by A. Zavarelli
"At the sanitarium?" she asks.
I nod.
She waits quietly. Hoping for more. I don't know what to tell her. There are so many things. Things I have waited to say.
Hateful things. Painful things. Things that tear at the very fabric of the man I am now.
I want her to know what a coward her father is. I want her to hate him as much as I do. To understand that given a choice, he would probably betray her too.
He would rather leave her here with me than risk his own life to get her back because that’s the kind of man he is. But for as long as I’ve waited to say these things, I can’t seem to tell her now. Not yet.
“He brought them to me every week.”
"So you liked the puzzles," she says. "I see you working on them sometimes, around the house."
"Yes."
"Because you're smart, Javi."
I don't reply.
My mother always said I was smart because I was good at science. Like her. But I was never good at people.
"And then what happened?" Bella asks.
I try to recall the exact order of events. The time that I was locked away, and for how long. At first, I had counted the days and weeks and months. But when Ray started coming to visit and bringing me the workbooks, the counting ceased. I spent my free time completing the books. They became more and more challenging over the course of his visits. And I always wanted more.
Sometimes, I completed them too soon, and I had to wait days for another. Until finally there was a day that Ray came back, and he wasn't alone. He had a different man with him this time. And he asked me for the workbook. The workbook that had been the most complicated one he'd ever brought me so far.
I gave it to him. He smiled like he was proud of me. He hadn't even checked it yet. But he told the other man he didn't need to.
He handed it off to the stranger who inspected it with a furrowed brow. That man looked at me, uncertain.
"This can't be right," he'd said. "He's only a boy."
Ray laughed and handed me another workbook.
"Javi, can you do me a favor?"
He opened up the book and pointed to a page.
"Can you solve this one for me?"
I took the pen he provided and solved it in ten minutes while they watched. The man beside him was smiling too when I finished.
"Well, I'll be damned."
They looked at each other, and then to me.
"So?" Ray asked. "How about it?"
"I think perhaps you are right," the man said. "I think he will make an excellent addition to the program."
Ray looked at me and nodded.
“Indeed.”
I didn't know it then, but my life was about to change. It was about to get better, for the first time in a long time. I didn’t know then that I would grow to hate Bella's father so much. I didn’t know the kind of man that he was. Because he showed me something else at first. Something I needed at the time, in a world where nobody understood me.
The man who gave me guidance and a purpose. The man who took me away from the sanitarium. He never treated me like I was dangerous. He helped me with my anger. He helped me as much as he could. He did everything he could to help me.
And now here I am, holding his most beloved daughter captive in my home.
When I think of those early days, and how much I cared for Ray- how much I respected him- it hurts to think of what has become of us.
I can't uncross the lines I have already breached. I can't undo the moments I caved beneath the weight of my darkness and gave into temptation. But what I can do is be honest with her. I can try to make her understand. At least some of it.
Until I’m ready to give her the truth.
"It was never about leaving you," I tell her. "Or choosing me."
She looks at me, eyes shining, and then hides them beneath a veil of hair.
"That isn't what it felt like. He left me to go to you. He did it all the time."
"Because he was responsible for me," I explain. "And he was teaching me. It was only part of his job."
She glances up at me, and her eyes are still wet, but it isn't for herself.
"You were never just a job to him, Javi. Surely, you must know that. He cared about you as if you were his own son."
His own son.
Those words hit me hard. Much harder than I could anticipate. I knew that he was proud of me. I knew that he felt responsible for me. But I also know why he took on the burden of helping me.
I did not live with him as a son would. I was kept separate. Alone.
He came to visit me at the program, and I kept to my routine. I did what he asked of me, and I excelled at everything he put in front of me. Because I wanted to make him proud.
At the time, I felt indebted to him. For saving me from that place. And for saving River too when I had requested it.
He had given me so much.
I never had a father. But hearing Bella say those words makes me feel as though perhaps I did. Perhaps I did see him that way, and I just never knew it until now.
And now, there is a foreign sensation inside of me when I look at my Bella. So soft and sweet and broken. Caring for me after all that I have done to her.
She is inherently good.She sees past my ugliness. My feelings for her are split.
I want to hurt her. But I want to protect her too. And I think that perhaps she was right. I think the person she most needs protection from is me.
"What are you thinking about, Javi?" she asks.
I don't like that she can see me so well. That even beneath the hood I have replaced, she can read me. It's strange, not being able to hide anymore.
It makes me feel exposed. I want to forget that she has seen all of me. That she has witnessed my scars. I wonder if they haunt her. If she cringes when she thinks of them. But I cannot tell her these things.
“I’m thinking about what your father would say,” I reply. “If he knew you were here.”
She is quiet. Lost in her own thoughts as she studies me.
"Sometimes, I don't know what my father would say," she admits. "I love him very much. But I feel like I don't know him very well. He had so many secrets. And I have wondered..."
She threads her fingers together in her lap and looks into my eyes again.
"Wondered what?" I press.
"I have wondered what he did to you, Javi."
I do not answer her.
Bella rises from her chair and moves towards me.
My pulse quickens.
She approaches me the way one would approach a wild animal. My fists are locked at my side, my muscles tense. Her arm trembles and her lip does too. She raises my hood and pushes it back away from my face.
My body is still sore. Still healing. And it looks worse than usual.
I don't like this. I don't like her seeing me like this. I move to grab her wrist. But she is fast this time. And determined.
"No, Javi," she says. "I want to see you. Let me see you."
My body goes on the offensive. Every muscle tightening and contracting. Every instinct inside of me demanding that I eliminate the threat. But one look into Bella’s eyes gives me the control I need to restrain myself.
My hand falls back to my side. And I let her see me. I cannot deny this angel.
She moves between my legs. Hesitates. Now it feels as though she is the predator. She sits on my lap, and her palm comes up to touch my face.
I close my eyes when she maps out the scars with her fingertip. I don't like it. But I don't want her to stop either.
"Bella."
My voice is hoarse. Strained. I don't know what I need from her. But my Bella knows. She leans in and kisses me. She kisses my scars, healing me in some way. As though they could disappear beneath her gentle touch.
I know that they can't. But it feels like they are. Like she is the cure to my disease. Her lips find mine. I can't be gentle with her anymore. I catch her face in my hands and kiss her violently. She whimpers but does no
t protest.
I am hard for her. So fucking hard. I grind my hips into her soft flesh and want so badly to feel her from the inside. I want to destroy her and fill her with my come.
I want her to cry so I can taste her tears. I want her to make me bleed. I don't know how to make it stop. I can’t cure this madness in my head.
I’m not supposed to want her this way. I’m not supposed to feel anything when I look at her.
Her hands are on me. On my skin. Beneath my shirt. Touching me. Feeling me. Burning and healing me.
"Take off your sweater," she begs. "Please, Javi."
I look into her eyes, seeking out the deception I am certain to find there. But it is absent.
"Please," she says again.
I push my hand between her legs. Cupping her through the leggings. She is wet for me. For the monster beneath her. I don't understand it. How can she want something so bad for her?
"Javi."
She's pulling up the sweater herself now.
My mind is still at war, but my body is responding to her. Lifting my arms up when she tells me. My sweater ends up on the floor, and my chest is bare for her. Hard and scarred to her soft and pure.
Her palms move over me, exploring. Her lips find the skin of my throat first. And then my collar bone. Then the scars that litter my body. I close my eyes, and my head falls back against the chair.
She is the only one I've ever allowed to touch me in this way. I would not have believed that it was possible.That it could be real.
But it is.
I am allowing her to touch me, and she is wet for me.
"You have always been mine," I tell her.
Her hand moves down to the bulge in my sweatpants, cupping the hard heat through the material.
“But what about you, Javi?” she asks. “Does that mean you are mine, too?"
I groan when she squeezes me through the material, my self-control hanging on by a thread. She leans forward in my lap and kisses my neck again. All the way up to my ear.
"Let me have you," she says. "Let me have all of you."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Javi’s fingers dig into my hips, his eyes sharp and intense.
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"I do," I tell him, and it's a lie.
I know Javi is fucked up in the head. I know that he is a well of darkness I haven't even tapped into yet. And I fear those parts of him. But I am also drawn to it.
The darkness in him speaks to the darkness in me.
The space between us is loud with energy, boiling over into our heated skin.
"Get up," he tells me.
I hesitate.
Afraid he is going to reject me. Afraid he is going to send me away. It isn't what I want. I don't know how to convince him otherwise.
He reaches up and snags a handful of my hair in his grip.
"Are you going to do what you're told, Bella?"
His voice is menacing and hot. Hungry and full of promise. He's on the verge of breaking. And I think he just might give in.
So I stand, and he releases his grip on my hair, lifting his hips up to remove his sweat pants. I try to help him, and he growls at me.
"Do as you are told, Bella. Be a good girl."
I let him do it, even though it's obvious he is in pain. He removes his pants and slides to the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over so that his feet rest on the floor and his hands are at his sides.
"Now come here."
I come to him, still fully clothed. Javi directs me with short, precise commands. He tells me to remove my shirt. And I do. Then my pants.
I do.
I'm standing before him in my bra and panties, and he's on the verge of losing control. I want him to. So I provoke him by removing the rest without his permission.
I am naked before him. Naked and cold and vulnerable.Something I have never liked to be. I don't know why I like it so much right now.
Javi's palm spreads over my hip and slides up my rib cage to cup my breast, his thumb skating across my nipple. I jerk forward like I’m being pulled by a magnet. Crushing against his body heat, and still not close enough.
He is a composition of hard muscle and painted tattoos. His cock, rigid and swollen against his thigh.
He's a monster. A chillingly hot monster. And I want him. I want him so badly it hurts deep in my core. He's going to ruin me. Destroy me. Physically and mentally. I know this. And yet I beg him for it, even as he shoves me to my knees before him.
"Kiss me."
I kiss him.
On the head of his cock.
The moisture of his arousal slides over my lips, and I part them to lick it off. In doing so, my tongue brushes against the head of his cock, and he groans.
As with all things, Javi does not have the patience for me to take him softly or slowly. He grabs my head and shoves himself deep into my throat, gagging me.
He holds me there, testing me. My hands rest on his thighs, and I don't dare move. I don't even breathe. I remain silent and still, my eyes watering while he measures my limits.
"Is this what you want, little Bella?"
I try to nod, but I can't move my head under the force of his grip. He sighs and releases me, allowing me to fill my lungs.
I look up at him. He expects animosity. Hopes for it. Anything to stop this. His eyes are pleading with me. Begging me to have some sense. To understand that he is a monster. To understand that I am asking him to destroy me. My eyes implore him to do it. To do the thing my lips can't speak of.
I rest my cheek against his thigh, stroking my fingers over the scarred skin there. The still raw wounds of his new injuries. Pressing a little harder than I should. Giving him the thing I know he wants and craves. The pain.
He shudders. Petting my hair beneath his palm while I trace the sensitive flesh with my nails. And I know. I know he's going to give into me now. He can't help himself. He reaches for something on the bedside table, and I don't see it until it flashes beneath the light.
The edge of the metal blade presses against my throat, dragging over the skin there. My heart accelerates, and my eyes snap up to his.
One push and he could end my life right now. I already know him to be a murderer. He murdered his own mother. But it's his eyes that give him away. This is his last attempt at pushing me away. He wants me to be afraid. He wants at least one of us to come to our senses.
I reach up and rest my hand over the blade. Gently, he allows me to remove it from his grip.
I press it against his thigh. Javi’s eyes heat and his cock jumps. He wants this. He wants this fucked up scenario more than anything. He wants me to do the very thing his mother did to him.
I should stop. I should run away. I should reason that they were right to put him away. To lock him up and institutionalize him. But the need inside of him calls out to me.
And instead of appealing to logic, I dig the blade into his flesh. I dig until it pierces the skin and crimson oozes from the wound.
His lungs are at a standstill when I move my free palm between his legs to stroke his cock. He grunts. Bucks into my hand. Tosses the knife away and yanks me up onto the bed.
He is still bleeding from his thigh, and I wonder if I did too much. If I went too far. If I crossed a line I won't be able to uncross.
These thoughts all crash through my mind in jarring succession while he positions himself over me and secures my wrists above my head. I don't even know what he bound them with until I see the ropes around the bed frame.
The fear is potent when I pull against them and can't move.
"Javi," I plead with him, my voice betraying my terror. "Please..."
"I warned you, Bella," he says. "I told you."
He reaches for the knife. I squeeze my eyes shut and tremble beneath him. The tip rests against my collar bone, trailing along the sensitive flesh before it dips lower. Onto my chest, directly above my breast.
"My turn."
He cuts into my
flesh, and I don’t make a sound. Javi is breathing hard enough for both of us, his voice heavy with arousal when he speaks.
"Open your eyes."
I open my eyes.
The ache is intense. Euphoric. I feel lightheaded. High. And I can't tell if I am afraid or turned on when I glance down at the red line on my chest.
It is only small. Superficial. Enough to draw blood. I thought it would be worse. It felt so much worse.
Javi leans forward, pressing his skin into mine. He kisses me. It's so fucking wrong to like this. That's what I keep telling myself. It's so fucking wrong what he's doing to me. I know it. He knows it. But we can't help ourselves.
I am at his mercy as he drags his lips down my throat and sucks my nipple into his mouth. He licks me until I am raw and drenched with need. And then he pulls my legs up around his hips, opening me up wide for him.
It hurts already, and he hasn't even entered me. I look up at him and plead with my eyes. I want to ask him to be gentle. I want to tell him to just take me.
It doesn't matter though because Javi does what he wants. He drags his cock through my arousal and pushes inside of me.
"Javi."
He thrusts deep.
I freeze. Burn. Cry.
He collects my tears with his lips.
"My Bella." He rocks his hips into me. "My Bella."
I squirm beneath him, uncertain whether I'm trying to break free or get closer. His eyes find mine, soft and warm and golden. They are so different now. He is changing before my eyes. The icy walls around his heart are thawing, and it’s because of me.
His fingers brush over my cheek. My lips. Full of worship. I squeeze closer to him, and his eyes flutter shut. The pain of our past fades beneath the soothing touch of his fingers on my skin. His lips on my neck. His body in mine.
I ache to touch him. I beg him to free me from my restraints, but my pleas go ignored as he reaches down to touch me.
He makes me come with several strokes of his fingers. It isn’t violent this time. It is a slow, lingering burn that stays with me while he sucks on my throat, marking me. Claiming me.
He is bare inside of me, the way he always has been. Raw. I should tell him to pull out. I should be worried. Scared. Logical. But I can't be any of those things with Javi.
