Bloody Princess by Helen Scott

31

Lyric

It only takes one song for Keats to find me. When he does, I'm momentarily stunned by how good he looks in a suit. Just as all the girls are in dresses, all the guys are dressed up in suits.

Keats is wearing a devil horned mask with a face that's pulled into an angry grimace. If I had to take a guess, I'd say he is dressed as wrath. Not just because of the mask, either. His suit jacket, which I saw when I served their dinner earlier, has red pinstripes going down it.

He's abandoned the jacket now and is just in a white dress shirt with a crimson red tie that's loosened around the collar. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, along with the cuffs around his wrists, which has allowed him to roll the sleeves partway up his arms.

Not going to lie, the look is fucking hot. It's like it emphasizes the muscles and veins that are visible below the edge of the shirt sleeves and makes his tattoos stand out even more. He looks strong, and with the angry face of the mask, it makes him look formidable, which shouldn't be so damn attractive to me.

I try to remind myself that he is potentially one of the people who murdered my sister, or at least had a hand in it, and I want to hate him for that, but I can't bring myself to believe it, at least not any more.

I know Keats fills a similar role to me within his family, but that doesn't mean he'd hurt someone he cared about does it?

Before I can ponder it too much, he's right in front of me, towering over me, even though my platform heels have given me an extra few inches. It's not so much his literal height as it is his presence. Something about him demands that I pay attention, that I rise to meet him in whatever challenge he's about to lay down.

"Did you save me that dance?" he asks with a grin tugging at his lips.

I nod, not trusting my voice. It would probably come out all breathy, and he'd know right then and there that I'm aching for him.

I've never ached for anyone.

I've never found a guy attractive enough to take that step with, except for Danny, and look what happened to him. I push the thoughts of Danny from my mind. He was just the first in a long line of bodies I'm responsible for.

Keats takes my hand and leads me out onto the dance floor. This isn't ballroom dancing or the dancing I do for my father's friends. This is the kind of dancing that people do in clubs. The kind that I saw at the frat party that first night. The kind that high schoolers try to get away with at prom, not that I'd been to one.

In all honesty, I've never actually danced with anyone before, so I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm a quick learner, though, and I watch the crowd around us as the couples sway to the beat. Girls’ asses in guys’ laps. Grinding. Lots of hip movement. I can do that.

Keats spins me, and I back up against him, my stilettos giving me the bit of extra height I need to press my ass against him. We fit together well, at least when I’m wearing heels.

Part of my mind whispers that he's the most likely to understand me, that maybe this is where I'm meant to be, but that thought makes me uncomfortable, so I push it away and listen to the lyrics of the song that the DJ is playing.

It’s an older song, and the guy rapping is talking about what he wants to do to a girl. The other singer is going on about someone's ass having the hiccups, which makes me want to laugh.

All thoughts vanish from my head as Keats' hands land on my hips, slipping on the satin of my dress. Or maybe not slipping, maybe he's actually rubbing my hips. I follow the motion that his hands have set and feel the two of us fall into sync with each other.

We stay like that for a while, grinding against one another until I feel the hardness of him against my ass. It actually sends a thrill through me. Why? I have no idea. It's not like I'm unfamiliar with causing erections, but standing here, dancing with Keats? It's a different kind of sensation.

He spins me around so we're front to front and presses me against him. His hands have slipped from my hips to my back and are edging lower with every sway of our hips. I take a chance and reach up, locking my hands behind his neck, which pulls him down toward me slightly.

One of his legs presses between mine, and I feel his thigh, hot and strong against me. One of his hands slides up my back, which means the rough warmth of his touch is against my skin, making me ache for more of him. His other hand dips lower until he has most of an ass cheek in his grip and is using it to press me closer.

"Do you feel what you do to me, Lyric?" he growls in my ear.

"What I do? Anyone could be rubbing against your cock and you'd get hard," I reply, being snarky because I’m unsure how to respond otherwise.

"I don't get hard for just anyone, and I definitely don't jerk off in the school bathrooms thinking about random people."

"What?" I call, pretending like I couldn't hear him over the music because I actually feel overwhelmed. I've never had anyone talk to me like this before. This isn't something I've been trained for.

Without hesitating, Keats turns away and pulls us through the crowd until we're toward the back of the room, where it's dark and quieter.

"I know you heard me, now do you want to tell me why you pretended not to?" he asks as he pulls me flush against him once more.

"It's not often a guy confesses something like that, so I wasn't sure what to say," I reply honestly.

"You're telling me no guy has ever confessed to jerking off to you before?" he asks, sounding as though he can't quite believe me.

"No one I wanted to hear it from," I say, because the truth would ruin the moment.

"So you want to hear that I fuck my hand while I think about you?" he asks, his voice husky in my ear.

I nod, knowing he can feel the movement.

"And have you touched yourself thinking about me?"

"I don't..." How the hell was I supposed to explain that? Keats waits for me to say anything further, but I don't.

"Do you want me to touch you?" he asks a moment later.

I nod.

"I need to hear you say it," he murmurs.

"Please touch me," I reply in a whisper.

I honestly have no idea if he heard me or not for a second, but then his hands move around my waist and turn me so I'm facing away from him. Does he think I said no?

When he slides his hands around the satin of my waist, he clutches me to him, wrapping himself around me like a cage. I lean my head back against him, just basking in the warmth of his touch, in the sensation of being touched because I wanted to be, rather than because he was told he could.

One hand slides higher as we still dance together until it's cupping my breast, his fingertips reaching just over the v-neck of the satin until they touch the delicate skin on the other side. Because of the way the dress is made and how exposing it is, I'm not wearing a bra, which means, when my nipples get hard from his caress, he can feel it.

Keats squeezes my breast gently and captures the nipple between two of his fingers, wiggling them up and down until it creates a small pinching sensation.

I arch my back, pushing my ass against him and feeling his hard cock pressing back. His other hand slips lower, and when he finds one of the slits in my dress, which comes all the way up to my hip, he slides his hand underneath, moving slowly lower and lower, as though he wants to give me ample time to stop him if that's what I want. It's not. The thong I'm wearing is French cut, so it sits high on my hips and can't be seen through the cut in the dress. He slides his fingers over the fabric and dips them down between my legs. The touch is so intimate and unexpectedly arousing that I moan softly, which makes Keats press his cock into my back even harder. I know he has to be able to feel how wet I am through the fabric, I certainly can.

"I want to taste you, Lyric, but I can't do it here. Come with me?"

I nod again.

This time, he pulls me away down a corridor, one I hadn't even seen before, but it's dark and doesn't appear to be in use tonight. Now that we are secluded, he doesn't hold back.

Keats' mouth is on mine in a hot demanding kiss as he holds me still with one hand around my chin.

He nips at my lower lip, and I return the favor, except I bite harder, knowing that he can handle it. He groans and thrusts his tongue into my mouth, while at the same time, his other hand slips between my legs once more—only this time it's not above the fabric of my thong.

"Can I take these off?" he asks as he hooks a finger around the material and tugs.

I nod and frantically push them down so he can have access to me and where I need his touch the most.

I've never felt like this before, this frantic, urgent lust, the craving of friction. When his fingers come back and find my slick pussy once more, I have a moment where I wonder if he'll feel the scars, but I doubt it. If he's as lost to this sensation as I am, then he won't notice anything. He presses his touch into me, moving between my folds until he finds my entrance and slides a finger into me, thrusting it and mimicking what he wants to do with his cock.

"You're so wet for me, princess," he says as he thrusts a second finger inside me.

The pet name makes me freeze, and the lust I was feeling is washed away. I feel sick, and I'm not sure if I should tell him to stop or not. Will he punish me if I do? Will he take what he wants anyway?

"Where did you go?" Keats asks as his grip on my chin tightens, drawing me away from the memories.

"I'm right here," I say with a smile. I just need to get through whatever is about to happen, then I can go and figure out why the fuck I'm reacting the way I am.

"Fuck that. No you're not. Where did you go?" he demands as he withdraws his fingers from my pussy and sticks them in his mouth. I've never seen a man do that before, and I find it fascinating, especially when he groans at the taste of me. He pulls further away and watches me until I respond.

"I'm fine, Keats, just let it go."

"At least tell me what I did so I don't do it again," he counters.

"Just don't...Don't call me princess."

"Okay, I can do that. Will you tell me why?"

I shake my head. "No." I pause for a moment and try to evaluate how I'm feeling, try to see if I can move past it. But it's like the word is stuck on repeat in my head, echoing and bouncing around until it's all I can hear, and I'm worried that my mask will slip too far and he'll see the real me.

The fucked up one.

The monster.

Before he can try to stop me, I turn and walk away. I push through the dance floor and the crowd until I'm on the other side.

Part of me had expected Keats to follow, but he doesn’t, which I appreciate. As I head into the restroom, I feel someone behind me and worry that Keats has actually followed me and I just hadn't noticed until now. I turn, ready to strike if I need to, and find Melody standing in front of the closed bathroom door.

"Have a nice rendezvous?" she asks snidely.

"No. Have you found what you wanted?"

"No."

"Then I guess we're both having a shit night, aren't we?"

"I am leaving, so if you want to change, now's your chance."

I wave her toward me. "Yes, I want to change, but I need you to make sure that people see you leave."

She looks like she's disappointed in me, which honestly hurts more than I'd like to admit.

"Promise me. I can't ask my questions if they think I'm still here."

"Fine," she replies with a strained sigh. "I'll make a flamboyant exit."

"Thank you. Now, shall we switch?" I ask.

She nods and heads into the bathroom stall on the right, but when I move to follow her in, since the two of us could definitely fit, she closes the door in my face. I bite my tongue so I don't say something I'll regret and head into the next stall over, stripping out of my dress and tossing it so it hangs over into her stall. She does the same. It’s only then that I realize I never picked my thong back up.