Page 53 of Where the Snakes Sleep

He nods, face pressed to the steel, lips open and shining with spit.

“Good boy,” I say, and this time, when I bend to kiss the red welt blossoming on his jaw, he melts into it. “Breathe in now. That’s it.”

He does, sharp and deep, a long trembling inhalation that lifts his slight frame from the table in a tremor and then collapses him again, shuddering, under my weight.

He’s all heat and wet and animal want, and I see the place in him where resistance dies and the need for destruction begins. I pull my hand from his hair and set it flat against his back to hold him down. The overshirt falls from his shoulders, pooling at his elbows, so his skin is bare and prickled in the lab’s frigid air. There’s a sheen of sweat already slicking his spine and a line of red where the steel has pressed into his hip bones. He tries to rut against the table, to draw friction, but I pin him so firmly he can do nothing but whine.

“Don’t move,” I tell him, and he tries, he tries so hard, but every muscle in him is a live wire.

I work the belt higher, the leather biting into his neck just beneath his jaw, the buckle cold against his larynx. His eyes water as I draw it snug, and he turns his face with a pleading mew, one I reward with a slow drag of my tongue up the side of his throat. He’s trembling so violently I expect him to jolt off the table, but instead he melts, hips tipping up, the space between his legs glossy and slick and desperate for more. I palm his cunt, grinding the pad of my thumb against his cock, and he keens, his voice muffled by the pressure at his windpipe. I want to see how far I can take him. I want to see if he’ll let me break him all the way.

I spit into my hand, coat my fingers, and slide them back inside, this time to the root. He’s tight and hot, but when I work a third finger in, he doesn’t resist—he opens for me, whimpering and clawing at the table until his knuckles scrape raw on the steel.

I curl my fingers and press, the motion punishing and relentless. When I add my pinky, he goes silent, jaw unhinged on a scream he can’t voice.

“Breathe, chaton,” I murmur, tightening the belt, watching the blood pool and throb along the veins in his neck. “I want you to take all of me.”

He tries to, he tries so hard, and he’s so beautiful like this—face smashed to the table, mouth open, drool darkening the surface beneath, his body taut with pain and pleasure, unable to tell the difference anymore.

I push deeper until the resistance gives way, and I am buried up to the wrist. He goes completely still. The air is thick with the smell of sweat and sex and antiseptic, and the only sound is his shattered breathing and the whir of the ventilation system above us. He makes a sound, a tiny, gasping sob, and I loosen the belt just enough for him to get in a sip of air, then bend down and bite the nape of his neck.

He’s sobbing now—not from pain, but from being stripped down to nothing more than a toy. Everything soft in him is seared away. There is nothing but want, and the fact that I have made him this way. I work my hand inside him, searching for the place that makes him howl, and when I find it—oh, it is electric, the full-body shudder that rips through him, the way his body goes taut and then limp in a heartbeat.

He’s coming before he even realizes it. The first pulse hits my wrist, a hot, wet spill that coats him and spatters across the table. I curl my fist, just enough to stretch him further, and the next wave follows, messy, uncontrollable, spraying down his thighs and pooling under him in a sticky, glistening mess. He chokes on a sob, his fingers clawing for anything to anchor him, but he is lost, gone, a vessel for the thing I’ve made him feel.

I let him ride the endless aftershocks, fucking him slow and deep, wrist twisting until he can only quietly sob into the crook of his arm, snot and spit streaking the steel. The belt is the only thing holding him together, a leather umbilicus between his mind and his body.

When I slide my hand out, the noise he makes is obscene, a wet, sucking gasp followed by a long, grateful whimper. He sags, boneless, until I haul him up by the belt and turn him to face me.

He’s a ruin; lips swollen, eyes gone fever-bright and glazed. He blinks at me, not quite present, and I press my palm to the back of his neck, holding him upright.

“Good,” I murmur, voice raw with my own need. “That’s it. Just keep breathing.”

He tries and fails to muster language. All that emerges is a shuddering, sated moan.

I let him lean against the table, hips splayed, thighs drenched. Then I guide him down until his knees reach the floor and his mouth is at the bulge in my pants. He stares up at me through dark lashes, dazed and pliant, and I thread my fingers through his hair.

“Open,” I say, and he does, lips parted and drooling as I push down my waistband and slide my cock between his teeth. He gags, but I hold him there, the belt keeping his neck taut and his airway just a little bit compressed.

It’s a wet, desperate heat, his mouth sloppy and uncoordinated, but I don’t care. I want to see him choke on me, to see his eyes water and his body go loose.

I fuck into him, slow at first, then rougher, the pressure building with every thrust. His throat bulges around me, the belt straining, and I can see the veins in his neck pulse with every ragged breath. He clings to my thighs, nails leaving crescent marks, and I speed up, losing control.

I watch his face, the panic and pleasure warring in him, the way his jaw works to take me deeper. I let the belt loose at the last possible second and pull out, gripping the base of my cock as I explode across his fucked-out face. Ryan’s lips stay parted, tongue flicking over the mess as it paints his cheekbones, his lashes, the bruised mouth I have all but destroyed. His eyes roll back, and he sags against my knees, hands still locked behind his back by the crumpled overshirt and his own inertia.

I cannot even steady myself. My hands tremble as I drag the belt away from his neck, let it clatter to the floor, and then cradle the back of his skull, my fingers splaying into his sweaty hair. I do not speak. There is only the harsh sound of my own breathing and the way he pants in short, fractured bursts, his nose running, the taste of my cum bright on his tongue.

I wipe his chin with one thumb, as though that could possibly clean him, and he just looks at me, green eyes unfocused.

“Come, let’s get cleaned up,” I say softly, kneeling down so we are eye to eye. I cup his cheek, let my thumb trace a line through the drying semen and the salt of his tears. “You will need care after…” Honestly, I’m not even sure how to describe what just happened. “That.”

He closes his eyes, shivering from the aftershocks or from the temperature or from something deeper, something I will never quite reach. “I’m fine, but yes, a shower sounds good,” he murmurs hoarsely.

I do not answer. I only scoop up his discarded clothing before gathering him in my arms, lifting him from the floor. He does not resist as I carry him down the hall, his legs tangled around my hips, head tucked into the space between my jaw and shoulder. His arms hang limp at his sides, overshirt trailing behind us like shed skin.

I remodeled the master bath soon after moving in, updating it from old to new and adding a glass-walled shower big enough for a small family. I set him on the closed toilet lid and run the water until it’s warm but not scalding, then go back to assist him into the shower.

His body is a study in contrasts—pale skin sheened with sweat, bruises already starting to rise at his throat, bite marks stippling his jaw, red welts where the belt pressed.