The Pawn (Endgame 1)

“Yes, sir,” he says, his voice gentle.

“Yes, sir,” I whisper.

His hands are clinical as they unbutton my jeans and pull down the zipper. He tugs off the jeans with a few rough pulls and tosses them aside. The panties go next. Maybe this part doesn’t matter. He’s seen it all before, and it’s dark in the room. So dark with only the embers to wink at me from the fireplace.

Except I can’t stop shaking, made so vulnerable by this position, by his command. Made naked by his very will. This is what it means to be owned by someone.

He pushes my legs apart. Not only a little, for him to touch me, for him to see. He pushes until the outsides of my legs touch the lip of the step. I’m completely exposed to him, spread open for him.

Blunt fingers nudge that slit—the one worth paying a million dollars for. Nothing’s ever been inside there. Not a man. Not fingers. Not even a toy. He doesn’t linger there but moves higher.

“Did you touch yourself?” he mutters.

I turn my face, looking at the black flames. “Yes.”

“Like this?” he asks, pinching my clit between his thumb and forefinger. The same way he touched my nipple. It feels too rough at first, almost painful, until the heat turns to pleasure.

It’s hard to talk when he’s doing that. “Not like—more circles.”

He draws a circle around my clit, and I buck into his hand. “Gabriel,” I whisper.

“Right here,” he says, voice as dark as the room. “I’m going to taste you right here, feeling your clit against my tongue, fucking you with my mouth until you cry. Do you want that, little virgin?”

I know the right answer, not only because he wants me to say it. Because I want him to do those things. I want to live. “Yes, sir.”

He bends his head.

The first touch of his lips to my clit makes me jump. Only his large hands holding my hips keep me steady as he nibbles his way around my clit. He dips lower, a few large licks over my sex that have my toes curling against the wood.

“You don’t taste sweet,” he says, pausing. “You taste like I’m fucking dying and you’re the only water around. You taste like goddamn air.”

He puts his lips back on my sex, and I can’t help the shrill scream that escapes me. God, what is he doing to me? I thought he might want me tonight—maybe we’d have dinner, some semblance of a date. Maybe he would come to my bedroom. I never expected to be caught in the library, to be spread open on the steps of a hand-carved staircase.

Every stroke of his tongue brings me higher, winds me tighter, until I’m rocking imperceptibly into his mouth. Little grunts escape me, matching the animalistic need in the air. I’m pushing against some cliff, held back by a barrier I don’t understand, I can’t name. I had an orgasm before, by my own hand, but this feels entirely different—a strange and uncontrollable beast.

I get close with a sharp whimper, and he slows his tongue, sliding down to my lips and back up again. My hand grasps his hair, pulling him where I need him. “Please.”

“Do I need to tie you down?” he says, his voice thick. “I’d love to do that, little virgin. Remember what I said about fighting me.”

“You’d enjoy it too much,” I whisper, moving my elbows back to the stairs.

“Mhmm, and for that you’ll have to wait. You’ll have to wait until I’m done.”

I groan because I’m right there, standing on the precipice, something sharp pressed into the breach. All I need is a few more glorious touches of his tongue. I’ll burst. I know I will.

He pushes up from his kneeling position and pulls off his clothes. He’s just as efficient, as unceremonial, as he was for mine. They’re only fabric in the way of what he wants, shed quickly. Then he’s standing there like some magnificent statue, like David, completely unselfconscious. Unlike David, though, his private part juts out from his body.

He puts his fist around it. “Have you ever sucked a cock?”

I shake my head. “No, sir.”

“Ever touched one?”

“No.”

With his other hand, he grasps my hair and tilts my face up. “Have you ever seen a cock, little virgin?”

My eyes grow wide as I fight his hold on me. He tightens his fist in my hair until I squeak. “No, sir. I haven’t.”

“You’re going to taste mine tonight, understand?”

One of his knees drops to the stairs near my elbow. He leans close, the tip of his cock an inch away from my lips. He pauses there, waiting. For what? I realize he wants me to meet him that final inch. He wants me to take control in this way—and I do, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to the slick tip of his cock.