I wondered what would happen if he suddenly did. A growing part of me realized that I kind of wanted him to try. I wouldn’t fight him off. I wanted to participate, to be involved for once. I wanted to know if it was possible for sex to be different than the cruel, painful game I’d always had to play.
These were dirty thoughts. And yet I couldn’t push them away.
I heard him breathing heavily and felt a finger trace the previous letters in his name. He traced them over and over again, as if in a trance, and the knife never once pressed into my back.
“Why are you hesitating?” I asked him softly.
His finger paused. I heard him swallow. Finally he said, his voice sounding rough in the dark, “Because I don’t think I can.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Why?”
“Because I think your last night should bring you no pain.”
“There is no pain, Javier,” I assured him. “Not anymore. I want you to finish your name. I am more yours than I am Salvador’s.”
Silence thickened the room. His erection grew harder, and finally he shifted against me.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I said I am more yours than I am Salvador’s,” I repeated, as truthful and sad as it was. “So finish branding me. I want the knife. I want your name.”
I think I might want you. You, the man who might pull the trigger.
I felt him lean over me, and the tip of the blade pressed in slightly, not enough to break skin. “Tell me again,” he said, “that you want my name on you.”
“I want your name. I want it to say Javier. I will wear those scars proudly.” And I will show the world that I survived it all, to the end.
“Tell me you want me,” he said huskily.
I stiffened, wondering if he had somehow learned my thoughts.
“Tell me you want me,” he said again, “and I’ll do it.”
I decided to shed my self-consciousness. “I want you,” I whispered. Then I said it again, until it sounded right, until I knew it was true.
Javier dug the blade in one sharp motion. I sucked in my breath, feeling a mix of pleasure with the tingle of pain. He finished the final sections of the R with gusto, his work quick and seamless. I felt the blood begin to pour from the wound. In seconds, he was kissing it, soothing it with his lips and tongue, absorbing the blood. He was so unbelievably tender, even after such an act of cruelty.
I closed my eyes, not wanting him to stop.
He slowly moved his lips away from the wound and began kissing down my spine, his tongue zig-zagging over it. I arched my back toward his mouth, an involuntary reaction from my body, wanting more contact, the wet heat of his lips.
“Do you like that?” he whispered as he paused at the small of my back.
I decided to be honest this time. “Yes,” I murmured.
“Tell me you want me again,” he said.
“I want you.”
His hands slipped around my waist and under my pelvis and began undoing my shorts. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I told him, suddenly feeling both turned on and afraid of what was to come, afraid of the unknown, of the change between us. But I didn’t want to fear anymore, not tonight.
“Good girl,” he said throatily. “Such a good girl.” He grabbed the hem of my shorts and quickly yanked them off so my bare ass was exposed. I heard him groan at the sight of me. “A very, very good girl,” he whispered. “And I’m about to do very, very bad things to you.”
He ran his hands up my calves, my thighs, my ass, up the sides of my back all the way to my shoulders where he kissed the wound one more time. Then he reached under me and flipped me over until I was on my back. I winced from the pressure of the bed on my cuts, but he took no notice and pinned my hands above my head with one hand.
He placed his other hand on my neck, squeezing delicately. My eyes widened in surprise.
“The thing about choking,” he said slowly, his voice dripping with lust, his eyes glazed with passion, “is both parties have to be ready for it. You, my beauty queen, are not. But I do know what you are ready for. Something to erase all your pain. Something … memorable.”
He lifted his hand off my neck and leaned in so close, I was sure he was going to kiss me. My lips parted, wanting it. But instead he went for my ear, licking the lobe, and said gently, “I want you to relax and lie there. When it feels good, you grab my hair and pull hard until you’re sure you’re hurting me. I look forward to it.”
Then he let go of my wrists and started making his way down, kissing my chest, my breasts, his tongue doing smooth circles over my nipples. He bit them and I cried out, from the shock and pain and the warmth that came afterward, a warmth that spread down my core and between my legs, making them spread open.
He kissed and sucked down my stomach, at my belly button, and then headed lower. I tensed up, afraid, but I felt him pause. I lifted my head to see those sharp lustful eyes staring at me with such want, I wasn’t sure if he was going to kill me or fuck me.
“Just relax,” he murmured, and his eyes never broke away from mine as he passed over my pubic bone and placed himself between my legs, his arms hooking on to each thigh. “I will do all the work.” He looked down between my legs, bare and vulnerable. “You have a beautiful pussy, did you know that?”
My cheeks flamed and I chastised myself for feeling so bashful.
His face lowered even further and my body stiffened in response.
“I want to feel your clit throb between my lips,” he whispered, his breath sending electricity through my thighs. When I didn’t say anything—I couldn’t, I was frozen in shock—he lifted his head from between my legs and gave me a curious glance. “You’ve never had an orgasm before, have you?”
I shook my head.
He grinned with easy carnality. “Do not worry. I’m very good at giving girls an orgasm for the first time. And for every time after that.”
Then he placed his mouth on me, and a million volts of electricity ran through me, making me flinch. The feeling slowly melted away though as the wet warmth of his mouth spread all over, and I found myself relaxing into the most foreign sensation that had ever touched my body. His tongue slowly lapped up and down my slit before concentrating on my clit in slow, easy circles. I knew how my body worked, I just never touched myself before, never realized the pleasure that could be had.