Brutal Game Read online

  “No—”

  “So they find men like me, men who don’t fuck around. Men who can tell exactly what it is they’re really after.” His hands went to his waist, freeing his belt buckle, then the button of his jeans. She made a break for it but he was on her in a blink, pinning her to the bed by her biceps.

  “Make it easy, sweetheart. Your daddy or your priest or whoever you’re so scared of disappointing, they’re not here. Just you and me. Let yourself go.”

  “I want to go home.” It was a plea, a prayer, a toothless wisp of a wish.

  “You will. Just as soon as we both get what we need. You can’t tell me you don’t want this. Like I don’t see the way you look at me every goddamn week.” He shoved one knee between hers, then the other, and Laurel felt it—her body was priming, pussy slick and ready, hungry.

  “I never meant to lead you on. I never said—”

  “Fuck what you said.” He gave her a single shake, thumping her head and shoulders against the covers. He lowered his chest to hers. “I know what you want. You watch me fight.” He breathed the words right into her ear, every syllable damp and hot and explicit. “You watch my body and you wanna know what else I’m capable of.” He grabbed her hand, forced it low, pried her fingers apart and cupped her palm to his straining cock. “You want this, don’t you? The one part of me those greedy eyes don’t get to see.”

  “Stop. Please. Please.” Her voice was small, frail, quavering, her words like matches flicked into a puddle of gasoline—one, two, three.

  “I know you,” he sneered. “I know your type. You want a bad man like me, but you’re too scared to admit it. You want me to give you what you need?” He stroked her hand up and down his length, so hard the friction burned. “Play your little game, make it like I’m forcin’ you so you can pretend you don’t want it?”

  “I don’t want it. I don’t. Please. I’m sorry.”

  He put his free hand to her throat, pressing his thumb to the hollow just under her jaw. “Take me out.”

  “I want to go—”

  “Take me out,” he barked, pressing harder. “Maybe I’ll let you go, if you do. But find out what you’re missing first.”

  He released her hand and she fumbled with his fly. The zipper stuck as she pulled it down.

  “C’mon.”

  “I’m trying.” She got the zipper open and he shoved his jeans to the tops of his thighs.

  “Touch me.”

  She was dying to but held back, waiting until a rough hand grabbed hers and clasped it to his erection. He seemed to sear her through the cotton, filling her palm, making her clench and heat, sex aching.

  “Stroke it.”

  She did, luxuriating even as her fist moved in staggered, frightened fits and starts. He never felt half as big as he did in moments like this, flesh like iron, like a weapon. His body seemed to mirror hers; she felt the damp patch each time her palm met his head and her mouth tingled, hungry for this. Hungry for an order she prayed she’d hear before long.

  His hand grew impatient, forcing her motions rougher, faster. Laurel replied only in breaths—the reedy rush of air through her nostrils, lips pursed tight.

  “This what you been needing?” he hissed.

  “Please. I want to go.”

  “Did you know I’d be this fuckin’ big, sweetheart? Is this how you imagined it?”

  “Please. Please.”

  “Get your clothes off.”

  She froze. His hand released hers but she didn’t move, lost in the role.

  “Strip. Now.”

  “I—”

  “Strip.”

  Again, she tried to escape. Tried to slip from under the prison of his legs and arms, but she got nowhere. A rough, broad palm covered her throat. He’d never choke her—he didn’t fuck around with that shit, as he put it—but she knew to pretend he was. She went limp beneath him, eyes wide with terror.

  “Strip. Don’t make me say it again.”

  He released her neck and she reached down, wriggled her bottoms away as Flynn began tugging at her shirt. He peeled it over her arms and head, ignored her bra. He pulled his own shirt off next, and spoke to her as the cotton fell to the floor. “I’m gonna stand up, and you’re not gonna move a muscle. You understand?”

  She nodded, unblinking. She watched that body with awe as he ditched his jeans and shorts, standing before her in the low light, cock long and thick and ready, gleaming at the crown.

  “Good,” he said, cold eyes approving of her body or her obedience. “You let me and I’ll make this good for you. Fight me and you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

  She held her tongue.

  He clasped himself at the root. “This what you pictured, all those nights you came to watch me? You go home after and fuck yourself, hopin’ I was even half this big?”

  “Please.”

  He got back onto the bed, forcing her legs wide. “That’s good. I like you better cooperative.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “No, I don’t have to do jack-shit, apart from exactly whatever the fuck I want. This is my house. What I want, I get. You fuckin’ knew that when you stepped through the door, didn’t you?” His fist was stroking, hips edging their centers closer, closer. Finally, contact—the bump of his smooth head against her clit. She bucked, letting the pleasure masquerade as revulsion.

  He traced her lips, no friction. “Fuck, yeah. I knew you wanted this, you lying little bitch.”

  She flinched at the word, a chill snaking through her. “D-don’t. Please, don’t.”

  “You feel that?” He began to push, his cock a relentless intrusion, spreading her open.

  Her eyes shut and her nails bit into his shoulders.

  “Yeah.” He pushed deeper, deeper, in harsh thrusts until their hips met. “Don’t tell me you don’t want this. I feel how fuckin’ wet you are.”

  “I don’t. Please, don’t do this.”

  He gave her his length, slow and mean. “I know you never had a cock half this big, bitch, have you? Tell me.”

  “Stop, pl—”

  “TELL ME,” he bellowed, as loud as he dared without risking a neighbor pounding on the wall or calling the cops.

  “Never,” she stammered. “I’ve never had anyone…” She trailed off.

  “Had anyone what?”

  “Big as you.” Her voice was a trembling little mouse-squeak of a thing.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” He owned her in rough strokes, making every inch a punishment. “Take that cock. Just like you been wanting.”

  She shut her eyes, turned her face away.

  “Watch me fuck. Watch me.”

  She opened her eyes to slits.

  “Yeah, look at me.” He made his motions long and filthy, hypnotizing. “Look at me, bitch.”

  All at once, Laurel craved her name like water in the desert. She often hit this wall when they indulged his kink, the work of arousal and impatience, not discomfort. She didn’t want to be some stranger, some anonymous “sweetheart,” some “bitch”. She wanted her own name in that gruff accent, wanted it to slip free as control eluded him, same as she wanted to see helplessness glazing those eyes.

  She could end the charade now, murmur “Flynn” in a telltale voice and turn this from fantasy to plain old fucking in a breath. But no. It was magic—ugly, dark, scary magic—the way this game affected him. She may be playing a powerless woman, but what she could give this man… She could turn him inside-out with a few whispered pleas. He might be on top, but she held his pleasure in her hands, as truly as she could feel his flesh under her fingernails.

  His body punished hers, voice lost to grunts and moans. Her breaths had no choice but to sync with his as each thrust huffed the air from her lungs. She was dying to touch herself, praying for a shift in the angle that might rub him against her, give her relief, when—

  “Turn over.” He didn’t give her a chance to obey. The second his weight lifted, he had her by the shoulder and a
rm, forcing her onto her hands and knees.

  Touch me. For the love of God, touch me.

  “Fuck, yeah.” He held her hips and drove deep, savored for the barest moment before the brutality resumed. “You get exactly what you were after, bitch?”

  “Please.” Barely a whisper now.

  “You feel good, girl. Don’t tell me you don’t love it.”

  She did love it, in a way. If she thought too hard about it all, things grew murky. She got caught on questions, like, what did it mean that this was the thing that turned him on like nothing else?

  It means jack, she could imagine him saying. It means the random thing my sexuality got snagged on is creepy as shit. Period.

  It didn’t mean he wanted to hurt a woman, not any more than a woman who enjoyed such games really wanted to be forced. It was the taboo, the wrongness of wanting it that made it hot. Or for Laurel, it was Flynn. It was the balance of a man strong enough to hurt her for real also being the one she trusted above all others. And it was having the power to grant his darkest, dirtiest wishes, and to see and hear and feel what it did to him.

  Behind her, the beast was loose and wild. His palms were slick on her hips, his cock hard in that way that only this game could make it. She longed to see his face, but more than that, she longed for selfish things. And finally, he gave her what she wanted.

  He pulled out and his hands were urging her forward. “Up, on your knees. Hold the shelf.” When she hesitated he barked, “Now.”

  She knew what he was after. It was something they often did when they weren’t role-playing. She cast him a faux-fearful glance over her shoulder then moved, kneeling upright at the head of the bed, holding on to the edge of a shelf. He entered her roughly with a grunt that made her legs tremble. Her hair was twisted up and pushed to one side, his mouth claiming the bared side of her throat.

  And finally, it came—his touch. One hand slipped around to palm her breast, the other moving between her legs, finding her clit.

  “Yeah.” He said it so softly, it wasn’t part of the game. There was wonder in his voice, the tone that overtook him sometimes when he found her wet, or found her clit as stiff as it was now. It excited her nearly as much as the rough fingertips circling her and the thick cock gliding in and out, in and out.

  For Laurel, the narrative fell away. He could imagine whatever sinful things he liked, but she didn’t need anything more than exactly what this was—a powerful man using her and serving her at once. No lover had ever understood her body the way this one did. His fingers knew the exact speed, the precise pressure, his touch masterful even as his body pounded into hers, harsh and frantic. Always contradictions, with Flynn. Selfish and catering. Cruelty underpinned by blind trust. A no-nonsense, frequently tactless man, but under the surface possessing so much tenderness and loyalty and intuition.

  She was losing it, falling to pieces. Her hands shook on the shelf, sweaty and crampy and weak from the pleasure coursing through her body. Her legs were water, sex molten. Her breathing came in long, low groans, sounding pained and crazed and intoxicated. She hoped maybe it was standing in for some facsimile of fear for Flynn, but honestly, she was beyond caring. All she wanted was more, more of this, until she broke apart completely.

  His mouth was at her neck, just behind her ear, his breath as hot as steam. “You love that cock, girl?”

  She could only gasp and pant.

  “I think you do. I think you’re gonna come on that cock, aren’t you?”

  “Please.” Her last stab at feigned resistance, though that plea was genuine. Make me come. Please, please, please.

  “I know what you need,” he told her. “I’m gonna make you come harder than any man ever has.”

  She was dying to say his name. It echoed in her head, through her body, pulsing in every cell. It was that syllable as much as his rushing cock or taunting fingertips that pushed her over the edge.

  She came hard, knuckles chalk-white where she clung to the shelf, body bucking into his, seeking and trying to escape his touch at the same time, all of it too much, never enough. Her cry was deep and animal, telling him every filthy thing she had no words for.

  Behind her, that perennial chant: “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” punctuating every twitch, every spasm, until she was nothing but a sweaty, trembling mess.

  From Flynn, a massive groan, then, “On your back.”

  She obeyed, flopping gracelessly across the bed, feet on the pillow. She welcomed the heat and weight and desperation of him. Their game felt done and she held him, tugged at those same arms she’d pretended to push away not long ago.

  “Fuck, honey.”

  She smiled to herself, slid her palms low and rode the motions of his hammering hips. “You look so fucking good.”

  He smiled, the gesture all but lost to the agony of his pleasure. “You’re one to talk.”

  “You gonna come for me?”

  “So goddamn hard.”

  “Show me, then.”

  She let her hands and gaze wander his body, stroking his back and arms, feasting on the spectacle of his surging cock.

  “Yeah, watch me.” His voice gave him away, and his half-shut eyes, the pace of his thrusts.

  “Come on, Flynn.”

  “Yeah. Say it.”

  “Flynn. Show me.”

  “You want my come?”

  “Always.”

  “Where? Your cunt?”

  She shivered at that word. “Please.”

  “I like that. Beg for it.”

  “Give it to me, please. Deep.”

  His back arched and his words devolved to grunts and moans and the odd, “Yeah.” He was lost, helpless, and Laurel lived for these moments.

  “Come on. Please.”

  He sounded more animal than man, riding on the brink of madness, then all at once, he froze. He rammed so deep, Laurel winced through a cramp. Every muscle in that astounding body clenched, softened, clenched again, and ultimately went still.

  She wrapped her arms around him, memorized his weight, the smell of his skin. Never let this moment cease to floor and humble her. Never let this man fail to amaze, and never let her fail to excite him. Never let familiarity curdle to boredom, she prayed.

  Let this feel so easy and so wrong and so right, always.

  3

  Flynn rolled over, drunker than drunk. Drunker than he’d been for real in the better half of a decade. “Fuck, honey.”

  Laurel chuckled and he could see the round shape of her cheek where the lamplight hit it. It made him smile in return.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You,” he proclaimed grandly, “can ask me any goddamn thing you want, as long as it doesn’t require me to leave this bed.”

  She turned to face him, rubbing his chin with her thumb and seeming to address the spot. “I feel like more and more, when we’re doing the kinky stuff, by the time it’s over, we’re not acting.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that by the end, we’re you and me again. I’m not fighting you anymore.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s probably true.” His chest unknotted. He’d worried she’d meant it had gotten too real for her comfort.

  “Do you mind that?” she asked. “I can’t figure out if I’m the one who changes things. By the time I’m about to come it’s hard to pretend not to like it, is all.”

  “Nah, I don’t mind.”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded, then caught her lingering thumb between his teeth, biting softly.

  “If it seems like I’m just getting lazy,” she said, “tell me. I’ll step it up.”

  He let her thumb go. “By the time the role-playing falls apart, I’m already as hot as I’m gonna get. The first half, that’s what matters. The stuff before the actual sex, and the start of the sex. By the time it’s all underway, I’m happy just bein’ bossy.”

  “You sure?”

  “How many times you gonna ask me that?”
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br />   She shrugged, studying his mouth. “I just want to make sure I’m not dropping the ball. Your kink’s important to me.”

  “I know it is. And you don’t have anything to worry about. Plus you know me—if there’s something I need, I’ll ask for it.”

  “True.” She paused, then smiled.

  “What?”

  “You know how I can tell you’re not pretending anymore?” she asked. “During the sex?”

  “How?”

  “You call me ‘honey’, instead of ‘sweetheart’.”

  His brows rose. “Do I?”

  “Yup.”

  “Huh.” He supposed that was true.

  “You used to call me ‘sub shop girl’,” she added.

  “I did.”

  “And ‘kiddo’. Actually, you still call me that.”

  “I call every woman who’s younger than me ‘kiddo’. But ‘honey’—that’s all you.”

  She didn’t have a pet name for him, he realized. If she called him anything, it was Flynn, or occasionally Michael, but only when she was panting and overwrought, on the cusp of a violent orgasm. She liked his given name, but he preferred his last name. He’d been called that for so many years, it felt right in a way that Michael didn’t. Call him “Michael” and he couldn’t help it—all he heard was his shithead father’s voice, drenched in Four Roses.

  His sister called him Mike, which he put up with, having no choice. Looking back, it was her boyfriend, Robbie, who’d taken to calling him Flynn. He’d hero-worshipped the guy, and it was Robbie who’d gotten him into boxing, so no surprise that was the name that made him feel the most empowered, the most worthy of respect. He could’ve so easily been Mike or Mikey, some anonymous hoodlum selling stolen stereos out of the back of a van. Crazy what magic a strong male role model could work for a lost and angry kid.

  No matter that you could probably shout the name Flynn into a megaphone from a St. Paddy’s float in South Boston and have twenty people turn their heads. Far as he was concerned, that name was his. Robbie had given it to him. Given him so much and never took…not until he’d taken his own life, and far too young.