by C T Rhames
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like being touched like other girls. If I did this to Rosa, she would swoon.” He lifted his hand and stroked my cheek.
I felt the bile rising in my throat and pulled away from him. That touch, gentle and soft, was too much.
“See?” Ethan tilted my head up to look into my eyes. “You don’t like being touched softly because it reminds you of someone else. But this . . .” he grabbed my throat and squeezed, “This turns you on.”
“That’s not true.” I refused to let him into that part of my past.
“I’m going to get your secrets from you, you know.” He let go of me and took the puppy, lifting him up in the air and smiling. Then he dropped the smile and looked at me coldly. “I will know everything that happened to make you this way.”
“What about you?” I retorted. “What made you this way?”
“I was born this way.”
“No one is born evil.”
“Why would you think that? Here I am, as evil as they come.” He turned away from me and walked into the house.
Except he wasn’t evil. He was cuddling my puppy like it was the sweetest thing in the world. It was only me he was mean to.
I followed Ethan into the house and watched him make himself at home in the living room. My father and I never went into this room and it was mostly empty, apart from a fireplace and two sofas.
“Do you have a name for this guy yet?” Ethan set the puppy on the floor and watched him.
I stood awkwardly in the doorway. “No.”
“You have to name him.”
“I can’t think of a good name.”
“Come here.” He patted the sofa beside him.
An invisible force pulled me forward and I sat on the sofa, leaving plenty of space between us. My body was burning up with the need to touch him. I realized that it had always been him touching me. What would happen if I turned the tables?
Shaking my mind free of that thought, I focused on the puppy. “He needs a strong name and I don’t have one.”
Ethan regarded the dog curiously and then in one move, he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me tight to his side. “What letter do you like?”
“What?”
“Give me a letter.”
“K.”
“Strong names that start with K. King, Killer, Kujo.”
“I’m not naming him Kujo,” I almost laughed. “That’s asking for trouble.”
“You could name him Trouble.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m going to call him . . . Kraken.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes. Kraken, hey, Kraken,” I called out. The puppy turned and ran toward me, looking happy. “See, it’s his name.”
“Okay.” Ethan leaned back on the couch, pulling me with him. His arm was still tight around me, his fingers digging into my shoulder.
“I think you should go,” I said finally, wriggling away from him.
“I thought I’d stay for dinner.”
“There is no dinner,” I told him coldly. “You can’t just invite yourself over for dinner.”
“I can do whatever I want, remember?” He smiled cruelly, pulling me back toward him.
I twisted, trying to get away and my efforts made me fall face first onto his chest. I could hear his heartbeat and smell his intoxicating scent. This was insane. Why was he affecting me like this?
“I’m staying for dinner.” He pulled my hair back and ran a finger down my scar. “And you’re telling me how you got this.”
“That’s private and you don’t get to stay because I’m not making dinner.”
“Ah yes, your precious yogurt.” He leapt off the couch, leaving me to fall across the cushions, and strode out of the room.
I jumped up and ran after him, into the kitchen. “What is wrong with my yogurt?”
“Nothing. Except that it’s all you eat.” He opened the fridge and stared in. “Did you buy this or did your father?”
“My father? Why do you care?”
He whirled on me. “I told you no more cutting.”
“And I told you you can’t control me!” I spat back.
“But you’re harming yourself in other ways,” he snarled. He grabbed the hem of my sweatshirt and pulled it up and over my head before I could say anything or stop him. In a split second, I stood before him in my bra and tights.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled. Covering myself with one arm and reaching out for the sweatshirt, but he tossed it behind him on the floor.
“Do you think this is attractive?” he asked, waving at my body.
“Fuck you!” I scrambled around him, trying to grab the sweatshirt, but he reached down and snaked an arm around my stomach. The heat of his bare arm against my bare belly made me feel faint.
“I can pick you up with one hand,” he snapped, setting me in front of him. He grabbed my shoulders, digging into the skin with his fingers. “That’s not normal, Cursi.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be normal,” I snarled back.
“You’re killing yourself.”
“What do you care?”
He abruptly let go of me and stepped aside so I could grab the sweatshirt and pull it over my head. When I looked up again, he was standing there with his hands by his sides, just watching me.
“I don’t know why I care, Cursi. You and I are meant for reach other. I can feel it. I told you, your bad and my bad fit together.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I told him, even though I kind of did.
“You can’t hide forever. You can’t slowly kill yourself because of the past,” he told me. “I will figure you out.”
“Not today.” I pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“I haven’t had dinner yet.”
“No dinner today.” I scooped up Kraken and buried my face in his fur. “Just get out.”
“I didn’t say you had a choice.”
To my dismay, Ethan opened the fridge again and started pulling things out of it. I sank into a chair and watched him as he heated oil in a pan and added chicken and garlic. The smells wafting from the food were mouthwatering, but my stomach clenched at the thought of eating in front of him.
“I could call the cops on you,” I told him.
“And say what? There’s a guy cooking you dinner and he won’t stop?” He sprinkled the chicken with minced red pepper and shook the pan expertly, flipping the contents in the air and catching every last piece.
“You can’t force me to eat.”
“Watch me.”
A few minutes later, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the sink. “Wash.”
I obediently washed my hands, taking much longer than necessary, making a point of scrubbing each finger. Finally, he reached over, turned the water off and picked me up around the waist, setting me in a chair at the table.
“Eat.”
The plate in front of me wasn’t heaped with food. He’d only placed a large spoonful of chicken on it and there were two tomato slices beside it.
“Eat,” he ordered again. “And don’t even think about feeding the dog.”
I glared at him. How did he know me so well? It was like he was inside my head half the time.
Ethan sat down uncomfortably close beside me and started in on his own food. He’d served himself a normal portion of food and had salad with dressing on the side. I wondered what his game was.
“I said eat.” His voice was still rough, but cold.
When I didn’t move, he picked up my fork and stabbed a piece of chicken. “Eat.” He brought it to my mouth and I automatically opened my mouth and ate the morsel he offered.
He was a good cook. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me, but it did. This was better than restaurant chicken. When Ethan pressed the fork into my hand, I took it and stabbed another piece of chicken, nibbling at it carefully.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked softly.
“Because you’re mine a
nd I want you healthy.”
“I’m not yours.”
“You are, you just don’t know it yet.”
I glared at him, but he just smiled down at his food and kept eating.
“Eat or I’ll force you and it won’t be nearly as pleasant as the other times I’ve been rough,” he warned.
I gulped and started to eat a bit faster. It wasn’t that much food. I could manage it. And I did. Right down to the two tomato slices.
“Was that so bad?” Ethan asked, when we’d both finished our meal.
“It was good, but too much,” I told him.
“No, it was too little for someone your size, but your stomach has shrunk. We’ll get you back up to normal.”
“I don’t want to be normal.”
“I don’t care.” He shot me a grin, put the dishes in the sink and walked out of the house.
Chapter 11
It became a routine. Every afternoon, around five, Ethan showed up at my house, played with Kraken for a bit, then came into the house and made dinner. He had a surprising array of cooking skills and we never ate the same thing twice.
He always served me a smaller portion than himself, but by the time my father left for the second trip, this time a month long, I realized that Ethan had gradually been increasing the amount I ate. He never let me leave anything on the plate and the one time I insisted I was too full, he grabbed me firmly by the back of the neck and forced me to finish the last two bites.
“I can cook too, you know,” I said one night as I watched him making chow mein.
“Would you?” He glanced at me. “I doubt you’d cook for yourself.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked again.
“I told you. You’re mine. When I fuck you, I don’t want to be stabbed by all those bones,” he said crudely.
I frowned. “That’s assuming I’d let you into my pants.”
“You will.” He turned off the stove and divided the food between our plates. “But first, you eat.”
He sat down, setting my plate in front of me. It was the biggest portion he’d served me yet. “I can’t eat this.”
“You can and you will. Remember what happened last time? That was nothing compared to this time.”
“You can’t just go around forcing people to eat,” I snapped at him.
“Eat.”
I rubbed my hand over my face. “If I eat all of this, I’m going to be sick.”
“Then you’ll be sick. But you’ll eat it first.” He was already chowing down on his own food.
I pushed the noodles around with my fork. Just this morning, I’d realized that my hips were wider. My skinniest jeans, the ones that had been loose on me when I moved here, were too tight now.
“I can’t,” I said softly, pushing the plate away. “You can’t take everything away from me, Ethan.”
“And here I thought I was giving you food.” He looked at me with those icy eyes and I bit my lip. “Give me one good reason why you can’t eat that and maybe I’ll let you only eat half.”
“I’m getting fat.”
“No. Eat.”
“I am! Look,” I lifted my shirt to show him my ribs, covered in a layer of fat.
“That’s normal, not fat,” he told me.
“I can’t do this. I can’t. I don’t want to . . .”
“And I’ve made it clear I don’t care what you want.”
I stared at him for a long minute, then I got up from the table, tipped the chow mein into the garbage and put the plate in the sink. He had no say over me. He shouldn’t even be in my house. Why was I even letting him do this to me?
Ethan kept eating while I went upstairs to my room. I heard him washing up the dishes as I curled up on my bed. There was no way he would just leave, but I hoped he would. I wondered if it was too late to call the police. Probably. They wouldn’t believe me anyway. Worse, they’d find out my secrets.
I was right. When the dishes were done, I heard his footsteps on the stairs. Then he opened my door and stood there, looking at me.
“You know there’s going to be hell to pay for dumping my food in the bin,” he said. His voice sounded deeper than normal, almost as if he were excited at the possibility of punishing me.
He strode across the room and sat down on my bed. Then he grabbed me and pulled me across his lap. “I warned you, but you had to play the brat.”
“You can’t do this, Ethan,” I warned him, kicking and twisting. He pinned me over his legs with one hand on the back of my neck, gripping just hard enough to hurt a bit.
I didn’t expect what happened next. His hand came down hard on my butt. The sharp sting made me gasp and I stiffened under his hand, too shocked to keep fighting.
He spanked me again. And then again, each time harder than the first. And to my surprise, instead of the pain causing me to be upset, it felt good. Each time his hand met my buttock, sparks shot through my entire body, making my toes curl. I found myself arching my back in anticipation.
Ethan took his time, spacing out the spankings, but not making it obvious when he would hit me again. I lost count of the blows, panting on his lap and waiting for the next one.
When he pulled me up, I could feel my cheeks flushed with excitement. He set me down on the bed again and looked at me indifferently, though the tent in his jeans said he wasn’t entirely unaffected.
“When I say eat, you eat. If I want you to gain 50 lbs. you will gain it, understood?”
I glared at him defiantly, my butt still throbbing deliciously.
“Understood?” He leaned over me, making me shift back until I was lying on my back and he was leaning over me, bracing himself on either side of me.
I pressed my lips together. Regardless of how it made me feel, he’d spanked me, like I was a child. I wasn’t about to agree to anything. Part of me hoped he’d repeat the spanking, though the ache of the place where his hand had landed said otherwise.
“I said, do you understand?” he leaned in closer to me and then caught my lower lip in his teeth. He bit hard enough that I felt the skin tear under his teeth.
“Yes, yes,” I cried out at last.
Blood trickled into my mouth and he stopped biting, turning the bite into a kiss. His tongue delved into my mouth and danced with my own. I closed my eyes, feeling him with every cell of my being, my tongue responding to his all on its own.
As suddenly as he’d begun, Ethan pulled away from me. I opened my eyes to see him standing over me, his lips smeared with my blood. He was breathing as heavily as I was and I reached for him, almost unconsciously, not wanting it to end. Not yet.
My fingers snagged his shirt and I pulled him down on top of me again, rolling my hips up against his erection.
“I want you,” I said, the words falling from my bruised and bloodied lips. “Please, Ethan.”
He bent his head to rest his forehead against mine and rubbed himself between my legs. I moaned, wanting him to keep going and he abruptly stood up, leaving me feeling cold.
“Don’t you ever throw my food away again,” he said sternly. Then he turned and left, leaving me aching and frustrated and wondering what the hell was wrong with me.
Chapter 12
The day after the kiss, Ethan ignored me. I saw him at school, but he was laughing with friends and didn’t even look at me. His eyes just slid over me like I didn’t exist. It was a terrible feeling and I felt like running after him in the parking lot to ask him why. But my pride took over and I rode the bus home to play with Kraken and teach him to sit.
Five pm rolled around and there was no sign of Ethan. I ate a yogurt and then thought better of it and fixed a ramen soup that my father had left me. I ate most of it and let Kraken lick up the juice from the cup.
It was dark out when I took Kraken out for a bathroom break. No Ethan. It was ridiculous how empty I felt. It made me angry and I locked up the house and stormed upstairs to bed. Kraken was unsettled. Our routine was broken and he seemed to be as upset as I was.
My butt hurt still and when I checked in the mirror, twisting uncomfortably to see myself, I had bruises in the shape of Ethan’s hand, still red and imprinted on my butt cheeks.
That night, I lay awake in bed, wondering why he’d taken off like that. There was something else going on here. I wasn’t the only broken one, I decided. There was no way Ethan was normal either. Maybe he was right, we were both broken in unique ways that made us fit together.
Over the weekend, there was still no sign of Ethan and I decided to give up the pretense of trying to eat. But something had changed. When I chugged my mineral water at dinner time, my stomach growled. Somehow, Ethan had reset my body to feel hunger again.
Annoyed, I made myself some scrambled eggs on toast and ate every bit of it, apart from a little piece of egg that fell on the floor. Kraken gobbled it up. He was spoiled rotten, eating all this people food.
On Sunday, I clipped the leash to Kraken’s collar and took him down to the beach. He was growing quickly, but the waves were big enough to wash him away if he wasn’t careful. And he wasn’t at all careful. The little puppy yipped and jumped at the waves, barely leaping out of the way as they rushed toward him. By the time we’d walked to the rock where Ethan had assaulted me, the puppy was exhausted and he curled up on the sun warmed stones to sleep. I lay back against the rock and drifted off myself. The sun was warm and the ocean breeze smelled wonderful. It was perfect.
I woke to icy water washing over my feet and scrambled up, lifting a confused Kraken out of the way of the waves that had crept up the beach. “Shit, Kraky, we slept too long. The tide’s come in.” I hurried back up the beach to the steps. The tide was far enough in that I had to wade through parts of it.
My jeans were wet by the time I made it to the top of the cliff and set a wide awake Kraken on the grass. He bounced around like we hadn’t nearly died and made me laugh. Then I looked out over the ocean and saw gray clouds rolling in again. Even the sunshine couldn’t stay for long around here.
That night, I tried making some chicken with garlic and red peppers, like the first night Ethan had cooked for me. It ended up being far too much, so I put half in the fridge and sat at the table, eating the other half. It was lonely eating without Ethan glaring at me across the table.
