I don’t have time to brace myself, mentally or otherwise when he thrusts inside me fully. OH MY FUCKING GOD it hurts. But I don’t tell him to stop. I’d rather feel pain with Grim than pleasure with anyone else. He looks at me, asking a silent question.
“Whatever you do,” I bite out. “Don’t fucking stop.”
He groans and again thrusts his hips forward. The pain is still there, as sharp as ever, but there’s also a wild need for him. A lust so thick I’m blind to anything else. I don’t care that it hurts. I just care that it's Grim who’s inside me right now. The need builds and builds. He thrusts harder and harder with one hand digging into my ass cheek, the other holding me back of my neck, his hand tangled in my hair. My head bangs roughly against the concrete wall behind me. Our lips blindly reach for the other, meeting with a clank of teeth and bites of skin. We are crazed and lust-fueled.
I’ve never experienced anything so fucking amazing.
My lower stomach tightens and clenches and does a thousand things it’s never done before. I think I’m breaking until the sensation unfurls. Grim continues his furious pace faster, harder until I am sent off into an oblivion. A tangle of stars behind my eyes. Pleasure crashes into me like the waters of the bay just formed a tidal wave and washed over me. It continues like that for so long it becomes more painful than it first started, but I never want it to end.
I never want us to end.
Grim growls my name and looks into my eyes. I feel him harden inside of my body before he releases himself on a strangled cry, my name on his lips. He’s still inside me when he holds my face in his hands and repeats his earlier words.
“My Life. My Death. My Loyalty. My Honor. For you. For us.” His forehead falls to mine. “For Always.”
Grim leaves first, allowing me enough time to fix myself up before rejoining the funeral. I’m feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. The moonlight is still bright. The sounds of the funeral party, a mixture of laughter and music, floats in the air all around me.
When I get to the end of the path, there’s someone waiting for me. I smile, thinking it’s Grim, until he steps from the shadows, and I come to a screeching halt.
“This was a test, princessa,” Marco grinds out. He grabs my arm and squeezes tight. He presses his lips against my ear. “And you fucking failed.”
Twenty-Eight
The entire way back to the compound, Marco is silent. He doesn’t even whistle or sing along to the radio. I’d prefer anger or yelling to this eerie sort of calm he so rarely exhibits.
He pushes me up the steps to his office, and when we’re finally there, he slams the door and pushes me hard against the table. He pulls up my dress. “This is on you, EJ. I warned you. Now, you’re gonna get everything I told you that you would.”
“Don’t do this. You said I was family once. Like a sister to you!” Marco doesn’t stop. I hate the desperation in my cries, but I have no other choice. Marco’s threats are about to become reality.
MY reality.
Marco laughs, long and loud, like a hyena in the desert.
My skin feels like a thousand ants are crawling all over it. My insides are on revolt, and I’m sure I’m about to empty the contents of my stomach along with some other vital organs all over Marco’s desk.
“You’re right. You’re my sister. My family. I’m the head of this family, and you broke the fucking rules. Now, you’re going to have to pay the price. Besides, if you think reminding me that we’re family is going to stop me, then you’d be wrong. If you wanna know how wrong—” He leans down so close his lips brush mine. I can smell the tequila on his breath, and my stomach rolls. “Then, you should ask Gabby.”
No. No!
He didn’t.
I look up into Marco’s eyes.
He did.
It clicks. The reason Gabby’s been acting so distant. The reason she’s flinched every time I’ve tried to offer her comfort. The reason why she fake smiles at him all the time, trying to appease him in every way. I should have known from the way she shivers when he enters a room. The deep sadness written all over her face. I’ve chalked it up to her being unhappy here. I just didn’t know HOW unhappy. I’ve spent so long hiding my feelings that I didn’t stop to think that Gabby was hiding a secret of her own.
A horrible, horrible secret.
Marco had raped her. His own sister.
“I’ll kill you myself,” I scream, as he rips off my dress and tosses it against the wall. The fabric hitting the floor isn’t loud, but it might as well be a cymbal the way the sound shakes in my ears.
Marco unbuckles his belt. He wraps it around my neck, pulling it tight. I’m choking, fighting to take in air. I feel the pressure building in my face as he cuts off my circulation. He pushes down his jeans, then spreads my legs as wide as they can go. “Slut, couldn’t even bother putting your fucking panties back on. I’ll show you who’s slut you are, and it’s not his.”
“You’ll die for this,” I rasp.
He snarls. “You want me to die?” He chuckles, then bites down hard on my ear. “You first, bitch.”
I’m not always present in my everyday life. My mind is always elsewhere, adrift in one daydream or another to escape reality. But never have I closed my eyes and prayed to a God I wasn’t sure existed for my mind to be anywhere other than in my own body.
Until now.
Marco forces himself inside of me.
I scream as the world crumbles and collapses all around me.
His hand covers my mouth. I can’t fucking breathe.
He pulls tighter on the belt.
I see stars.
“And to think,” he spits. “You don’t even know the real fucking reason I brought you here. But don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough.”
He pulls even tighter.
Fighting him off is as useless as trying not to feel my body and soul as they're invaded. I heave like I’m going to vomit as his sweat-soaked skin rubs against mine, his hardness thrusting again and again inside me. His grunts of angry pleasure sound like the very worst out of tune song that I'm being forced to listen to over and over again.
Finally, I stop resisting. My legs go limp as all the fight leaves me. After all, it’s a pointless use of my strength. If I keep fighting, I’ll die.
It’s as simple as that.
Instead, I will myself to be somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
While Marco hammers away at my insides, at what’s left of my innocence, I start to drift. I don’t float above my own body like a ghost. Fuck that. I don’t need to look down and see the horribleness I’m escaping. I don’t want to understand what’s going on, because there is no understanding.
There is only pain. Hurt. Anger.
Suddenly, I can feel the warmth of the sun as it beats down on my face.
I open my eyes. I’m at my favorite spot in the park, sitting under the big oak right in the middle. I’ve got a great view of the pond, and my favorite pen is pressed up against the corner of my lip. I stare down at where I left off on my story. Only a few seconds pass before the pen is moving across the page as if it’s possessed and my hand is just along for the ride.
I place myself inside my words, escaping into one of my fairytales like I never have before.
Two lovers, cursed by an evil sorcerer to forever to live on opposite sides of a vast lake, longed to be together. If they so much as stepped one toe inside the water, they’d be sucked to the bottom where they would surely drown.
But they grew tired, weary, and weak, living without the other. One day, they both jumped into the water. Desperate to be together, both were willing to risk drowning for the small possibility that they could reach one another before the curse took hold. Just as expected, the dark promise became a reality. The waters of the lake sucked them under and swirled them around and around until they were dizzy.
Though they knew it was their end, they both kept one hand stretched out toward the other as they
were pulled deeper and deeper to the bottom of the lake. Because to them, death didn’t mean that all hope was lost.
At that exact moment, just as they were sure they’d drawn their very last breaths, their hands touched. They held on with all they had, wrapping their arms around each other.
Finally reunited after an eternity apart.
The dark waters cleared and calmed. Together, the lovers floated to the surface. But they didn’t stop there. They floated higher and higher above the water, hand in hand over the trees and through the clouds.
Life wasn’t worth living without the other.
They took the risk. They lost.
Or maybe, they won, depending on how you look at it.
And they died…happily ever after.
Twenty-Nine
Death is too easy a solution for Marco. Figures. The fucker is always doing shit the hard way.
I wake up groggy. Not sure if I’d slept, passed out, or died.
The searing pain from both inside and outside of my body lets me know that I am very much alive.
There is no floating for me. No hand bound in Grim’s.
No Grim anywhere.
There is only pain.
In my body.
In my heart.
When my vision clears, I find myself alone. I feel a rush of relief, but it’s short-lived when I find that I’m bound by both my hands and feet. Tied to the bed, my limbs spread like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. My inner thighs hurt. Everything is sore. I feel as if I’d been scraped from the inside out with a coat hanger. Something smells like death. It’s me. There’s dried vomit on my chin and all over my naked skin. My legs are stained with streaks of my own urine, blood, and Marco’s cum.
I pull at my restraints to no avail, but I keep trying anyway. I have to get free. I must get to Grim. I stop my movements all together when I hear voices coming from the other side of the door.
I close my eyes and pretend to be passed out in case whoever is out there decides to enter the room. The voices grow closer. Louder. It’s a man and a woman talking, and I’m sure as the shiver that runs down my spine that the man is Marco.
“She was passed the fuck out last time I checked. Won’t be up for a while. Taught that bitch a lesson.”
The door opens, and I can see light behind my closed eyelids.
“She’s not dead,” the woman says with an annoyed bite in her voice, offended I’m still breathing.
“Calm your shit. The bitch is no use to us dead. She needs to be alive, so we have leverage.”
The woman groans in frustration. She raises her voice. “What we want is power, Marco. And this stupid bitch holds so much power over Grim that her death would crush him. Don’t you see? If he's down, his organization is down. While he's crushed, we crush Bedlam. All of them. Then, the town is ours. TRULY ours.”
Holy shit. I recognize the woman's voice. I steady my breathing and fight every instinct to open my eyes. My insides turn cold. The pain in my body turns into a pain in my chest. My soul. My heart, which skips several beats. The need to cough is strong, but I manage to swallow it down.
“She’s no use to us dead. Bedlam will seek revenge. With her alive, we can negotiate and take it all. New territories. Grim will give everything up for his gringa pussy,” Marco argues. “Then, when we have everything…” Marco’s voice turns sickeningly sweet. “We’ll kill them all.”
The woman sighs heavily. “I hope you’re right. Because, if you’re not, you just bought a fucking death sentence.”
Marco scoffs and sucks on his teeth. “The bitch is practically dead already.”
The door creaks open, and I risk opening my eyes just enough to where I’m looking through tiny slits.
Long thick dark hair trails behind the woman who follows Marco out. She tugs on his arm, and he turns around. I close my eyes just in time.
“I wasn’t talking about her. If this all goes to shit, it will be YOU in the ground," she threatens. "If not at the hands of Grim or his boys, then by MINE.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I got this.”
The door slams shut. The voices become distant murmurs. I exhale, and suddenly, I can’t breathe. My chest is tight, and my lungs are on fire. I cough and suck in a strangled breath. I begin to ask myself a series of panicked questions.
Why? What did I do? What could I have said?
A tear rolls down my cheek, stinging my skin.
What could I have possibly done to make Gabby hate me so much?
Not The End!
Emma Jean and Grim’s story continues in Possession,
available for preorder now. Continue reading for a preview!
Possession
Book Two
Lacking, Florida
UPDATED STATISTICS
14,890: Number of residents
26.2: Median age of residents
$13,212: Average household income
75.8%: Poverty ratio
2: Score on the safe cities scale (100 being the safest)
possession | pəˈzeSHən |
noun
1 the state of having, owning, or controlling something.
“Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
One
The night air is humid and stagnant. Even with no breeze to carry it, my nostrils burn as I breathe in the putrid sulfur scent wafting off of the mangroves just beyond the trees.
Cloaked in the shadows of the deepest corner of the backyard, I’m waiting and watching for Tricks. She’ll be walking up the path back from the marine stadium any second now. The plan was to leave separately so we aren’t spotted together, but I’m rethinking that plan more and more and the seconds continue to tick.
I light a cigarette.
I’ve never been a patient man. My past experiences with waiting have ended in disappointment or tragedy. Waiting too long to pull a trigger resulted in the first time I was shot. I’ve never made that mistake again. Waiting for a delivery only to find out it’d been hijacked. Waiting for Digger at BB’s Bar resulted in attending his funeral a few days later. Being the only kid waiting on the front curb after school resulted in me walking home and later stumbling upon my mother’s still running car, her body slumped over the wheel.
There is an exception in all this, and I waited five and a half years to find her. Now, she’s mine.
Tricks. A piece of heaven surrounded by hell. A glowing light in all of the dark.
Something amongst all of the nothing.
Taking her for the first time…my cock swells at the thought. I went at her like a wild fucking boar, rutting into her, forcing her back against the cold hard wall of the marine stadium. It was fucking perfect.
She was fucking perfect.
It was like we were fucking with more than just our bodies. Minds. Fucking souls if I believed in that kind of shit. That’s the thing with Tricks. She makes me want to believe in things. In life. In humanity.
In us.
What we just experienced together was next level shit. It has never, ever felt as fucking good to be inside a woman the way it did to be inside Tricks. Then again, none of the other women I’ve fucked were MY woman.
Belly’s funeral is still chugging along full-steam ahead inside the house. “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns-N-Roses is blaring through the speakers along with the sound of boisterous laughter. I look through the big glass window where a sea of heads bob and sway along to the music. Cigarettes poised to lips. Drinks flowing. Smiles. Joy.
Belly would have loved this. I bet if there is an afterlife, he’s up there all pissed-off that he’s missing out on his party.
I tilt my head toward the cloudless night sky and take a drag of my cigarette. “Hope you can hear them all in there, Pops. They’re all here for you.”
I stub out my cigarette. There’s still no Tricks in sight. The path is dark and rutted with holes and rocks. Maybe she’s lost her way or twiste
d her ankle. Fuck it, I’m going to look for her.
I haven’t even made it to the edge of the yard when a silhouette appears in the trees. Tricks. Finally. The figure jogs into the moonlight. Glossy brown hair, big dark eyes.
Not Tricks.
The girl is out of breath. She pushes her hair from her face revealing a beauty mark beneath her right eye. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.
She spots me. “Grim?”
“Do I know you?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I know you. I mean I know about you. From EJ. I’m Gabby.”
Gabby. That’s why she looks familiar. Between the parts of her I’d seen on the casino security footage and Trick’s description of her, I feel like I’ve seen her before.
“Marco’s sister,” I say, without holding back the distain in my voice.
She nods. “But more importantly, EJ’s best friend.”
“Why are you here?” I glance over her shoulder. “Where’s Tricks?”
“Marco sent me. He called the men who brought EJ here away on other business. He sent me to get her and bring her back.”
“Where is she?” I repeat.
She hooks her thumb in the direction of the path. “She’s waiting for me on the other side of the amphitheater.”
Unease rattles through my body. I make a decision. Right here. Right now. One I should have made the first time around.
Tricks is staying with me.
“I’m going to get her,” I growl, stepping around Gabby.
She tugs on the back of my shirt. I swing around and shoot her a warning look, but she appears unfazed. Either, I’m losing my touch or this girl’s been through a lot worse, a threatening look being the least of her problems.
“You can’t!” she whisper-shouts. “She’s waiting for me with Raydo, Marco insisted on sending one of his men with me.”
The Perversion Trilogy: Perversion, Possession & Permission Page 17
