Page 44 of Cruel When He Smiles (Sinners of Blackthorne U #3)

Nate

I’m frustrated.

Not annoyed, impatient, or tired of this game we keep playing on loop.

I’m just… frustrated. My jaw’s locked so tight it hurts, my arms are crossed over my chest to keep from doing something stupid, and my whole body feels wired like it’s holding tension it doesn’t know how to let go of.

I don’t even know why I’m still standing here.

But I haven’t left. I haven’t told him to fuck off, even though I probably should’ve. Even though he’s standing too close again. I tell myself I don’t care what he thinks, but part of me wants him to know what it costs me to stay.

He moves toward me again, and I feel it in my spine before he even reaches me. My muscles go tight and I’m expecting him to start something, to push, to yank whatever’s left of my self-control out from under me—but he doesn’t.

Not this time.

“Okay, I understand. But you did good, Pup.” His voice is soft and coaxing again, low enough that it sinks straight into my chest. “I told you to come, and you listened.”

I force a breath out, trying to act like I’m not reacting to his tone, to the way he’s looking at me. I try to pretend I’m not that easy to read, that I’m still in control of this… But I’m a goddamn liar.

“That deserves a reward, doesn’t it?”

My eyes snap to his, and I hate how unsure I feel. “What—”

He tilts my chin up with two fingers again, and suddenly, he’s everywhere. His breath is warm on my face, his fingertips light, and my lashes flutter before I can stop them. I smell his expensive cologne, and my body starts to give in, just like that.

“I take care of what’s mine,” he whispers.

My lips part without meaning to… and then he kisses me.

It’s not rushed or rough. It’s not possessive or cruel, not like last time. This time it’s slow—earned. I kiss him back hesitantly at first, before it turns greedy, then desperate. It hits me in the ribs first, then coils into the pit of my stomach and blooms into heat that burns through my spine.

I don’t want him to stop. I need this. God, I hate how much I need this.

And when I moan—quiet, shameful, the kind of sound I didn’t even mean to make—I feel his whole body respond. He pulls back to look at me, and his eyes—fuck. They see too much. His thumb brushes my bottom lip, and I don’t move, don’t speak, don’t even fucking breathe.

“My good boy,” he murmurs.

My breath catches in my throat, and I know he hears it. My fists curl at my sides because I don’t want this to mean something. I don’t want him to know how much those three words twist up everything inside me.

But I still don’t move.

His fingers trail down my chest slowly, and I shiver, even though I try not to. His voice drops lower, just for me. “Do you know why I keep pushing you, Nate? Why I can’t just let you be?”

“Because you’re a control freak?”

“No.” His smile fades, just a fraction. “Because you don’t lie to me. Not really. You play the game, sure. You run your mouth and act like you don’t care, but your body always tells the truth.”

I glare at him. “You don’t know shit about me.”

“I know enough,” he murmurs. “I know you don’t flinch when I say cruel things. I know you get hard when I degrade you. I know you liked what happened last night, and you’ve been pretending it didn’t rip you open since, and I think that bravery needs a reward.”

His tone softens again, viciously gentle, before he smirks and drops to his knees in front of me like he’s not the most dangerous person I’ve ever met, making my brain blue-screen.

I know this is a calculated kind of surrender, not a gift. A trap dressed in seductive hazel eyes and slow breathing. He kneels like a fucking king who still knows how to play servant.

Except I know better. I know him .

There’s nothing pure about the way he touches or takes or devours. There’s no part of this that’s kind. He doesn’t kneel to serve; he kneels to own.

I don’t move. Not when his hands trail up my calves, not when his fingers curl around the backs of my knees, steadying me. I look down at him, frozen. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Liam lifts his head, his gaze steady as it locks on mine. Even though he’s on his knees, he doesn’t look submissive. “Rewarding you.”

“Liam—”

“You came when I called.” His eyes drop to the line of my waistband before dragging back up. “You could’ve ignored me and told me to stay away, but you didn’t.”

My fists curl at my sides. “That doesn’t mean—”

“It means everything to me, Pup.” His hands slide up my thighs. “You did so good listening to me, even when it scared you.”

“It still scares me,” I say, and it comes out quieter than I want. “ You scare me.”

He smiles. “Good,” he breathes, his hands sliding up to grip my thighs through my jeans. “Now you can stop pretending your pretty cock isn’t already hard for me.”

He leans in, nuzzling my crotch before he looks up again, and this time, his eyes burn. “Let me show you what obedience gets you from a guy like me.”

The words land behind my ribs, wrapping tightly, and tugging something loose and trembling out of me.

“Take it off,” he says. I stare at him, and he tilts his head. “You want control? Take it. Or do you need me to make the first move?”

My hands shake as I undo my jeans, and I don’t break eye contact. Liam hums, low and pleased. “There’s my brave boy.”

I want to punch him.

I want to kiss him.

I want to make him say it again.

“You’re leaking already,” he murmurs. “That’s pathetic.”

I suck in a breath, my whole body pulsing. “You like pathetic.”

He looks up, smiling. “I fucking love pathetic,” he says, licking his lips. “Feed me your cock, Pup.”

I swallow hard, breath shattering as his words land like a brand against my spine.

Every instinct I have screams at me to pull back.

To tell him to fuck off. To keep the upper hand and not fall into whatever twisted game he’s playing.

But my fingers are already closing around my shaft, shaky and hot, slick from the pre-cum at the head.

He watches me patiently, kneeling between my legs and pretending he’s offering devotion. But this isn’t reverence—this is possession.

I stroke myself once, and his gaze drops to my hand, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips again, and I feel my knees nearly give.

Then he leans forward, so close his breath ghosts over the head of my cock. I let out a broken sigh, guiding myself toward his lips. I don’t even process the choice before I’m making it, the tip brushing his mouth, and then he parts his lips like it’s what he’s been waiting for.

Liam sucks the tip like it’s the first time he’s ever tasted something sweet and licks it like he wants to make a point. His tongue drags under the head, catching the ridge, teasing it until my eyes roll back.

I push in deeper, and he takes it to the base without blinking. No flinch. No hesitation. Just the slow, easy surrender of someone who planned this. Someone who knows exactly which buttons to press to make me come undone and is savoring every flicker of hesitation.

His hands stay on my hips, pinning me in place, but I’m already shaking, one hand flying to his hair before I can think better of it, which earns a chuckle and a cruel hand slamming into my thigh to hold me still.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs, licking a line down the side and making me shiver. “You love this. Being seen. Being tasted.”

“I fucking hate y—” I start, but gasp when he deepthroats me again. “You… shit .”

He groans around me like the insult fed him. It’s a filthy, yes-make-it-worse sound that makes me forget my own name. That vibration? That goddamn hum? It makes my balls draw up and steals my fucking breath. I stumble, and he catches me with both hands, still working me with ruthless rhythm.

He starts moving faster. Sucking harder. His hands grip my thighs as if he’s daring me to thrust. I can hear myself panting and feel the tension building and creeping up my spine.

“Fuck, Liam—” I gasp as he pulls off, letting my cock slap against his cheek before stroking it with slow, vicious pumps.

His mouth is red and swollen, and he looks up at me with that calm cruelty in his eyes. “Sit.”

I blink, confused as fuck. “What?”

Liam stands, pressing a hand to my chest, walking me backward as he guides me to his bed, pushing until I fall, and he takes off my shoes and jeans. Then he kneels again between my legs, and this time, it’s worse because I’m spread open.

He grabs my thighs and jerks me forward. “Now,” he says, his voice low and lethal, “take what you need from me and come down my throat.”

I can’t even process his words before his mouth is back on me.

I cry out, and my head slams back, hands scrabbling for anything to hold on to as he sucks me down again, faster now, harder. It’s too much and not enough; the heat of Liam’s mouth drags me somewhere I don’t know how to crawl out of.

Every part of me is tuned to him. His tongue. His hands. The low, obscene sounds he makes when he sucks me down to the base again as if he’s starving. He’s not just trying to make me come—he’s trying to wreck me. And it’s fucking working.

But then he pulls back, letting my cock slip from his mouth with a wet pop, stroking me slowly as he licks his lips. “You’re holding back,” he says, tilting his head to the side. “Why?”

“I’m not—”

He squeezes, his grip tightening around my cock hard enough to make me gasp, as my hips twitch forward instinctively.

“Liar,” he murmurs, dragging his thumb over the tip, smearing his spit and making me shudder. “You want to give in. I can see it. So why are you fighting it?”

I swallow hard, throat bobbing as my fingers tighten in his hair. I don’t know why I’m holding back… I don’t know if I’m allowed to fuck his throat.

He smiles softly, takes both my hands in his, and kisses the inside of my wrists before guiding them to his hair. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “Hold on, baby. I want you to.”

My fingers twitch the second he says it. The second he gives me permission.

Hold on, baby. I want you to.

It shatters whatever control I was pretending to have.

So, I curl my fingers in his hair, tighter this time, and then I pull hard. Not enough to hurt him—though God knows he’d enjoy it if I did—but enough to make his eyes flutter shut and his lips part around a gasp that sounds too fucking wrecked to be fake.

“There you go,” he whispers, voice cracked open. “Fuck my mouth, Pup.”

I guide him back onto my cock like it’s what I was born to do. Like I’ve earned it. Like this is mine to take—and fuck, he gives it so easily. His lips part, tongue already wet and waiting, and I push forward until the head brushes the back of his throat.

My hips jerk up, and he moans low in his throat as I slide deeper. His throat flexes, lips stretching wide, eyes fluttering closed for half a second before he locks them back on me.

He sucks harder, hollowing his cheeks, letting me fuck into his mouth in slow, shaky thrusts.

It’s not neat or careful. It’s filthy. Slick and messy, wet sounds echoing in the quiet room, spit dripping down his chin, and I can’t stop.

My body rocks forward instinctively, and this time, he doesn’t just let me—he pulls me deeper.

The pressure is coiling in me, hot and tight, and I need.

I need to let go. Need to be allowed to let go.

His throat flexes, tight and wet, and I can barely breathe. My hands are buried in his hair, and he hums around me again, the vibrations slicing through my spine, and I swear to god, I almost come right there.

“Fuck, Liam—don’t stop, don’t you fucking—”

But he pulls off, panting, spit dripping from his lips as he strokes me with one hand. “You wanna come, Pup?”

“Yes,” I gasp.

He smiles softly, but it’s fucking sinister. Like he’s enjoying this more than I am. “Then look at me when you do.”

I meet his eyes—hazel, wild, fucking burning—as he swallows me again in one slick motion. His hand fists my base. His lips seal around me. He hollows his cheeks and sucks hard, his eyes never leaving mine.

It’s my undoing.

I come with a gasp—a broken, raw sound ripped from somewhere deep in my chest as I spill down his throat. He moans through it, swallowing around me, milking every last pulse as my body shudders uncontrollably.

When it’s over, I collapse back against the bed—boneless, gasping, wrecked in the aftermath.

Liam doesn’t pull away right afterward. He sucks soft, cruel kisses on my cock that make my thighs quake and my breath catch. Then, with an exhale like he’s satisfied, he slowly pulls off and wipes his mouth with the pad of his thumb.

I look down at him, still catching my breath, still barely human, and he grins.

The kind of grin that says checkmate.

The kind that should piss me off.

The kind that does.

But my body doesn’t get the message. My thighs are still open to him, and my cock’s twitching like it’s already begging for round two. Liam fucking sees it, and he hums.

“You used my mouth so good, Pup,” he praises, licking my inner thigh. “Gave me your cum so fucking beautifully and made such a mess of yourself for me.”

My breath stutters—that voice, that fucking tone. Gentle and cruel. Reverent and ruined. Like I was the one in control and made a mess of him. I can’t even lie to myself about how good that felt, and how fucking good it still feels.

“See what happens when you listen, baby? I reward well, don’t I?”

“You’re such a—” I start to say, but he presses another kiss to the base of my cock, then looks up with that fucking mock-innocent expression that I hate and crave in equal measure.

“A what?” he murmurs. “Say it.”

I glare at him, shaky and fucked-out, and whisper, “Sadistic bastard.”

He hums again as though I had complimented him. “That’s my good boy.”

And fuck—that makes me throb. It makes my mouth part. It makes me forget the part of me that ever said I didn’t want this. He sits back on his heels, staring at me for a beat like he’s studying something broken that he plans to keep.

Then he says, so quietly it barely cuts through the air, “You don’t need to pretend anymore.”

I look away. My chest is tight. I should say something cruel. Something that pushes him away and cuts this down before it gets too deep, but the fucked-up truth is, I don’t want to pretend anymore.

I want him to drag me under.

And I think we both know he already has.