by Lana Sky
“Tell me what you want from me,” he demands.
My answer comes without thinking. “My money. My shares.”
My life.
He laughs again as if all of those things are already burned and broken, but there’s no real joy in it. Just the hollow echoes of a pain I know I’ll never explore in full.
Suddenly, he flips me over again, forcing me to face him. His mouth captures mine before I can even think to resist. He’s ruthless, prying my lips apart with his tongue, grunting at my taste. At the same time, I hear his zipper come undone, and he maneuvers me with one hand, positioning my thighs to rest against his hips, with my back arched and my spine curved at his discretion. His teeth capture my bottom lip and bite down hard before he pulls away and slides both hands beneath my hips.
I shiver in anticipation as the swollen head of him seeks my entrance. Flexing his hips, he guides himself into me through force and feel, squeezing past tensing muscle to take me deep on the first thrust.
My head falls back, a moan escaping me, melding with his satisfied groan.
“So fucking tight,” he bites out, grinding his fingers into my skin. His next thrust is shallow, almost mockingly so. He’s stingy with the grating friction, sending shudders down my spine. “Take it, Snow,” he rasps through gritted teeth.
Only now do I register how he watches my hips and the subtle, twitching motions I wasn’t even aware of. My body is a traitor, chasing a sensation it shouldn’t crave.
“Fuck…don’t. Don’t…stop.” He flexes his grip, urging me to him. Slowly. Harder. Faster.
The slap of sweat-soaked flesh makes my cheeks flame. I’d do anything to block it out. My hands scramble at my sides, but one look at him makes me clench the sheets instead.
God, for the first time, it’s like he’s…open. Endless blue stretches onward, devouring me, inviting me to stare. To gape. What a tormented, hellish creature he is. There’s an agony in his gaze he doesn’t even try to hide. In fact, he dares me to turn away as he grinds his pelvis into mine, forcing me to take as much of him as I can. My nerves tighten, wanting more than anything to hide from his scrutiny. But I can’t. I won’t.
He has me drowning all over again, fucking his way into my very soul.
With a curse, he throws his head back, hissing as if furious with his body for daring to climax now. He swivels his hips to stave it off. Too late. He howls as his release floods me, and he slumps with the force of it. I’m pinned beneath him, forced to suffer the full brunt of his weight as his mouth finds the crook of my shoulder. He holds himself inside me, plugging the flow of his seed, making me feel him. Swell with him.
My breaths come in rapid pants, my thoughts scattered. There’s none of that terrifying numbing pleasure like before. Just tension. Building…tightening…
“Even now, you still want more…”
I jerk in place as he wrenches himself out of me, gazing down as my thighs draw together. With a harsh shove of his hand, he drags them apart, hunching forward like a predator over prey. There’s no warning. No explanation.
He merely lowers his head to the slick gulf between my thighs. I see his mouth open. His tongue protrudes.
Then silence as blood rushes to my ears. Then screaming. Thrashing. Moaning. I’m a puppet on a string, clawing at the shoulders of my master. But he’s cruel. He makes me jump and jerk for his pleasure. With stabbing, quick motions of his tongue, he makes me dance like a madwoman over the bed. Then his teeth grind my clit and everything shatters.
The orgasm punches its way out of me without any say. Any reason. I know I’m wetter, releasing a flood of liquid that pools on his tongue. He tells me so, rasping the words in awe, in between desperate laps.
“Soaked…Snow,” he accuses before stabbing with his tongue. Then his fingers. Then his cock again until all I can do is lie limp beneath the assault as the wet sounds create a violent soundtrack to every thrust.
Exhausted, he finally collapses beside me, his fingers sinking into my hair like a leash to keep me close.
I don’t know if he falls asleep or if I merely lose consciousness. All I’m sure of is darkness and confusion as a shout jars me into awareness.
“Fuck… Get the fuck away from me!”
A hand slams into my side, shoving me from the bed. I land in a heap of twisted limbs, a whine ripped from my lips. I see stars again. Vomit threatens to crawl up my throat, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to force it back down. And the entire time, my assailant rages against me.
“Get the fuck off me! Get off!”
The mattress lurches beneath his weight, and I curl up, a pathetic ball waiting for his next attack. The headboard clamors against the wall as twisted sheets rasp against slick flesh. I suck in a breath and find the strength to finally look up.
Blake is thrashing over the bed, swiping at the air. I flinch as his fist strikes flesh with a thud—but it’s not mine. It’s his stomach. His legs. His side.
He’s hurting himself.
“B-Blake…” I drag myself to my knees, clutching the mattress for balance.
He doesn’t hear me. His large body dominates my bed, making me question how we’ve ever shared such a small space. Because we have. For God only knows how long, he was beside me, still inside me.
“Blake.”
He grunts, kicking the blankets off, lashing out with clenched fists. “Fuck. Get the fuck away from me!” He swipes through the air and finds his knee, pummeling. Clawing.
Suddenly, I know the source of all those scars.
Alarm makes me reckless. I waver on the edge of the bed, as close to him as I dare. Tentatively, I reach out, ghosting the flat of his back as he twists onto his side. “Blake!”
He continues to writhe, cursing. Groaning. When his head wrenches in my direction again, his eyes open, unseeing, and my breath catches at that endless blue.
“Brandt…”
I say that name without thinking, pressing my palm more firmly against his chest. His heartbeat rails against me, thrumming like mad. He throws off heat, yet he’s shivering at the same time, his teeth chattering. That listless look leaves his gaze, and he blinks, focusing on my face.
For some reason, I stay here, a prime target, as every cell in my body urges me to run. There’s something about him in this moment that I can’t resist. Something about that lost, lonely look, gone in the blink of an eye. I’ve only ever seen that expression on one other man.
I saw it in a courtroom.
“You had a nightmare,” I tell him as his breathing steadies.
He finally seems to realize where he is, and he yanks my sheets off in disgust before lurching from the mattress, naked. He undressed fully without my realizing, and the scars on his back are on full display. Silently, he approaches the doorway, swaying on his feet. Near the threshold, his eyes cut in my direction, hooded and shadowed.
His first impulse seems to be to slam the door. At the last second, he lets it go to swing on the hinges. And I’m left staring after him, confused as to what the hell just happened.
I doubt I’ll ever know.
Twenty
Morning comes with unbearable clarity. The overcast daylight hides nothing, and neither do my sore, throbbing limbs. I feel everything. I taste everything. I smell everything. Blake Lorenz is a potent mixture of madness that affects all my senses. He’s every-fucking-where, and all I can do is suffer him.
I cower in bed until the dreadful moment when I hear him enter Papa’s study. There’s no steady scratching of a pen to track his actions by. No shuffling documents. Just heavy footsteps treading the same path over and over. I can smell his impatience from here, wafting through the vents. He’s waiting for me. But I ignore the instinctive suspicion until the warm sunlight streaming through my window heats my back like a spotlight, demanding I obey my cue.
Surprisingly, when I attempt to move, my body hurts the least. I don’t dare assume he went easy on me last night. Perhaps, I’m just adjusting to his brutality. So, w
hile I ache between my legs, it’s my soul that throbs the most.
The constant pain resonates through my bones, leaving me hunched over and listless as I climb to my feet and search for clothing. I look everywhere, even under the bed, before I’m forced to admit that the hospital gown is gone. So is my shift dress, though that might have been lost at the hospital. I don’t remember him taking either last night, which opens the door to the terrifying possibility that he returned sometime during the night for those very garments. Why?
To leave me helpless, of course, and drive home one point: He still owns me. I came back. I’m at his mercy.
I let myself eye the rack of thin clothing he arranged. Then I stoop for the bedsheet and wrap it around me instead. The small act of rebellion is merely baiting him, but I can’t bear the air on my naked skin. Not now. Cotton makes for an effective barrier as I shuffle into the hallway and descend the stairs. Dread weighs my steps down like manacles the farther I wander down that narrow back hallway.
My breath catches the moment I see him hunched over the fireplace with his hands braced on the mantel. He didn’t change, wearing the same crumpled clothing he was the night before. His shirt is undone, his belt unhooked over his fly. Dark curls have fallen haphazardly across his face, adding definition to his wintry-white skin.
He has a fire going—a real one this time—with a base of burning logs rather than memories. The orange glow licks at his hollow features, painting shadows in the various crevices.
I stop near the threshold of the study, and he merely glances at me, his gaze cold. Then he returns to staring into some distant place between the mantel and the portrait hanging above it, far beyond where I can follow.
A low sound tears from my throat. No. This isn’t how I want him to be—need him to be: cold, vicious, evil Blake lording over my new station in life. He’s human like this. He’s reachable like this, even if he’s mentally miles away.
Minutes tick by and he says nothing to me. Numb and sore, I can’t stop myself from approaching the desk, convinced he’ll command me to leave at any moment. But he doesn’t, and when the prospect of mounting the desk seems impossible in my exhausted state, I settle for leaning against it, watching him.
He’s beautiful like this. I cringe from embracing the thought, but there it is, in all its terrible implications. He’s beautiful while haunted by something intangible, his muscles drawn tight with tension, his spine curved in rare vulnerability. It’s dangerous to associate him with anything close to that word, but looking at him now, I can’t find anything else fitting. Terrifying, maybe. He’ll always check that box.
If anyone had told me days ago that I’d scrutinize Blake Lorenz for a shred of humanity, I’d tell them to go to hell. In fact, maybe human isn’t even the right word. Real. A real man, chased by real shadows in his past, who feels more than hatred toward me.
Just as the thought crosses my mind, he shifts, flexing his hands against the mantel. I wait for a command or a sharp insult. Anything. But he just…sighs. The sound chases the stillness in the air away, and I’m the vulnerable once again, waiting in anticipation of his next move.
I don’t know what makes me push my luck. “D-do you want me to read?” My voice is a formless whisper, lacking any eagerness, and when I glance around, I don’t find either my book or Brandt’s. But something else catches my eye, sticking from the topmost drawer. Thin. White. I grab it without thinking, smoothing my fingers over its wrinkled surface. Ten years of absence and I still remember the turmoil racing through my skin when I first penned these words. It’s surprisingly easy to rip it open, ushering the scent of the past into the air.
Blake says nothing to my suggestion, but I find myself following our twisted routine regardless.
“Dear Brandt…” My fingers shake as I unfold the page over my lap. I can’t force my voice above a whisper or dispel the tightness in my throat. All I can do is recite the words scrawled over decades-old notebook paper. God, it’s the last letter I ever wrote to him, fittingly short. “P-please,” I read, tracing the word with the pad of my finger. “Please. Please. Please. Please—”
I jump as he rips the page from my fingers. He scowls at my old handwriting before tossing the letter into the fire, where it’s swallowed up and spit out as smoke.
I know the rest of the words by heart anyway. “Please. I love you.”
His mouth contorts into a snarl as he draws himself to his full, imposing height. His gaze finds me through a wayward fringe of his hair. Though I expect to find wild anger, he’s surprisingly composed.
“You think coddling me awake like some fucking child changes anything?” He sounds genuinely curious, as if he doubted that even I could be so stupid. “Seriously, Snow. Forget the fucking bullshit fairy tales. Life is not a fairy tale—”
“I didn’t coddle you awake.” How I counter him, I’ll never know. Something hardens my spine, rooting me to the spot as he advances and anger peeks through his mask.
“Oh?” He cups my chin with fingers that tremble, conveying a subtle warning: I’m losing control, Snow. I never fucking had it.
“Y-yes.” Up this close to him, I can’t keep the tears from streaming down. It’s like he conjures them through his sheer nearness, a creature designed to trigger my torment. “I didn’t touch you.”
At least not then.
He inhales, his eyes narrowing. Before he can insult me further, I force myself to meet his gaze fully, peering through the darkness.
“I said your name,” I tell him hoarsely. “All I did was say your name.”
His eyes widen with understanding, and he lets me go as if he’d been burned—only to grab me by the throat before I can deflate in relief.
“Brandt? Oh, Snowy…” He strokes along my windpipe, bathing me in malice. “You don’t want me to be him. Why? Let me tell you something about your precious Brandt Lloyd.”
I stiffen as he crushes his body to mine, forcing me to bend back over the desk.
“Do you want to know a little secret he never told you? Why he reacted so harshly when you kissed him, even though it was the only fucking thing in the world he craved? The reason why your whore mother hid your letters? How she hid her own letters inside his home? In his parents’ room? Under their bed? The bitch got a kick out of flaunting it.”
Flaunting what? My mind taunts me with dark suspicions: memories that had no context until now. Wandering the halls during sleepless nights and finding Mama slipping toward the servants’ hallway, her blond hair streaming over a gossamer nightgown. The resentful looks she directed toward Brandt. Her anguish when his father was put away. She died not long after he did. From septicemia, they said. But I saw the truth for myself: She wasted away.
She just stopped living.
“Oh, so you do know,” Blake murmurs, peering into my gaze. He brushes his knuckles over my injured cheek with painful softness. “Her dirty little secret. Did you ever wonder just where, in a family of fucking blonds, you got your hair from?”
A great-aunt, according to Mama. Red hair was a recessive trait in her bloodline. Or so she claimed.
Blake fingers the now muddy-brown curls. “Brandt saw it all. He knew how sick it was for you to pine after him, but he just couldn’t put you out of your misery.”
My chest heaves in a desperate bid for air. “You’re lying.”
“You wish I were,” he murmurs. “And how sick would it be if I am Brandt Lloyd, hmmm? Think of all the times I fucked you. How much you enjoyed it.”
“S-stop!” I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking the sordid memories out. They play regardless. And they play. And play—on an endless loop. “Please stop—”
“Stop?” He draws back. “Yes. Let’s stop. This charade. This fucking game. All of it.”
He turns to the fireplace, where the remains of my letter are smoldering. He snatches a poker from the mantel and jabs at a log. Wielding the smoking end, he whirls around, pacing the room. Seemingly at random, he fingers the curtains. Then h
e yanks, sending the green damask crashing to his feet. He stabs the mass with the poker, twisting them both into a makeshift creation. When he lifts it, a single object comes to mind: a torch.
Fear curdles in my stomach. “What are you doing?”
His eyes narrow, pure ice. “What I should have done day fucking one.”
“N-no…” Our gazes collide before his attention turns to the fireplace. Terror contorts my limbs, and I lunge for him, clawing at his arms, his hands, anything I can reach. “No!”
He shoves me aside, knocking me against the wall. “Oh yes.” With eyes like fire, he turns to the real blaze and bathes the wadded curtain in the heart of the flames. Orange embers dance dangerously in the air wielded by him, a manic magician with my soul at his discretion. He’ll make it disappear. Poof, like smoke.
“No!” My scream melds with the burning hiss of paper catching fire as he swipes the lit torch against the nearest bookshelf.
There’s no slow spread of flames. It’s as if the entire world ignites all at once. Roaring, hungry destruction. Heat slaps my cheeks, building as a newer bit of my family’s legacy catches fire and burns.
Before I can swat his hand away, his arm cinches my waist. He drags me from the room like that, kicking and screaming, spreading the fire. Along the walls. The portraits. The scarlet runner over the stairs. He lights it all, laughing as he does so.
Pain and torment rob my brain of everything but the need to wail. Scream. Bite. Kick. Fight. He never lets me go, forcing me to watch.
I’m only vaguely aware that we’re in the courtyard now. Cold air tosses my tangled hair, chilling the tears pouring down my face. Eventually, they stop, and my eyes run dry; I’m devoid of anything left to shed.
