by E. K. Blair
His hand grabs a fist of my hair as he shoves my face back down into the mattress. Letting go, he widens my knees, ass up, and then gives my pussy one last lick before he buries himself balls deep into my core, forcing me to slip forward on the bed. He quickly grabs my wrists that are stationed at the small of my back and holds them firmly with one hand while the other fists the belt.
I turn my head face down in the bed, and do what I can to disengage, but his voice keeps penetrating me as he talks, forcing me to tell him that I want him, that I want this, that I like this, that it feels good. I can’t escape. I’m in the moment. I’m never in the moment, but right now, I’m in the goddamn moment, and the churning of my stomach begins to rouse into a disgusting rumble of bile I pray stays down.
“Let go, Nina. Stop fighting me,” he says, as if he knows I’m trying with everything I have not to come. My body is so tense; I’m an idiot to think he can’t feel it. He’ll know if I fake it, but I keep fighting anyway. “Don’t fight me,” he hisses, his accent thickening as his desire grows. He then reaches around, dragging the wetness up to my clit, and starts massaging in slow, torturous circles. He has no idea he’s destroying everything inside of me.
I hold my breath and bite down hard. I can’t deny him what he’s demanding. He’ll ask too many questions, questions I can’t ever answer for him, so I give in and allow him to give me the repulsive pleasure I hate to feel. It builds along with the bile, and when his cock swells inside of me with his oncoming release, I break. And out of nowhere, he makes a tender gesture when he laces his fingers with mine and holds my hand while I come. The orgasm takes over my body in ripples of fiery explosions that shoot through every inch of me. I can’t suppress the moans that rip out of me, humiliating me, and then they’re joined with Declan’s as his orgasm mirrors mine. The feel of his cock throbbing inside of me as my walls spasm around him prolongs the release I wish would stop, but it quakes through me, holding me hostage to the man behind me. Our hands locked tightly together the whole time, as if he knows how hard this is for me and this is his way of offering a gentle support.
A second later, he lets go of me, and with fast hands, releases his belt from my arms, and they drop lifelessly to the bed as his body collapses on top of mine. I can’t look at him. I can’t even open my eyes. As my orgasm fades away, the pleasure between my legs remains as a reminder as to what just happened. I have to pull my shit together—fast—as Declan shifts to my side and brings me into his arms.
I tuck my knees up, and when I do, he cradles me in his hold, humming into my ear. I focus on his sounds to calm my racing heart and queasy gut. Taking in slow, deep breaths, I wonder how I’m going to get through sex with him again. I’m too exposed—too alive—too hot—too ripe—too present. I want to cry, but I don’t, so I lay my head on Declan’s chest and selfishly take the comfort he’s offering because I don’t have any other options here. He holds me, soothing me with the lull of his hums as I listen to his steadying heartbeat.
“Talk to me,” he requests.
“I don’t feel like talking.”
“I need you to talk to me. Tell me why you were fighting me.”
“I wasn’t,” I try to deny.
Turning on his side to face me, he wraps his hand behind my knee and drapes my leg over his hip, bringing us closer, when he says, “I felt you, Nina. I need you to talk to me. Did I scare you?”
Yes.
“No.”
“Did I hurt you?”
Yes.
“No.”
“Then what?” he asks softly with worry etched in the lines of his face.
Trying to relieve whatever is running through his head, I wrap my arms around his neck, hug him close, and tell him, “You’re just really intense, and I guess . . . yeah . . . maybe you scared me a little.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, shifting his forehead to rest against mine. “Look at me.”
When I open my eyes, his are peering into mine, noses together, so close.
“I never want to scare you. I never want to hurt you. I only want to be close with you, but this is the only way I know how to be.”
“You don’t have to apologize for who you are,” I faintly breathe. “This. Being here in your arms. I’ve never felt more safe. So just hold me, okay?”
And he does, for a long time, while I try to get my head straight. We just hold each other, and then after a while, he takes my hand, and licks my palm before kissing it and then presses it to his chest.
“You consume me, you know that?”
I shake my head, saying, “I assumed I annoy you most of the time.”
“You do,” he laughs. “Your smart mouth irritates me, but it’s also something I love about you. You don’t take my shit, and I like that. But at the same time, I need you to be able to take my shit. I’m demanding and stubborn; that’s not something I’m willing to change because I thrive on control.”
“Why?”
He releases a deep breath, telling me, “Let’s not talk about why. Not tonight.”
“One day?”
“One day, darling,” he says as he pulls me in closer to his naked body. “Can you stay with me tonight?”
“Mmm hmm. Bennett’s in Miami for a few days. I’m yours until he gets back.”
Leaning his head back to look me dead on, his voice is acid when he says, “No.”
“No?”
“You’re mine regardless of where he is. Here or not. I don’t play well with others.”
I hesitate for a second and then say, “It’s not that simple. He’s not like he appears, Declan.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just . . . It’s not easy.”
When he shakes his head in confusion, I repeat on a hush, “It’s just not that easy.”
His lips lightly brush over mine in a sweeping kiss, and I can taste the ice of his breath when he whispers, “I don’t expect anything with you to be easy, but that’s not enough to stop me from having you.”
And with those words, I kiss him, allowing him to feast on my sugary poison. He may have a power over me in bed, one that will no doubt cause me suffering, but in the end, I’ll take the pain because I know I’ll be able to destroy him enough to save myself, to give me everything that was stolen from me when I was five years old.
WAKING UP IN Declan’s bed the following day was peaceful. Peaceful in every morbid way. His hands were all over me while his face made its home between my legs before he pulled me on top of his lap. He had my arms crossed behind my back while he held each of my hands, locking my arms from moving as I fucked him. And again, he held my hands while I came. If I’m being honest, I feel like I need that support from him, because what he makes me feel during sex is sheer torment and anxiety. I don’t want sex to feel good. It shouldn’t feel good. But he doesn’t give me any other choice, so I lied to him, telling him that Clara was going to be at my place and that I needed to be there so she wouldn’t worry or question my whereabouts. I just needed to get away from him.
As soon as I get home, I take a scalding hot shower, washing every part of me, but nothing can clean me the way Pike can. I feel myself breaking and stop the fight long enough to let it out. Never in my life have I ever wanted to feel what Declan makes me feel. As images from last night and this morning run through my head, the tears surface as my stomach convulses in bubbles of putrid disgust. Unable to hold it down, I quickly step out of the shower, fall to my knees over the toilet, and vomit uncontrollably. It’s a painful mixture of saliva, puke, and tears. Visions of Declan, Carl, leather, flesh, cum, that filthy mattress, the smell of that basement, the smell of Declan, my vicious hate for Bennett, my loneliness of missing Pike, my father’s headstone. Everything consumes me. I hear it, smell it, see it, feel it, and then another forceful expulsion barrels its way up my throat and into the toilet.
In this moment, I hate my life. I hate everything about this shithole of a life I so desperately want to free myself from. Sobs ac
hingly rip out of me, and as I fall back onto the cold slate floor, I lie there, wet and naked, the smell of my vomit filling the room. And when I close my eyes, I see my dad.
“Princess, what are you doing?” he mumbles in a sleepy voice as I crawl under the covers with him.
“I’m scared.”
He helps me pull the blanket over myself and then cuddles me in his arms, saying, “Nothing will ever hurt you. I’ll always protect you. Now, tell me what scared you.”
“I can’t remember. I just woke up and I was scared.”
“Bad dream?”
I nod my head against his chest and snuggle underneath the covers of his bed, asking, “Can I sleep with you tonight, Daddy?”
“You don’t want to go back to your own bed?”
“No. I just want you.”
His large arms band around me tighter. “How can I say no to that?” he says and then kisses my forehead, the stubble on his face pricking my skin, causing me to giggle.
“Daddy! That tickles,” I squeal and as soon as the words are out, he’s laughing and nuzzling his face in my neck, pretending to eat me. The both of us laugh loudly in the dark room, rolling around his big bed.
I start pinching his sides, and he rolls onto his back with a huge smile and chuckles, “You win. You win. I give up.”
“You never give up,” I tell him, and he responds, “Sometimes a man needs to know when to let a lady a win. Now give me a kiss right here.”
He points to his cheek as he speaks, and I lean in and kiss his unshaven face, feeling the prickling pokes on the soft skin of my lips.
“Come here,” he says, and I lie back down in his arms as he kisses the top of my head. “Close your eyes now. There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. You’re always going to be safe.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you so much more, Princess. Come find me in your dreams.”
The vision fades and I roll to my side, curling into a ball, and cry for all the things he promised me that never happened. I was never safe, and this world hurt me beyond what I ever thought a human could be hurt. All because of Bennett. And now I lie here in his bathroom, our bathroom. He’s my husband. We share a home, a bed, a life. I knew what I was doing when I embedded myself into his world, but after what just happened with Declan, I wanna run. Run so far that I never have to look back and remember any of this. Run all the way back in time. Back to Northbrook, back to the house I used to live in, through the front door, into my bedroom where my father still waits for me at my little table, with pink daisies, to join him for our princess tea party. Maybe if I cry hard enough, the world will take pity on me, shift off its axis and make all my dreams come true.
I want my daddy.
After all these years, I just want my daddy.
A COUPLE HOURS pass, and I now sit in the living room as I watch another snow-filled day. My body aches, and I’m tired after my meltdown. I know better than to let those feelings bleed through. It’s been a long time since I’ve cried like that and allowed myself to feel sorry for the life I wound up with. So now I sit here and gain control as the fire ignites inside of me. The fire I let fizzle out earlier. I feel its embers in the molten heat of my veins. A resurgence of what I’m doing here. This is about regaining what was stolen from me. Taking back what was mine to be had before my father was ripped away from me and murdered in prison. I can handle Declan; I just had a moment of weakness last night, but now, I have rectified that steel wall.
Fuck Declan.
Fuck Bennett.
This is about righting the wrong.
This is revenge, and I’m ready.
Without wasting any more time, I grab my coat and keys and head down to the garage to go to Justice. I need to see Pike.
When I pull up to his trailer, I see Matt’s car. I’ll never forget that night when Pike crawled through my bedroom window in the middle of the night. Matt was there too. Pike held me while I cried for hours in the back seat of Matt’s car as he drove us to northern Illinois where he had rented a rundown apartment with Pike. The three of us lived together for a few years until Pike and I got a place of our own.
I never went back to school. I was a runaway, but I didn’t let that define me as a complete failure. Pike gave me money to buy a few home schooling kits that got me through high school. Doing it on my own doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m just as knowledgeable as any other graduate, diploma or not. I’ve always loved school and learning new things. I would look through the course catalogues from the local university and buy the textbooks for the classes I was interested in and read them on my own. Pike has always teased me, but I wasn’t going to let the reality that I was a high school dropout plague me.
Until I was of age, I couldn’t risk getting a job either, so I helped Pike, weighing and bagging the product Matt would bring in. Because of the people they dealt with, I was always by Pike’s side. It was safer running the streets with him than to be left alone in the apartment.
But I’ve never liked Matt despite Pike’s friendship with him. I had to fight him off a few times when he would get drunk and try to get into my pants. But it was him that stood by my side on that fateful night, the night he and Pike gave me one of the greatest gifts I could’ve asked for. Matt and Pike gave me payback in the form of death. The first stroke of revenge as the both of them stood by my side as I lit the match, killing both Carl and Bobbi in the ink of night. I was only fifteen when I discovered the sweet taste of vengeance as their pleading screams were engulfed in the flames of hell.
So to see him here, now, irritates me because no matter how much I dislike him, I’ll always be indebted for that one precious gift he allowed me. And when I shut off the car and walk inside, Matt sneers, knowing everything about what I’m doing with Bennett, “Well, well, well, what drug in the shit-stain on high society living?”
“It’s an amazing thing to see.”
“What is?” he asks.
“The way your vocabulary has matured through the years,” I give him as I slip off my coat and then look over to Pike, saying, “I need to talk to you.”
“Dude, get lost,” he tells Matt.
“What the fuck?”
“Don’t start that shit, you know Elizabeth has a hard enough time getting out here to see me,” he tells Matt as he stands up and walks over to me.
I give Pike a hug and watch as Matt grabs his coat and starts heading for the door. “Call me when she leaves.”
“Yeah, man. Talk to you later.”
Matt looks back over his shoulder at me when he gets to the door and then leaves. I wrap my arms more tightly around Pike and nearly smother him.
“Whoa. What’s going on?” he says as he holds me.
“I really missed you,” I tell him thickly.
“Is everything okay? Did something happen?” he asks as then we walk over to the couch and sit down.
“I fucked Declan last night.”
The concern on Pike’s face isn’t surprising. Aside from Carl, Pike is the only guy I’ve ever had sex with, until Bennett. But Bennett is nothing compared to Declan.
“Shit,” he sighs. “Are you okay?”
“He tied me up with his belt,” I reveal to him.
“What the fuck?”
“It’s how he is. He’s forceful. He actually fucked me at the New Year’s party. That was the first time. It was a dirty fuck in a bathroom.”
“Wait. Go back,” he says, confused.
“I was trying to make him jealous at the party, apparently it worked. He followed me into the bathroom and we had sex. I didn’t see him or talk to him until I went to his place yesterday. Bennett is in Miami, so I wound up spending the night with Declan. Sex with him is awful. It’s impossible to drown out what’s going on because he’s so demanding throughout. I left this morning to go home because I was feeling disgusted.”
“Come here,” he breathes as he tugs me into his arms. We sit for a moment and th
en he asks, “So what are you thinking?”
“I can’t walk away. He’s the right guy, I know it.”
“How can you be sure?”
Shaking my head, I say, “I don’t know. I just feel it. I can’t explain; it’s just how I feel.”
“I don’t know,” he says, doubting my words.
Feeling a little annoyed, I question, “What?”
“Do you think he’s capable?”
“That’s not a question anyone can really answer, but yeah, I think he could be.”
“What if he finds out?”
“He won’t.”
Eyeing me, he presses, “Don’t be so sure about that. Confidence is a dangerous thing to have.”
Turning out of his arms, I sit back and exhaust, “Fine. What if he finds out? I don’t know, Pike. What would it matter? No crime would’ve been committed.”
“What about Bennett? If Declan finds out or isn’t capable, are you going to be able to do it?”
I laugh in frustration, turn to face Pike, and say, “The way you doubt me makes you look stupid. I love my father, and he paid the ultimate price when he was murdered.” With a stern look, I seethe, “If you don’t think I’m capable, you don’t know me.”
“I do know you. Better than anyone else. But we’re talking about killing someone, Elizabeth.”
“I know what we’re talking about, Pike. I’ve been living this game for four years. I share a bed with that son of a bitch,” I snap.
Pike rakes his hands through his hair, exasperated, and says on a heavy breath as he leans back, “I know. God, I know. It’s just, it’s been such a long time. You just kinda get used to the life you’re living, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I know. It’s the same for me, but I guess I’m a little more distracted than you are, considering my role. But I feel it’s finally happening. This is what we still want, right?”
“I promised you I would do whatever it took to make your life better. I’m not changing my mind on that. That fucker is gonna pay for what he did to your life.”
