by Logan Fox
The buttons pop off one by one.
Five of them.
One, two, three, four, five.
I’m on the last fucking button when she peaches me, but it’s already too late.
Peaches? Why is she peaching me?
Then it all becomes clear as my eyes move down her body. Her perfect little tits. Dark pink nipples. Flat, smooth stomach… but only until just below her belly button.
At the lowest part of her belly sits a long, horizontal scar. It’s not raw. It’s not angry looking, like someone attempted to disembowel her last month. I know how scars age all too well. It’s been there a while.
Is she? Was she?
I blink a few times. Come on, Kill, it doesn’t take a surgeon to work out what that is.
There are a thousand thoughts running through my mind in that second. All of them questions, none of them answers. How? When? Fucking how?
Where?
Is there a child in her house wondering where the fuck their mum is? My throat tightens at the thought. At the familiarity. At how much that hurts. Did I cause that?
That feeling returns. The one that feels like I have a grenade in my arms and someone just pulled out the pin.
Except this time, the person who pulled the pin out is quite clearly me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MEISIE
I feel my buttons pop off. I feel the fabric slide away from my skin. I feel the cold air caressing my exposed skin.
But it’s only when Cillian’s gaze touches me—so hot compared to the cool, air-conditioned room-—that I’m dragged kicking and screaming back to reality.
Somehow, in my mind, he’d stopped when I yelled peaches.
Like he always did.
But a glance down at myself confirms the reason for the panic suddenly coursing through me.
I writhe under him. “No!”
Too heavy.
Too strong.
Aren’t they always?
“No!” I shriek.
“Tell me,” is all he says. Commands, really. Like he’s not just satisfied with owning my body, but he feels he has some kind of stake in my soul too.
“You fuck!” I yell. I buck and squirm, using every ounce of my strength to try and get out from under him.
“Meisie, it’s done. Hear me? It’s fucking done.” His hand lands on my breastbone and he uses it to push me into the mattress. Then he sinks down on top of me again, driving the air out of my lungs and stilling my limbs with the sheer weight of his body. “It’s done, darlin’. I can’t take it back.”
His hand slides down between us.
Silent tears squeeze out of my closed eyes and dampen the hair at my temples.
No.
He was supposed to stop.
But why did I think he would be different? Why the fuck was I tripping on this fucked up theory that instead of him controlling me, I could control him?
Because you’re a fucking basket case, that’s why, Trish says. And yes, that’s my professional opinion.
Cillian’s fingers brush over my scar, and it’s as if he’s reaching in and pulling out my baby all over again.
No anesthesia.
No fucking breathing exercises.
My beautiful baby girl.
I let out a wordless wail, but I can’t move under him anymore, not if I can barely fucking breathe.
“This—” he runs the pads of his fingers over the scar “—doesn’t change anything, unless you want it to.”
Like a stone dropped in a pond, that touch ripples in every direction and through my whole body.
“When?” he asks quietly.
Four years ago. Give or take. I made myself stop counting the months, days, the hours, the fucking seconds since they snatched her from my womb.
I made myself forget about her, because otherwise I’d be in a padded room where they force you to forget so you don’t try and bash your brains out against your own kneecap.
But he doesn’t get to know that. Him and his sick brother will never know about her.
My sweet, darling Grace.
I should never have named her. That’s where I fucked up. It was when I named her that she stopped being an intruder and became a living, breathing part of me.
Grace transformed her from an obscene burden to my darling baby.
Think hate is powerful?
Try loving someone you barely got the chance to meet. Someone who’s only ever communicated with you via heartburn, morning sickness, and the odd kick to the bladder.
And fuck, I loved her.
But then she took her from me. Mom snatched her out of my arms like Grace never belonged to me in the first place.
The same mom who couldn’t get on a flight for my first day of school. Who couldn’t take time away from work for my eighth birthday.
But she could board a plane and fly halfway across the world to South Africa just to rip my happiness away.
And God, that fucked me up.
Fractured my mind.
Cillian said he’ll break me?
I’m already broken.
Said he’ll put me back together again?
Impossible.
This puzzle’s missing a piece, and it’s not as if it’s gone and rolled under the couch, either.
Grace is gone forever.
I thought I could find her. That’s why I came here. Suffered through her. I didn’t want to steal her away, God knows that ship has sailed. I just wanted to know if she was happy. But I couldn’t even...
“…sie? Meisie!”
Fingertips tap my jaw.
I surface from the black pool of memories I’d been wallowing in, coming face to face with the man who had just plunged me under and held me there until I’d almost drowned in that black ink.
I used to get angry when I thought about losing her. Anger quickly changed into depression. Trish prescribed me meds, and they balanced me out.
But now I don’t feel so balanced anymore. Those scales? One side rises while the other is slowly sinking. And I know what’ll happen when it hits the bottom.
Same thing that always does.
Death crooks a skeletal finger and, intrigued at everything He offers, I wander ever closer and closer. Who will pull me back? There’s no one left to talk sense into me. That was Dad’s job, and he’s nowhere near.
All I have is Cillian, and he’s just as broken as I am. The man doesn’t feel a thing.
Cillian, who’s watching me like he doesn’t understand where I went, and why not all of me came back again.
Yeah, welcome to my world.
I expect a thousand things from him then, but I don’t expect his next question.
“Did you like your fort?”
For a moment, I have no idea what he’s talking about. He cocks his head to the side, pointing behind us. “That mess you made with the blankets, your little hidey-hole.”
“The one you destroyed?” My voice should have been bitter. Instead, it just sounds tired. Resigned.
“Aye,” he murmurs, shifting his weight and creating space between our bodies. “Do you want me to build a better one for you?”
I stare up at him? Do I? I don’t know.
He doesn’t wait for my answer. He slinks off the bed like a cat, and I should be glad about that.
But I’m not.
I already miss his warmth.
Without him, it would be too easy to succumb to the cold.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CILLIAN
She didn’t peach me. Well, she did, but we’re a bit too fucking far down the road for that now. She didn’t peach me again, is what I mean.
But I’m beginning to think I know when a peach is necessary with her.
So I’m giving her space without giving her too much space. Without abandoning her completely. I’m sweating my arse off rearranging the room while she sits on the bed watching me.
Because if she’s watching me, she’s not thinking about that scar. At least that’s
the best logic I can come up with.
Me and Cole had a fort when we were younger, but it was more effective at keeping the bad shit out than this thing.
We had one of those mid-level cabin beds that we shared, with the drawers and the pull-out desk normal kids would have used for homework. You could pull the desk out, crawl under, and slip into the space behind the drawers. Sometimes we’d steal a bar of chocolate and a can of cola from the shop, take it back to the fort and hide there for the weekend. We never lasted the full weekend of course, but we planned to.
We made lots of plans in that fort. Cole made a lot of plans in that fort.
We’d build ones like this too, all flimsy and useless. But they were just for fun, not protection. My old man would have torn a thing like this down easier than I did last night.
The couch is in position at the foot of the bed. I just need the bedcovers and pillows, but she’s still sitting there and I can’t work out if this is working or not.
Choosing not to disturb her, I cross the room to the far wall and grab the pelmet that’s holding the drapes up. Two pulls and it comes down. Shoddy workmanship if I say so myself. I bring them back and arrange them over the sofa.
When I glance over she’s looking at me like I’m the man who hung the moon. Or pulled down the drapes. I’d like to believe that tonight they’re the same thing.
I shove my hands in my pockets, feeling like a spare prick now that I’ve finished.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she finally says.
I swallow, fully aware my voice is going to come out hoarse. “We both know I did.”
She gives me a weak smile. “You’re good at that.”
“What? Building forts? And to think I’ve wasted thirty years trying to be a… businessman.”
Her smile gets a little stronger, and I like it. “I wasn’t talking about that.”
I know she wasn’t.
“What were you talking about?”
She shakes her head, like it doesn’t matter.
But it does matter.
I approach the bed, and she doesn’t scarper. Which is surely a good sign. “Tell me.”
She frowns just slightly and shakes her head.
“I’m good at knowing what you want, when you don’t even know yourself?”
Her eyes flick up to my face, and then she looks back down at the fort at the end of the bed.
“I’m good at knowing what you need.” This time it’s not a question, it’s a statement. She deals with statements better than questions. Orders better than choices.
“Lie down for me, Meisie.”
She does it. But not before making sure both halves of the shirt are covering her completely.
We’ll fix that.
I lie down beside her, propping myself up on my elbow. My fingers trail a line down her body, and I don’t miss the hitch in her breath as I pass by her stomach.
I’m going to try to fix that, too.
“Do you want to know why I rebuilt it?” I ask her.
She knows what I’m talking about, but she chooses not to answer.
“Because nothing in this fucked up world that’s broken can’t be fixed. Not me, not you, not your fucking fort.”
I try my best to make her see that. I trail kisses and bites down her body while she squirms and tries to fight me.
When I get to her belly I can practically feel the panic in the room.
“Not even this,” I tell her.
I’d like to believe that. I’d like to believe that even the most messed up people, the most fucked up situations, the flimsiest little hidey-holes all have a chance at being fixed.
But she looks at me like I’m torturing her. Like me being close to whatever happened down here is just too much trauma for one person to take.
I stare at her while I try to think of what she needs. She said I’m good at that. She didn’t have to say it.
If this is what’s haunting her, then she needs me to take it away.
She needs me to be the bad guy.
Because the demons in your mind can’t bother you when you’re busy fighting the one in front of you.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MEISIE
Lie down for me, Meisie.
Why do I listen to him? Maybe I’ll ask Trish if I ever get out of here.
Right now, it’s easier to pretend I’m scared of him. No lost time spent in conversations with a psychiatrist inside my head.
He gets onto the bed beside me, the mattress shifting under his weight. But he doesn’t lie down. No. That would be too simple. Too normal.
Instead he sits up on his elbow and trails his fingers across my collarbone. Between my breasts, down my stomach.
I suck in a breath as he trails past my belly button, toward the place I really don’t want him to go. But his fingertips sink lower, abandoning my scar, heading for the bundle of nerves between my legs.
“Do you want to know why I rebuilt it?”
I don’t answer, instead just stare up into his now sea-green eyes. Maybe it’s just a trick of the red light in the room, but they’re glowing.
“Because nothing in this fucked up world that’s broken can’t be fixed. Not me, not you—” he cocks his head again “—not your fucking fort.”
Cillian ducks his head and catches my nipple in his mouth. He nips me so hard that I gasp and buck under him. His lips chase a tremor through my body as he kisses his way down the center of my stomach, over my belly button.
Lower.
When his lips touch my scar, a horrified moan breaks out of me. I twist to try and get him off me, but I guess he takes some sick delight out of torturing me, because then he grazes my scar with his teeth.
“Not even this.”
He looks up then as I stare down at him. We stare at each other for a long time. What’s going on behind those eyes?
I’m still trying to work that out when his face turns hard.
For a second, I’m awestruck by how cold and dead he looks.
He wedges his knees between my thighs, splitting my legs wide open. But his eyes are on me.
“Time to leave the past where it belongs, princess.” He slaps my pussy with the flat of his hand, a faint smile touching his mouth when a small gasp tears out of me. “The fucking past.”
He sinks two fingers deep inside me, working them in and out in a slow, steady rhythm.
“N-No!” I have to force the word out of a strangled throat. “Stop! Get off me!”
“And why would I do that?” he asks, frowning as if he’s genuinely interested in my reply. All the while completing ignoring my struggles.
“Peaches!”
Miraculously, he yanks his fingers out of me. My body sags. He releases my hands and sits back on his knees. There’s no way I can miss the hard-on tenting the front of his pants, but he seems inclined to ignore it.
I let out a sigh and bring the two halves of my shirt back together with trembling hands. And he lets me.
But he laughs when I try to close my legs. And when I throw him a panicked stare, he slides the same hand he just had inside me over the front of my throat. Instantly, I grab his wrist in both hands. It’s like holding onto a steel pole, especially when he flexes his fingers.
“I didn’t say I was done with you,” he rumbles out, giving a rueful shake of his head. “You leave when I’m satisfied.”
My body goes tight. “Let me go,” I say through a soft, forced laugh. “Please.”
“So glad you’re finally playing by the rules,” he says. He moves up on the bed, his knees sinking into the mattress on either side of my chest. When he leans over me, his crotch is right by my face. I turn away, but that just means I get to watch while he slips my wrists into the leather cuffs and buckles them tight.
Until he’s satisfied?
My eyes crawl back to the bulge in the front of his pants. When I glance up, I see him staring down at me as if he’s come to the same conclusion. But instead of easing out his cock and
forcing it between my lips, he sinks his fingers into my hair and smooths his hands down my face.
“Not until I’m sure you won’t bite it clean off,” he says, more to himself than to me.
He slides off the side of the bed.
He’s leaving?
I rattle my restraints, trying to see if he left enough give for me to squeeze my hands out of the cuffs.
He slaps the side of the bed so hard I almost pee myself. “What was rule number one?” he barks.
“I don’t fucking remember!” I blurt out before my brain’s caught on.
Shit.
That…wasn’t the right answer.
He moves down to the foot of the bed, leans over, and grabs my ankle. A second later, despite how I kick and tug, he has it secured in the ankle cuff.
“Cillian, no. Please. I’m sorry!”
He stalks to the other side of the bed without as much as a glance at me.
My mind works overtime trying to remember the rules. I blurt them out. “It’s…no fighting! No running! No escaping!”
I could be shouting at a wall. When I draw my leg up close to my butt so he can’t grab it, he holds out his hand and looks up at me.
And then I nearly do wet myself, because the look in his eyes could strike down something small and fluffy at sixty yards.
Something like me.
Ever so slowly, utterly reluctantly, I give him my foot.
And yelp when he snatches it.
Then I’m spread-eagled, the two halves of his dark dress shirt not doing anything in the way of retaining my modesty. There’s enough give on the ankle cuffs that I can raise my knees a few inches off the bed, but that’s it. Not enough to build any kind of momentum capable of hurting him if I tried to kick him in the groin.
Cillian unbuttons his shirt.
It drops to the floor by his foot with a soft sound. Silence reigns for a moment, until he unbuckles his belt.
And then I can barely hear anything over the sound of my own frantic panting.
“No. Cillian.” I moan, glancing up at my bound hands, and then down at my feet, somehow expecting that a miracle happened between then and now and I’m suddenly free again.
