One hand grips my hip and the other guides his cock into me. The second he fills me, I cry out, throwing my head back, and I scream when he slips his thumb in my arse and pumps in and out of me until I see stars. His power is unrelenting, his aggression brutal, his need savage. He needs to fuck me, to forge this connection he’s fixated on, and I’m beginning to succumb to. I struggle to breathe past the intensity. I fight to cry out at the connection, as my lungs constrict and my throat tightens with emotion. I grip the bed sheets, keeping my forearms pressed to the mattress as Cooper screws me like we both need.
“See how good we are together, baby?”
I nod, pushing against him as he drives into me and stunts my breathing with each thrust. I’m fucking the man who stole me from freedom, and I asked him to do it. I’m falling for the man who has admitted to watching me, stalking me…the man who came to haunt my dreams, and asked my nightmares to dance. I hate that I love every second of it. I hate that I knew nothing about Cooper when he stood by watching me; he knows nothing about me now; he’s fixated on something that isn’t real. I’ve lost myself, the woman who would once fight. The woman who was pure and good and selfless. I’ve lost her, because Cooper has exposed who I truly am. A black butterfly. A butterfly who craves more than a pretty flower and a gentle breeze. I need thorns and a tornado. I need Cooper Jennings.
With a growl, Cooper comes, shooting into me and drawing my own release to explode like a supernova and incinerate every ounce of my existence until I belong to him.
I belong to him.
I wake up to the sound of a sharp, rhythmic shrill. Cooper unwraps himself from around me and slips out of bed, crossing the room to where his trousers are on a pile in the corner. He takes the phone from his pocket and looks over his shoulder at me before answering and pressing his phone to his ear. I can’t hear what he’s saying as he paces the room and speaks in a hushed tone. He keeps looking at me, as if checking I'm still here and can’t hear him.
“How?...When?...Where?” He looks at me, terror sparking in his eyes. “I’m on my way.”
He hangs up and throws the phone on the bed as he rushes around getting dressed.
“Get up, we’re going.”
“Going where?”
“To the hospital.”
“For…?”
“There’s been an accident.”
He’s frantic. Panicking. This is no papercut or shattered glass.
“What kind of accident?”
“It’s Doe.”
“Doe?”
“My fucking child, Erin. My daughter is in the hospital and we have to go…now!”
Cooper has a child. The girl I found in the house next door is not a prisoner; she’s his daughter. I piece the puzzle together as Cooper flies along the country lanes to reach her. He moved to the UK after his career fell apart; he met a woman, he fell in love with her—despite him labelling it as nothing but lust. They married, they had a child…Cooper had the life. What happened? I want to ask him but I don’t. He’s seething, steering one-handed, the other pressed to his chest to try and calm his heart. He’s unhinged; he’s panting and grunting and murmuring something about knowing this would happen.
“Cooper.”
“Shut up,” he snaps, refusing to look at me, but snarling in my direction as he runs a red light. “Don’t talk to me.”
I nod and look out of the window, clamping my shaking hands together in my lap. The engine climbs again and again, slipping effortlessly into gear and I have to focus on that because Cooper’s worry is hitting me with every bend we whip around. I don’t have a child, never even thought about it, but Cooper tells me everything I need to know about being a parent. It’s fucking terrifying. My heart breaks for him, and I turn to look at the anguish on his face as he whips around another bend. He needs to get to her. He’s going as fast as his sleek sports car will allow without wrapping us around a tree, but it isn’t fast enough. He needs to be with her now. How far away is the hospital? What was the accident? What happened that pushed Cooper into emergency mode and forced me to forget about my own welfare?
His brows knit together, his eyes flitting around him to assess the risks around us. He licks his lips and tries to swallow, but the fear has made his mouth dry and he clears his throat instead.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say, reaching forward to take his hand.
“No!”
He shoves me away, his arm extending in my direction and I flinch, screaming as the back tyres skid on the road and we zig-zag over the two lanes.
“Just shut up.”
“You should have left me at home,” I continue. I won't shut up just because he asked me to. He dragged me here with him. “You’re hurting and I want to help.”
“Stop talking.”
He’s afraid. His face has paled further and I can see it even in the lingering darkness as dawn approaches. He needs the one-track mind to get to her. The second he talks to me, he’ll slow down. He’ll spin around another bend and lose control. He won't get to her if he’s dead in the middle of the road. I want to tell him I understand, that I know why he needs me to be quiet and allow him to race to his child, but I don’t.
Instead I sit back and watch him drive.
I’ve always hated hospitals. There is death around every corner, the stench of it colliding with the promise of it and making my ribs creak with tightness. I’m with Cooper, experiencing every emotion as he does and yet, I still have no idea what’s really in his mind. I have no idea how much it really hurts. I can’t empathise with him, but I can allow him, just for a while, to take what he needs from me. He didn’t bring me with him because he thought I’d run if he left me at home. He brought me here because he wanted me here; because even now—especially now—he needs someone by his side.
But if Doe isn’t a captive and he has the ability to love beyond all definitions of the word…why did he take me?
“Get out.”
Cooper is at my side of the car tearing my door open, and reaching in to unclip my belt. We’re outside the hospital, angry red lines painted on the road and signs up on every pillar telling us not to park here. The second my belt is off, springing back to where it came from, Cooper is gone, turning his back on me to run inside. I jump out, close the door, and follow him as quickly as my feet will carry me. He navigates the corridors with ease, spinning left and sliding right without asking for direction. When he stops at a desk, I grind to a halt and take a few seconds to breathe. This place is suffocating. Cooper’s anxiety is crushing.
“Aldora Jennings,” he growls, his face contorting as if it physically pains him to say her name. “Where is she?”
“Are you family, sir?” the receptionist asks.
“I’m her fucking father. I’m all she has.”
The receptionist taps at her computer and flips up the page on a clipboard pinned to the wall. Cooper’s frustration mounts, until he’s physically shaking, chewing on his bottom lip to contain the abuse he wants to give this woman that will have him thrown out.
“Red Ward, down the corridor to the left. She’s in the first room on the left.”
I thank her on Cooper’s behalf as he storms along the hallway in search of his daughter. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not her mother and I’m not family, but the nurse says nothing, nodding in understanding of Cooper’s reaction and gestures for me to follow. I do. Like a bat out of hell, I run after him, silently begging him to slow down so I can allow my mind some time to catch up before I’m thrust into this situation. There’s a room down this hallway, in the first room on the left of Red Ward, and I have no idea of my involvement in the situation. Cooper stops, gripping the frame of the window as he looks into the room. I halt next to him, gasping when his hand snaps between us and he grips my wrist.
“Coop..”
He silences me with a glare, before returning to look through the window.
The little girl I saw just a couple of nights ago lays in the bed in the priv
ate room. She’s sleeping, her little arms on top of the bed sheet and extending down her legs, a cannula in one hand, a plastic clip with a red light on the thumb of the other hand. Her hair is matted with blood, stuck to her forehead and haphazardly tucked behind her ears. She has a black eye, stitches in a cut on her forehead, a small white plaster on her nose, and nicks and grazes all over her arms and neck.
Cooper lets out a shaky breath and I know we’ve counted her injuries together. His fingers tighten around my wrist and I wince, knowing why he’s doing it. He wishes I hadn’t seen. Now he can’t take it back, can’t push me away; he can’t stop me caring about his daughter.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Stay there.”
I nod, feeling cold when he steps away from me and into the room. Pressing my hand to the glass, I watch as he takes slow steps across the room until he’s beside his daughter’s bed, and he perches on the edge. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but he takes her small hand, raising it to his lips several times as he talks to her. I feel like a voyeur, watching something so powerful it has someone who has never even held a baby welling up. I rest my casted arm on my chest, hoping the heavy bandaging will somehow ease the ache in my heart as I watch a man break for his daughter. What happened to her?
“Can I help you?”
I turn when I hear a sharp voice. Before I realise who it is, I take a millisecond to wonder if I’m going to be asked to leave. Cooper won't be able to punish me for running if I’m forced to go.
“Hello?”
The woman in front of me stuns me, because I know who she is. Cooper’s ex-wife. Doe’s mother. I’m a spectator to a family emergency I shouldn’t be a part of.
“Cooper asked me to wait,” I answer, taking a step back as she takes a step forward.
“Did he?” She looks at my feet. I flex my toes when I feel her angry glare penetrate me. “And who are you?”
She knows full well who I am. I think. I hope. Maybe she’ll let me go. That’s what I want…isn’t it? She doesn’t look like she wants to help, though. She looks like she wants to kill me. Cooper’s aggression offers very little comparison to the motivation this woman has for wanting to end me. Shouldn’t she be worried about their child?
“I’m…”
I’m cut short when Cooper bursts from the room and shoves the woman into the wall. She shrieks and stumbles backwards, gripping the top of her arm—the point of impact—and stares between Cooper and me.
“Get out of here.”
She tilts her head to the side and licks her lips as she smiles as her husband. Ex-husband.
“I believe,” she says, taking a step away, “I’m her mother. I’m her next of kin. You have no right to demand I leave.”
“Why are you up walking around?” he asks, stalking her, circling her like a predator after its prey. “Where the fuck are your injuries?”
She shrugs. “I guess I got lucky.”
Cooper says nothing, standing his ground and glaring down into her light eyes. It’s now that I notice a little cut above her eyebrow, and the reddened whites of her eyes. It’s now that I notice the unhealthy grey tinge to her skin. It’s now that I notice her shaking, her mismatched clothes, and the long sleeves, the ends gripped tightly in balled fists.
“I want you gone. Go and get a drink, shoot up, and let me take care of our baby.”
“You know how this works, Coop.”
He chews his bottom lip again, his fists clenching and opening by his sides. He shoves them in his pockets and when I look up at him, I see him looking down at me.
“Why are you still here?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at me.
The man who showed a little softness just hours ago is gone. I don’t know who this man is, but once again, I feel like he hates me. He’s projecting.
“You asked me to stay,” I say, refusing to bow to his attitude problem. “Are you saying I can leave?”
“Do you want to?”
“You’re the boss, Coop.”
He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring as he takes a deep breath. He steps forward, opening his eyes to bore down into me as he seizes my throat in a gentle grip and pushes me back against the wall.
“Oh, caterpillar,” he whispers, conscious of the woman behind him. “I wish I could deal with this now.”
He dips lower, pressing his lips to my neck. I sigh and roll my eyes, shivering when he chuckles against my flesh, sending goosebumps from my neck to my toes.
“Let’s see how you fare with no direction, shall we?”
He steps back, but when I open my eyes he has a fistful of his wife’s hair as he drags her towards the room. He throws her in, turning to look at me one last time before he steps in and closes the blinds without so much as a glance in my direction.
“Let’s teach you a lesson, shall we?”
It’s the last thing I hear before he pushes the door closed and I’m left out in the hallway with no direction and nowhere to go.
It’s dark in the room when I wake up on a hard wooden sofa. I can smell Cooper, and when I look down I see his jacket over me. I snuggle into it, but I remember his words from earlier. I remember what he said to his wife. I remember the way he looked at her—like he looks at me—with so much aggression and passion, it cannot be written-off as hate. He can’t fool me anymore.
I came to the visitor’s room after standing outside Doe’s room for half an hour, expecting him to give in and come and give me a command. But he didn’t. Once he and his wife disappeared into the room, there were no more signs of life from inside.
Why did he take me? What’s his wife’s addiction? Why is Doe still with her if he wants her? Why doesn’t he have his daughter at home if her mother is incapable of looking after her?
I sit up, throwing Cooper’s jacket over me and shoving my arms into the holes as I pull it tight around me. I stretch when I stand up, and leave the room to find the bathroom and locate a cup of coffee. The coffee is awful, bitter and somehow dry…but it’ll do. When I’ve cleaned up as best I can in the bathroom, and got the coffee, I return to the room.
“Why haven’t you run?”
I jump when I see Cooper sitting where I slept. Flustered, I slam the coffee onto the table in the middle of the room and whip the jacket off, throwing it onto one of the chairs. I hate it. I hate that I want the jacket—I want to swim in his scent. I hate that I’m still here, after he toyed with me, taunted me with the level of violent lust for his wife, and then left me knowing he’d stripped me of my ability to make choices. Most of all, I hate the smug look on his face when he looks at me and knows he’s won.
I freeze when Cooper stands and picks his jacket up, before crossing the room to stand in front of me.
“I gave you the jacket, and I haven’t asked for it back.” He envelopes me in chlorine and Cooper when he whips the jacket through the air and onto my shoulders. “Why didn’t you run, caterpillar?”
“How’s Doe?” I ask, refusing to give him a reason for me still being here.
“She’ll be fine. The damage is on the outside this time.”
“This time? How badly is she damaged?”
“Why are you asking?” He frowns. He knows why I’m asking.
“Because I want to know.”
“Yet you won't answer the only question I’ve asked you.”
“I’m here because I have nowhere else to go.”
“And…?”
“I don’t want to be punished.”
“And…?”
“And…” I bow my head, but can’t fight Cooper when he pinches my chin and tips my head back, forcing me to look at him. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Put your shoes on.” I look down at my bare feet. How had I not noticed? When I look back to Cooper, he’s smiling. It’s stunning…I’m stunned. His smile is as beautifully deviant as the rest of him. “I took them off when you were sleeping.” I smile and open my mouth to thank him, but he silences me by slapping my cheek. “Put your f
ucking shoes on. We’re going home.”
“What about Doe?”
“Stop saying her name and get ready to go.”
Cooper dragged us out in the middle of the night to see his daughter, and now he’s more than happy to go home before she’s discharged. He knows his wife is an unfit mother and yet, we’re leaving his child with her. He’s brooding on the drive back. Once again he was playful, mesmerising, almost charming…and then he flipped the switch, tossed the coin, and reverted to the foul-mouthed man I’m afraid will kill me.
“The way I see it, my life is going to go one of two ways,” I say, waiting for his reaction to my utterance. I don’t get one. “I’m either going to find out all your secrets and then you’re going to kill me, or you’re going to realise that, even though you kidnapped me and claim to want to ruin me, there’s a slither of humanity in you. That humanity will spare me.”
“That’s a brave statement to make, Erin,” he says without looking at me, speeding along the road like before.
The car had been moved to a space while we were in the hospital and aside from a parking ticket and a letter from an angry attendee who didn’t have the balls to break the rules like Cooper did, he won't be punished for parking in the ambulance grid.
“Yeah, well, maybe you underestimated my bravery.”
Cooper laughs, and it’s throaty and deep. It’s so arousing and I turn my head to watch, despite him laughing at me.
“You’re so fucking stupid, caterpillar.” He shakes his head and slows, as we approach his house. “Maybe I plan on giving you crumbs, just enough to drive you insane with the need to know. And maybe I won't kill you, but I’ll sure as hell have you wishing I would.”
“Whatever.”
I get out of the car when he parks up outside his house and watch the gates close, locking me in. Why didn’t I run when I had the chance? Why didn’t I leave when he gave me permission to? I didn’t know where I was going, but I could have found my way home. That’s what I want…isn’t it? I watch Cooper get out of the car, and I’m silently proud that I caught him off guard, that he’s the one following me for a change. He closes his door with a muffled slam and locks the car with cocky flair. He saunters towards me with his gaze locked on mine, stops in front of me, and dips his head so his eyes can burn down into mine. He releases a breath; it tastes of mint and coffee, and my mouth waters with the urge to taste him. Gripping a fistful of hair at the back of my head, tips my head back.
Butterfly Page 12
