Page 23 of Sadist (The Triarchy Collection #1)

THEO

T he sight of Octavia stretched out and tied, a spreader bar holding her in place for me, was the most delicious sight of my life.

Her attitude had flown through a range of emotions, then landed solidly on anger.

It was in every line of her body. In the cadence of her voice.

It drowned out the voices of her memories that had risen the moment I told her that I was letting her go.

Small, dark spaces were where her demons lurked.

I didn’t want her back there with them, but I wanted her compliant…

vulnerable to me on the edge of the panic that threatened to drag her down, because the hope that was curling in my chest was threatening to send me to my knees.

Her head turned with the sound of my voice as I circled her, reveling in every line of her body.

“Why would I be angry?” Her words were clipped, but there was a slight tremble to her voice.

“That’s what I want to know,” I murmured, stepping closer and running my palm over the curve of her arse.

“Because it is exactly what you have been asking me to do, Sweets.” I slid my fingers lower, skating along the lower curve of her arse and she shifted on her feet in anticipation of my touch. “Talk to me.”

“I’m not fucking angry, Theo .”

I huffed, stepping back, and she stiffened at my absence.

“Theo?”

I said nothing for a moment, letting her teeter in the dark, before leaning in to brush my lips over the long shallow slice at her collar, breathing in her scent as I did. The tags hanging between her breasts clinked softly as I brushed past the chain.

“Why did you let me mark you last night?” I asked, my lips grazing down the puckered line.

“Curiosity,” she said tightly.

“And?” I pushed. “Was your curiosity appeased? Did you find what you were looking for?”

“No.” She leaned into me as I ran my lips along the second slice.

I stepped back again, and she rocked against her ties, her lips falling open slightly, and a crease forming between her brows as she searched for me.

“Theo,” she breathed. “Please.”

I said nothing this time, moving silently away toward one of my plants, pulling a thin length of bamboo from its pot, wiping the end off on a large leaf.

“Where are you?” The tags clicked again as Octavia shifted, tilting her head as she strained to hear me.

I let the silence stretch for another heartbeat…two…until her breath began to pick up. I ran the tip of the bamboo down her side, and she jumped, her head swiveling in my direction.

“No?” I asked softly. “What were you looking for then?”

“I don’t—” she cut off with that stubborn lift of her chin I enjoyed so much, and I gave her a warning flick of the bamboo against her thigh.

“Say it,” I ordered.

She stayed stubbornly silent, and I raised my brow, drew back the bamboo, and whipped it once across her outer thigh.

Her mouth fell open with a gasp, but this time I kept the end of the bamboo touching her, trailing along her middle as I circled her.

“You don’t…what?” I asked.

“I don’t know what I was looking for,” she breathed. “I don’t—I don’t know what it is.”

“Then explain it,” I urged, running the bamboo tip up her stretched arm and then back down.

“No.”

She jolted as I whipped the bamboo across her arse, an instant red welt forming across her perfect skin.

“Try again,” I murmured.

“Get fucked, Theo.”

I grinned. “I’d hoped you would say that. Count with me, Sweets. Just like you did in the vault.”

She made a small sound as I gave her a welt across the back of her thighs, my mouth watering at the need to kiss the mark it left on her skin.

“One,” I said.

Fuck, she marked so beautifully.

“I was going to give you five,” I murmured when she was silent, “But if you want to be stubborn, it will be ten.”

“Two,” she bit out as the bamboo cracked across her skin a second time, her breath slowing to an even rhythm.

She counted the next two as I crisscrossed them without a flicker of reaction as she sank into the moment.

“Where is your head right now, Sweets?” I asked, dealing the last welt across her arse, my gaze fixed on the beautiful lines, unable to deny myself the pleasure of seeing it. She took the bite of the bamboo silently, her body relaxing between each strike as her breathing slowed.

“It’s quiet.”

I smiled, stepping forward to run my hand over the hot, raised marks. “Is that what you were looking for?”

“Yes.” The word was barely more than a breath, and I rewarded her with a soft kiss on her shoulder.

“That’s my girl.” I squeezed the crossed marks on one thigh. “Now tell me why you are angry with me.”

“Because you are fucking infuriating.”

A smile tilted my lips as I kissed behind her ear.

“Is it because I’m letting you go?”

“Because you fucked me then discarded me, just like everyone else does. You looked at me like I meant something, but don’t want me.”

There it was.

Oh, my love. How incredibly wrong you are…

I ran my hand down her body as I stepped onto the spreader bar behind her, keeping it firm against the floor as my fingers slid into the mess between her legs. That got a reaction, and she whimpered as I ran a firm finger over her clit.

“At what point did I say that I don’t want you?” I asked against her neck.

“You told me never to come back,” she breathed, pushing her hips back into me and away from my assault on her clit. “ Fuck .”

“Did I say I didn’t want you?” I pushed, rocking my hips forward into her arse and forcing her firmly against my touch.

“Same fucking thing,” she hissed, her thighs shaking as she squirmed against me.

“Don’t put words in my mouth. Did I say that, Octavia?”

“No!” she blurted, and I curled my fingers, sinking two into her.

“Does this feel like I don’t want you?” I snapped. I had dared to hope and convinced myself I was insane. She had no reason to want to stay…yet I had seen glimpses of something in the way she looked at me. But I would never be able to trust it because I had never given her the choice.

“Just because you want my body doesn’t mean you want me ,” she flung back.

Her body clenched around my fingers as I curled them within her.

“I let you mark me, so I had something of you to keep.” She gasped as I pressed the heel of my hand against her clit, not giving her a second of relief from the onslaught.

Her legs strained against the bar, and I pressed down harder on it, forcing them to still.

“I wanted something I can touch to remember your hands on me,” she said.

“But they will heal and fade, and then you’ll be gone. ”

I grappled with the wave of territorial anger that her words evoked in me. “You want something to keep?” I removed my hand, dripping with her arousal, and stepped around to face her, dragging the makeshift blindfold from her eyes.

She glared at me, panting. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were shining with unshed tears.

“Answer me!”

“I want to keep you! ” she yelled. “And fuck you for it! How dare you make me feel like this then tell me to fucking leave!”

I’d give her something to keep. Etched in her skin like she had crawled under mine the moment I met her.

I snatched my tags, yanking until the chain snapped from around her neck as I stalked toward the kitchen and turned on the burner.

The stovetop flames roared to life, and I placed the metal tag over it, her words running through my head on repeat.

I want to keep you.

It didn’t take long for the tag to glow red, and I snatched the chain, stalking back toward her.

“You are fucking mine ,” I said, slow and even.

“You were mine the second I saw you, tipsy and singing to yourself as you went back to that shithole motel I took you from. I have tried not to fall for you, but it’s useless.

So yes, Octavia. I’m letting you go because I have no choice, but you are mistaken if you think I’d let anyone touch you without knowing who the fuck you belong to. ”

“What?” Her eyes searched mine, confusion etched into every part of her face.

I palmed the tag, the scorching heat searing into my palm as I pressed it to the soft skin by her hip bone. Her legs spasmed, and I slammed my foot down onto the bar, keeping her in place for a moment longer as I branded her skin. Marking her as mine before claiming her mouth in a savage kiss.

There was a soft chink as I let the tag drop to the floor, her lips moving against mine as she murmured something breathlessly against my lips, and I pulled back to see what she was saying.

“Undo me. Undo. Theo. Please,” she panted, chanting it under her breath. “Please. I need to touch you.”

One yank of the knots had her hands free, and the second they were, she was removing the restraints at her ankles. A breath later, and she was on me, pushing me back toward the couch, her hands ripping at my clothes.

Fabric tore as she pulled my shirt off, and I groaned as the warmth of her mouth found my collar, nipping her way up my neck as her hands fumbled with the button of my jeans.

I helped her, lifting my hips and pushing my jeans down, my body aching for her touch. I never wanted touch. I had tolerated Erryn, grown comfortable with her over time. She had been able to pry pleasure from my reluctant body. But I had never ached like this for her.

She knelt between my bare thighs, pushing me against the couch and kissing me as if our roles were reversed, and I let her, slipping my fingers into her hair and pulling her closer.

Her hand trailed down my side to rest at my hip, and I took it, slipping it between my thighs.

“Does this feel like I don’t want you?” I asked against her lips, and her kiss faltered as she slid her fingers through my arousal. “No one touches me unless I trust them, Sweets.”

There was a soft intake of breath, and she pulled back enough to look at me, just as I grabbed her wrist, lifting my hips for her.

She made a small sound as her fingers sank into me, my hand wrapped tightly around her wrist, and then she dragged her gaze down to watch as I rolled my hips, fucking myself with her fingers.

She had moved before I knew what she was doing, slipping down my body to kneel between my legs and trail excruciatingly slow kisses up my thigh as she slipped her hand out of me and away from my grip.

“Not this time,” she murmured between kisses.

“What?”

Her teeth scraped along my skin.

“You’re not controlling how I fuck you,” she murmured, her tongue flicking out and trailing slowly up my skin in a burning trail.

“Not when I have been dreaming about doing this every god-damned minute of every day.” Her hands gripped my knees, pushing them apart.

“You are always in control, Theo. But not this time.”

She licked me with the flat of her tongue in one long, slow tease. My mind emptied, and a sound that I was not proud of escaped me.

“Lie back and let me taste you,” she said, with a small groan of pleasure, before sinking her tongue deep inside me.

I swore, reminding myself to breathe as her fingers sank into the muscles of my legs in a punishing grip as she slowly moved up to wrap her lips around my clit. I entirely lost the ability to breathe as she sucked gently, my hands finding her hair and sinking into it.

It felt incredible. It sounded utterly depraved…

her soft noises of satisfaction drowned out by my ragged breathing as I surrendered to her mouth and the pleasure she dragged from me.

I was on the edge of an orgasm in seconds, unable to stop my hips from moving as I gripped her hair, fucking her face… only to have her slow and change tempo.

“Octavia,” I breathed, gripping the couch to stop myself from ripping her hair out.

She breathed a laugh, and my eyes cracked open to see her peering up at me, just as she sucked again.

I did cry out that time, and again a second later as her fingers joined her talented mouth, sinking deep inside me. When she edged me a second time, I wrapped a leg around her back, trying to force her to give me the orgasm that was so damn close.

“If you don’t….” I trailed off in a moan, my breath catching as she slowly worked a third finger into me, the slight burn as my body stretched around her nearly tipping me over.

“If I don’t what?” she murmured, sliding the tip of her tongue across my clit.

“Let me come,” I ordered, rolling my hips harder onto her fingers.

“Ask nicely,” she said, her breath teasing tortured, aching flesh.

“Octavia,” I growled.

“Theodora,” she replied innocently, crooking her fingers at the perfect angle.

“You asked if I knew how wet a woman can get from anticipation.” Her tongue flicked against me in time with a well-placed roll of her fingers, and I groaned.

“You asked if I knew how delicious it was to sink my fingers into them.” She pushed deeper into me, and I bit my lip until I tasted blood to stop the cry threatening to rip from me.

“You asked if I knew what a woman’s pleasure sounded like,” she murmured.

This time I couldn’t stop the sounds she wrung from my body as she lowered her head and ran a firm tongue over my clit until I shattered around her hand.

“Yes.” Her voice filtered slowly through the ringing in my ears. “I do. But the only sounds I’m going to remember for the rest of my days are yours, Theo. And they were even better than I had imagined.”