Page 133 of Where the Snakes Sleep

“Harder. M-meaner,” I gasp, barely a whisper, but it’s enough. He growls and fucks into me so hard my legs go numb, the world narrowing to the place where we’re joined.

I don’t even realize I’m crying. Not sadness, not pain, just something raw and bright and bigger than I can hold. The pleasure is so mind-boggling it bends into something like grief—loss of control, loss of every wall I put between us, loss of every excuse I’ve ever had not to want him this much.

“F-fuck, Camille, I—” I can’t finish the sentence, but it doesn’t matter. He knows. He fucks harder, deeper, every thrust a promise and an apology and a punishment all at once. I dig my fingers deeper into the sheets, holding on for dear life.

The first ripple of orgasm starts in my toes and rolls up through my spine like an electric shock. I clamp down on him and spasm, and then I’m coming so hard I nearly black out. I scream—actually scream—and my whole body clenches, heat pouring out of me in wave after wave.

He rides me through it, never slowing, his cock twitching inside me, hips stuttering just enough for me to know he’s close. Every thrust ricochets up my spine and short-circuits the last of my thoughts, until I am just an animal, open and sobbing into the sheets, pleasure so huge it feels like a fever. I can’t even move my own hips anymore; he just holds me in place with his weight and uses me, rutting in deep, staccato slams that have me gasping and shuddering and leaking all over the bed.

The tension in my gut spikes, then cracks like a whip, all the way down. My legs cramp, toes curling, a new pulse of heat gathering where his cock pounds inside me. I barely have time to brace myself before I convulse again—harder than before, so hard I think I sprain something in my thigh. I hear myself cry out, not even a word, just a raw vowel sound as I squirt, actually fucking squirt, splattering the sheets.

Camille groans, low and guttural, and slams into me twice more before wrenched, sharp breaths tell me he’s losing the last of his control. He pulls out quickly and blasts hot cum all over my back and shoulders, the first shot landing above my tailbone, the rest painting streaks up my spine and across my skin. I collapse, panting, every nerve raw and alight.

He slumps forward, crushing me into the mattress, and for a moment, the room is all sound—our ragged breathing, the high whine in my ears, the distant tick of the clock on the wall. My cheek is mashed against the duvet. My whole body is trembling. I am so thoroughly fucked out I can’t even speak.

His lips quirk in the ghost of a smile I can feel against my shoulder. “Should I untie myself?”

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

I want to keep him like this, bound and ruined. I want to memorize every line of him, every muscle trembling with the effort of giving up control. I want to keep this version of him, just for a minute longer, before the world comes back.

21

Camille

Ryan keeps me bound for eleven minutes after we finish.

I know because the clock on the wall remains within my field of vision from where I lie half across the mattress, my wrists still secured behind me, Ryan’s body warm beneath the sheets beside mine but separated from me by several inches. I do not count the minutes intentionally at first. The habit happens on its own, my mind latching onto something measurable because the rest of the situation is considerably less cooperative. At 18:47, Ryan tells me not to untie myself. At 18:51, he shifts onto his back, winces faintly at whatever protest his body makes after what we have just done, and glares at me when my shoulders tense in response. At 18:54, he gets up without explaining where he is going, returns from the bathroom carrying a damp cloth, and drops it onto the bed beside my hip rather than cleaning me himself.

I clean what I can while my wrists remain behind me, an awkward process that would be almost comical under different circumstances, although Ryan does not laugh. He sits on the edge of the bed and watches, his expression unreadable except for the occasional flicker of discomfort whenever the restraint forces me to shift my shoulders farther than is pleasant.

He notices everything. That is a problem we share.

At 18:58, he finally sighs and says, “Turn around.”

He kneels behind me and works at the knot. His fingers brush my wrists as the sash loosens, and the first instinct that moves through me is to turn my hand and catch his before he can retreat, but I hold myself back.

I flex my hands and rotate both wrists, restoring circulation to fingers that had begun tingling several minutes ago. There are faint red impressions in the skin but nothing concerning, and when I glance at Ryan, I discover him looking at them too.

“Are they okay?” He sounds worried.

“Yes, Ryan. They’re fine.”

He nods, apparently satisfied, then reaches for his discarded clothes.

I want to ask if he’s okay, but I feel like all I’d get would be yet another glare.

After all, he explicitly told me there would be no conversation, no affection he did not request, and I agreed because I understood that what happened tonight was not reconciliation. It was Ryan reclaiming something he believed I had contaminated. If surrendering control allowed him to feel that sex between us belonged to him again, then I would have remained bound and on my knees until morning.

Perhaps that is unhealthy. I no longer trust myself to determine where devotion ends and penance begins.

Ryan pulls his shirt over his head, then pauses with his arms still caught halfway through the sleeves. “Do you need anything?”

I stare at him.

His head emerges. “What?”

“You’re allowed to ask me that?”