The Dare (Losers, #0.5)

by Harley Laroux

I'd said worse things about Manson to his face, worse things to all his friends; but when someone else said it, it irritated me in a way I couldn't fully understand.

Okay, maybe some of it was my fault… All I'd done was kiss him. And he'd kissed me back. I'd spent way too much time since then trying to figure out why. Why Manson Reed?

He was turning me on. Just standing there, he was turning me on, and that scared me.

He drank. He drank the damn cup rather than give my thong back, and my mouth dropped open.

“Go crawl and get my beer, Jessica – before I put you up against the wall and spank that cute little ass of yours until you figure out how to behave.”

I’d pushed and pushed, determined to see Manson reach the edge of his patience. There was beast in him, beyond the calm; it was vicious and dangerous and I wanted nothing more than to draw it out. I’d seen it that day he’d gotten expelled, when he’d finally pulled a knife on the assholes who had poked at him for years. That was the beast I wanted, that was the Manson I had to experience. I couldn’t fully explain the desire, not yet. But maybe once it was fulfilled, I’d understand. I wanted to see him make good on his threats.

I was going to let him punish me. “I need you to be a good, obedient girl for me,” he said, as my eyes grew wider and my heart thumped harder, and my breath began to come in quick, shallow bursts. “That was the deal you agreed to. I think you want to be good for me, Jess.”

“You’re going to follow and accept your punishment like a good girl, aren’t you?”

There was a tap on my head, something pressing me down and keeping me there. Within moments I recognized the textured feeling of a boot sole, and realized Manson had pressed his opposite foot on top of my head.

“Oh, Jess. Poor little angel. I’ve made a sinner out of you. Enjoying your punishment so much it’s making you wet. So cute.”

“Do you understand what a safe word is?” I gulped. “Yes.” “Yours is Red. Call it if you need to. Although, now that I’m seeing how much of a little masochist you are, I don’t think you’ll be calling it. You know what you deserve.” “I’m not a masochist!” I hissed. But the words felt false.

I held my breath so I wouldn’t start gasping. His words squirmed inside my brain and straight down to whatever nerves controlled my cunt. The heat between my legs felt unreal, too extreme to be a reasonable reaction to simply hearing someone speak.

“You deserve to have your clit aching all night. You deserve to have duct tape slapped over it so you can’t touch while I crush your pretty little pussy under my boot.”

After all the shit I’d given Manson, after all the nasty things I’d said behind his back, said to his face - I was completely melting in his hands. I was craving his touches, craving his grip.

He wiped a rogue tear from my eye before it could fall, and I leaned into his hand. Manson Reed - weirdo, freakshow Manson Reed. He made me feel safe and terrified, protected and brutalized, all at once.

“It would be fun! Just a quickie-” “No, angel.” His voice was firm. “Not yet. When I fuck you - if I do - it won’t be some quick fuck on a couch. I’ll make you scream.”

“I can do whatever I want, angel. I can make you suffer all night and never give you release. I can spank you again just because I like hearing you scream - and you do sound so pretty when you scream.”

“You’re so mean.” He grinned, and kissed my forehead. “Oh, angel. You have no idea.”

Vincent, Jason, and Lucas. Manson’s best friends. I turned away from staring at them, hugging myself. I’d made too many enemies in high school, but these boys definitely topped the list.

The boys I’d taunted were men now, muscular and tatted up with bitterness hanging heavily on their shoulders. The amused disdain in their eyes made it clear that they hadn’t forgotten what a bitch I’d been to them.

I was suddenly, horrifyingly aware of my own wetness again. Fuck, I couldn’t take much more of this. Being surrounded by three men who surely hated me should have filled me with dread but instead, intrusive fantasies of dropping to my knees for them kept prodding my brain.

The thought of being shared by the four of them, ordered around, degraded, punished – it made my stomach tighten, slowly strangled by a knot of tension and desire. The very men I’d tormented, I wanted.

“Are you going to hurt me?” I whispered. “More than you can imagine. Do you remember your safe word?” “Yes.” I should have been terrified but my entire body was buzzing. My fantasies of punishment were nothing compared to the real thing.

don't you know how long I've wanted to do this? Do you have any idea how good it feels to punish the girl who always laughed at me?" He cradled my face in his hands, his hold tender as he kept me pressed to the wall. "Getting to watch you whine and complain and get so red, but still do everything I say? It's too good."

"What do you want?" "I want you! I just want to fuck, please, you've got me so fucking turned on I can't stand it, it's going to drive me crazy!" I gasped, my desperation exploding. "Please don't make me keep waiting, please just - just - bend me over and fuck me!"

"Oh, Jess. Poor girl. You’re gonna get fucked, trust me. Soon enough you’ll be fucked so hard you won’t be walking straight for a week.

“I spent the most hormone-fueled years of my life wanting to touch you, Jess. Wanting to…never daring. I learned not to even look at you.” He laughed, bitterly. “Meanwhile you’d touch and tease and laugh in my face for it. You knew. You knew how badly I wanted you.” He released his breath: heavy, tense. “So if you think I’m not going to savor every moment of this, if you think I don’t have the discipline to wait even for my own satisfaction, you’re dead wrong.”

casual sex was my favorite stress reliever. But this was more than just sex: this had tapped into another desire in me, a lust for something cruel and unusual that I’d never had fulfilled. It was a glaring, roaring monster that demanded to be satiated.

He licked his lips, and his eyes met mine. His look was vicious, hungry. His gaze flickered from my eyes to my mouth, a silent question, a command he didn’t dare give. So I gave it instead. “Do it,” I demanded. “Kiss me.”

His hand remained gripped around my throat as he claimed my mouth, his body pressed up against mine.

Suddenly he picked me up, slammed me back against the wall, and held me there as we kissed. My legs wrapped around his body, my hands stroked over his hair and knocked his vinyl hat to the ground. I grasped the hair at the nape of his neck mercilessly, hoping to feel him twitch with pain. I bit at his lip until he moaned into my mouth and I tasted iron. I licked the dripping blood, my tongue sliding over his chin and across his mouth, savoring the violent taste. He tangled one hand in my hair and pulled so hard my scalp ached, while the other hand squeezed my sore ass beneath my skirt. I felt the hardness in his jeans as he pressed against me, that delicious cock waiting for me.

He reached up and wiped at his bleeding lip with the back of his hand, looking at the red smear with a small smile. “You made me bleed,” he said. “And you didn’t make me bleed.” His eyebrows shot up. “Is that a problem?” I shrugged, trying to seem unimpressed despite being completely out of breath and light-headed with desire.

We ran up the stairs, our shoes soft on the carpeted steps. My heart was racing, giddiness keeping a wide smile on my face. At the top of the stairs he grabbed me again, kissing me viciously, hands tangling up in my hair. Every time we parted, I felt as if I was breaking the surface of a pool: I gasped for air, vision blurred, my body light.

I wanted to apologize, but nothing seemed adequate. After all the shit he'd gone through in high school, he'd had to go home and deal with even more. Selfish, stuck-up kids, harassing him just because we could. It had been so wrong... so fucking cruel…

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said firmly. I didn’t blame him - I wouldn’t have wanted to hash out all the demons of my past either, especially not with a person who caused some of them. "Maybe... someday. If you actually want to hear about it. Just... not now." "Someday." I gave him a smile, a true, genuine smile.

I meant it: I wanted to see into him deeper, I wanted to hear him talk. I didn't know if it would make up for being an asshole to him, but maybe it was a start.

"You mean I'm not scaring you away?" "You are scaring me," I reached up on my toes, and my kiss was chaste this time, an assurance instead of a demand. "But I like being scared." He shook his head in disbelief, for a moment the shy boy I’d always known him as.

I realized I was shut in a room with three fucking clowns. I might have screamed. I wasn’t entirely sure what noise came out of me as I covered my eyes, shaking my head, determined to imagine that they weren’t really there. Those awful creepy faces, those wide grins, the dark-ringed, skeletal eyes. Manson pulled my hands down and gripped my wrists. “That’s not very nice, Jess,” he said sweetly. “I couldn’t let them miss out on the fun.”

“Do you want to leave?” Manson whispered tenderly in my ear. “Or do you want to face your fear and be a good girl for me?”

“You wanted a dance with the devil, Jess. Well, now you have four.”

He kissed my forehead and said, “If there’s a doubt in your mind, if it’s too much, they all know your safe word. I wouldn’t let a soul touch you that wouldn’t respect it if you want the game to stop. Got it?” I nodded. “Got it.”

“You’re ours now, Jess,” Jason said, circling me.

“Give three taps on their legs if your mouth is occupied,” he said. His gleaming teeth shone in the dark. “And they’ll stop immediately.”

I had been reduced to a helpless little doll, chained and obedient, scared but ready to be used.

“What did we used to tell you, Jess? You fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us.”

“And if you want to fuck one of us, you fuck all of us.”

The more I’d toyed with them, the more I’d toyed with Manson, the more time I’d stolen with them. It had been a sick, twisted cycle. There was only so long it could go on without consequences.

Jason unzipped the front of his black jumpsuit, baring his chest, all the way down to his thick, hard cock. Colorful, bold tattoos covered him like a canvas. His ringed fingers gripped his shaft and slowly stroked it, and my eyes were mesmerized by the sight. This was the boy I used to taunt for his skinny frame and timid manners. The boy with delicate hands who’d eventually covered them in metal so he could fight.

Lucas released my hair and went to stand beside him, unzipping his suit and pulling aside his black briefs. My eyes widened looking at him: his cock was pierced, a curved silver bar fitted through the underside of his head.

a chill went up my spine as his fingers caressed the side of neck. I wasn’t sure how I was certain the touch was Manson's - I just knew.