says to me, his quick breath causing the words to stutter.
"Never," I say, and his mouth turns up in a smile before he mutters a singular, "Good."
With one hand on the wall, his other comes between us, finding my clit without warning. He pushes my bathing suit to the side, and his touch is on me, his fingers calloused yet his touch gentle. All of my bones melt at once.
"So responsive," he praises. "Such a good little pet."
"Oh God," I murmur, as he thrusts a long finger inside of me.
"Shh now," he whispers against my lips. "He can't hear you, pet. This is my world."
He adds another finger to the first, shoving harder, like he's growing impatient.
