Dead of Summer

The feeling bubbles to life under my ribs, sparking to life in long-forgotten spaces buried under muscle and scars.

You did this to yourself, Summer.

Stop avoiding it, Summer.

The more you run from me, the worse it’ll be.

My father had been tall and imposing. His eyes were the same blue-gray as mine, though so much colder than I could ever manage. He always told me the punishments would be worse the longer I avoided him, or the longer I stayed out of his grasp in some way or another.

The time I’d told my teachers had been the worst. I can’t help but reach up to finger the only visible scar he’d left me, the one reaching from my brow up towards my bangs.

“…Summer?” If I didn’t know better, I’d say Kayde is concerned when he gets to his feet, his slow stride bringing him closer to me. He seems confused, like I’ve grown a second head, and even his touch is hesitant when he brings my hand away from my face, uncovering my left eye and the scar above it. Somehow, something seems to click into place, an understanding he has no right to and certainly no knowledge of.

Even Kinsley doesn’t know the extent of what my dad did to me before my mother managed to get him out of our house.

“Don’t say that to me,” I whisper finally, my eyes flitting upward to find his. I refuse to show him how afraid I am. I refuse to let him know that every part of me seeks any escape possible, no matter how unlikely.

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t say…” I swallow hard, the words curdling in my throat. “Don’t say you did this to yourself. I can’t—I don’t?—”

“Fine.” Kayde cuts me off decisively, drawing me with him across the room. “I will never say those words in any order ever again, sweetheart. So long as you stand here and be a good girl for me, instead of trying to claw my eyes out. You think you can do that?”

Not really.

But before I can shake my head, he makes it obvious he isn’t really looking for an answer. Kayde’s fingers run up my sides, dragging up my tee with them until he can pull it and my bra over my head. But he doesn’t seem to be in a rush. He kisses me then, his tongue insistent and begging as I finally open my mouth to him.

My reward is a soft, sweet purr from his lips. The kind that would make me melt if I wasn’t considering strangling him with his shirt.

But then his fingers tug at the waistband of my running shorts that I’d changed into, and I can’t help the whimper of protest as he slowly drags them and my panties over my hips, pushing them down my thighs until they’re pooled on the floor below me.

“Good girl,” Kayde murmurs, sounding like he actually means it. “Don’t fight me, baby.” He reaches for my left arm and tugs it away from where I’m covering myself, pulling it up near my face before looping the rope around my wrist and tightening.

I try.

I try not to fight him, because I know all he has to do is make the threat he holds over me and I’ll have to suck it up, anyway. But I can’t help the soft sounds that pour from me; the ones I won’t admit are please or don’t. I don’t trust him to tie me up. Especially here, where no one really could hear me if things went poorly.

“You should be coming up with a safe word,” is his only response as he secures my other arm to his makeshift rope restraints. Before I can dignify that with a response, Kayde drops to his knees, pressing his mouth to my hip as he urges me to step out of my shorts so he can throw them to the wall with his backpack. I hate how afraid I am of him; how my arms tug in the restraints and even now I can’t help but watch him with wide, terrified eyes.

“I don’t know,” I mutter, shrugging jerkily. “Fuck, I don’t know what a safe word should even be.”

“Something you wouldn’t normally say during sex,” Kayde advises, pushing my ankles wider until he can tie them to the poles on either side of me. When he’s done I shudder, the feeling of being exposed and vulnerable setting hard into my bones.

“And stop doesn’t qualify?”

“Not when we’re playing.” He runs his hands up my sides, making me squirm, though it really just proves how little I can move at all.

He has me trapped, and I can’t do anything to get away from him. The thought brings another whine bubbling past my lips, one that Kayde chases with his lips eagerly. “Safe word,” he urges, hands on my hips. “Now, Summer?—”

“Darcy,” I say without thinking, causing him to pull back. He stares at me, bemusement etched into his features, before his lips pull into a genuinely amused grin.

“Darcy,” he repeats, the edge of a chuckle in the words. “Yeah, okay. That’s appropriate. Never met anyone who’s as much of a turnoff or a boner killer. I’ll take it. Now…” He runs his hands up my sides, not stopping, until one grips the base of my throat and again I pull at my arms, wishing I could will them free.

The other keeps going, moving until he’s cupping my cheek and still going higher.

But when his fingers touch the scar on my brow, I jerk away as hard as the ropes will let me, eyes wide at the searing feel of his touch where I want it the least. “What happened to you, sweetheart?” he murmurs, stepping just a little closer so I really have no escape from him. “Who did this to you? Who said those words to you first and ruined them for you, hmm?”

“I…” This is an angle of attack I hadn’t been expecting in the least. “Kayde, I’m not going to tell you?—”