Page 47 of Retrograde

I trace her thigh with my fingers, pausing at a place where a thorn has cut through the fabric of her trousers and scratched the surface of her skin. I push it deeper with my thumb, and she whimpers.

“Maybe,” she allows in a small voice. “But I think I’d like failing at it even more.”

My eyes snap up, my mouth hanging open. She still looks scared, but there’s something hard in her face, something triumphant. She knows she caught me by surprise.

“You like being punished then?” I rasp. My dick jerks violently, commanding me to seek release.

She opens her mouth and then closes it, blushing deeper.

“Will you help me up, please?” she pleads softly instead of replying.

There’s no good reason why I shouldn’t make her untangle herself. Why I shouldn’t make her scratch herself some more. It’s not like she can do herself any serious damage. There’s no good fucking reason at all why I should be reaching for my knife to cut her out of the barbed-wire-like coils.

But maybe I’m just overthinking it. Because if I want to do that, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t either. She’s my prisoner. I can do with her as I please. I don’t need to explain it to anyone, least of all to myself. I want to control her pain. If I feel like sparing her some, then why the fuck shouldn’t I?

I set the flashlight on the ground, and a few knife slices later, she is free. And since she knew better than to look at me with anything resembling smugness at this little victory of hers, I even hoist her up, helping her to her feet. She’s now standing very close to me, her chest nearly touching my stomach, the top of her head barely reaching my shoulders. Looking up at me the way she would look at me with her lips around my cock. Watering blue eyes raised to mine, freckled cheeks flushed. That image is all I need for lust to tingle along my spine, my balls aching.

I trace my thumb over her lower lip, feeling her hot breath on my skin.

“Don’t hurt me,” she pleads, her eyes unfocused. “You always want to hurt me.”

I don’t even know what she’s trying to say. I don’t think she does either. Fuck knows what she’d say if she knew just how far from my mind hurting her was.

“Can you even walk?” I ask her sceptically.

“S-sure!” She slips around me and stumbles in the wrong direction, immediately tripping over a branch on the ground.

“Ooops!” She stops and turns around a little slyly, like she’s hoping I may not have seen it.

“Right.”

I march over to her, and before she even has a chance to protest, I throw her over my shoulder. With my arm looped around her thighs, I carry her in the direction of our little camp.

“Hey!” I barely make it two steps before she starts pummelling my back with her fists. “Put me down!”

Just the excuse I needed to put the flashlight into my pocket and slap her ass sharply a few times. I leave my hand there, slipping my fingers between her legs.

She freezes with a sharp intake of breath as I trace her pussy over her trousers, torturing myself more than her.

“Careful, Hotshot,” I growl. “I like your protests. Don’t make me enjoy them more than I have.” I tease her with my fingers.

“You wouldn’t,” she says, sounding a lot more sober. “You hate me.”

“I hate your mind for what you did. But this”—I trace her entrance more firmly with my finger, making the thin fabric sink deeper between her folds—“This sweet little cunt, I take no issue with. Why would I?” My breath hitches when I realise that the textile is soaked. “And fuck me, Hotshot, I think your pussy takes no issue with me either, weeping for me like that. Poor thing, it’s not its fault that it belongs to a traitor bitch. Maybe I should give it some relief?”

Her body turns to stone under my touch. She’s hardly breathing, her fear radiating off her in waves.

I badly want to touch her and force her to feel good like no one ever has, more than she believes possible. I want her to get as addicted to the pleasure I can give her as I am to the idea of giving it to her. The idea of being the first to make her enjoy fucking. The first and the only man to make her revel in being ruined until all of her belongs to me. I want to own her fear and mould it into a desire that will make her need me more than she needs air. I want to corrupt her, reap that overripe innocence of hers until she can no longer remember what it was like to go a single day without craving my cock inside her.

And suddenly, it all becomes clear to me. This is how I get to her. Not with pain and abuse. Not with threats and fear. She’s too used to men treating her like shit. What she isn’t used to is being taken care of. Finally, it all clicks into place. I know how to crush her. I’ve already found her weak spot. I’ve been gravitating towards it all along. I just didn’t see it for what it was until now.

But I won’t do it like this. Not when she’s so drunk she may not even remember it. I want her sharp and aware of every moment. Even if my balls hate me for not fucking her into the ground right where we are.

“Relax, Hotshot.” I pat her ass. “It’s not so long ago that you couldn’t imagine begging me for food and look at you these days. It doesn’t matter what you think you do or do not want. By the time I finally fuck you, I promise I’ll have you begging for my cock too.”

18

RILEY