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the worst christmas present ever

. . .

lark

“ C ome out to play, sweetiebird.”

The distorted voice snapped my eyes open.

I couldn’t move.

Something heavy was on top of me. Wait. Not something.

My heart thrashed. Someone. A much larger, heavily muscled someone had me pinned to the bed with the full weight of his body.

The room was nearly pitch black. I’d fallen asleep in the Tourmaline Penthouse, and no light from the surrounding Vancouver skyline reached this high.

But I didn’t need light to see him.

He wore an LED mask. The full-face kind we banned at Barrington Prep after Halloween because they scared the younger day students.

Back in October, I’d confiscated one from a sophomore boy and turned it in to the office.

At the time, I hadn’t fully understood why the elementary kids were so frightened of seeing someone whose face was fully covered.

Now I did.

That student’s mask had shown raining pumpkins. A little animation loop, harmless and silly.

The one hovering over me now had a glowing red skull, with two Xs inside its eyeholes.

What in the …

I opened my mouth to scream, but a gloved hand clamped down over it. My attacker’s hand was so wide, it covered my chin, pushing into my nostrils, filling my nose with the sharp, chemical-rich scent of expensive leather.

“None of that now, sweetiebird,” the distorted voice chastised.

The sound of it sent an icy chill down my spine, sharp and involuntary.

I knew the mask had to feature some kind of voice modulator, something that flattened his tone into static and gravel. But that observation didn’t make it any less terrifying.

“If you scream, someone might interrupt our playtime,” he said with a calmness that chilled me even further. “And we wouldn’t want that.”

Playtime...

He was so heavy I could barely breathe, but the primal part of my brain still made me try to fight, only to discover I couldn’t. He’d bound me. Both wrists. Both ankles. In silken rope.

He must have tied me up while I slept, naked, leaving me spread-eagled and fully exposed beneath him.

Damn that headphone sleep mask. I absolutely needed it to calm my brain, especially during hotel stays. But my deep sleep playlist had obviously worked too well. An intruder had gotten in, tied me up, and positioned himself directly between my legs, all without waking me.

I yanked hard at the bonds, but all I accomplished was a grinding squirm with no give that only served to lodge his body deeper into mine. He wore trousers, but I could feel him. Hard and thick behind the fabric. Hot, even through the clothes.

“You done fighting me?” he asked. Even with the distortion, he sounded amused. “Can I uncover your mouth without you screaming? Nod if you’re going to be a good girl for me.”

My heart pounded. My whole body vibrated with panic and fear. But what choice did I have?

I nodded.

“Good girl.” He peeled his hand away, and though I couldn’t see his eyes behind the mask, I felt them scanning my face. A brutal caress.

“You know, I watched you in the lobby earlier. Eating your Christmas dinner alone in that little green dress that could barely hold in these obscene breasts.”

A gloved hand slid up my body and cupped one of them. His touch… it wasn’t nice. He squeezed, hard enough to make me whimper beneath him.

“Were you trying to bait me?” The distorted voice rasped with angry static. “Got me so hard, I had to stop myself from tearing that dress off and fucking you on the table. In front of everyone.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t even know you were there!”

“Did I say you could speak?”

The hand at my breast found my nipple and gave it a punishing pinch. Pain bit through me, hot and fast, striking down to my core. I let out a helpless moan.

“Did that hurt? Good . That’s exactly what you deserve for being such a fucking tease.

” He ground his hard cock against my bare pussy, fully clothed but pulsing behind his trousers.

“You had me hurting so bad, sweetiebird. But I waited. I let you finish your little solo Christmas Eve date at Vancouver’s most expensive hotel.

And now, I get to play with you all night long .

Do whatever I want to this luscious body. ”

He pinched my nipple again, harder than before, and I cried out.

“What did I tell you about getting too loud?” the distorted voice growled.

Then came a soft zwick of something released. The LED mask cast just enough light to let me see what he’d unsheathed under its hard red-skeleton glow.

A knife.

My breath stopped. Not metaphorically. Literally. My chest stopped moving.

This wasn’t how I thought the night would go when I’d showered and slipped naked between silk sheets, excited to experience every sensory detail of the Tourmaline’s five-star bedding.

Now I was fully exposed. And he had a blade.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I choked out.

“Don’t worry, sweetiebird. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He rose up slightly, just enough to slide the hilt of the knife up my slit. “Not if you’re good for me.”

My entire body tensed when he pressed the smooth, rounded handle against my clit. He began moving it in tight, slow circles, with just the right amount of pressure. “You going to be good for me?”

This was escalating too fast. My body didn’t know what to do.

A sick twist of pleasure bloomed low, where only disgust should have lived.

And another sound clawed its way up my throat, threatening to come out as one of those forbidden loud cries.

But I bit down on my lip hard to muffle it, and it came out as a mewl.

“Look at you,” the voice chided. “Are you actually getting off on this? You’re not wet, are you?”

He put the knife aside, then reached under the mask with his teeth and peeled off one glove. But what he did next didn’t provide any relief from the heart-pounding fear.

He reached down with his bare hand and slid two fingers through my folds.

“No. Not just wet.” The red-skeleton mask tilted slightly, in a way that felt like judgment. “ Soaking .”

A shameful moan escaped me. Worse, I could feel myself getting even wetter as his hand kept moving between my folds, gathering slick to rub over my throbbing clit.

“This clittie of yours is rock-hard. Do you always get this turned on with your nice boring boyfriend?”

The shame, tangled so tightly with sick pleasure, threatened to shut my brain down. I clamped my lips and turned my face away, squeezing my eyes shut.

But the distorted voice insisted on my reply. “Answer me, or I’ll bring back the knife.”

“No... I don’t... I don’t have a boyfriend,” I choked out.

I could barely breathe now, but not because of his weight. His fingers were relentless, overwhelming. I shook my head, tried to push the sensation down where it belonged, but something dangerous was building inside.

“Please stop touching me like that or...”

“Or what?” His distorted voice sharpened, cruel with amusement. “You going to come like a dirty girl all over my hand?”

That was exactly what I did.

The orgasm tore through me—so sudden and unstoppable that, for a few moments, my vision whited out. And when I came back to the dark hotel room, his hand was pushing into my mouth.

“Good girl. Oh, you came so nice for me, sweetiebird.”

He pumped his fingers between my lips, forcing me to taste myself.

“That’s right. Suck your dirty girl juice off my fingers,” the distorted voice crooned. “Show your masked monster how you're going to get him ready for round two after you take his dick.”

He pushed them so deep, I had no choice but to swallow. Then he said, “Fuck, I can’t take this. You’ve got me so revved up.”

His fingers pulled free with a lewd, wet pop. Then came the unmistakable sound of a zipper, and I felt the thick pressure of him pressing against my folds.

Wait. No… He can’t… I shouldn’t…

“Orange light!” I gasped.

He froze immediately.

“I had my IUD taken out, so I’m not on birth control anymore,” I said, wincing. “I would’ve told you before, but I didn’t expect to wake up to a scene.”

He shifted above me.

I rushed to add, “I don’t care. I want you to keep going, but it would be unethical not to let you know.”

He remained still, and my heart pounded even harder, this time with hope. Maybe he’d just... take me raw anyway. Solve everything.

But then his body moved. I saw the shadow of his arm reaching into his back pocket. A soft rustle, then came the sound of foil tearing.

He worked fast, rolling the condom on without killing the mood. I had to give him that.

Still, a small pool of disappointment formed in my chest as he lined up and pushed into me.

I slid back into the victim role, whispering for him to stop, please stop as he took me with rough strokes. Just like we’d agreed. First of three climaxes. That was the scene.

And I came easily. I always did with him. That still shocked me, even three years into our well-structured playtime.

But this time, my afterglow abruptly cut off when he came with a few sloppy thrusts, groaning as he emptied into the condom.

“Aw, sweetiebird. That was amazing.” He nuzzled the mask against my cheek and began untying me. “I know I sprung that on you, so thanks for not red lighting me.”

I flipped through my short list of acceptable responses and chose, “You’re welcome.”

After he freed my limbs, I sat up, body shaky. “Do you mind if I turn on the light and put on my glasses?”

“No, of course not,” he said, walking toward the bathroom for our agreed-upon cleanup. “You don’t have to ask for stuff like that.”

Not for the first time, it felt like, outside of sex, I was a pretty terrible submissive who kept on messing up my role.

I still wasn’t sure why he’d picked me out of the probably hundreds of women who had swiped right on his Fetder profile, which featured a shirtless photo of him in a red-skeleton ski mask and the headline: Mr. Good Time looking for an NSA dark romance girlie to make some fantasies come true….