Page 49 of Worse Than Wicked
“Because you forced me to.”
“You must not have hated it too bad,” I say, smirking at him, enjoying the upper hand for a moment. “You kept coming back for more.”
“Youkept coming back for more,” he corrects.
“You were there too,” I say. “In fact, if I recall correctly, you got more out of it than I did.”
“Sure,” he says. “I got something out of it. Watching you crawl in the dirt begging for my dick was the sweetest revenge.”
“You got off on it too.”
“Getting off doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “I’m human. I cum. Don’t think for a second that means I ever wanted you.”
His cruelty cuts through to the bone, but I relish the pain with something close to rapture. This is what I’ve been missing, what I crave even more than Alice. Wonderland is just an escape from this craving, from the hunger that only punishment sates.
“You’re fucking heartless,” I say, even though I’m halfway hard already.
“You act like you didn’t know,” he says, tipping his head back and watching me through hooded eyes.
“You’re right,” I say. “I must be a fucking masochist to come here.”
“No shit,” he says. “That was always why you came to me, wasn’t it?”
It was, and he knew that even before I did. He knows me. He gets me. And he gives me everything I need, even when he doesn’t mean to. He probably hates that he does every bit as much as I do.
So when he turns and walks away, I follow. He goes around the side of the house, not through the door, so I know it’s not over. He has more pain to dish out, and I’ll take it, eager as a puppy. I fucking hate that he makes me this way, but I can’t stop myself from following like the dog I am.
thirteen
Duke Dolce
“What’s the big deal,” I say again, following Colt to the back deck. “Mabel’s fucking my brother. Why shouldn’t I fuck hers?”
“Because I’m with Lo.”
“She’s been locked up for a year,” I point out. “You expect me to believe you were sitting around celibate as a monk that whole time? Come on, Colt. I know you.”
“We have an arrangement,” he says, flipping open the cover on the hot tub. “We promised never to put limits on each other. We can hook up with other people if we want.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I press, peeling off my shirt before he’s even slid the cover all the way off the tub.
“I don’t want you.”
His words lacerate my soul, but the more he hurts me, the more I crave. I stand there watching him through the curls of steam rising into the muggy morning. It’s too warm out to sit in a hot tub, but I don’t care. I undo the button and let my jeans fall, holding his gaze, daring him to look away.
“God, your cock is huge,” he says, shaking his head.
“Thought you said you didn’t want me,” I say, wrapping my fingers around it while he watches.
He grimaces and turns away, hangs his robe on one of the four hooks on the wall. Their family probably sat out here in the tub together. It seems like something sick that the Darlings would do.
He climbs into the tub in his boxers, not waiting for me.
“Afraid to be naked with me?” I challenge, climbing into the hot water and sinking onto the bench opposite him.
“Not afraid,” he says, setting his cigarettes on the edge of the tub. “Smart enough not to hang a juicy steak in front of a hungry dog.”
“Fuck you,” I say. “You know I don’t bite.”
