Page 19 of Merciless Prince
Yeah, I said what I said. I didn’t actually like sex. Not in real life, anyway.
It had been a problem for me for years now. I could make myself come like a champion with my fingers or toys, but when I was with a man… zip, zilch, nada. It just felt strange and uncomfortable. Sometimes it felt like nothing at all.
I lost my virginity around the same time as my friends, and they all reported their first few times to be painful or uncomfortable, so I wasn’t surprised when my first time was the same. Iwassurprised, however, to find that it didn’t get better like they said it would after I relaxed and grew more comfortable with sexual stuff.
Every single time, it totally sucked.
For the first six months, I thought my boyfriend at the time was the problem. After we broke up, I slept with a couple of other guys only to encounter the same issue. Then I decided thatIwas the problem. I told myself I was either bad in bed or suffering from some sort of physiological issue. I went to see a gynecologist, who told me everything looked normal, and I read and watched everything I could to train myself to be ‘good’ in bed.
It didn’t work. The pleasure never came unless I was totally alone.
Some people might assume that I didn’t have a lot of sex due to my total lack of enjoyment from it, but the opposite was actually true for me, due to a theory I developed after a couple of years of unsatisfying sexual encounters. I decided that sexual soulmates must be real, and there had to be a guy out there who would miraculously fix all my issues. A guy with a magic cock, basically. We’d mesh together perfectly, and when he pushed deep inside me, the stars would align and fireworks would burst in front of my eyes as pleasure rocketed through me.
I just had to find that guy.
For a full eighteen months after that decision, I went through a total ho phase. I got on Tinder, arranged a ton of dates, and slept with a lot of men, hoping every time thatthisone would be the magical one who would finally fix me.
It never happened. Sex was still terrible for me, every single time. It didn’t matter how hot the guy was, how big he was, or how hard he tried at foreplay. Nothing worked.
Six months ago, I gave up trying, because I was sick of sleeping with guys and hating every second of it. I still liked to think that one perfect guy was out there somewhere, though, and I desperately hoped to find him one day.
For now, my hands and imagination would have to do.
I bit my bottom lip and slipped deeper into my fantasy. Killian’s hands were gripping my hips to hold me in place, and the way his fingers dug into my skin made shivers run down my arms. I moaned, struggling to keep my hands on the wall as my body shook.
I turned my head over my shoulder to look at Killian. His lips were parted and his heavy-lidded gaze was thick with desire. “Keep doing that,” he told me in a gruff voice. “Look at me while I fuck you.”
His words sent a sudden shiver up my spine, and I found myself desperate for more. “Killian,” I murmured breathlessly, stroking my clit. “Fuck, yes…”
Every imagined touch, every frenetic breath heightened the pressure building inside my body. I was floating above the bed, the room was spinning around me, and butterflies were swarming in my belly.
Killian’s teeth caught the skin on the side of my neck. When he bit down, I came in a series of gasps and moans, legs shaking wildly until the sheets tangled up around them.
I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, letting out a long, satisfied exhale. My mind was finally tired enough to let my body sleep.
I rolled over and drifted off.
Something woke me again a few hours later. I opened one eye and groggily looked around, trying to remember what it was that yanked me out of my slumber. Then I saw something flashing on my bedside table. My phone. The little notification light at the top always flashed green for a text and yellow for any social media messages.
This time, it was blue. In my woozy, half-asleep state, I couldn’t remember what that meant.
With a groan, I slid myself closer to the bedside table so I could check the phone. It was 3:37 in the morning and I had an email from ‘Unknown Sender’. The subject line said:You want to be a movie star, don’t you, Shay? Here you are...
With a frown, I clicked into the email. The same text from the subject heading was repeated in the body of the message, and there was a video file attached. The title of the file was ‘Sleeping Beauty’.
I clicked on the attachment. A loading bar appeared, and the video started to play on my screen. My insides turned to ice as soon as I realized what I was watching.
It was my own dorm.
The video was shot in night-vision mode, so everything in the room was tinted with green but still easily recognizable… including me. I was asleep on my back with my eyes closed, braid sticking out to one side on the pillow, and my chest was rising and falling with light, shallow breaths.
The person moved closer, slowly zooming in on my face. They held the shot there for a beat, watching me take a breath. Then they zoomed back out until my whole body was in the frame again. A hand suddenly moved into the shot, and to my horror, I saw that it was holding a large knife. The hand inched forward until the tip of the blade was dangling right near my throat. It made a slow swishing motion, like the person was pretending to drag the blade over my skin.
After that, the screen went black.
Cold sweat prickled at my skin as if my veins had been filled with ice water. My chest began to feel tight, and I set the phone down and put my hands over my mouth, worried I was about to hyperventilate.
“Holy shit,” I whispered into my palms. “Holy fucking shit.”
