I let out a frustrated groan. So I was feeling something after all. Irritation. Anger. Blazing hot rage. They struck through the void like lightening in a dark sky. I still wanted those knives. I wanted to hurt something. I wanted to hurt me.

“Gwen? Are you okay?”

I was firm in my nothingness, but I heard the voice dimly in the background, as though the speaker had a scarf wrapped around his face. I turned toward the sound and found JC at the threshold of the door I’d entered through a moment before.

I’d forgotten he was there, but he didn’t surprise me. The sight of him was…a relief? No, not that. But he was a substitute for the knives. He could be another option in my attempt to find sensation.

“I called your name out there and when you didn’t respond, I followed you in here.” His brow creased as he studied my face. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t say anything, didn’t even think. I just started toward him.

He tried again as I crossed the long kitchen. “Did something happen? Can I—”

Then I reached him. Instead of explaining or leaning into his arms, which were open and welcoming—instead of doing anything rational, I grabbed his jacket with both hands and pulled him to me. And I kissed him.

I pressed my mouth to his, slipping my tongue in between his lips as he parted them in surprise. I wasn’t soft or tentative. I was determined and unyielding, pushing farther into his mouth with each plunge of my tongue. Sucking and nipping on his lower lip.

JC didn’t pull away. He didn’t pull me closer either. He stood there, letting me kiss him, not touching me anywhere except where our lips were joined. When I broke to breathe, he attempted to say something, but I didn’t give him the chance to get any words out before I’d tugged him back to me, attacking him even more aggressively.

I’m not sure when he started kissing me back, but when he did, things changed. Though he’d let me set the mood, he took over, and soon it was his tongue licking across my teeth and his teeth nipping at my lips. He tasted like coffee and the butter mints we had in small dishes on the bar. He tasted new and different and dangerous.

I wanted more of him.

It was another way to cut myself. Another way to hurt. Another way to access that pain I was so eager to rip into and feel.

I pressed my whole body against him, hoping he’d get the signal. Hoping he’d agree, if he did. I practically sighed in relief when he wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled my hips into his. His hands fondled my ass through my skirt, but it was the stiffening bulge at my belly that interested me most. I wanted to touch it. To stroke it. To have it inside me. In my mouth, in my cunt—I didn’t care as long as it defiled me in some way.

By the time I threw a leg around him, he was just as lost as I was. He gathered my skirt at my waist and pulled my other leg up. He hoisted me around his middle, pressing my pelvis tighter against his so I could feel the throb of his erection where I wanted it now. Against my crotch. The pulse of his desire heightened my madness. I squirmed against him, stroking the ache between my legs with his cock.

Our lips never parted as he carried me the short distance to the stainless steel tabletop. As soon as my ass hit the surface, I pulled away long enough to shimmy my panties down to my ankles and then kick them to the floor.

This was my official invitation. If he didn’t know what I wanted from him before, JC could have no doubt now. I wasn’t looking for a make-out session or even, really, to be touched. I wanted a hard, quick fuck. That was all. I spread my legs, exposing myself to him.

He didn’t hesitate, undoing his jeans and removing his cock in record time. I didn’t ask about a condom. I didn’t care. I was on birth control, and STDs? Hell, I didn’t give a shit. It was Russian roulette. It was dangerous and unsafe, and I welcomed the rush of the risk.

When he was ready, I scooted forward and tugged him closer to me until his head was lined up at my entrance. “Please,” I said. It was the only begging I was going to do, so I made it count. “Please, fuck me.”

I watched him decide. His eyes flickered between not sure and hell yes. Then, when he decided, he left all his doubts behind, shoving into me with one blunt thrust.

I was wet, but not quite ready for him, so it hurt when he entered me. It was exactly what I wanted—the ache, the bite, the burn. It was piercing agony as he pulled back out and drove in again.

Then my body adjusted to him, my walls relaxing and clenching at him in a different way. It felt good now. The slide of his cock out and then in, touching every part of my insides, awakening every nerve ending with each measured thrust. It felt really good.

And good wasn’t what I was looking for. I needed rougher. More painful. “Harder,” I urged him. “Fuck me harder.”

His eyes glinted with desire as he let go of me to pull first one arm and then the other out of his jacket. He threw it to the floor. Then he grabbed my hips and dragged me into him. His momentum quickened, his thrusts becoming jabs as he pushed into me, pushed so deep that he hit my womb.

This was better. Rough, wild. I bucked against him, spurring him on with my body and the words I kept repeating. Over and over. “Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.” I didn’t want to come. I fought against the curl of tension gathering low inside me. I bit JC’s lip and willed the pleasant hum in my limbs to go away.

He was getting close; I could tell. His breathing became more ragged and his tempo uneven. He was close and then it would be done and I would have done something stupid and unpleasant and I’d embrace how shitty it made me feel.

But the success of my plan depended on my complete lack of enjoyment. And even as JC plunged aggressively and without mercy, I couldn’t say there wasn’t any pleasure. Then he moved his hand from my hip and buried it in between us, finding my clit with ease. I nearly exploded from the first firm graze of his thumb.

Shit. No. That’s not what I wanted. No pleasure. Not for me.

I wriggled my hips back, trying to get away from the increasing pressure of his massage while still remaining joined by his cock, but his other arm gathered around my waist and pulled me closer. So I tried to push him away with my hand.

JC halted, mid-thrust, his expression saying that pausing was difficult for him, but he held still just the same. “I’m not doing this alone.” His voice was gritty and tight and while I didn’t want it to, it turned me on to see how affected he was. “So if you want me to keep going, you’re going to have to come with me.”