Chapter 21

I waketo the sounds of soft moans and wet, sloppy impact. I’m disoriented for a moment, and I don’t understand what I’m hearing. A masculine grunt joins the mix and she moans again, more sharply this time.
My eyes pop open and I turn my face in the direction of the noises. The basement is dark now, the TV and all the lights off. On the sectional opposite me, Brianna is naked and riding someone. I jerk upright, half-prepared to see Carter beneath her, but when I jerk, one of Carter’s arms falls from around my body.
Another groan and a few murmured, filthy words.
Cartwright. I sink back down in relief, but confusion follows right on its tail. Why is Brianna riding Cartwright? I didn’t think they were dating.
Now that it hits me the sounds are absolutely the sounds of them having sex, my whole body heats with embarrassment. Carter stirs behind me and I tip my head back to look up at him. He’s still in the corner seat of the couch with me between his legs, so we must have fallen asleep while the movie was on.
“Mm, that’s right, just like that. Fuck, Bri,” Cartwright says as she slams down onto him again.
I should not be awake listening to this. I feel like a voyeur, but I don’t know what to do. Would it be rude to interrupt so I can slip away and give them privacy? What is the proper etiquette for something like this?
Carter moves some more, and a moment later I feel him stretch, so I look up at him. He glances at Brianna and Cartwright, but seems much less surprised, and not at all embarrassed.
“Movie must not have been very good,” he murmurs to me.
I have no idea what to say right now. I’m still playing with the idea that if I don’t speak, we can all pretend I haven’t witnessed this.
Carter is not awkward or confused. Leaning forward, he tells me, “Come on,” then climbs off the couch.
Brianna and Cartwright do not stop now that they realize we’re awake, like I expected. They keep at it like nothing changed.
“You two have fun,” Carter tells them, taking my hand and leading me around the sectional. “We’re going to bed.”
“Wait, what time is it?” I ask, realizing it must be pretty late. I need to text my mom. I told her we were watching a movie, not that I was staying the night.
I pat my pockets with my free hand, but find no phone. Did I have my phone in my pocket, or in my purse? Where is my purse? My head throbs and I wish I had my bottle of water, but I left it upstairs.
Carter doesn’t lead me back upstairs, he takes me to the opposite end of the basement where there is a room with a door. He opens the door but doesn’t bother flipping on that light.
“Spare bedroom,” he explains. “Comes in handy when we drink too much to drive home.”
“I didn’t tell my mom I would be spending the night. I need to call her, or at least send her a text so she knows I’m okay.”
Carter closes the door, and everything turns pitch black. Out in the larger part of the basement, there is at least a sliver of light from the windows, but this room has no windows. With the door closed, I can’t see anything.
My heart hammers in my chest at the sudden loss of a sense and my hand shoots out in the dark, feeling for a surface to orient myself.
“Carter,” I say uncertainly.
He finds my hand in the dark and tugs me forward. While my tone is infused with an edge of fear, Carter’s is smooth like honey. “Right here.”
“Can we turn on the light?” I ask.
He ignores my request, pulling me closer, then puts his hands on my shoulders to stop me. His hands slide to the hem of my shirt and he tugs it up over my head. I swallow, doing my best to ignore a flashback of Jake doing the same thing in the empty classroom that day. He unzips my pants and drags my jeans down next. When I go to step out of a leg hole, I lose my balance. He catches me to keep me from falling in the wrong direction, but then pushes me back onto the bed.
Apprehension tickles at me. “Carter, wait. I don’t want—I’m not ready—”
“Relax,” he tells me smoothly, pushing me closer to the center of the bed. I hear the zipper of his dark wash jeans, the rustle of fabric as he takes his clothes off, too.
Shit.
The bed dips as Carter climbs on. His dick brushes my leg so I know he’s naked, but I’m still wearing a bra and panties. I don’t like not being able to see anything.
“Carter, I don’t want to lose my virginity like this,” I tell him, panic starting to make its way up my throat.
“I won’t take your virginity yet,” he assures me, catching my hand and pressing his lips against it. “Relax. We’re just going to have a little fun.”
I do relax a little, but I don’t know what he means by yet. “You mean, tonight? I don’t want to lose my virginity tonight,” I specify.
“All right.”
“You won’t—you won’t take it?” I ask, needing verification.
“Not tonight,” he tells me.
Relief settles over me and I can breathe a little easier. Now that he’s reassured me he won’t take more than I’m willing to allow, the tenseness leaves my body. Carter feels around to find the outline of me in the dark, then he slides down, hooks his fingers inside my panties, and drags them down.
I’m not surprised when he presses the palm of his hand against the inside of my leg and follows the path up to the juncture between my thighs. I expect that. What I don’t expect is for him to then plant himself between my legs, hook one arm around my thigh, spread the other one wider, and lean in until I can feel his breath on my pussy.
I jump, startled. Before I can muster an objection, he spreads me open and pushes his tongue inside me, lighting my nerve endings up as effectively as a finger plugged into a socket. I gasp, clutching fistfuls of bed sheet, and throw my head back into the cool pillow beneath my head.
“Oh, Carter,” I say, breathless.
His tongue is as aggressive inside my pussy as it is inside my mouth. I’ve never felt anything like this—not when I’ve touched myself, not even when he touched me. I can’t keep still, twisting and writhing away from his tongue. It’s a counterintuitive thing to do because I love what he’s doing to me with it, but my body is too lit up to be sensible.
Carter’s grip on me tightens and he yanks me a little closer. “Stay put,” he orders.
Instead of obeying, I tell him, “No.”
He lifts his head and cocks an eyebrow. “No?”
“That’s right, no,” I say, infusing just enough playfulness into my tone to invite him to play along. “I’m not here to be your plaything, Carter. Get off me.”
Catching on, he moves up my body, grabs my wrists, and pins them to the bed, hard. His voice is low and infused with more danger than I expect when he says, “Don’t tell me no, princess.”
My heart races, even though I invited this. I’m not scared, not really, but my body’s signals are all knotted up, excitement firing from the wrong cylinders. Wetness gathers between my legs, and not just from him teasing me with his tongue.
Since I don’t say anything back, he hovers close and asks, “Now, are you going to stop fighting me and be a good girl?”
“Make me,” I shoot back.
I’m improvising as I go, walking a tight rope, hoping there’s a safety net beneath me. There’s nothing tentative in Carter, though. He’s like a bull I just waved a red flag in front of. My hands are suddenly free, but before I can decide what I should do with them, Carter grabs me and flips me over onto my stomach.
My heart somersaults as his body comes down on top of mine, then he murmurs low in my ear, like a secret can be kept even though we’re the only ones in the room, “Fight me.”
My stomach plummets with the danger and excitement of it. I do, though. I try to push off the bed, to shoulder him off me. I don’t know how hard to fight because I don’t actually want to hurt him, but that’s probably an absurd worry. Carter can handle me at full force like it’s nothing, so I can probably fight as hard as I want.
My skin heats with the surge of energy rushing through my veins and I try harder to shove him off. “Get off me or I’ll scream,” I threaten.
“Try it, princess. I’ll fill that pretty little throat so full of my cock, you’ll scarcely be able to breathe.”
That threat pierces the playfulness for me, because I remember when he actually did that to me, and it wasn’t fun, it was terrifying. It occurs to me that before deciding on a whim to cannonball into this sort of game, I should have told him what I don’t like, or established some sort of signal that I’m serious so I can stop him if I need to.
Before I decide whether or not to break the game and try now, Carter grabs me and throws me down on the bed so hard, my teeth rattle. Shit, that’s a little rough. It’s too dark for me to realize what’s happening until it’s too late. Until Carter’s thighs are on either side of my head and his cock is in my face.
“Carter, no—”
His hand covers my mouth. “Open this mouth again, and it’s gonna be to take my cock.”
As soon as he removes his hand, I say, “No, Carter, I’m—”
He grasps his cock and guides it into my mouth. I try to object, but he expects me to, so he ignores it.
“Suck,” he tells me.
I remember that disobeying that order is how shit got so out of hand before, so I wrap my tongue around his dick and suck. As long as I do, maybe he won’t shove so deep that I can’t breathe.
“Touch yourself while you get me off,” he demands.
There’s an answering throb between my legs, but I don’t reach my hand down between them. Maybe he’ll assume I’m obeying and I won’t actually have to do it. I can’t finger myself in front of him. That’s too… I don’t know, but I just can’t.
A minute passes and I think he’s too wrapped up in his own pleasure to worry about mine. Now that I’m not panicked he’s going to choke me, I actually like this position. I like him on top of me like this, taking my mouth. I like the power he has over me, and knowing he won’t go further than I want him to.
I like sucking him, too. I like the low sounds of pleasure from his throat, his dark head tipped back as he thrusts his hips against my face. Unthinkingly, I reach up and grab his ass to cradle him closer, giving me just a little more control as I work his dick with my mouth.
But I shouldn’t have both hands free, because I should be using one to touch myself, like he told me. His cock is still in my mouth, but he reaches back and grabs both of my wrists with his hands, verifying my disobedience.
“Huh,” he says.
Seeking to distract him, I inch him a little deeper and swallow around his cock. He hisses, grabbing a fistful of my hair and thrusting harder into my throat, but I don’t object. It doesn’t make me feel like I’m dying this time. Even though there’s discomfort when he does it, I feel another throb of arousal at his dominance. In fact, I want him to thrust into my throat like that again.
He does, several times. He keeps hold of my hair and fucks my face, hard. I struggle to take it, but there’s something different about this time. I know when he pushed this hard before, he hit my limits. He’s pushing the same distance now, but my limits… they’ve moved. Inched back to accommodate him, to allow me to enjoy rather than fear him.
It feels like a breakthrough, but maybe it’s something simpler.
Maybe it’s corruption.
When he had me on my knees in that classroom making me suck him, I was so much more innocent than I am now. Maybe he hasn’t completely busted through the physical barrier of my innocence yet, but like my limits, he’s inching his way there.
Carter pulls out of my mouth and I lie there, breathing heavily, trying to adjust to sucking in breath without the huge obstruction of his cock in my airway. He didn’t come, so I don’t know why he’s stopping.
He doesn’t immediately move off me, he stays right where he was and strokes his cock, watching me. “You like that, Ellis? You like being treated like my little whore?”
Ellis? No, no, I don’t want to go back to Ellis. Call me princess. That’s what you call me when you’re doing degrading things; Ellis is what you call me when you keep me at a distance.
I don’t deserve distance for the nasty shit I’m letting him do to me right now.
Impulsively reaching up and dragging my nails down his back, I tell him, “I’m not your little whore. I’m your princess.”
He sighs with pleasure as my nails scrape his flesh. “Fuck, Zoey.”
That’s better. “Let me suck you again,” I request, lifting my head to kiss his thigh, since that’s what I can reach. “Take my throat. Make me yours.”
He pushes his fingers through my hair, letting go of his cock and leaning down to kiss me. It’s a tender kiss—passionate, but not rough and hard. Possessive. When he breaks the kiss, he murmurs against me, “You are mine.”