Page 47 of King of Liars
I turned to Ryan, the fear in his expression telling me everything I needed to know.
“You did good, knights,” King said. “You are dismissed.”
I was glad he’d said that, because I couldn’t stick around. I hurried out of the basement, up to the bedroom for my clothes, scurrying into them.
Ryan stayed at my side until we got into his car. He drove for some time before pulling off to the side of the road.
“Aiden…”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“I was just scared, for the first time since I started doing this, that King might have forgotten the safe word.”
“Do you think…”
“And I didn’t realize you even had all that in you, all that anger and hate.”
“Neither did I,” I confessed. Although, I knew better.
“Come here,” Ryan said, and I leaned across the console as he offered a hug. “You scared me back there. So much rage and pain. Oh God, Aiden, who the hell fucked you up?”
Tears rushed to my eyes and slid down my face. I trembled in his hold. It reminded me of the way King’s body was shaking when I was finished assaulting him.
“Someone please help me”repeated over and over in my brain. Not because King said it, but because I had screamed something so similar at a time when there was no one to rescue me, until I fucking gave up and let them have their way, knowing I was all alone.
“It’s okay, Aiden. I’m here now. I’m here.”
I curled up against him. “Can we go back to your place now?” I begged.
I needed him that night. Needed to hold him close. Needed his touch to take away all the pain King’s games had conjured up.
* * *
Even a few daysafter the session, I found I wasn’t quite the same.
I knew King wouldn’t need me to satisfy that impulse right away again, but the more I thought about how much I’d enjoyed hurting him, in such a brutal way, the more disturbed I was by my actions. My lack of control.
The following Wednesday, I received a text message from King:I’m coming by tonight to pick you up. Wanna talk in private.
It was over for me and the knights. I’d gone too far, and he must’ve finally come to his senses and realized I didn’t need to be a knight anymore.
Was that how it had happened with Corey—his exile? Some private meeting where King stripped him of his title?
It was for the best.
And yet, why didn’t I want to let it go? I craved that experience again like some sort of drug. It had left me racked with such guilt, but for the briefest of instances, I felt all-powerful, as if I could vanquish all my pain by tearing him the fuck apart.
That night, King arrived at my place late, at around ten. He parked outside the dorms, and when I greeted him in the parking deck, he offered a hug. He was fucking smiling,grinning, as though nothing terrible had happened the other night. He urged me to get into the car, which I did, and we drove through the deck.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he sang. He seemed so chipper, so full of life, but I knew this private meeting couldn’t be for anything good.
I needed to get this over with. “I guess you wanted to talk about the other night.”
“What? How hot it was? How my ass is still sore from it? How good my Boss was to me?”
The hell?