Release: Davlova: Book One (17 page)

I instinctively stepped backward. “
What?
No!”

“Please?”

“Tell me you don’t mean that.”

His shoulders fell. He slumped in defeat. “I can’t do it myself. The programming won’t let me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I stepped closer again and reached out to touch his arm. He didn’t respond to my touch, but he didn’t pull away either. “I don’t want to be like him.”

He laughed. There wasn’t much humor in the sound, but he attempted to smile at me. The fragile sincerity of it made me ache. “You’re
nothing
like him.”

“But—”

“The best thing either of us can do is obey. As long as he doesn’t get angry, I can bear it. And the same goes for you. Whatever he tells you to do, don’t hesitate. Just do it. Whatever it is, I guarantee I’ve been through worse.”

“But—”

“He’s coming!”

How he knew, I wasn’t sure, but I turned to stare nonchalantly out of the window as Donato came in. One look at him told me the butler had been right. There was no fondness in his eyes when he looked at me.

“Both of you take off your clothes. Now.”

The boy had only his drape, so it took him only a second to undress. Donato grabbed him, pulling him into his arms. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss him—to show him some bit of affection—but he immediately bent his head to the boy’s nipple and bit him. He had to bend awkwardly, to half lift the boy in his arms, and the slave cried out. It was a sound I knew. A sound that had haunted me since last time. A scream of pain morphing into a groan of pleasure. Donato used his fingers to pinch the boy’s flesh harder, twisting mercilessly. “Scream for me, little slave,” he said. “Let me feel that big cock of yours get hard.”

When he was satisfied there, he turned to me. He kissed me, nipping at my lip with enough savagery to draw blood. He clutched at my erection. I was glad I’d taken the il, because he would have been furious if I hadn’t been hard, and I wouldn’t have been able to rise for him on my own.

Finally, Donato pushed us both to our knees, side-by-side. He held each of us by a handful of hair. He guided us to his cock, first one of us, then the other. We took turns sucking him as he pulled our hair, jerking our heads back so we’d have to look up into his eyes. The il caused my cock to remain hard, but the boy’s—I refused to think of him as Slave—kept going flaccid between his legs, despite the pain of having his hair pulled.

Finally, as the boy took his turn, Donato grabbed my hair again, forcing me to look up at him. “I want him hard, too,” he said. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do, but he pulled my hair harder. “Use your fingers.”

I misunderstood. I started to reach for the boy’s cock, but a slap brought me up short. I put my hand against my stinging cheek. “Not like that. Do it the way I showed you. Fuck him if you have to.”

Shame burned through me. It was one thing to be used. It was another thing to use somebody else, to be forced to degrade the boy. But then a small, soft hand took mine. He hadn’t stopped what he was doing, but he’d reached behind him to take my hand. He guided it to his ass.

Whatever he tells you to do, don’t hesitate.

Like me, he’d come in prepared. My finger slid easily inside of him. He whimpered, whether from shame or pain or pleasure, I didn’t know.

“Not so gentle,” Donato said to me. He let go of my hair, putting both hands into the boys blond locks. “Make him writhe.”

At least with him not hanging onto me, I was able to move into a better position, behind the boy. I wrapped one arm around his waist to cup his groin in my hand, and with the other hand, I pushed into him, three fingers wide.

His response was immediate. I felt his cock begin to grow stiff. He pushed his ass toward me, and there was no mistaking the sound he made this time, the desperation, the wordless begging for more. He sucked Donato, and I began to fuck him with my hand. Part of me didn’t want to like it, but it was hard not to. His cock was hard and heavy in my palm. He whimpered and moaned. He bucked against me, and whenever Donato pulled away enough to let him breathe, he’d pant out, “More. More.”

His cheeks were soaked with tears.

Finally, Donato pushed us both away. He ordered me to lie on my back on the bed. He made the boy straddle me. I almost wished for the boy’s sake that I wasn’t hard, but the pills had done their work, and Donato guided him down onto my cock.

He felt amazing, hot and slick, and I couldn’t help but moan as he settled onto my length. He almost smiled at me.

Almost.

And then Donato was behind him, pushing him forward, angling himself in behind the boy. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I felt the boy go rigid. I saw the pain register on his face, to be replaced a second later by undeniable pleasure. A strange new sensation hit me, one side of my cock unmoving inside of the slave, but on the top side, I felt Donato’s cock sliding against mine.

We were both inside the slave. He closed his blue eyes, and shifted to accommodate us. It had to hurt, but that meant it had to feel good, too, whether he wanted it to or not. His thick, heavy cock rose again. I began to reach for it, but Donato slapped my hand away.

And then he began to thrust.

I couldn’t move. Pinned beneath them both, I could do nothing but hang on and watch. The mirrors on the ceiling reflected our strained, animalistic coupling, warping our bodies the way my ildenaaf and the boy’s programming warped pain. It felt good. I couldn’t deny it. But watching the blond boy, I found myself conflicted, one minute inspired to pleasure by the heat I saw in his eyes, the next minute moved to pity and shame by the tears that streamed down his face.

My body betrays me.

How must it feel to hate Donato, and to hate what was being done to him, and yet to find himself begging for more?

And beg he did. Ashamed or not, he asked for it. He cried as he did so, but he pleaded, over and over again.

“Good little slave,” Donato panted. “Pretty little whore.”

I closed my eyes, blocking out the image on the ceiling of Donato pounding ruthlessly into the boy. I couldn’t deny how good it felt. The slave’s hot body wrapped around my cock and the friction of Donato’s thrusts against my erection made me moan. I couldn’t quite thrust, but I found myself squirming, moving my hips, caressing the boy’s soft, smooth flesh, reveling in the sounds he made. I thought about my own words.
Would it be so bad to enjoy each other?

Donato fucked us harder, lost in his own pleasure. The beast controlled him, making him ugly, his face twisted with hatred and lust, his brow sweaty, his hair hanging in twisted tendrils around his face. When he looked at me, I saw none of the tenderness I’d witnessed on the yacht. His eyes betrayed no hint of apology or gentleness. Only lust and cruelty. He smacked the boy’s flank. He pounded into him, snarling his disdain for us, calling us filthy and nasty and pathetic. He abused us in every way he could, but in a way, we might not even have been there. We were the objects of his disdain and his lechery, the recipients of his sick, tormented desire, but we could have been any men at all. He had ceased to see us as even whore and slave. As he neared his own climax, he seemed almost to forget us.

If he could ignore us, I would do my best to ignore him, I reached up and hooked my hand around the boy’s neck. I pulled him to me. His gaze met mine as he let me pull him closer, eyes wet with tears and full of pain and unwanted desire and fear of what I would do.

“Don’t be afraid,” I whispered.

I kissed him. Even his mouth tasted like tears. That simple gesture seemed to break him. A sob broke against my lips, as if my kindness hurt him more than Donato’s cruelty.

I pulled his ear to my mouth. “Don’t hate yourself for something you can’t help,” I whispered.

His breath hitched. He dug his fingers into my chest. His body quaked. I held him, trying to absorb the violence of Donato’s thrusts. I kissed his cheekbone, and his temple, and finally, he turned toward me and let me kiss him again as Donato pumped away at us both.

I wished I knew the word that would release him, but I didn’t. I resigned myself to making it good for him without shaming him. I tried to give him something he could enjoy without embarrassment. I touched his cheeks and his lips. I caressed his sides. I ran my fingers down the string of tattoos on his chest. I kissed him as much as he allowed.

Finally, Donato finished, grunting like an animal. He didn’t even acknowledge us when he was done, still locked there together in the embrace he’d forced upon us. He pulled out of the boy and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

The boy collapsed on top of me, crying still. His entire body shook, and I wrapped my arms around him. I stroked his hair. I tried to soothe him. Yet even now, he couldn’t stop what the Dollhouse had done to him. I was still inside of him, and even as he cried in shame, he moved and squirmed, driven to find the spot that felt best.

“Tell me what to do,” I said.

He shook his head. His voice broke as he said, “I don’t know the word!”

“But there must be some way I can make it better.”

His breath caught. His crying eased. He pulled away in order to look down at me with his striking blue eyes.

“I want to help,” I said again.

Really?
he seemed to ask.

“Yes,” I answered out loud.

He smiled then. Such a sweet, innocent smile. It was hard to believe it blessed the face of a Dollhouse sex slave.

He leaned down and kissed me, testing me, a question looming in the tease of his tongue. He couldn’t come, but he could end things on his own terms, and I silently vowed I would let him. I would be there to catch him. I wrapped my arms around him again and gave him the answer he needed.
Yes, take what you need. I won’t ask you for anything.

He sighed with relief and deepened our kiss. His body went soft as his muscles relaxed, the tension noticeably leaving his limbs. He shifted on me, moving his hips bit by bit, altering his position in almost imperceptible increments. Between soft hiccups that were the last traces of his tears, he began to sigh, smiling against my lips at the way our bodies fit together.

I hugged him and caressed him as he allowed the overwhelming pain and pleasure of what Donato had done to him to fade. I encouraged him to embrace the soft, pleasant sensation of me holding him and filling him. His movements became slow and languid, his kisses sweet. I played my finger over the smooth flesh of his back, hushing him until he lay still on top of me, his cock heavy and soft between us. He shuddered one last time and went still.

His face was buried in my hair, his lips brushing my ear. His soft breath warmed my neck. I kissed the side of his head. I stroked his curls. I wanted to say something, but what?
I’m sorry? Please don’t hate me, too?
Yet how could he not? How could I not hate myself?

And then, so quietly I barely heard him at all, he spoke.

One hushed sentence.

Four whispered words.

“My name is Ayo.”

***

For a while, we stayed there, locked together in silence, but eventually he wiggled away from me. The il had finally worn off, and we took turns in the bathroom. Usually the butler came to tell me that the carriage was waiting, but not this time. The soft, clean bed called to me. I figured it couldn’t hurt to get some sleep, so I slid under the covers. The boy—Ayo, I reminded myself—sat stiffly on the side of the bed.

“I don’t know if I should go back to my room or stay here,” he whispered. “He won’t want us to be friends, but if I go back without him ordering me...”

“I’d like you to stay.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me, but after several seconds, he crawled under the covers with me. We lay there, not touching, both of us silent and unmoving. Outside, the sun was falling. Inside, the light faltered, casting long dusty shadows, coating everything in the orange of the sunset, making the world surreal.

“How long have you been here?” I whispered. I wasn’t completely sure it was necessary to remain quiet, but caution was rarely a mistake.

“Three years,” he whispered back. “I think. Maybe only two. I lose track of time a lot.”

I closed my eyes. A slow, terrible rage brewed inside of me. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? It’s better now that he has you. He uses me a lot less. I think you bring out the best in him.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. I thought of how Donato had looked earlier that night. The disdain on his face as he fucked us. Was that the best of him? I knew it wasn’t, and yet, it was hard to remind myself otherwise. “Is he ever kind to you?”

“Sometimes he buys me things. Mostly little trinkets, but my favorite is when he brings me pears from Deliphine. They’re the best gift. Or sometimes he has the butler bring me hot chocolate, because he knows I like it. But he doesn’t really talk to me. It’s like he can be cruel, or he can feel guilty, but nothing else. He can’t be normal with me.”

I thought of my time with Donato on the boat and the tenderness he’d shown me. The gift he’d given me. Floating in the sea.

Ayo didn’t even have that.