Page 24 of Blood Ties

Riley

I ’m not sure how long I spend curled up on my mattress, unmoving.

After that shower, I’m the cleanest I’ve been since I was first locked in this basement, even after my escape attempt.

But I feel filthier than ever in the wake of what happened in the butcher room.

Knox’s fingerprints are etched into my hips in the form of bruises; I can’t get the stink of blood out of my nose.

And Kai isn’t here. He was gone all day while his brother played with me, and he was gone all night while I lay here afterward.

I try to tell myself I don’t care, especially after what Knox told me about him butchering my friends.

I don’t want to believe that’s true, but his words held the harsh bite of truth behind them.

Kai chopped up my friends’ bodies and fed them to the pigs.

I shouldn’t be missing him right now. I shouldn’t be thinking about his lanky body pressed against mine, or the way he gasped my name when he came.

I should hate him. I do hate him. Maybe not as much as I hate Knox and the others. His brother, his father, his uncle... they’re worse than Kai, I’m sure of that. But I’d still gladly sink a knife into his gut if I had the chance.

Yet I can’t deny my relief when he comes through the door.

I know him from the sound of his shoes, so soft-footed in comparison to the rest of his family, like he’s trying to avoid attention.

He stops at the foot of the stairs and looks at me. Weariness paints shadows beneath his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks, but his expression sharpens as he takes in my scrapes and bruises. All the marks left by Knox when he chased me and bent me over that table.

Kai’s guilt is good. It’s something I can use.

I hold out my hands for him, a silent request. He falls to his knees on the edge of the mattress. I put my arms around him, and he rests his head on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into the crook of my neck.

For Knox? For the basement? For chopping up my friends? I swallow down my answer. I’m not going to absolve him of any of it.

For a few moments, we just sit and breathe together. The silence between us is more comforting than it should be; it leaves a confused roiling in my stomach. Even as I try to cling to my anger, it slips through my fingers.

I shift slightly, turning my head to the side, and he does the same, bringing our lips mere inches apart. His breath hitches; the rise and fall of his chest quickens.

But he’s frozen in my arms like he’s afraid the moment will shatter if he moves. I’m afraid of that too, but... God, I want it, all of a sudden. I crave his warmth and his big, gentle hands. I want them everywhere Knox touched me, erasing the memory, easing the bruises.

“I want to feel something good,” I whisper out loud.

Kai kisses me.

It’s a gentle brush of his lips. Chaste and tentative, almost innocent. Maybe he is innocent. The thought burrows into me as I kiss him back, one hand grazing along his jawline to settle on the back of his neck, holding him close.

When I flick my tongue against his lips, he opens them with a shudder, and the kiss becomes deeper, hungrier.

His teeth click against mine, over-eager, before we figure it out.

Then there’s nothing but soft lips and the hot slide of tongue against tongue.

The way he kisses me is fervent, but not rough. Nothing like his brother.

I push Knox from my mind as Kai gently lowers me onto my back on the mattress.

He braces his arms on either side of me and hovers rather than resting his full weight on my body.

I can feel the eager press of his arousal through his pants.

Yet he does nothing but kiss me, like he’d be content to do that all night.

But I’m not. I want more. I want him closer.

I want to lose myself in his touch. I slide a hand down over his torso, feeling lean muscle tighten beneath his shirt, and reach for his belt buckle.

He shivers as I unclasp it, but doesn’t stop kissing me.

His mouth leaves mine as I undo his button and zipper, but only to move to my neck, sucking gently at my skin in a way that makes me gasp.

I push his jeans down his hips, reach into his boxers, and take him in my palm.

He groans. He’s already so turned on, hot and heavy in my fingers, precum beading on the tip of his cock. I pump him once, and he gasps against my neck.

He pulls back to look at me, holding himself up with his forearms.

“I’ve never...” he says.

I hesitate for a moment. I guess I should’ve expected that, after he came in his pants last time. Makes sense that there aren’t many opportunities for him, out here in the middle of nowhere, with a family like his.

Not that it stops Knox.

I shove the thought from my mind and smile up at Kai. “That’s okay,” I whisper, my hand still moving in slow strokes over his thick length. “As long as you’re okay...?”

He nods, bottom lip trapped between his teeth, eyes never leaving mine. He’s rigid as he holds himself above me, like he’s afraid to move. It feels weirdly intimate, being face to face like this. I nudge him, urging him to lie on his back beside me instead.

“Can I...?” He reaches for me, but I recoil.

“Oh, I, um...” I bite the inside of my cheek. If my goal is to get him attached to me — that’s why I’m doing this, isn’t it? — maybe I should let him do whatever he wants to do, but I’m still sore and aching between my thighs from his brother’s treatment of me yesterday.

“You don’t have to,” he says, placing a hand on my wrist to stop the rhythmic motion of my hand. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

I smile, blinking back a wave of emotion that catches me off guard. How sad it is, to be surprised and touched by such simple decency. “Touch me here,” I whisper, easing his hand off of my wrist and leading it beneath my shirt.

He searches my face. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” I shift my grip, moving closer to him so I can kiss him while I jerk him off.

“I want you,” I breathe. He moans into my mouth, long fingers palming my breasts, rubbing my nipples.

He’s clumsy in his inexperience and eagerness, but his hands are warm and gentle.

It feels good, and even as he explores my body, he never pushes past the boundary of my waistline.

In the quiet of the basement, every sound is loud. The fleshy slide of my hand over his cock, the low little noises in his throat when I hit a sensitive spot. The way his breath shudders as I quicken my pace.

This is just a hand job. A ploy to make him keep me around longer.

But as our eyes meet, and his breath hitches in a way that tells me he’s right on the edge, I feel a pulse of heat low in my stomach.

A surprising rush that makes me almost wish I had let him touch me like he wanted.

Would he finger me the same way he kisses — gentle at first, then sloppy as he loses control?

Would he look me in the eyes like this as his big hands cradled me? Would he moan even louder?

A little whimper slips out of my lips before I can stop it.

Kai’s eyes widen, pupils blown huge in his already dark eyes, and a moment later he grunts and jerks, pulsing in my hand as he shoots thick spurts of cum over his own stomach.

It comes and comes, soaking the shirt he never bothered to take off, and leaves him gasping and trembling as he sinks down on the mattress.

I stroke my fingers slowly over him until he goes soft.

I expect him to leave soon after, hit with that rush of guilt or embarrassment that guys sometimes get. But instead he just lays there, chest rising and falling with deep breaths, gazing at me with a softness that takes me off guard.

If my goal is to manipulate him into loving me, then judging by that look in his eyes, I’m halfway there already.

It should be a relieving thought. A triumph. But instead I’m hit by a squirming sensation of guilt in my stomach.

I swallow it down and ignore it. This is about survival. There’s no room for guilt.

With a small, half-forced smile, I reach over to touch his shirt. “You should get this cleaned up,” I say, low and teasing.

The moment the hem rises up over his waistband, he tenses and pulls away. I catch a glimpse of scarring on his pale stomach before he tugs his shirt back down.

“Yeah,” he says, expression shuttering. He pulls up his boxers and jeans, and gets up without looking at me again.

He rinses his shirt in the sink without removing it, and I study the brace of his shoulders from behind, unsure what line I crossed.

I just jerked him off while he looked into my eyes, and he won’t let me see his body?

It’s yet another reminder that I barely know this man. I can’t let my head fill with fanciful thoughts about him being gentle or sweet or sympathetic in any way. He helped his family kill my friends and cover it up. He’s keeping me chained in a goddamn basement.

I look at the shackle around my wrist and swallow hard. He’s never offered to remove it. Even Knox did that for me, if only for his own cruel games.

I lie back on the mattress, facing away from Kai and staring at the wall. I shut my eyes and pretend not to hear when he whispers my name like a question. A few minutes later, his footsteps retreat up the stairs.