Page 66 of The Lost Zone (Dark Water #3)

Alex sank to his knees and opened Harper’s fly, making a mental note of everything the man was saying and how to use it to his advantage.

Harper was fully erect when Alex released his cock from his silk boxer shorts.

“You’re so sexy, sir,” he said throatily, looking up from heavy-lidded eyes.

“Look at how big and hard you are.” He was in no way turned on – he was fighting for survival.

If he could show Harper how good he was at bringing him pleasure, maybe there would be no need for a repeat of last time’s violence.

He made the blow job as good as he could. He knew Harper liked some bad-boy attitude, so he threw in a few sultry, challenging looks as he worked.

Harper grunted. “Suck harder, boy.”

Alex drew back. “Make me,” he drawled with a saucy, knowing smile.

Grabbing a handful of his hair, Harper forced his head back down. “Take it, you little bitch,” he snarled. He was so turned on by this escalation in proceedings that he soon came without much more effort on Alex’s part.

Alex sat back. “You’re so strong and take charge. I love a hot alpha male like you,” he said throatily, wiping his hand across his mouth. “Giving me orders. Making me take it.”

“I bet. You’re such a fucking slut,” Harper grunted. “Now go and get me my dinner.”

Alex went to the door and opened it, then glanced back at Harper. “My master wants his dinner now,” he told the security guard waiting outside, and was gratified to see Harper’s eyes flash at his use of the word “master”.

Harper sat down at the table. “You really are a hot little hole,” he said, picking up a napkin and shaking it vigorously in the air. “Are you still hankering after a job working on George’s Destiny range?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Alex laughed. “I know my place. It’s on my knees sucking cock, or bending over to take it.”

“Good. You should leave business to the grown-ups. You’re only good for one thing,” Harper said contemptuously.

“Do you have boys like me working for you?” Alex asked as Frances and the guard entered with trays of food. They placed them on the table, then left.

“Boys like you?” Harper raised an eyebrow.

“Bad boys who need a firm hand,” Alex purred.

“Yeah, some, but I don’t shit where I eat. I sure as hell want to throw some of my damn fool interns over the table and whip their arses raw, though.”

“I bet some of them would love that.”

“Probably.” Harper smirked.

“Would you like me to eat with you tonight, or would you prefer me to kneel beside you, Master?” He saw Harper’s eyes flash again. This was good; he was pressing all the man’s buttons.

“You can eat my cock.” Harper gave a malicious grin and opened his legs wide. “You can keep it warm while I eat. That’s all your mouth is good for.”

Alex slid down onto his knees and disappeared under the table.

He was pleased with how this was going. He was leading Harper down a path that showed compliance with the man’s fantasies, while subtly taking control.

He still didn’t expect the evening to end without him taking some damage, but at least he wasn’t just a victim this time.

Harper’s cock was flaccid in his mouth. He knelt there obediently, just holding it gently as Harper ate.

Harper engineered it so that when Frances brought in dessert, Alex was still on his knees, warming his cock.

Alex hummed his song in his head. This wasn’t his humiliation, this was him doing what he had to for Solange.

He felt that strange disconnect he’d felt with Rebecca, as if he wasn’t inhabiting his body and was instead staring down at it from a distance, like an out-of-body experience.

He felt Harper’s cock harden and began to suck on it again.

Harper wasn’t a young man. If he could keep him sated, that might stave off the worst. That plan was foiled when Harper grabbed a fistful of his hair.

“Stop that,” he snapped. “I want to fuck that tight arsehole of yours. It felt so good last time.”

Alex smiled. “Of course, sir. It’s hot and ready for you.”

“I bet. Get up and take your clothes off.”

Alex did as he was told. He’d never been good at erotic stripteases, but this wasn’t really him.

This was another Alex, who was the perfect courtesan and fantastic at all kinds of sex.

He undid his shirt slowly, one button at a time.

Harper sat back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee, watching avidly.

Freed from any pretence of being himself, Alex felt an odd kind of confidence.

Was this what it was like being an actor?

Now, he shimmied a little, slipped his thumbs in his boxers and slid them down his legs, glancing back over his shoulder as he wriggled his naked arse in Harper’s direction.

He was a slut, a whore, which was just what Harper wanted.

He was every handsome intern Harper had wanted to fuck but couldn’t.

Every beautiful boy who’d teased him just by existing, every stunning young man who’d said no to him.

Alex felt as if he knew Harper on some level.

He knew how angry he was at the men he wanted to possess, who had the power to reject him.

The pretty boys who’d tried to manipulate him.

The gorgeous young men who’d used him for his money and hadn’t bent over or sucked him off on demand.

He wanted power and control over those men.

The ones who turned him on, then turned him down.

Alex was their living embodiment – and Alex couldn’t turn him down.

He removed the last of his clothes and turned, his eyes smouldering. Harper stood up, his cock rock hard, jutting out almost comically from his open fly. “Come here, you teasing little bitch,” he ordered.

Alex knew what he had to do. He quirked his lips, glanced at Harper’s cock in derision, and laughed.

“No,” he said, knowing precisely what he’d unleash.

He wasn’t wrong. Harper ran across the room and grabbed his neck.

He threw Alex over the dining table and grabbed his buttocks.

There was something comfortingly familiar about this.

It was rough sex. Hate sex. Like he’d had so many times with Neil after they’d driven each other mad.

It was no rougher than he’d had, drunkenly, and with crocodile tears flowing down his face, in the toilets of various gay bars in Oxford.

Once, he’d seduced one of his professors, and the man had taken him passionately, despairing of his attraction for Alex even while he fucked him over the lectern in an empty lecture hall.

Alex had always enjoyed that kind of sex – raw, dirty, and passionate.

If he tried very hard, he could imagine that was the sex he was having right now as Harper rammed his cock into him.

It was over soon enough. Harper was too turned on to last. When he was done, he bit the back of Alex’s neck, then drew back.

“Little slut. Got what you deserved.”

“Yes, Master. I’m such a whore. You showed me.” Alex sank to his knees and looked up at Harper in abject submission.

“I should take my belt to you.” Harper regarded him moodily.

“You should,” Alex agreed, hoping he wouldn’t.

Luckily, Harper was sated and the necessary passion wasn’t there. He just grunted. “Next time I will.”

“I’ll deserve it.” That, at least, was the truth. He deserved all of it and more. So many dead people littered in his wake. So many ruined lives – Ted, Joe, Charles, and his father. Of course he deserved it.

Harper could find no deceit in him. There was no trace of the manipulative boys who’d toyed with him in the past. Alex was deadly serious, and that, he suspected, was what saved him from much more of Harper’s attention that night.

He had one last humiliation in store for Alex before he left, though.

He stood over him and suddenly started pissing on him in long streams of yellow urine.

Alex bowed his head, humming his song in his head desperately as he accepted every last humiliating drop.

Then it was over. Harper tucked himself away, zipped up, and left without another word.

Alex knelt there, trying to compose himself for a few seconds more. He stank, but he felt oddly elated. He’d navigated this most horrific of encounters in a way that even George Tyler couldn’t fault. Surely – surely – this would earn him an audience with his houder?

It wasn’t, technically, his job to tidy up, but he did so anyway, humming his song softly to himself as he went. It might be ridiculous, but he felt almost reluctant to leave the scene of his victory. It hadn’t been pleasant, but he’d survived.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the fireplace.

He felt dirty, used, and disgusted, but none of that showed on his face.

He checked for some sign of Alexander Lytton, some glimmer of himself in his reflection, but could find nothing.

He was exactly what he wanted to be: blank, faceless, and unknowable.

He stacked the plates and tidied up as best he could, and then he left to return to his room.

The guard fell into step beside him, doing a double take at the state he was in.

Alex hadn’t bothered to dress again. It seemed a shame to soil that beautiful suit, so he returned to his room naked, a little bruised, and stinking.

He caught the expression of pity and disgust in the guard’s eyes and ignored it.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except convincing Tyler that he’d changed.

Once he was alone in his room he took a shower, but this time he didn’t cry.

He soaped himself gently, washing away all trace of Harper, and then stepped out and dried himself.

He didn’t look at the smartwall. He didn’t show any emotion at all.

He slipped into bed and went to sleep as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

The next morning, he woke early and used the time to go through a list in his head of all the people Tyler might unleash on him next.

He couldn’t think of anyone who could possibly be worse than Harper, who could challenge him like Harper had, test his resolve, and reveal any chinks in his armour.

He thought about it for a long time, but eventually concluded there was nobody worse, except Tyler himself.

He was completely sure of that… and he was completely wrong.