We were both without family, so we clung to each other. He became my everything. Life with him had been bliss for the first two years, but lately… something was off.
He had become self-important, self-consumed, making everything be about him. And he is so smart, logically and emotionally smart that I was never able to win when we argued. I’d stopped arguing and just agreed with everything he said, from deciding what we ate to what I should wear. It was just easier that way, allowing him to rule me. Often, I learned, his reasoning was right.
The only argument I had won so far was about me continuing to live in my own space. He wanted me to move in with him, he said I could quit work and focus on school. He would take care of me, protect me, shelter me. I refused, needing the sliver of independence my own place provided.
I was there on an ‘orphan scholarship,’ as I call it, although my straight A’s had brought in substantial scholarships too. It was enough to pay for my classes, books and a little extra, so I only needed to work at SaveAll four mornings per week to get by.
“Are you even listening to me?” The question broke my reverie and I mentally shook myself, forcing myself to focus.
“Of course I am. I was just thinking about when we met in the rec hall, how you’d asked me to join you for lunch and you talked about a breakthrough that would change the communication world as we knew it. Now look at you. You did it. I’m so proud of you.”
This appeases him and he pulls me close again, his hand slipping inside my robe to cup my breast. My hair was nearly dry by now; a glance at the clock told me it was nearly ten. My chance at being able to study was slipping away. I had to score well on the exam. My grade in that class was perilously close to a C. I couldn’t allow that to happen.
As he fondles me, it is so tempting to sink into his seduction, so tempting to allow his hands and mouth to distract me from real life. He is so good at this, so good at prolonging the pleasure. We usually make love for hours at a time. Well, ‘make love’ was a stretch. Sometimes, what we did together looked nothing close to resembling love.
“I want to celebrate,” he whispers into my hair, as his fingers twist my nipple, causing me to cry out. He was in the mood for rough and I’d had all the rough I could handle today. When he twists my nipple again, I pull away.
“Can we celebrate this weekend? After I’ve healed a little and have more time.” I hold my breath, knowing this could go two ways. Watching his jaw tighten, his eyes narrow and nose flare, I know it won’t go the way I’d hoped.
“My new news won’t be new this weekend. Are you really so selfish?”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just that… I’m so sore.” Confusion crosses his face and I remember I hadn’t had a chance to tell him about the wreck today. I fill him in, keeping it brief, stopping when I notice his eyes cloud over in boredom.
“That’s why you were such a wreck when I came over? You’ve gotta get over that, babe, or you’ll never make it as a nurse.”
“But…”
“No buts. Besides, they were old, they’d lived their lives and the wreck probably did them a favor. You should have let the other ones die. Now they’ll be burdens on the working class. Our taxes will have to pay for their long term care.”
Too stunned to speak, my mouth tries to form words. Finally, I am able to get out another, “But…”
“You probably interfered with fate today, you know that? Fate needed those old farts dead and you saved, what, five or six?”
I know he has a cruel streak. I know he cares about little outside himself. But, I’d chalked it up to his childhood, six foster homes before turning eighteen. He had little control over what went on around him. So the center of his universe, the only thing he could control, was himself.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he went on. “You’re a soft touch. Still think you can save the world. I don’t blame you for trying. Besides, I like how soft you are.” His hand moves down my stomach and between my legs. In seconds, he has two fingers inside me.
I moan, not from pleasure, but because I’m not ready and his fingers hurt going in. “That’s right babe, let me take your mind off everything.” His mouth closes over mine, hard and punishing, his tongue plunging and demanding. He pushes me down onto the couch and climbs up my body, stretching on top of me, his weight pinning me down.
“Ouch,” I cry out as his knee found a particularly hateful bruise on my thigh. I cry out again as he presses into it again.
“What’s wrong, babe?” he asks, now looking concerned. Jekyll and Hyde—I never know which side of him would turn up.
“Bruise. Bad ones on my legs.” He sits up and undoes my robe, sucking in his breath as he sees the black that is getting darker by the hour. He put a finger on the darkest one and presses. Stars cross my vision.
“No.”
“Yes,” he says. “Welcome the pain, be one with it and you will be in control. Right now, it’s controlling you. You don’t want to live that way, do you?”
“Please. Not tonight.” I hate the whiney pleading in my voice. His smile only gets larger, he doesn’t respond and another starburst flutters across my vision as he presses into the worst bruise again.
“No time like the present. Just think, once I’ve gotten the money, we can go to Europe, visit those dungeons we talked about. You’ll need to get ready for them, increase your tolerance for pain. You’re still very wimpy in that regard, don’t you think?”
The idea of the dungeons turns me on, but only the idea of them, not the reality of being tied to a cross for others to witness me being flogged or caned. I like sex rough with a hint of pain. But, lately, sex with Jerome crossed all of those thresholds. If I complained, he’d do like now and mock me, make me feel stupid and weak.
“Don’t you?” he asks again when I don’t answer. I shake my head, finding the strength to oppose his assertion and watch anger flicker across his face before it’s gone.
“I think you do, you just don’t want to admit it yet. You’re still trying to be the good girl and you’ve labeled everything else as being bad.”
“Get off me. You’re hurting me.”
“Good. Don’t you feel alive right now? Don’t you feel awake and aware? That’s how life is supposed to be lived.” He pushes on another bruise, this one not as big, but hateful just the same. Pain flares as he presses nearly to the bone. “See, you are at one with the world when you’re in an extreme. Do you have any cuts?” I curl my fingers into a tighter fist, unwilling to have my ragged nails, some broken into the quick, become part of Jerome’s experiment.
“Get off me,” I repeat, willing myself not to cry. “You need to leave.” My tone is even, soft.
“You are such the little party pooper. Why do you have to be this way? You’re so close to perfect. So close.” His eyes graze down my naked body and then back to my eyes. “You’re beautiful. Sweet. Acquiescent—usually.”
“Please go. I need to study, I have an exam tomorrow.”
“Babe, hasn’t it connected in that little brain of yours that you no longer have to work? You no longer have to study? I’m weeks away from being rich. You can stay home, take tennis lessons, eat bonbons.” He laughs and touches my flat stomach. “Not too many, of course. Wouldn’t want you to ruin this sexy body.”
I say nothing.
“I’m on the brink of giving you everything you ever wanted and now you’re going to throw it all away? Why am I surprised? You’re probably as addicted to being poor as you are to trying to save the world. Wealth would be too ostentatious for you, wouldn’t it? You’d rather live in this hovel and tend the weak, wouldn’t you? You’re pathetic.”
“Yes, I am,” I jump at the opportunity he’s given me. “I’m not good enough for you, you deserve better. I wouldn’t blame you if you left me right now and found someone who would appreciate you better.”
His grin spreads further, reaching everywhere but his eyes, which still stare down at me with steely coldness. “You think you’re
clever, don’t you? Think you can manipulate me. Babe, you’re playing against a master.”
Fear swells in me, becoming a living thing that slithers its way from my stomach and to my throat. My teeth begin to chatter.
“That’s better,” he says.
I didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to react next. I’d glimpsed this side of him before, watched the monster peek out from just below the surface. Now, I was tempted to say, ‘What big eyes you have’. It was like two men inside the one. How long had the other been living there? Forever?
“Please go.” A whisper was only a hair softer than I’d managed to say the words.
“You don’t really want that, do you?” His hands slid up my body, to my shoulders and down to my forearms. He shakes me and screams in my face, “Do you?”
Pain flares again and I am grateful to be lying down on the sofa, my head is at least pillowed against its softness. How had it come to this? Thirty minutes ago I was crying in his arms. Now, he was shaking me, spitting in my face, “Do you?”
“Go,” I manage, beginning to fight, slapping and clawing at his face. I connect, once, and the pain was exquisite, a broken nail ripping a little bit more.
“Go.” My voice is louder now, I’m using my legs, bucking my hips, trying to get him off.
“Go.” Louder still.
“Go.” Nearly a scream.
Then he stops as quickly as he began. His face shifts, the monster is gone. He looks down at me, his face completely blank.
I scramble to my feet, closing my robe together, ready to flee, but there is no need. He simply takes a deep breath, lets it out, before turning and walking toward the door.
With his hand on the knob, he says, “You’ll regret this.” Without another word, he’s gone.
I shudder. I already do.
Stoking the Embers is Available Now
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Also By Leslie Johnson
Firemen Romance Series Box Set
Love, Lies, Deceit
The Ambassadors Wife Box Set
Standalone Novellas
Everything to Live For
With Elle Dawson
Badass: The Complete Series
Badass: Jungle Fever Box Set
Stoking the Embers Box Set
Ashes Box Set
Rebecca’s Gift Box Set
With Others
Summer in Heat (With M.S. Parker)
Entice (With KB Winters and others)
About the Authors
Leslie Johnson
Leslie is a California native but recently moved to Arizona after a stint in Arkansas. She enjoys travel and being with her grandchildren.
She is an avid reader of many genres, but prefers romances with travel or thriller themes. She loves writing about strong women and strong men because the world needs both!
Please visit me at:
http://lesliejohnsonauthor.com/
https://www.facebook.com/lesliejohnsonauthor
Elle Dawson
Sharing ones thoughts on paper is an intimate experience, and should not be taken lightly. Some days I fear this process, as my mind can be a scary place to dwell. Other days I realize I’m not alone in this journey, and although the very action of expelling ones deepest thoughts onto paper is intensely personal, it is deeply healing. Funny how that works.
I will continue to write as Elle Dawson, and be a mom, sister, daughter and friend in my real life. I’ll enjoy the beauty of Tennessee and read books that take me away or speed up my heart. When I’m not writing them.
I’d love to stay connected...please visit me at one—or both—of these places:
Website: http://elledawsonauthor.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ElleDawsonWrites
Email me: [email protected]
Copyright
© 2016 Leslie Johnson & Elle Dawson
All rights reserved.
Published by: Atrevida Publishing
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Badass: Deadly Target (Complete): Military Romantic Suspense Page 20
