Taunt Me (Rough Love Book 2)

by Annabel Joseph

  I took in his disarranged hair, his bruised face, and his sullen expression, and I thought, I love you, you messed-up asshole.

  He was in a prickly mood, but I hugged him anyway and reached to stroke the discoloration on his face. I didn’t want to hurt him; I just wanted to acknowledge what he’d done for me. He leaned his head back and halted me with a glare.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to be sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine.” He grimaced at his attorney, then looked back at me. “For the record, it was worth the amount of money I’ll have to pay to settle this.”

  He meant You were worth it. His deep blue eyes raked over me before he turned to speak briefly with his lawyer. I waited for their conversation to end, feeling scared and defensive, and a little overwhelmed by everything that had happened at Andrew’s party. There were so many emotional words I wanted to say, but I knew he wouldn’t accept them. When he turned his attention back to me, I settled for commenting on his appearance.

  “You look like a criminal.”

  That wasn’t really true. He looked amazing for someone who’d been in a fight and then spent an hour in jail. “Were you locked up with any thugs?”

  “I was locked up with a passed-out drunk guy. Let’s go home.”

  His lawyer, Mr. Dunsingbush of Klein and Dunsingbush, had brought Price some takeout burgers and fries. He took the bag and thanked the man, and promised to call him in the morning.

  We got into a cab and shared his late-night meal. Then, instead of parting ways, he invited himself to my apartment to spend the night, and I didn’t argue. I knew he needed to blow off some steam and I kind of looked forward to his aggression. As soon as we stepped through the door, he was on me. He grabbed me and kissed me, and traced his fingers up my neck.

  “Criminal,” I whispered as he stroked my windpipe. “Have sex with me.”

  “Oh, I’m going to.”

  I pushed off his suit jacket and worked at his shirt buttons. Before I could finish, he stuck his fingers in the neckline of my silk dress and tore it all the way down the front. Shit. I protested between his violent kisses and tried to push him away, but he only finished the job, yanking the scraps of my dress off my shoulders. My bra and panties were tossed on the floor beside the rest of his clothes.

  “Be nice,” I said. “Don’t hurt me.”

  He laughed and dragged me to the bedroom. I couldn’t tell if he was turned on or angry. I tried to catch his gaze. Look at me. What are you feeling? How can I help you?

  Do you love me?

  I think you love me.

  He threw me back on the bed and crawled on top of me. “Ready to be fucked?” he asked.

  His hands were rough on my skin, stroking and pinching and pulling me toward him when I tried to move away. I was used to Price’s violent forms of passion, but this was especially heightened. I fought back because I still hadn’t really internalized the thing about surrender. Dungeon-worthy? Not yet. When he pressed me to the bed, I tried to flip over. When he slapped my breasts, I punched his shoulder. When his cock poked between my legs, I scooted back on instinct.

  “No,” he growled. He grabbed my hips and yanked me back across the sheets. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t escape his grasp as he forced me onto his thrusting length. He drove all the way in and I arched up to embrace him, because I was feeling so much and needing so much. He let go of my hips and grabbed my shoulders, and shoved me backward. When I kept surging upward, he grabbed my neck.

  “Lay the fuck down,” he said. “You belong to me. You’re mine.”

  I couldn’t respond to that claim because he was choking me. I moved my hips, not sure if I was trying to evade his thrusts or draw them deeper. I felt locked in high-stakes combat, the battle of protecting my heart and my independence, and yet wanting to give up everything to him.

  “Don’t,” I begged through my teeth as his fingers tightened on my neck.

  He didn’t like being told what to do, so he choked me harder. I felt buzzing in my ears, in the corners of my brain, and then nothingness washed over me like a black, gauzy shroud. It seemed I slept for hours, but that couldn’t have been true, because the first thing I noticed when I returned to awareness was that he was still inside me, still over me. Still fucking me hard.

  His fingers loosened, but they remained around my neck. He gazed down at me, blue laser beams permeating my hazy thoughts.

  What had he said before I went out? You’re mine. I murmured words that made no sense, a litany of babble. You. Mine. Please. Yes. You. You. You.

  Love. You.

  I reached up to him, ran my fingers over his abs as his muscles worked, as he drove his cock inside me over and over. “I love you,” I said.

  His lips turned down. He shook his head, a curt motion of disapproval.

  “I love you,” I repeated, like maybe he hadn’t understood me the first time.

  “Shut the fuck up.” He let go of my neck, grabbed my questing hands and pushed them down on the bed.

  Tears rose in my eyes. He didn’t understand, or couldn’t understand. “I love you,” I insisted on the edge of a sob. “I love you. I love you.”

  “No!”

  He pressed a hand over my mouth. I twisted and tried to bite him, and found myself wrestled onto my stomach. I wrapped my fingers in the sheets and held on as he pounded me. I didn’t think he’d ever fucked me this hard. He felt so thick and so big, and he was scaring and arousing me at the same time with his frenzied attack. The more I tried to resist him, the harder he drove into me. Take me, take me, yes. Make me scream. Make me come.

  But you have to let me love you too.

  The tears finally spilled over as sobs welled in my throat. I felt his hand at my nape. I tried to struggle to my knees to crawl away but my thighs collapsed before I could get very far. He yanked my hair to signal his displeasure at my “girly shit” and pressed me down like a weight. When I continued to flail, he collected my wrists behind me and held them far up on my back.

  “You’re hurting me,” I bawled.

  “Good, I want to.”

  “Let me see you.” I turned my head, straining to look back at him. “I want to see you.”

  “No.”

  I stopped trying to turn over and ground my clit against the bed. I heard his lascivious chuckle just before he reached down and clapped his other hand over my pussy. Now I was grinding against his fingers, arching my hips for the fleeting, intermittent contact he allowed.

  “Please touch me,” I begged.

  “You have my cock,” he said roughly. “You need your clit stroked too? Spoiled fucking brat.”

  But he opened his fingers and let me ride him until my pelvis shuddered and my legs jerked at the jolts of delicious sensation. I whined in my throat, animal noises, and the closer he took me to climax, the louder I got. His cock banged over my G-spot while my aching shoulders shook from the strain of having my arms twisted behind me. When the orgasm finally washed over me, I felt pain everywhere, but pleasure too, the kind that left you wrung out and shivering in the aftermath.

  He didn’t let go of my wrists until he’d groaned through his own orgasm. When he did finally release me, it was a slow, deliberate letting go, like he was freeing me one nerve ending at a time. I shivered and pulled my arms beneath me. They hurt. My heart hurt. Love hurt. Love me, damn it.

  He withdrew and collapsed next to me on the bed. I turned to him but he was facing away, his hand covering his eyes. It wasn’t a welcoming position. I could see the faint shadow of his bruise under his fingertips. After a minute or two of paralyzing silence, I got up to use the bathroom, then went to the kitchen to put some ice in a plastic bag.

  I returned and approached his side of the bed. He lay so still he might have been sleeping.

  “Do you want ice for your face?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I pressed it to the bruise anyway, very gently.

  He sent the ice
flying across the room. “I said no. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  I watched the bag of ice hit the wall and slide down to rest in the corner. “I was trying to help you,” I said. “Please don’t do shit like that. It reminds me of Simon.”

  “Don’t fucking say his name.”

  I frowned down at him, not that he noticed. “You remind me of him sometimes,” I said on a sharp note. “You act like him sometimes. You act worse.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “Well, your loverboy’s sober now. If you like him better, maybe he’ll take you back.”

  He was punishing me for saying I loved him. I understood that, but it didn’t make his cruelty any easier to bear.

  “I love you,” I said, just to poke at him.

  He pursed his lips. “You loved Simon, so I don’t put much stock in your fucking feelings.”

  “He loved me too, once. We were in love before the drugs. He made a painting about me, called Heart-Lust. I cried, because it was the first time anyone had ever done something like that for me, made some grand gesture. It was the first time I felt like I was worth something. The second time…”

  I waited until he raised his head to glare at me.

  “The second time was at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, when you gave me the key to this apartment. When you sat and sewed my dress.”

  He rolled onto his back and covered his eyes again, this time with a muscular forearm. “I sewed your dress because it was ripped.”

  “You sewed my dress because you cared about me. You gave me this apartment because I meant something to you.”

  “I gave you this apartment because you were a little too content playing Simon’s punching bag.”

  I gritted my teeth, furious that he’d be the asshole Price now, when I needed him to be the thoughtful, human Price. I needed him to love me. “Why are you always like this?” I yelled. I flew at him, trying to pry his arm away from his face.

  He came off the bed, grabbing hold of my hands before I could rake my nails over his skin. “What the fuck is the matter with you? What do you fucking want from me?”

  “Anything! I want you to just...just...” I grabbed at my chest. “Just give me something of yourself.”

  “Love?” he scoffed.

  “Anything. Simon at least painted something for me. He created something for me. He shared his feelings.”

  “I share my feelings. You just don’t like them. They’re not the feelings you want.”

  “Because they’re not your real feelings. Even your poetry was written by someone else, for someone else. What have you ever given me that comes from yourself?”

  “I’ve given you a lot of things, damn it.” He stared at me over the space between us. “A lot of helpful things. A lot of expensive things.”

  “An apartment, a full ride to college? A trip to Oslo?” I wrenched my hands from his grasp. “I never asked for any of that. Why can’t you just give me some normal fucking emotions? Why won’t you admit you feel something for me? For us?”

  I hated that he was making me do this, making me break down and beg him for love while he stood there looking irritated and bored. He had told me, Love lies. But it was so, so much more complicated than that.

  “You’re better off if I don’t love you,” he said, leaving me to cross the room and pick up the bag of ice from the floor.

  “Yes. Same old line. Same old excuses.”

  “They’re not excuses. They’re warnings.” He leaned against the wall, holding the ice to his cheekbone. “I keep a distance between us for your protection.”

  “Bullshit. That’s a fucking lie. A cop-out. I think you keep a distance between us because there’s nothing inside you that can love. There’s nothing inside you but selfish emptiness, and money, and violence.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You’re a cold, selfish, rich, manipulative ass—”

  “Chere.”

  “And you don’t love me because it doesn’t suit your purposes. You use me for sex the same way Simon used me for money. To get your fix!”

  He flung the bag of ice down and stalked toward me. Shit, shit, shit. Now I’d pissed him off.

  “When did you turn into such a needy, delusional bitch?” he yelled. “I’m sorry if I don’t live up to your romantic-fantasy standards. I’m sorry that everything I’ve done for you is shit. If you don’t want the fucking poems, then fucking get rid of them. Burn them, shred them. I don’t give a fuck.” He caught my elbows, hurting me, digging his fingers into my skin. “If they don’t mean anything to you, why have you kept them? Why did you hold onto them all those years?”

  I shied back from his angry questions, and gave him my angry reply. “Because they were all I had to remember you by. They’re still all I have.” I beat my fists against his chest. “When are you going to give me something that’s you? Where are you? Who are you? What’s inside of you? It’s been three fucking years, Price, and I still don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? I’ve never hidden my true self from you.” He shook me hard, once, and let go. “You’re the only one who’s ever let me be myself. I’m only sorry—”

  He turned away.

  “I’m sorry it’s not enough,” he said roughly. “I guess we were never enough for each other.”

  He spun on his heel and walked out of my bedroom, his back muscles tense and his jaw clenched. I followed him to the living room, where he snatched up his clothes and began to dress.

  Holy shit. I’d wanted to push him to open up to me, to love me. Instead, he seemed poised to break up with me. I started backpedaling, retracting my words in a panic.

  “I’m just confused by you,” I said. “Maybe I’m asking too much.”

  “You’re not asking too much.” In those curt, resigned words, I knew I’d pushed too far, to the point where he’d decided to give up on our entire relationship. He shoved his arms into his shirt sleeves. “You’re asking me for things any normal person would want. I’m glad you’re normal. Unfortunately, I’m not.”

  I looked down at the shards of my dress as he scooped up his jacket and started toward the door. I stepped in front of him, hugging my arms over my breasts. “What does that mean?”

  He waved a hand for me to move. “It’s late. I have to go.”

  “Now? Can’t you stay and talk? What about us?”

  He looked down, held my gaze for long seconds. He was gone. There was no more “us” to talk about. He was leaving me a second time, and I knew this time it would be for good.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he said quietly, without rancor. “I can’t be what you want. I don’t have it in me.” He gave a soft, bitter chuckle. “You’re right when you say there’s nothing inside me, starshine. Somehow you’ve always known me better than anyone else.”

  I blinked at him. “I didn’t mean it when I said that.”

  “I think you did. I care for you, Chere, enough to...” His voice went on, breaking my heart as his fingers slipped around mine for a moment. “Enough to let you go. I think it’s best if we parted ways.”

  “Price—”

  “And I’m not going to give you some poem to remember me by, because you’re right, that’s shitty. It’s someone else’s words and feelings, not mine.” His lips tightened. “I’d give you my words and feelings if I knew what they were. But you’re right. I don’t fucking know. I don’t know what’s inside me, especially when it comes to you.”

  He let go of my hand, kissed my forehead, then opened the door with inexorable words of parting, his own blunt poetry.

  “I just know it’s not enough to make you happy. And that’s not okay.”

  Price

  When I was little, I had all these dreams of power and force and good and evil. I wanted to fight dragons. I wanted to be heroic and save princesses. I pored over the pictures in my fairy tale books, fetishizing the women, so different from my autocratic mother and my nagging nannies. I stared at drawings of lonely Rapunz
el locked in her tower, or Cinderella crying by the fire, and my little-boy heart felt full and strong.

  When I got a little older, my fairy tale fantasies transformed into superhero daydreams. I wanted to be both the villain and the rescuer to my adolescent crushes. I wanted to hurt women and save them, and be worthy of them. As I aged, I developed very specific fantasies, of towers and dungeons, cages and rope, and tearful, traumatized victims. I masturbated endlessly to imagined scenes of torment and abduction.

  Then I grew into an adult, and realized that my needs skirted the edge of what was socially acceptable. Failed relationship followed failed relationship, and I finally gave up. I realized, well, no one will ever allow me to live out these fantasies without coming to hate me. I’ll never find a modern woman who’ll crave force and slavery, and be willing to surrender to so much pain. I’ll never find a woman who will accept this dark, unhinged side of me.

  Then I found her.

  And then, a few years later, I realized fairy tales rarely came true.

  Not that we’d ever been a fairy tale. An insecure ex-hooker and a sadistic commitment-phobe were never the stuff of happily ever after. Still, it hurt to hear her say that I had nothing inside me.

  Nothing? Nothing but three years of worry and angst and desire for you, you raving bitch.

  She hadn’t just bruised my soul with those words she flung at me. She’d raked her claws over the only part of my psyche that wasn’t confident and strong. She’d dug right down to the part of me that wanted to love, but was afraid of being hated again, and again, and again. Yes, I was a fucking coward when it came to love. I didn’t need her to point it out to me. I knew.

  As she had stood there railing at me, our roles were reversed, and she was the one mindfucking and hurting me, and trying to make me cry, only she wasn’t doing it for sexual titillation. She was doing it because she honestly, literally believed I didn’t care about her, that I was only interested in using her for sex. There’s nothing inside you but selfish emptiness, and money, and violence.