Page 51 of Heresy
RETURN TO RUINS
VERA
His mouth claims mine, and the world dissolves into a storm of sensation. It’s not a punishing assault; it’s a slow, dominating exploration that is somehow more violating. His hand is a cage on my waist, pinning me to the cold steel of the sink, and my mind is a screaming battlefield.Resist. Fight.But my body, the traitor, answers him. He lifts me onto the counter as if I weigh nothing, and with a single, hard, plunging thrust, he enters me. A scream of pure, agonizing pain builds in my throat, but my body is arched against him, my nails biting into the hard muscle of his shoulders.
"More," I hear a voice moan, and with a sickening jolt, I realize it's mine.
The plea is a demanding, desperate thing, and he takes the bait. His arm tightens around my waist, and he slams into me. My legs kick out. Another thrust, and it's like a metal collar is fastening around my neck, cutting off my air. My hands shoot up, my nails raking down his skin in a rage that has nowhere else to go. "More! More!" I thrash in his hold, a madwoman, barely able to catch my breath as he slams into me, over and over. Tears flow from my eyes as I fight him, as I fight myself. A low chuckle rumbles in his chest, and it's anything but amused. The grip onmy hip tightens, bruising. He is pure, brutal force, a storm of contradictions. He isn’t just fucking me; he’s trying to fuck the defiance out of me.
Then, his hand shifts. It’s no longer just a brutal grip holding me in place. His thumb, calloused and rough, finds the slick, sensitive flesh between my legs, a place of searing pain and shocking sensitivity. He doesn't caress. He presses down, a single, knowing point of pressure, and begins to move in an agonizingly perfect rhythm that is in stark counterpoint to the brutal pounding of his hips.
My mind screamsno, a silent, frantic denial. It's a trick. A violation on a different, more insidious level. But my nerves, my flesh, stretched and torn and pushed to their absolute limit, betray me. A jolt of pure, electric shock shoots up my spine. The pain and the pressure, the humiliation and the unwanted stimulation, all begin to coil into an unbearable knot deep in my gut.
He feels the shift, the slight, involuntary clenching of my muscles. A low, triumphant growl vibrates through his chest and into mine. He leans in, his mouth at my ear, his voice a venomous, possessive whisper.
"That's it. Let go. Show me. Show me how you break."
His thumb doesn't stop, and his pace becomes harder, faster, a merciless assault on every front. I am being split apart and put back together, destroyed and remade in his image. My control shatters. A scream builds in my throat, not of pain, not of pleasure, but of pure, soul-deep annihilation.
My back arches uncontrollably. My vision whites out. A violent, involuntary convulsion rips through me, a complete and total surrender of my body against the will of my mind. The scream is torn from my lips, broken and raw.
My cry is the trigger he was waiting for.
It's the sound of his victory. A harsh, guttural groan is ripped from his own throat as he drives into me one last time, his own release tearing through him. He floods me, his body rigid, his possession absolute.
My world dissolves into a pinpoint of blackness, the final sensation, the echo of his guttural roar and the feeling of being completely and utterly owned.
The moment it's over,it's over. The storm breaks. He pulls out of me abruptly, the sudden emptiness a shock to my system. The fragile, painful heat is gone, replaced instantly by the cold air of the room. He steps back, adjusting himself with a casual indifference that is a fresh and deeper violation than the act itself.
The desperate, vulnerable man is gone. The cold, brutal king is back on his throne.
He looks at me, crumpled and shaking on the edge of the counter, and his face is a mask of pure, chilling self-loathing. He looks at me like I am a disease, a weakness he has just succumbed to and now must eradicate.
His voice, when it comes out, is a vicious snarl, unrecognizable from the man who whispered my name moments ago.
"Don't ever think that meant anything," he spits, the words like acid. "You're a convenience. A warm body. Nothing more. Get dressed."
He turns his back on me, a final, brutal dismissal.
He leaves without a backward glance, disappearing toward the infirmary where his brother lies. I slide off the counter, my legs trembling so badly I can barely stand.
I am a ghost again. Humiliated. Broken. The gamble was mine, but the loss feels absolute.
The rideback to the clubhouse is a silent, gray blur. I sit in the back of the armored van, the rhythmic, shallow breathing of the still-unconscious Rook the only sound. Hex drives, a rigid silhouette of fury and control. The man from the kitchen, the one who lost himself inside me, is gone. The king is firmly in command, and the wall between us is higher and colder than ever.
The sun is rising as we pull up to what is left of the clubhouse. It's a ruin. The gates are blown off their hinges, the facade is scorched black and riddled with thousands of bullet holes. It's a scene of absolute devastation, a portrait of a kingdom that has been torn apart. My photographer's eye recognizes the brutal beauty in the destruction, but my mind can only register one thing: I am no longer just photographing ruins. I am living inside one.
The van doors slide open. Hex gets out and immediately starts barking orders, his voice the unquestioned center of the chaos. He is the President, assessing the damage, rallying his men. He doesn't look at me. He doesn't acknowledge my existence.
I am left in the back of the van with his dying brother. My bloody hands, the ache between my legs, the brand on my shoulder—they are all evidence of the intimate, violent battle we just fought. But as I watch him command the ashes of his kingdom, I understand my new reality.
I am no longer just a prisoner. I saved his second-in-command. I saw the man behind the monster. I am nowinextricably tangled in his war and his life. My cage hasn't disappeared. It has just expanded to encompass his entire, burning world.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE BUTCHER'S BILL
HEX
