by K. V. Rose
He controls things.
He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no”.
In his world, he’s made sure it doesn’t exist.
But instead of forcing me, he jerks his head toward my door. “Can I come in?” He phrases it as a question, but I know there’s only one answer.
I don’t want to fight again. I don’t want to hurt again.
So, I just nod, then I shrug out of his grasp and walk into my room, momentarily thinking of that chocolate wrapper sitting next to him on the floor. I push it from my mind, the way it makes Max seem almost human.
He closes the door behind us, uses a key to lock the door from the inside.
Convenient.
I head to the bed, too tired to contemplate sleeping on the floor to prove a point. Instead, I hide under the covers, pulling them over my head as I face the wall. I hear him moving around in the darkness, the floor shifting beneath his feet. I hear the sound of steel against wood, the flick of lamp turning off, and then I feel the bed dip as he climbs into it.
It’s not the first time he’s done this.
“All you need comes from me, baby girl.” I can still taste his saliva in my mouth. Feel his hand around my throat.
I can still feel how he was so much gentler than Ben was.
How the haze of the drugs helped me believe he wasn’t the real monster.
That was four weeks ago, and yet I feel a lifetime has passed since then.
I feel his arm come beneath me, one around me, and he pulls me to his warm body.
I want to fight him. I want to not want his hands on me. I want to hate him.
I do nothing.
He holds me tight, his chin resting on my head. And as I close my eyes, trying to ignore how good he feels against me, trying to remember that just a week ago, he left me, and just a week before that, he killed Dante, he whispers, “Addison?” like a question.
I say nothing.
He takes my silence as a sign he should keep talking, because this is Max Bennett.
“Tell me what happened.”
I keep my eyes closed, my arms tucked underneath my pillow. “I don’t want to talk about that right now, Max.”
He holds me tighter, and I feel something hard against my back.
I force myself not to react to his erection. Not to think about the fact that my virginity is long fucking gone—years gone—and as he’s proven twice before, he has no issue taking advantage of that fact, even if he believes the first time was with his dead guard.
He shifts behind me, then his lips are against my ear, and I shiver, my nipples tightening into points beneath my shirt.
I squeeze my thighs together, but otherwise, I try not to move.
“I need to know, love,” he whispers against my skin.
I fight back against the flood of warmth I feel when he touches me like this. “Why?”
He reaches a hand up, tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and presses a kiss higher up, above my eye. “Tell me, baby girl,” he says softly, his hand skimming my arm, then lower, coming to rest on my hip, his fingers slipping beneath my shorts.
I tense in his arms, my jaw tight.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Addison. But I don’t want to ask you again.”
There’s Max. Even when he’s two seconds away from dying from exhaustion, even when the circles under his eyes make him look like a deranged addict, even though someone obviously hurt him, he’s still demanding. Still threatening. And still manipulative.
Well fuck him. If he wants to know, I’ll tell him. Maybe he’ll learn he’s not the only one with demons.
“My uncle used to make me and my brother touch each other,” I tell him, the words coming out in an angry rush as I keep my eyes closed. “For hours, every day, one summer. Then sometimes after that, when he got us alone. He’d watch us do it, instruct us, while he got off on it.”
I feel Max tense, his fingers biting into the flesh on my hip, the arm tucked under me, wrapped around my chest, tightening.
I keep talking, realizing I’ve never said this aloud, ever, to anyone before. “Afterward, he’d bathe us.”
Max’s grip is painful, and I grit my teeth, but I don’t tell him to let go of me. I need the pressure. The anchoring down to this life, where my uncle is nothing but a haunting nightmare. But not here. He’s not here. Shortly after he had his way with us, he moved far, far away, and I haven’t heard a thing from him since.
I only had to suffer my father then, but that’s a shame I’ll take to my grave.
I take a deep breath. Manage to finish my sentence. “He’d bathe us with pine-scented floor cleaner.” Saying the words makes me feel sick. My stomach flips, but I keep talking as Max holds me so tight, I can barely breathe. “He’d use a washcloth and he’d…”
I can’t.
I can’t.
But I can remember how it burned.
How we cried.
His hand over our mouths while we stood shaking in the tub together, our skin bright red, our eyes and nose and everything else burning.
I can remember how Danik wouldn’t talk to me after that. Not for weeks on end. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, and I felt so dirty.
Alone.
Afraid.
I swallow down a sob, closing my eyes tighter.
Max holds me closer, and I shift in his arms, turning to face him on instinct, my eyes still closed. For a second, he stiffens as I wrap my arms around his neck, lay my head against his chest. Breathe in his heady scent.
Nothing like pine.
But then he relaxes, his arms coming around my body as he pulls me to him.
“Look at me,” he tells me, his voice full of barely contained rage.
I don’t. Not right away. Max is controlled, until he just…isn’t. And I’m worried right now, he won’t be. It doesn’t matter that he’s not mad at me.
When Max loses his control, he’ll destroy anything in his path.
Including me.
Slowly, though, as the silence stretches on between us, I do as he asks, knowing that for now, if I listen to him, he won’t hurt me.
I lift my head up, and I can just make out the gleam of his eyes in the dark. I try not to focus on the stitches.
“Don’t run from me,” he says softly, and I don’t know what he means. My pulse quickens as I wonder if he’s going to try what he did before again. Fear makes me want to do exactly what he just said not to do, and I wonder why I let him in here.
I wonder why I think I had a choice.
His eyes seem to search mine for a long moment, until he slides one hand up my body, tangling his fingers in my hair. He pulls me to him, and his swollen lips come crashing down onto mine. He isn’t gentle, even as I taste blood from where someone hurt him. He doesn’t hold back, and his fingers in my hair burn my scalp. His tongue clashes with mine, his teeth too.
Then he pushes me flat on my back, and he’s over me, his fingers going to my shorts, but he doesn’t break our kiss as he shoves them down.
I try to pull back, to turn my head, but as soon as my shorts are down to my knees, he grabs my chin, not letting me move.
“Max, no. What are you—”
He grips my chin tighter, his other hand coming between us, grabbing my inner thigh, his knees on either side of my hips as he leans over me. “Do you want to forget?”
I hold his gaze while I hold my breath. Do I want to forget?
“I can do that for you.”
You can’t.
“Answer me, Addison.”
I suck in a breath. “I want to remember.”
His fingers dig into the flesh on my thigh.
“Remind me that I’m still here.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Still in this hell.”
He stares at me in the dark a long, long moment, his fingers digging into my jaw. My thigh. “Is this hell?” he finally asks me, his voice hoarse. “Being here with me?” There’s something vulnerable in that question, but even still.
>
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
He doesn’t wait after that. Without asking, without warning, he pushes his finger roughly into me.
I tense, gasping against his mouth, my fingers digging into his biceps beneath the sleeve of his shirt.
It doesn’t hurt as he pulls out and pushes back in, but it’s…shocking. And it is hell, because just as it has so many times before, my body betrays me.
I start to like it.
I start to like him.
I whimper against him, unable to spread my legs further because of my shorts caught around my knees.
He pushes another finger into me.
At first, it’s almost painful when I’m not quite ready, but as he twists his fingers slowly, and I’m coating him in my own wetness, it starts to feel…good.
“Max,” I whisper, my lips brushing his.
“No,” he says roughly, picking up the pace as he fingers me, his other hand still gripping my chin. “Not right now.”
I frown in the dark, his brow pressed to mine as he pushes in and out of me so hard, I can hear the slick sounds of me against him. “W-what?”
“Right now, I’m something you never had, baby girl.” He pulls my bottom lip between his teeth and I arch my back, feeling his knuckles pressing against me as he pushes into me so fucking deep. “You want this to be hell? I’ll make it fucking worse.”
My mind is spinning with his words. There are a lot of things I never had, and the only word Ben ever taught me to use was “sir”.
Max kisses me again, but then he pulls his fingers out, and I whimper, bucking my hips. Wanting him back.
He grabs my inner thigh, and I feel how wet I am.
“If you don’t know who I am, baby girl, I can’t finish this hell for you.” He turns my head, runs his nose along my jaw, then down to my neck, biting and sucking me as I arch into him. “Who am I, Addison?” I feel the words vibrate against my skin.
My eyes are closed, my frustration mounting, and I hate that I want him back where he was. And just as he starts to pull away, his hand sliding off of my thigh, his mouth breaking away from my throat, it hits me, what he wants me to call him.
I’ve never said the word, probably not even when I was a child. My father and I didn’t have a good relationship at any point in my life. I’m not sure I ever even called him “Dad”. It was always “Father”, or, if I wanted to take my best chance of not getting in his way, not getting in his bed, it was nothing at all.
Max’s hand slides to my throat. “Who am I? If this is your hell, who am I?”
“Daddy,” I whisper the word with my eyes closed, my cheeks heating.
There’s a beat of silence, then his hand inches up my thigh, his finger brushing against my clit.
I shiver, biting my lip.
“Say it louder.” His voice is rough, almost animalistic. I can hear the lust in his words.
I swallow down my nerves, keep my eyes closed. “Daddy,” I say again, a little louder.
His finger trails down my slit, and I moan as he pushes two back into me, filling me up again.
He leans down close to me, hand still around my throat. “Look at me when you say it.”
I turn my head, meet his eyes in the dark. “W-why?” I ask him, running my hands up his shoulders, to his neck.
He doesn’t tell me to stop, and I don’t.
As he fucks me with his fingers, I dig my own into his smooth skin, marveling in the feel of him.
“Don’t ask me questions. Do as I say.” There’s a frustration in his voice. A wanting.
I push my luck, bucking my hips to meet his thrusts. “What if I don’t?”
He breathes out a laugh and I smell the sweet scent of chocolate on his breath, with his face inches from mine. “I’ll hurt you.”
And maybe I shouldn’t want it, considering I know that he’s true to his word. Considering I still have lingering bruises on my throat, and those I definitely didn’t want. But if this is hell, if I have to have something I hate, he might as well make it hurt.
It’ll feel like I deserve it that way.
“Say it, Addison,” he warns me between kissing the side of my face, over my lips. He fucks me harder, and I whimper, but I still don’t say it. “Say it, or I’m going to hit you.”
I tense, clenching around him.
He must feel it, because he laughs over my mouth. “Oh, don’t be scared, love.” He yanks my head to the side again, so he can speak over my ear. “It’ll only hurt a little.”
I flinch as he moves his hand from my jaw, my eyes closed tight.
“You want me to hit you so you can let yourself want it?”
I don’t speak as he runs his thumb over my clit, fingers still inside of me.
“You think you deserve all of this pain?”
I bite my lip, feel tears well up behind my eyes.
“You think you’re fucked up and this is the best you’ll get?”
My throat feels tight, but I still don’t open my eyes, and I don’t say a word, my face turned away from him.
He trails angry, violent kisses along the side of my neck, using his teeth to hurt me, then his tongue to soothe me. “If that’s what you think, who am I to change your fucking mind?” His mouth leaves my throat and he grabs my face, turns me toward him and slaps me, not hard as he carefully avoids any part of my face that he’s already hurt. But it’s still enough to sting.
I moan, calling him what he wants to hear as I arch my back.
He laughs. “That’s right, moan for me, baby girl.”
Shame and pleasure wash over me in one brutal wave as he keeps circling my clit with the pad of his thumb.
Gently, he rubs his hand over where he hit me, presses his mouth to my cheek. “You’re such a good little girl. You’re perfect.” Then he pulls his fingers from me and I turn my head to stare at him, dumbfounded.
Instead of saying anything, he shoves his pants and his boxers down, kicking them off when they get to his ankles. I do the same with my shorts, seizing the opportunity while I can.
He still has his shirt on as he settles down on top of me, his thick, hard cock pressed against my bare pussy. My knees fall to the side, and he positions himself against me.
“Tell me you want it this time, Addison.”
This time.
“I-I want it,” I whisper as he runs the thick head of his cock against my entrance.
He grabs my face with one hand, his eyes locked on mine.
“What was that?” he scolds me, still teasing me, not pushing into me.
“I want it, Daddy,” I tell him, my fingers fisting in the sheets as I lift my hips to meet him.
“Good girl,” he whispers against my mouth before he kisses me again, punishing and rough, like always.
It feels better that way.
Like I can pretend I don’t like it.
Like this is okay.
Finally, he pushes into me and I gasp as he stretches me, hitting deep. His fingers find my clit as he fucks me, his arm between us.
“You’re so fucking tight.” He nearly groans those words as he fucks me, slowly, pulling almost all the way out each time before he pushes back in, the pads of his fingers never leaving my swollen clit.
I hear my slickness against him each time he pushes into me and my face warms at the sound, but he smiles down at me, as if he knows my embarrassment.
“Stop thinking, Addison,” he commands me. “Everything about this is perfect.”
I bite my lip, but with the domination in those words, I let go. Relaxing, letting him fill me, giving in to the throbbing of my clit beneath his skilled fingers. His mouth finds mine, his tongue colliding against my own as he groans into my mouth.
“Are you going to come for me?” he asks breathlessly, pulling away from our kiss.
I meet his gaze, my own heavy with lust as he keeps fucking me slowly, every muscle in my own body coiled and tight again. I nod, the only answer I can give him.
“I
want to see your face when you do. Don’t turn away from me. Don’t run from me.”
I nod again, keeping my eyes open, fingers still wrapped up in the sheets.
He stills, deep inside of me, but keeps rubbing my clit. I feel my core tightening, pleasure spooling down lower.
My knees fall to the side and just as I’m about to come, my eyes flutter closed. Immediately, his hand is on my throat, his thumb pressing against my windpipe.
“Look at me.”
I force my eyes open as I come, moaning his name as he lets his own saliva drip into my mouth, the taste of chocolate mixed with iron running down my tongue.
I clench around him and he groans, as if this feels as good for him as it does for me.
My hands go to his back and I pull him closer, tasting him as the waves of pleasure start to dissipate, leaving me feeling shaky.
He kisses me, his hand still around my throat.
Then he pulls out of me, abruptly stands to his feet.
Stunned, I turn to stare at him, cold air rushing in where his warm body was. I feel empty.
“Come here,” he says, pointing to the floor.
I see his cock, hard and nearly menacing, ready for my mouth. I lick my lips, slowly sit up and stand to my feet, only to sink down onto my knees in front of him.
“Open your mouth.”
I do, and he threads his fingers through my hair with one hand.
I catch a glimpse of the scars along his inner thighs but then his cock—so big I’m momentarily stunned when I think of the fact it was inside of me—is in my face and he’s angling himself into my mouth.
He pushes all the way back, as far as he can, and I can’t breathe as I taste myself on him.
I reach up one hand to press against his hip, but he slaps it away. “I know you can take it, love,” he says softly, fingers cradling the back of my head as he pushes deeper.
I try to breathe through my nose, and just when I start to feel panicky, he pulls out, letting me catch my breath.
“Look at you taste yourself on me, baby girl,” he says with admiration as he stares down at me. “Who do you belong to?”
I open my mouth to tell him what he wants to hear, but he pushes his cock back into my mouth before I can say anything. Not as far as before, but still deep.
