Dance of Deception: Chapter 14

I wake up gasping.

My body jolts, my heart pounding so violently it shakes my ribs.

I’m not where I’m supposed to be. The air is thick with unfamiliar scents. The bed beneath me is too soft and luxurious, the heavy silken sheets strange against my skin.

Panic claws at my throat. I twist, sitting up too fast, my limbs unresponsive, my vision tilting sideways.

Where the fuck am I?

Fear explodes through my veins, clamping down on me like claws digging into my skin. Then a soft voice cuts through the static exploding in my brain.

“Hey, hey—breathe, Lyra. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

My head whips to the sound, my pulse slowing when I register the familiar shape of Milena sitting beside me.

She’s perched on the edge of the bed, legs tucked underneath her, her expression calming and grounding as she smiles warmly at me.

“You’re okay,” she says reassuringly.

I don’t even realize I have the sheets in a death grip until Milena reaches forward and pries my fingers loose with gentle insistence.

I exhale shakily. “What…?” My voice comes out hoarse, thick with confusion.

Milena’s eyes soften. “You fainted at the club,” she murmurs, squeezing my hand briefly before pulling back.

Right. The club.

Instantly, my mind is flicking to the heat of Carmine’s body against mine. His voice in my ear. The suffocating, insistent press of the music, the couple in the corner…

It all comes back in a rush.

And then you fucking FAINTED in his lap.

I cringe.

Shoot me now.

At least Milena is here. That means I’m safe.

I let out a slow, relieved breath. “Where…?”

“The guest room at my place,” she smiles. “The girls are all here, too.” Her mouth twists. “We… We were worried about you.”

I force a weak smile to my lips. Then I try to shove the covers off me and get up, but my sluggish limbs betray me. The room tilts nauseatingly, and I brace a hand against the mattress to keep from toppling over.

“Hey-hey, hang on,” Milena murmurs, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Take it easy.”

I barely hear her.

All I can hear is Carmine’s voice, echoing in my head. All I can remember is the feel of his hands on me, pinning me possessively to his lap.

“Just relax,” Milena says quietly.

I breathe in deeply, willing my mind to slow down. But it doesn’t.

Carmine forced me to look.

Forced me to watch that couple at the club, tangled together in their pleasure. And that did something ugly to me that ripped the past right open.

I can’t face sex like that. Not after what I saw when I walked into that room, so many years ago.

I was fourteen when I found the basement beneath the basement. The secret place no one was supposed to find.

I remember the bars.

The cold, damp air.

The sobbing.

The slapping sound of flesh against flesh.

I remember walking into the room and seeing my father⁠—

I gag.

Even now, years later, the memory wrecks me. Because that’s when I stopped being a kid and realized the demon my father really was.

A soft touch on my arm pulls me back to the present. I inhale sharply, eyes flying open to see Milena watching me, her brows furrowed, lips pressed together.

“You okay?” she asks.

I nod quickly, forcing a neutral expression. “Yeah. Just…processing.”

Milena doesn’t push it. “You want me to hang out with you here for a little bit?”

I nod gratefully. “Would you?”

“Of course!” She grins as she leans back against the pillows next to me, stretching her long legs out. “You know, you’re kind of a lightweight,” she says after a moment. “I didn’t think you’d go down that easy.”

I let out a shaky laugh, happy for the change in subject.

My eyes start to droop again, and I lean my head to the side, resting it on her shoulder as the darkness seeps back into me.

She keeps talking to me, keeping me grounded. But her voice fades in and out, exhaustion pulling me under.

Then I hear her talking to someone in the room, but I can’t quite make out the words.

And sleep pulls me deeper.

The faint scent of leather, tangerine, and rosewood curls around me, lulling me into darkness. At some point, Milena shifts beside me. Her warmth disappears, but her comforting presence lingers in the room.

I drift again, deeper this time, until⁠—

Something’s wrong. The air is different.

I stir, stretching lazily, expecting Milena. The second my eyes open, I jolt and my stomach plummets, my body locking up.

Milena isn’t on the edge of the bed.

Carmine is.

He sits there, completely at ease, studying me with that cold, unreadable gaze.

“You fainted,” he says.

The room is still shrouded in shadows, the heavy curtains blocking out most of the city lights outside.

I swallow hard. “I think I was just tired. I drank too much. It was nothing.”

He doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, but I can feel him assessing, analyzing, picking me apart piece by piece.

“You weren’t drinking that much. And ‘nothing’ doesn’t make someone faint,” he says smoothly. “Try again.”

I press my lips together, willing myself to hold his gaze.

“Tell me.” His voice is calm, too calm.

I shake my head, not willing to go there.

He peers at me. “You couldn’t watch that couple in the club,” he murmurs. “And yet, it’s not sex in general that sends you into fainting spells.”

I swallow. “You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually,” he growls. “Because twice now, I’ve felt your greedy little pussy come on my fingers—quite enthusiastically, I should add—and there was a distinct absence of you passing out both times.”

Heat flares across my cheeks, my fingers twitching on the sheets. I open my mouth, but no words come out.

Carmine leans forward, his presence overwhelming.

“Explain that to me,” he says pointedly.

“I…”

I shiver as Carmine’s hand takes hold of the sheet covering me and tugs, slowly pulling it down.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I stammer.

“Asking you a question.”

“No, I mean…” My eyes slide down to where he’s pulled the sheet all the way off, leaving me lying in bed in my dress from the club.

“Do you watch porn?”

I balk, my eyes snapping back to his. “Excuse me?”

“You obviously enjoy—or at least have—certain kinks.”

My brows knit. “What are you talking about?”

“You like to have control taken away from you.”

It’s so nakedly exposing, the way he just lets the words hang there. I feel my face begin to burn as something dark and twisted begins to curl and claw inside me.

“I—”

“You liked it when I chased you.”

My lips purse in a desperate attempt to put up a defiant front.

“You don’t know that.”

Carmine smirks. “Your pussy being drenched when I caught you says otherwise, but you’re welcome to continue this farcical debate if you like.”

Heat throbs in my cheeks as I shrink into the bed at my back.

“My question regarding porn stems from the fact that you clearly know what you like.” His eyes drag over me. “What turns you on. And being chased and forced and restrained aren’t exactly desires you’d realize you had from watching a romantic comedy. So, again: do you watch porn.”

Embarrassment flames over my face.

“No,” I mumble…truthfully.

I jolt when Carmine abruptly reaches out and pinches my fucking nipple through my dress. I gasp, wincing in pain but also throbbing from the electric sensation of his thumb and finger twisting the aching, peaked point through the silk.

“What the fuck!” I yelp.

“Tell the truth,” he growls, his piercing blue eyes locked onto mine as his fingers roll my nipple again.

“I am!” I blurt. “I⁠—”

When he pinches again, I’m unable to stop the shaky whimper that creeps into my voice.

He smirks darkly. “Hmm. Apparently we can add at least some degree of pain, or perhaps nipple torture, to your list of kinks.”

I try to will the heat from my face. “I…I don’t have a list of kinks.”

“Of course you do,” he says matter-of-factly. “Everybody does. We’ve just collectively decided that it’s not something to be talked about, which seems counter-productive to one’s basic enjoyment of life, if you ask me.”

I purse my lips. “Yeah? Then what about you, hmm?” I throw back at him. “How about we pull your dirty secrets out into the open and analyze⁠—”

“Primal kink, consensual non-consent, restraints—on you, not me—extreme dominance and control, impact play, seeing your body marked with my bruises and covered with my cum, and, as you may already have guessed, a roaring need to chase you down and fuck you without mercy.” He lists them as casually as a burger order at a takeout window. “I think that covers it.”

I gape at him. I don’t even know what a primal kink is—or impact play, for that matter. But I feel like asking him is knocking on a door I’m definitely not prepared to open.

“Now,” Carmine says, clearing his throat. “We were discussing your porn viewing.’

“I don’t watch porn! I—” My mouth snaps shut.

Carmine’s brow arches expectantly.

“I…I read it, okay?” I mumble. “I don’t watch.”

“Romance books.”

I swallow, mortified, turning away from him. “And…erotica. Fan fiction.”

Jesus, why am I freely admitting this to him?

Carmine’s hand suddenly lands on my bare knee. I shiver, glancing down and watching with my breath caught in my throat as he slides it higher, moving to the hem of my dress. He takes the material in his fist, pushing it higher up my thighs.

“Stop it,” I choke without a single ounce of meaning behind it.

“No.”

God help me, the way my core tightens when he says that word…

I shudder when he pushes the dress up over my panties, leaving it bunched at my hips. It feels like I’m watching in slow motion, helpless—maybe unwilling—to do anything to stop him as he reaches for my thong.

“Carmine…” I whisper hoarsely. “W-what are you doing?”

“Whatever I like, little dancer.”

A vicious, throbbing blackness closes in around me, snarling.

Whatever I like…

I’m frozen, unable to move, just staring at his hands reaching for me. His fingers slip under the waist of my black lace panties, his knuckles brushing over my heated skin. He starts to tug, peeling them down as my breath arrests in my throat.

“You like studying people,” he murmurs, his voice almost clinical in its detached coldness. “You want to understand what makes them tick. What drives them.”

My pulse hammers against my ribs as he slowly continues to tug my panties down. Neon lights from outside peek around the edges of the curtains and illuminate my bare sex as he peels the lace away from my pussy.

Heat erupts over my face.

I’m wet.

“But unlike you, little dancer,” he continues, his voice smooth and dangerous, “I don’t just observe. I push. I break. I like to see what happens when people come apart, and find out what’s left after they do.”

His lips pull to a dark, amused, taunting smile.

“And you,” he murmurs, his thumb pressing on my racing pulse, “are my newest obsession.”

His eyes drop between my legs.

“Can’t watch sex,” he muses, almost too himself. “And yet, merely talking about it, you’re already drenched for me.”

Carmine’s fingers skim my thigh, teasing, lingering, a slow, deliberate glide that sets every nerve on fire.

Tearing down the walls I’ve spent years reinforcing.

His touch is light and taunting, but his gaze isn’t. It burns with dark, deep, hunger.

“Why is it,” he murmurs, his fingers ghosting higher, closer, making me tremble, “that you can’t even look at something as natural as sex…”

His touch dips lower and my body betrays me, heat coiling, a sharp, aching pulse sparking through my limbs.

“…but you can handle this?”

I try to speak, to breathe, to think, but his fingers keep moving, each lazy, controlled motion dragging me deeper into something I can’t fight.

Don’t want to fight.

I suck in a sharp breath, my hands twisting and gripping the sheets, my nails digging into the fabric.

Carmine watches me struggle, his expression calm, detached—like he’s studying me, documenting every tiny reaction.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, his voice smooth and utterly in control, “why can’t you even watch? What is it about it that makes you shut down?”

I shake my head helplessly.

I can’t say it. The memory is too sharp, too consuming. Too devastating.

Suddenly, I’m not able to say anything at all. Because his fingers are on my pussy, gliding up my lips, spreading them open. He rolls a finger over my throbbing clit, making my entire body jolt. I clamp my mouth shut, but not quickly enough to prevent the choked, needy whimper from erupting out of my throat.

Carmine chuckles, low and mocking, his thumb stroking and rolling over my clit again as I shake under his touch.

“Can’t even look at other people touching,” he murmurs, his tone deceptively smooth, almost meditative. “But when it’s me? You fall apart.”

I swallow hard as his hand dips lower, spreading my lips open. He starts to sink one finger into me, making me melt, dragging a whine from my lips.

I allow my eyes to slide to his, and instantly, all the breath is sucked from my lungs.

It’s…haunting, the way he’s looking at me. It’s a mix of dark, possessive intimacy, and the objective way a scientist might study an experiment.

Like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to crack open and take apart, piece by piece.

He leans in, his lips hovering just against my ear.

“Or is it when anyone touches you?”

The words feel like a blade. My entire body tenses, my fingers curling into the sheets.

I don’t answer.

I can’t.

His fingers still, a slow darkness glinting in his eyes. Suddenly, his other hand moves to my neck. I shudder as his long fingers wrap around my throat, possessive, unrelenting.

“Answer me.”

His voice is low, dangerous.

A command. A warning.

I clench my jaw, shaking my head.

He tightens his grip slightly, not enough to hurt but enough to remind me of his strength and power. At the same time, he sinks a second finger into me, stroking them slowly in and out of my slickness as he adds pressure to my windpipe.

Holy fuck…

“Lyra.”

I exhale shakily.

“I…I don’t know,” I blurt, my voice barely above a whisper.

His brows furrow slightly.

“Not an answer,” he snarls.

“It is an answer,” I choke out. “I honestly don’t. Know.”

Carmine pauses.

His fingers stop where they are, still deep inside of me. But his grip on my throat doesn’t loosen.

Suddenly, his brow furrows, his sharp blue eyes dragging to lock with mine as his head tilts curiously to the side.

“Are you a virgin?”

My breath catches violently.

I turn my face away, but Carmine’s fingers splay up from my throat, gripping my jaw and twisting my head, forcing me to look at him.

“Answer me, little dancer,” he pushes, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “Has any other man touched you like this? Or tasted you?” I shudder as pure blackness seems to drape over his eyes. “Or fucked you,” he growls.

My throat works under his hand. My pulse hums as I feel his thick fingers deep inside of me.

“Are you a virgin,” he rasps darkly.

“Yes,” I choke.

Carmine’s grin spreads, slow and wicked.

“Well, we’ll have to fix that,” he muses.

My breath catches. A sharp pulse of fear. Of, God help me, anticipation, shooting through me.

I stare at him, my heart hammering.

Slowly, he slips his fingers from between my legs. I watch in a trance as he brings them to his lips, his eyes locking with mine as he uses his tongue to slowly lick them clean.

“Delicious,” he growls quietly. “And I can’t wait to find out how sweet your virgin blood tastes when I do fuck you.”

I gasp sharply as he suddenly goes over me, straddling my body, his knees bracketing my waist. His hand slides from my throat, pushing up my jaw and into my hair, which he grabs in a tight fist at the back of my nape, tugging my head back slightly.

“I am going to fuck you,” he murmurs, leaning down and letting his lips brush against mine. “But not tonight.”

Then he kisses me.

Hard. Deep. Vicious.

It’s not soft or careful. It’s a claim. A brand. A subjugation.

His teeth scrape against my lower lip, his tongue sweeping against mine, coaxing, demanding, consuming.

I can feel it in my bones.

He’s still kissing me as he reaches down and grabs the bunched-up hem of my dress. He pushes it up my body, pulling away from my mouth as he slips it over my head and up my arms. But he leaves it tangled around my wrists, and instead of pulling it off entirely, he suddenly binds the dress to the iron bar across the top of the headboard.

My pulse jangles. My eyes bulge wide as I suddenly find myself bound and tied.

And naked.

With a psychopath kneeling astride me who seems quite willing to do whatever he wants to me.

I whimper when Carmine leans down to crush his lips to mine again, feasting on my shivers and gasps. His mouth moves lower, his teeth scraping my neck and then my collarbone, then lower, kissing, biting.

His breath is hot against my chest. His tongue drags over my skin, down one slope as he cups my breast. I gasp sharply, crying out when his teeth bite down hard on one tender nipple, zapping bolts of pain and pleasure electrically through my core. My back aches off the bed as he moves to the other one, savaging it as well as he reaches up to wrap a powerful hand around my throat again.

Then, he moves lower.

My skin pebbles, my stomach caving as Carmine’s mouth trails down my ribs. His teeth drag over my skin, biting me here and there and making me whine sharply. My wrists strain and twist at my binds, but I’m pinned where I am as his mouth drags slowly and methodically down my body.

I watch as if observing from outside my own body as he strips my panties the rest of the way off. He moves between my legs, spreading them wide apart as my breath catches. His piercing blue eyes raise to mine over the mound of my sex, a savageness throbbing in them that ignites my very blood.

Suddenly, I’m not quite sure if Carmine is about to devour me or literally eat me for a meal.

Luckily, I don’t have to wait long to find out.

His mouth dips between my thighs, and suddenly, I’m feeling the single most intensely pleasurable feeling I ever have in my life.

Holy. Fucking. Fuck.

My entire body arches off the bed, and the sound that drags from my throat as his tongue dances over me is one I didn’t even know I was capable of making.

His tongue delves between my lips, dragging slowly and languidly up to my clit.

Sweet merciful fuck…

I cry out, moaning in pleasure as his tongue swirls over my aching bud. My hips rise to his mouth, only for his strong hands to grip my hips and pin them back down to the bed.

He delves between my lips, lapping up and down my seam before he suddenly captures my clit between his lips. He sucks on it, batting his tongue back and forth across the throbbing nerves and making me cry out sharply.

“I’d lower your greedy moans, little dancer,” he murmurs into my thigh. “All your friends are right down the hall, I’m sure only half-occupied by my friends.” His eyes drag up to mine over my trembling body. “You wouldn’t want them all to hear what a greedy little slut you are, would you?”

His mouth dips again, and his tongue plunges into me. My eyes roll back as I arch off the bed, squirming and gasping, helpless to stop the loud cry that falls from my lips.

“The next time you do that, I might just have to gag you with your panties.”

He lowers his mouth again. This time, he sucks my clit hard between his lips and rams two fingers into me. The pleasure is intense, and captivating.

…And it’s completely impossible to keep quiet.

I try to slam a hand over my mouth before I cry out again. But then I remember that they’re bound to the headboard of Milena’s guest bed.

“I did warn you.”

Suddenly, my eyes bulge as I feel wet lace shoved to my lips. Startled, I open my mouth, but I don’t get a word out before he stuffs the lace into my mouth, silencing me.

…With my own panties.

His lips and tongue go back to tormenting my clit as he sinks two fingers into me and scissors them deep. A low moan wrenches through me as I drown in the pleasure he’s wringing from my body. He sucks harder on my throbbing clit, bringing me right to the brink before he backs off again.

A whine of frustration and pleasure rips from my throat.

Loudly.

“Apparently, you need something more than panties to plug up that mouth of yours.”

Suddenly, he’s pulling away from between my legs and moving up the bed on his knees. I twist my head, eyes wide as he kneels next to my face, his hand tugging at his belt.

My pulse jangles.

Raw desire and more than a little fear spike in my core.

I watch as Carmine opens his belt, then the button of his dark jeans. The zipper tugs down, and then his hand slips inside, sliding into his black boxers. One hand moves in a slow stroking motion that brings raw heat to my face. The other reaches out and deftly pulls my spit-soaked panties from my mouth.

Suddenly, he pulls his cock out, and my jaw drops.

Holy. Fucking. Hell.

It’s not just my lack of personal experience, or the fact that I don’t ever watch porn.

…It’s that he’s fucking huge.

Again, it’s not because I don’t personally have anything to compare it to. It’s that even his own large, masculine hand can barely fit around it, and only covers maybe a third of it as he strokes the base.

I stare at the swollen head, a clear drop of fluid beading at the tip and slowly running down one of his throbbing veins.

“Yes, I’d keep your jaw wide open,” he growls quietly. “You’ll need it just like that.”

There’s no preamble. No warning. Nothing. One moment, he’s stroking his cock in front of my face. The next, he’s grabbing a fist of my hair and guiding his huge dick between my lips.

I shiver at the silky, throbbingly hard feel of him invading my mouth. I gag instantly, but he doesn’t back off. He just stays there, conquering my lips and tongue as I try and get used to the size of the cock stretching my jaw.

“I’m going to guess from your earlier comment, the way you fainted watching someone make out in a club, and the simple reality that it’s clear you’re not sure what the fuck you’re doing that you’ve never sucked a cock before?”

I can’t answer. Fuck me, I can barely breathe with the size of him stretching my mouth open. But when my eyes lift to his, I can see the truth reflected in his fierce gaze.

“Curious,” he murmurs darkly. “I can’t say that virgins have ever appealed to me in the slightest. But you, little dancer…”

He groans as his fist tightens in my hair, his hips clenching as he pushes his cock a little deeper into my mouth.

“You certainly do. Now, I’m going to leave my dick right here in your mouth.” His lips curl. “It’s not that I’m worried about your friends hearing you shatter for me. It’s that if my friends were to hear, I’d be forced to cut their throats, and that would be…inconvenient.”

I shiver at how frankly he says it. It’s not dark gallows humor. He’s not trying to be edgy. It’s just him, who he really is. It feels weirdly intimate, having him dropping the mask so completely with me.

Carmine twists around, keeping his cock between my lips. He reaches down over my body, his hand sliding under my ass and gripping me tightly as he pulls my hips up and lowers his mouth at the same time.

Oh shit…

My loud whimper is muffled around his bulging dick as his tongue dances over my clit again. He sucks it back between his lips, tormenting it with the tip of his tongue and instantly shoving me right back as high as I was before.

I moan louder, humming and drooling all over his cock. I can barely move my head, but my tongue can’t help but explore his swollen head, teasing over the ridge and testing the hole at the tip.

Carmine groans deeply, his dick swelling even harder between my lips.

“Yes, suck, just like that, little dancer,” he growls against my pussy. “Use your tongue. Slowly. Like that. Tease my cock.”

His tongue swirls around my clit, sucking and nibbling at the tender bud as my legs begin to shake. One of his hands slips up between my thighs from behind, and when he sinks two fingers into me again, I can barely focus on anything but the pleasure he’s pulling from my body.

“Allow me to help,” he murmurs. Suddenly, his cock is sliding out and then thrusting back into my mouth, deep. I sputter and choke, but he doesn’t stop or slow. At first, it’s disorienting and almost demeaning, feeling him use my mouth like this.

Except as he keeps doing it, slowly, something clicks inside me.

Something flickers to life, the flame growing hotter.

You clearly know what you like. What turns you on. Being chased.

Restrained.

Forced.

Fire spreads through me like blood staining a sheet. Like a storm cloud rolling across the sky until it blankets everything in blackness and the sharp crackle of lightning.

It’s a simple, terrifying truth that hits me just as I’m about to explode against his tongue.

He’s right.

I do know what I like, I’m just in constant fear of admitting it even to myself. Even after I read it in especially steamy fanfics or darker romance books from TikTok.

But now he’s making me confront it as he rips the pleasure from every nerve in my body.

I want this.

I crave this.

The loss of control. The restraint.

Being forced.

And that moment of realization is exactly when I start to come.

Mercifully, if even just to save himself from being bitten, Carmine slides his cock from my raw, swollen lips just as I start to shatter. His tongue rolls over my clit, his lips sucking hard as my head snaps back, my arms jerking against their binds.

“Oh God!”

“Uh-uh,” Carmine snarls into my pussy. “Say my name when you come. I don’t share what’s mine—not even with God.”

His fingers curl inside me, turning me to jelly as I cry out and arch my back off the bed.

“Carmine!”

Just as I’m coming all over again, he does something completely unexpected and unhinged that shatters whatever grasp on reality I have left.

He turns his mouth against my inner thigh, high up near my throbbing pussy, and without warning, he bites me.

Hard. Really, really hard.

My whole world jolts as I twist my head violently and scream into my own shoulder, my eyes squeezed shut.

Suddenly, he’s shifting on the bed. A low growl rumbles in his chest as he kneels beside me. My eyes open, and my breath catches when I see his forearms ripple as he strokes his huge, swollen dick right over me, his eyes shrouded in a lethal sort of blackness.

Suddenly, with a low grunt, he’s coming.

…All over me.

I gasp as hot cum splatters and streaks on my skin, covering my breasts, dripping over my nipples. It lands in ropes across my stomach and hips, and suddenly I’m flinching when I feel the hot drips of it coating my mouth, cheeks and neck.

The whole world stops as Carmine strokes his bulging cock once more and then sits back on his haunches, like a beast after a kill, looking down on me with dark, satisfied arousal all over his face.

And smears of red.

My blood, from when he bit me and broke the skin, mixed with my own cum, all over his chin. I go still, my pulse skipping as his eyes lock with mine.

Holding and arresting me. Pinning and consuming me.

Slowly, he brings a hand up, using his thumb to wipe the mix of cum and blood from his lips and into his mouth.

“Delicious,” he growls quietly. “I can’t wait to break through your virginity and taste the ruin I leave behind between your thighs.”