Empire of Lust: An Enemies with Benefits Romance

If crazy is a territory, I’ve already cut through its wires and breached it with bloodied hands.

The cold air forms icicles in my veins and no amount of pulling my coat over myself is cutting it.

My smartwatch lights up in the darkness to tell me it’s late o’clock. As in, super late. After one in the morning late.

And an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere is the last place I should’ve driven to.

Hell, I shouldn’t even remember the exact way to it, but I do.

After leaving my car at the end of the road, I trek the rest of the way, watching my surroundings every step of the way. My feet falter in front of the tree that he kissed me under that night. When he lifted his Anonymous mask, devoured my lips, then said he’d keep me, after all.

He basically carried me the rest of the way until we reached the small cabin. We found a bottle of tequila and shared it while we talked. Now that I think about it, that was the first time I tasted tequila and it became my poison of choice. I don’t remember much of our conversation, but I remember that it went on for long. Long enough that I forgot that he could be a threat. Long enough that it felt right for him to kiss me again, strip my clothes and touch me like no one did. I might not recall everything that happened prior to the sex, but I remember that he said he came here whenever he felt a need to be alone.

I’m grasping at straws here. It’s been twenty-one years, so maybe his methods of venting and places of choice have changed.

The property is as eerie as in the past, dark with shadows that resemble folklore monsters. Back then, I was so trapped by the heated conversation and tension we shared that I didn’t focus much while we walked here.

Didn’t even think that he could call his friends to gang-rape me as a Devil’s Night prank. I trusted him in a way that infuriated me.

I don’t trust people easily. If ever.

Young me’s logic was that he’d already showed his ugly side early on. And if he wanted to actually hurt me, he would’ve done it after he punched his Joker friend.

A distant thumping sound flicks my ears and I pause, my feet shifty in the tall grass.

Maybe it’s because it’s a cold night, a natural event that always reminds me of the past, but the darkness feels like it’s an existence with an ominous soul that’s hovering over my shoulder.

The thump comes again, and I don’t allow myself to think as I head straight toward it. Ignoring an owl’s cries and other night animals’ haunting sounds proves to be harder than I imagined. I like to think that I have a strong spirit, but this is too eerie even for me.

The path that leads to the cabin is so entirely black that I can’t even see my own hands. The shabby building that must be in a ferocious battle with nature to remain standing looks like nothing more than a crooked shadow with horns.

I follow the direction of the thumps seamlessly, almost too naturally.

When I reach the cabin’s huge, unruly backyard, I freeze. A large shadow stands in front of a massive oak tree that nearly swallows the house from above. Its roots resemble giant snakes in the darkness.

Only the moon, constantly shadowed by clouds, offers any semblance of light.

It’s a night in which monsters would plan chaos, throw their parties, and harvest some poor lives.

The thumps I heard earlier are in fact thwacks as he punches the tree’s trunk over and over again.

Since I first met Kingsley—officially as himself and not in an Anonymous mask—he’s been the most infuriatingly confident person I’ve ever seen.

He walks, talks, and breathes with purpose. He owns whatever room he enters and it isn’t because he has money.

Kingsley Shaw is the kind of man who not only steals attention but does it so seamlessly that no one notices when they stop to listen to him.

I’ve always envied his type of confidence that seems as if he was born with it.

So to see him unruly, savage, and like a demon finding refuge in the darkness brings about a whole different emotion.

One that’s terrifyingly similar to the past, where the naïve me ruled my life.

“Kingsley.” My voice is low but has the weight of a bomb in the silence—or semi-silence.

He shows no signs of hearing me and continues punching the tree. Something dark streams down the trunk, glistening in the night.

Please don’t tell me that’s blood.

I call him again, and when there’s no response, I slowly approach him. To say I’m not afraid would be a lie. In fact, every self-preserving fiber in my being is telling me to go back to my car and drive the hell away from here.

But I don’t.

I’m doing this because he helped me once—or twice—and I don’t like owing people.

Or that’s what I tell myself as I carefully put a hand on his shoulder.

One moment, I’m standing by his side, the next, I’m flung around and pain explodes in my back when I’m slammed against the tree.

With a steel-like hand around my throat.

Eyes that have no glint in them stare down at me. They’re dim, blank.

Dead.

And even though I can’t see his face in the darkness, I’m almost sure there’s no expression there either.

He squeezes my throat enough to make me lightheaded. The lack of oxygen robs me of breath and any thoughts.

My knee-jerk reaction is to claw, kick, hit.

Survive.

That’s the only drug I’ve been on since I was a toddler.

But I don’t do that.

I reach my hand to his face, feeling the tension in his jaw, in his demeanor, and in his deep, controlled breaths. “It’s…me…”

Though that probably holds the importance of a rock in his shoe to him, I continue stroking his face, desperate to chase away his demons.

I’ve never seen him without them, even when he’s in his element, but I’ve also never seen them take over him either.

And I hate that.

This isn’t the Kingsley I know.

And he’s definitely not the Kingsley who raised our daughter for both of us during those long twenty years.

“King…” I croak, my voice breaking due to pressure and the way blood nearly explodes in my face.

I think he’ll finish me now and there will be a sad tombstone on my grave that probably doesn’t say “Mother.”

And that is just not how I’ll go.

“King!” I screech with all my power in a last-ditch attempt.

His fingers halt the massacring mission, slowly loosening, but he doesn’t remove them.

I suck in greedy intakes of air through the small opening, nearly choking on my own breaths.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Aspen?” His voice is deeper, almost guttural, and draws shivers over my spine.

“Gwen…Gwen said you were mad and I thought…well, you mentioned that this place offers the yang to your yin.”

“Fuck,” he releases the word in a long breath. “God-fucking-dammit.”

His fingers tighten around my throat again and I yelp, bracing myself for the squeeze. But he doesn’t do that. At least, not all the way.

Instead, he puts pressure on the sides, turning me dizzy but not in a threatening way. It’s a show of who holds the power and almost…seductive in nature.

“Why do you even remember that?” His voice is still rough, full of tension, but it’s also not as scary as a minute ago.

“I have a strong memory.” Of you.

“You’re not supposed to be here. Leave.”

“I can’t do that when you have your hand around my throat, genius.”

He uses his hold to pull me forward, then slams me back against the tree, not violently like earlier, more like to drive a point home. “That mouth of yours will get you in a lot of trouble.”

“Already done.”

“You’re a fucking nuisance.”

“And you’re a damn asshole.”

“You might want to shut your mouth, witch. Provoking me is the last thing you want to do under the current circumstances.”

My thighs clench and the tingles I’ve been feeling since he cornered me pool between them.

Sanity must’ve definitely left the building of my skull because I glare up at him. “You don’t tell me what to do—”

My words end in a gasp when he crashes his lips to mine.

It’s a violent kiss, as savage as he is and just as destructive. My teeth clank with his and my body comes completely undone.

Any hint of control I used to yield shatters and withers at his feet. I’m lost in the intensity of his lips on mine, of how his tongue conquers my own, leaving me no choice but to kiss him back with a wild energy that matches his.

Still choking me, his thumb grazes my chin, tilting it up so he can deepen the kiss while his other hand slides from my waist to the hem of my dress.

His movements drip with utter discipline, but there’s zero patience behind them. He has no interest in seducing me, talking dirty to me, or being somewhat charming like the last time.

Now, he’s a man who’s set on taking and conquering.

Like he did a long time ago.

He yanks up my dress and pulls on my panties, lace this time, that he doesn’t see for obvious reasons. The material stretches against my soaking folds and rips, causing a haunting sound.

I pause when I realize the sound, the guttural moan, is actually coming from me.

Kingsley hikes my thigh up his leg and speaks in hot, dark words against my mouth. “You should’ve never remembered this place, let alone come here, sweetheart. You, really, really shouldn’t have shown me how much I can exploit you like a dirty little whore.”

Arousal coats the insides of my thighs and I squirm, refusing to believe I got turned on by those words. “I’m not…a whore.”

“Not any whore, no. My whore, however? Definitely.” He thrusts four fingers inside me at the same time with intrusiveness that should be painful, but it’s far from it. I get on my tiptoes, breathing harshly against his jaw. “Your pussy knows it’s my whore, sweetheart. It’s nearly swallowing my whole fist.”

“Fuck…you…” I pant, trying and failing to resist the powerful wave that’s building inside me.

“You’re the one who will be fucked.” He removes his fingers just when I’m about to reach the peak. My frustrated sound gets caught in the middle of nowhere when he hitches my leg up and thrusts inside me.

I didn’t even focus on him lowering his pants or releasing his cock prior to that.

But all of those details don’t matter, because he’s so far inside me, I feel like throwing up.

The good kind. The kind after which I’ll come.

And it hurts.

It hurts so much that the pain from my bruised shoulder feels like a stroll in the park.

I almost forgot how big, thick, and wide his cock is. It should be anywhere but inside another human.

“Oh…God.”

“Stop praising him when I’m doing all the work,” he speaks against my jaw, then flexes his fingers around my neck to nibble on the skin between them.

“You’re ridiculously huge,” I mutter. “Couldn’t have a minuscule penis that fits your personality, huh?”

“This. Fucking. Mouth.” He accentuates every word with a bite to my lip. Once he’s done, I can taste the metallic tang of blood.

Not sure if it’s his or mine.

I don’t have the capacity to care either, because he lifts my other leg so I’m suspended between him and the tree’s harsh surface, then drives into me so violently, I groan in both pleasure and pain.

They go hand in hand with this man. And so does ecstasy and madness.

His fingers knead my ass as he pounds into me deep, then pulls out almost completely before he thrusts back in. I can hear the sound of my arousal and feel myself clenching around him. He slams back in and hits so deep that I groan like an animal.

We’re both pure animals right now.

He does it again, then pounds into me with a frightening intensity. My lungs are starved for air, but my body begs for more.

So much more.

He alternates between the two rhythms, driving me absolutely insane. When my legs start to droop, he smacks my ass, and I yelp, my eyes becoming big in the dark.

“What the hell was that about?”

“You stay with me when I’m fucking you. Am I clear?”

I don’t get the chance to reply, because he removes his hand from my throat to bite it. Hard.

Then he’s ripping off the straps of my dress. They tear at the front causing my breasts to spill out and he nearly sucks a whole one into his mouth.

He bites and fucks and spanks me every now and then, not leaving me room to catch my breath, let alone think.

My whole body comes alive, and simmering energy explodes at the surface.

He fucks me with fast, deep, and violent strokes that forbid me from keeping up. “Slow down.”

“Add a please and I might consider it.”

“Damn you.”

“That’s my cue to go harder then.”

I didn’t think it possible, but he actually does pick up his pace. Despite my coat, the tree scrapes my back from the intensity of his pounding, and I can feel new bruises forming all over my skin.

“Where’s that mouth now that you’re being pounded within an inch of your life?” he speaks against my nipple, then bites down on it.

“Screw…you…” I breathe, voice cracking as I come in a turbulence of harsh emotions that I can’t find an explanation for.

“Gladly.”

He fucks me harder through my orgasm. The movements are unapologetic, peppered with smacks against my ass, and bites anywhere his mouth can reach.

I’m in such a state of hypersensitivity that all I can focus on is the in and out of his cock inside me.

“Do you feel your pussy strangling me, sweetheart? Does getting fucked in the dark like an animal turn you on?”

“Shut…up…” I’m mortified that I forgot about that detail. The fact that we’re outside, that anyone could wander here and witness this scene.

I’m not a virgin or inexperienced, or a prude, but I’ve always been vanilla. The “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am” kind. The “I get to run this show” type.

The “I fuck only behind closed doors and on a bed” kind.

And yet, all of my rules seem to be null and void when it comes to this man.

He pushes me far beyond my limits and to a dimension I didn’t think existed.

“You’re such a filthy little thing, but you’re also a good girl.” He slaps my ass and angles my thigh up to ram inside me. And it’s a flat out ramming that hits my G-spot over and over and fucking over again. “Now, come with me.”

I do. My head falls back on a loud scream as he empties himself inside me.

Inside. Me.

Not again.

I don’t get the chance to protest, because his lips claim mine. I’m too dizzy, lightheaded, and definitely unable to stand on my feet, so I don’t struggle as he pulls me closer.

Still buried deep inside me, he walks with purpose to God knows where.

While kissing me.

And all I can think about is that maybe he’s the yin to my yang.