I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember.
But now that I can, the memory is eating me alive.
All I see is Chris and his blood-drenched chest, eyes wide open, begging me to help him. And I refused.
“Please … make it stop,” I beg, my fingers digging into Eli’s shoulders as images of Chris’s dead body flash into my mind.
I was drunk. Foolish. And so out of it that I must have stumbled out of my apartment and ran as hard as I could. Until I no longer had the will, no longer had the energy … and collapsed in the park. Where my brain locked itself out of the memories it needed to hold close … just to protect me. There’s no other explanation for me losing so much time, and I’m only now starting to remember glimpses of this frightening reality.
“I can’t take them away,” Eli says. “ I told you, it would be harder than anything you’d ever done. This was never going to be easy.”
“Why did I want this?” I mutter. “I would’ve been better off not knowing.”
“Because your soul knew it needed to release this. Your mind was drowning in pain,” he replies. “And now you’ve released it from the burden of keeping it a secret.”
He’s right, but I don’t want him to be right.
I sniff, trying to cope with the immense feelings overwhelming me. “It hurts. It hurts so much.”
“I know …” he whispers, and he tilts his head down and presses a soft kiss onto my forehead. “But I will be here every step of the way.”
“Why? Why didn’t you call the police if you knew? Why didn’t you have me arrested?” I ask.
He looks at me, and for the first time, it feels sincere. “Because this is what we do. We punish the sinners until they repent.”
I lean back and lick my lips. Even though I’m completely naked, I’ve never felt this warm and comforted before. As weird as it may seem, skin to skin with my chest against his is the only place I feel safe right now as though he is the only person on this earth who could understand what I’m going through.
“All this time, I thought you were lying. That you were keeping me here for your own dirty needs,” I say as I listen to his heartbeat, the sound keeping me in the here and now. “But you were just trying to make me see the truth.”
He lets out a long-drawn-out breath. “And now you know why.”
“How did you know what to do?” I ask, frowning.
His brows rise. “It isn’t sex. It’s what the brain does when it is in pleasure mode.” He taps his temple. “You shut off and allow yourself to leave all your presumptions, your self-consciousness, and your insecurities behind. And it allows me to apply certain … tricks to get you to see your own sin.”
I swallow hard. “The knife.”
He nods.
That same knife I used on Chris is now on the floor right beside this armchair. I almost tried to use it again, but I couldn’t. Not just because the memories flooded back inside … but because deep down, I couldn’t hurt the man who had brought them back.
The man who feels as though he was sent to judge me.
The man who I thought was my punisher.
But is he really?
Or is he my savior?
His thick chest muscles tense as he wraps his arms around me and gets up from the chair.
Enough? What is?
“What are you doing?” I ask, wishing we could just stay there for a moment so I could bask in his warmth and forget all my sins, if only for a moment.
“Shh,” he whispers.
The air he exudes is both powerful and peaceful at the same time. Like a man wishing to save me, and I can’t help but feel at awe at his commitment. At how he did all this to me just to show me what I had done. Just to make me remember.
And for some reason, I feel grateful. “Thank you.”
The words slip from my mouth before I even realize it, and he stops and looks down at me for a moment to smile. It’s the most genuine smile I’ve seen on his face since I first met him, and it warms my heart.
“Don’t. Please, don’t,” he says, clearing his throat. “I don’t deserve that.”
“But you helped me remember,” I say, frowning.
His nostrils flare. “I did what I had to do to save you. That doesn’t make me a good guy.”
“I didn’t say you were.” My hand reaches to touch his face in a moment of pure need for love, even if it’s the wrong kind, but the look of suffering he gives makes me stop.
“Don’t,” he says. “Please, don’t. Don’t thank me.”
My hand inches back, and I swallow. “Sorry.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,” he says, and he continues walking. “It’s that I don’t deserve it.”
He takes me to a door on the other side of the study, which leads straight into a bedroom. His room. The room I was never welcome in or invited into, one that was locked when I still had my privileges to roam about the house.
The oversized bed in the middle of the room is large enough to fit five people. The curtains in front of the window are already closed, but I can still check out the room because of the small light next to the bed. A black leather couch sits in the back next to a giant wardrobe and a mirror that spans the wall from top to bottom.
But I don’t have more time to look as Eli places me down on his bed, fierce protectiveness in his eyes as he lies down beside me and pulls the blanket over us. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me in closer until we’re spooning. Like we’re an actual couple.
But that doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t love me. We’re not together. He’s my captor, and I let him do this to me because I asked for it. Because I pleaded with him to punish me, and now I got my wish.
“Don’t think too much. You need to rest now,” he says, tucking me in tighter.
The warmth in his arms almost makes me forget who he is. Almost.
“I can’t. I can’t sleep after all this,” I say, trying to force myself to remain in the here and now and remember he is the bad guy, even when the lines are blurring.
“Then at least rest,” he replies with a stern voice.
“But I need to know more,” I say as I clutch the blankets that smell like him a little closer, afraid of what’ll happen if I admit that maybe, just maybe, I feel something for him. Not love … but adoration. And I know that isn’t right. I’m not supposed to feel these things for a man like him. My captor.
Especially when he knows so much about me. Things I didn’t even know myself.
Because Eli never told me why he knew what I’d done to Chris. Or how he got that knife.
I swallow hard. “I have questions.”
“What do you want to know?” he murmurs against my skin, the warmth of his breath almost distracting me enough not to want to ask.
I’m tired, so tired. Not just from fucking but from reliving the trauma I’ve tried so hard to keep buried. My eyes can barely stay open, yet I know I must hold on. No matter how hard they wish to close, no matter how hard my brain wishes to forget. I must know the truth that’s right in front of me.
All I need to do is ask.
“How … did you get that knife?”
The question hangs in the air for so long that it feels suspended in time. His body no longer feels warm against mine but cold to the bone, and I shiver in place.
“I found it in your home,” he says.
The words reverberate over and over in my mind.
In my home.
He was in my apartment.
He was there when it happened, that night.
My eyes are wide open. I’m awake. I’m fully aware.
Memories flood back into my mind of the day I found myself lost in the woods and stumbled back home, when I looked out the window and saw a man leave. He was leaving my apartment. Eli.
But why did he come to my apartment when we’d only met a couple of times before? Even if he knew where I lived, he couldn’t have possibly known what was going to happen … that I was going to kill
my own boyfriend…
Unless…
He did.
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Read on for a sneak peek at Dark Lies!
Sneak peek book 2
Amelia
My body shakes. Vigorously. Unable to contain the dread building inside.
“You were in my home?” I ask. “When?”
“Enough questions. Ask them later.” He presses a kiss to my shoulder and then throws the blanket off him. “I’m going to take a shower. Get some sleep.”
He slides off the bed while I clutch the blanket close, afraid of what’ll happen if I let go. If I let my mind go and allow these thoughts to invade.
Because deep down inside, I know he is a bad guy.
A guy who seems capable of doing anything to get his way.
Even if it means setting someone up to become a killer.
A chill runs up and down my spine, and as the door to the bathroom closes and the shower is turned on, I throw the blanket off me and jump out of bed. I can’t stay here. No matter how desperately he wants me to. No matter how much I felt when I kissed him. I have to escape.
So I search around his room, ripping open everything and anything—desk drawers, wardrobes, cabinets. I leave nothing unturned until I find what I’m looking for in the pocket of the pants he just took off: A key.
And not just any key. The key he’s been walking around with since he first trapped me here in this house. The key that opens all the other rooms where the captives are kept.
I swallow hard, thinking about Anna and what it did to her when I took her with me.
I won’t make that same mistake again.
If I ever want to make it out alive, if I want them to be safe, I have to find another way to help them … from the outside.
I get up from the floor and grab my dress to put it on again, but this time I don’t make the same mistake I did last time, and instead of putting on my high heels, I grab a bunch of socks from his wardrobe, layer them on top, and put on a pair of his training sneakers.
And without thinking further, I run.
Eli
I strip off my shirt and jacket and throw them in the corner of the bathroom. In the mirror, I stare at the man I’ve become for a moment. At the man who moved mountains to get a girl to confess … but at what price?
I turn around and look at my own back and the scars that cover my skin. Some old … some fresh. Every muscle that flexes sends a blazing trail of pain down my back, and I make a face at the thought of doing it all over again.
A necessary evil for a necessary crime.
Even the punisher must be punished for his sins.
I sigh to myself and close my eyes, preparing for what comes after I’m finished. And I turn on the shower and step under it.
The water rushes over my naked body, covering me in a sheen of warmth. It’s the first time in a long time when I don’t feel overwhelmed by the pain. Instead, I’m reminded of the warmth I felt when she was on my lap, of how amazing it felt to bury myself inside her … of how much I really wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go.
When I brought her here, I thought I could do this—that I could fuck her and use her and make her confess with ease. But she was tougher than I imagined, and it took more than just my body to make her yield. More than anything I was willing to give …
I groan to myself as I stare down at the water pooling at my feet, wondering how I got here. Why I ever made the decision to make her fall, bring her in, and break her. If it was all worth it.
Because I haven’t just added scars on top of scars on my back.
I’ve added scars to my heart.
The moment she kissed me, I lost the battle, lost the will to resist, and I let her. In fact, I loved it so much that I came back for seconds, for thirds … I needed more and more. I still do. The more I take, the more I want, the more she’s willing to give, leading into this vicious cycle neither of us can escape.
And when I go out there, I know I will need to make a decision about what to do with her. If I’m going to set her free or keep her for my own selfish needs.
But would she ever want me the way I want her?
Could she ever love the man beneath the beast?
The man who made her confess?
I run my hand over my face and rinse off, determined not to dwell on it further. The fact is that I’ve already made my decision, even if I tell myself I still have time. I don’t.
Because I already knew long ago what I was going to do … And that it wasn’t going to be her choice, but mine. I don’t easily give up something that’s supposed to be mine to keep.
Maybe that makes me a monster, but I don’t care. I know what I want, and I’m willing to hurt for it, die for it … kill for it.
I already stepped over the line. Why would it matter if I keep doing it?
But a little voice inside my head whispers at me in the dark.
Don’t do it. You’ll regret it.
Not for you. You know exactly what you want.
But you’ll regret it … for her.
I frown and glare at the wall in front of me.
Since when do I have a conscience?
I don’t, and no amount of thinking will change that fact.
So I grunt as I turn off the shower, then grab a towel to head back into my bedroom and find sweet relief in her embrace. But the moment I open the door, I’m surprised to find an empty bed.
Open wardrobes.
Clothes scattered all around.
A wide open door.
Just like my mouth.
Amelia
Through the dark night I run through the bushes and along the trees, back through the same forest I came through last time. But this time, I came prepared. I snuck out through the garage after stealing a map from one of the cabinets there. I know exactly where to go now. Not too far away from where I got last time. But now, no guard is on my tail. No one to call me in, no one to chase me down to the beach and catch me just before I make it off.
The guards were having lunch in the kitchen right around the time I escaped, and Eli won’t even notice I’m gone until it’s too late.
With a bolstered heart, I storm through the woods without looking back, even though every step hurts because of what I’m leaving behind, but I don’t dare to say that out loud, to ever utter the words “I deserved to be here.”
I can’t. Not until I know the truth.
And for that, I need to go back to the place where it all began. Home.
So I run and run until my breath falters, until my legs almost cave underneath me, and my heart is almost beating out of my chest. Even if my body is at its end, I refuse to quit because I know there is a way out. There has to be.
Suddenly, I spot it. The small pier I’ve been looking for, the one on the map.
It isn’t much, just a few planks of wood stuck into the water, but there’s a boat attached to a rope. And I’m going to steal it.
Eli
I sprint through the woods as fast as I can, guards on my tail. I didn’t tell anyone what happened because there was no time. I had to catch up with her, no matter the cost. I knew where she was headed and what she was about to do.
She was going back there, back to where I caught her, but this time she’d find an exit. The only one I’d left behind in case I’d ever need one. Never has regret been this strong.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I try to get there on time. I ran outside in a mere top and a pair of undies. That’s how fast I was to chase her.
And it still isn’t on time.
Because the moment I spot her, she’s already halfway on her way across the water in my fucking boat. All by herself, with no one and nothing to help her if she fails to get across.
“Amelia!” I yell as I stand on the beach and watch her turn around.
The look on her face is pr
ecious, scornful, yet full of sorrow.
As though it pains her as much to do this.
As though this is a final goodbye.
But if there’s one thing she clearly doesn’t understand about me, it’s this: I will never stop hunting her. Not now. Not ever.
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More Books by Clarissa Wild
Dark Romance
Savage Men Series
A Debt Owed & A Debt Repaid
Under His Rule & Beyond His Control
The Company Series
Delirious Series
Wicked Bride Games & Dirty Wife Games
Father
New Adult
Rowdy Boy
Cruel Boy
Fierce Series
Blissful Series
Ruin
Erotic Romance
The Billionaire’s Bet Series
Enflamed Series
Bad Teacher & Bad Boss
Hotel O
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About Clarissa Wild
Clarissa Wild is a New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author of Dark Romance and Contemporary Romance novels. She is an avid reader and writer of swoony stories about dangerous men and feisty women. Her other loves include her hilarious husband, her cutie pie son, her two crazy but cute dogs, and her ninja cat that sometimes thinks he's a dog too. In her free time, she enjoys watching all sorts of movies, playing video games, reading tons of books, and cooking her favorite meals.
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