Who had gotten me here.
And thatwhowas opening his mouth as if he couldn’t resist feeding me the sound of his moans, even as he flattened his body against the door behind him in an attempt to shy away from my touch. This wasn’t public, though, and I didn’t have to worry about whether or not he’d end up calling out for help.
I had him here, and I could do whatever I wanted to him. He’dlet me in.
London let out another whine as I reached behind him and locked the handle on the door, then jerked out of my arms with a small cry when I pulled away so I could slide the metal chain home.
I didn’t want anyone interrupting us, and I had no idea when the man who lived with him was going to be home. He didn’t seem to have a schedule. He was…
A nuisance that I needed to take care of. But I’d been so intent on watching London that I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
I was watching London now too. He was looking at me with petrified eyes and blown pupils.
Rabbit. Fuck, the name fit him so well. Nikki had been a wolf, a snake in the grass. But London was all wide eyes and fear… soft and sweet.
Delicious.
I wanted to eat him up. He jerked when I started toward him, half scrambling, half running across the room, like putting a couch between us would be enough to stop me from getting what I wanted. He’d let me in here—he’d opened the door.
Heknewwhat he was doing.
“London, why are you running from me? There’s nowhere to go.” I glanced around the little apartment, ignoring the mess and the drugs I saw lying on the counter. They weren’t his, and it wasn’t my problem. Though… a small part of me wanted to wrap my hand around his throat and drag him out of here—lock himup again. At least at the facility he’d been in a clean room where I could keep my eyes on him. He’d been somewhere safe, tucked away from assholes like the one he lived with.
Here, well…
“O-Otto…” he stuttered, fear and something hotter warring in his tone. “Just because I let you in didn’t mean I wanted… I don’twant…” I wasn’t sure whether he didn’t finish the sentence because I started toward him again or because the lie was so obvious that it was choking him. Whatever the reason, he just took off at a run, heading toward a room in the back of the apartment.
His bedroom.
Probably where the man who lived here had held him down and fucked him. The thought made something in me snarl, snap. I’d been enjoying playing with him, watching him try to skirt his way around me… but I was done with the games.
A few quick strides closed the distance between us, and my fingers catching at his shoulder spun him around. He knocked into the kitchen wall, his hand scrambling wildly at my chest as I slipped my fingers carefully around his throat. I squeezed, hard enough that it stole the breath from him, but not long enough to do more than make him a little dizzy before I let go. The hard gulp of air he took was cut off as my fingers flexed again, and he raised his eyes up to mine.
“If you really aren’t him, London…” I leaned in, running my nose along his jaw and giving his neck another little squeeze. “If you really aren’t Nikki, then prove it. Don’tlieto me.” My tongue flicked out, playing against the shell of his ear and drawing another little low sound from his chest. “Don’t make shit up. You didn’t betray me, so that’s a start. Now… look at me and tell me youdon’twant this. Go on.” I leaned back, shifting my grip so my thumb could stroke across his lower lip while my fingers splayed on his jaw. “Tell me you hate this.”
His eyes were so wide, so luminous, like he could summon the words somehow if he looked long enough.
“I don’t want…” he started, and I felt something in my chest start to constrict. Maybe it wasn’t a fair game, asking him to feed me the truth. Maybe some part of him didn’t want this. Whatever this electric static running between us was—the strange tether that had brought me here when I had no way of actually knowing if it was a trap—maybe he didn’t feel it. Maybe… “I thought I’d imagined everything… You just disappeared and I… I don’t want…” His brows came together painfully and he wet his lips, almost recoiling when his tongue met my thumb. “I don’t know what I want.”
And there it was. I’d asked him to be honest, and that was maybe the most honest thing he could have said. The way he tried to pull away from me, the way his pulse was thundering violently beneath my hands? It was obvious that he was conflicted.
It was obvious that nothing about what was happening wasobviousto him.
“What if I don’t care what you want, London?” I slid closer to him, pressing the heat of my body against his hard enough that I felt his breath come out in a low groan. “What if I just take whatIwant? What if I give you what you think you deserve?”
Up until this point, I’d made it clear exactly whatIthought he deserved—pain, torture, death… and fuck, maybe a part of me still wanted to hurt him.
No, there was no maybe. I knew a part of me still craved the way he whimpered when he was in pain. My fingers around his throat twitched at the thought of squeezing until the breath left him and his face went pale. A very real part of me wanted to break him.
But…
“Okay.” His answer was soft, unsure, and… “Fuck, I might as well have killed that man, Otto. I…” He looked up at me, and there was that wetness in his eyes again. “I deserve whatever you do to me.”
Penance. Was he looking for punishment? Did he want me to make him suffer for the way he’d led that man to his death when he took him back to that room after he’d noticed me? I wasn’t going to sugar coat it for him; I wasn’t going to lie to him. He’d seen me, heknew.
So if he needed to be punished… Well…
“Get on your knees, London.” I switched my grip, sliding my thumb between his lips and grabbing his lower jaw. His body went stiff for a second before he slid down the wall behind him like I’d cut his strings, like my fingers digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks had somehow taken all the fight out of him. “Fuck, you’re pretty when you’re breaking. Do you know that? Little rabbit, so willing to do whatever it takes to survive… Don’t you know…” I slipped my thumb into the heat of his mouth, delving it along the length of his tongue until he gagged. “A wolf will eat you, no matter how much you want to trust it.”
