This is Love, Baby(6)

“Ahhh,” he says with a pleased laugh, “I was right. Your body does still belong to me.”

He drags his wet finger around one of my nipples and teases the hardened peak. I wiggle to no avail.

“I won’t let you rest until you come for me. We can do this all day, Baylee. I’ve waited for you while you were gone. I didn’t share myself with anyone knowing I’d have you back where you belong eventually.”

I sob when he goes back to sliding his cock against my throbbing, betraying bundle of nerves.

Think of War.

Think of War.

I’m trying to block him out when I feel his hot mouth on my sex. Jerking my eyes back open, I glare down at him. His tongue takes over and my squirming only serves to make him more ravenous.

Licking and slurping.

Biting and sucking.

There’s no possible escape for me from his pleasure assault and it’s making me crazy. If my body gives in, I’ll not only betray myself, I’ll betray War.

“Mmm,” he moans against me, his hot breath only making my struggle to remain strong harder on me.

His finger is back inside of me in an instant as he continues to taste me. I roll my eyes back into my head and attempt to ignore the curling of the impending release twisting its way through my lower body like a sharp knife.

The craving to climax is strong.

Sickening.

Torturous.

I hate the way my body begs for it. How it quakes and quivers in need.

My mind pleads for another way but I know it’s hopeless. I’m once again prisoner to the villain who plays my body as if it were an instrument only he knows how to play. Each muscle in my body aches and burns as I do everything in my power not to let him win.

But he does win.

His fingers know parts of me inside that surrender to his demands. Parts that aren’t connected to my heart or mind.

A shudder, hard enough to rattle the earth beneath us, overtakes me. It’s pain and hate and fury all rolled into one exhausting release. My pussy clenches around his fingers and my own duplicitous juices run from my body along the crack of my ass, wetting the bed beneath me.

What have I done?

With reluctance, I reopen my eyes and take responsibility for what I allowed to happen.

I loathe him.

But who I loathe more is myself.

I’m no longer the Baylee I once knew. He’s found a way to sever the last thread of connection to who I was. The last thread to my life with War. I am nothing, floating and black. My soul wails in hopeless defeat.

“There, there.” He kisses the inside of my thigh once I’ve come down from my unwanted orgasm. “That was perfect. You’re perfect, Baylee.”

I lie there, unmoving like a child’s doll long forgotten in the yard. Discarded and used. Broken and useless. My thoughts are blank and my heart doesn’t beat. I just stare and stare and stare into nothingness. His next words don’t frighten me or upset me. I don’t recoil in disgust or beg for him not to.

“I’m going to make love to you now.”

I simply stare.

I am no longer War’s peace. I am nothing. I am Gabe’s vacant little doll.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.





I SHOULDER MY duffle bag and start toward the door when a thought occurs to me.

She doesn’t have any clue. Not one single clue.

My girl has been stolen, most likely raped and beaten, been someone’s prisoner for nearly four months now. Her spirit is probably broken. She’ll miss her parents. I’m sure she’ll be scared out of her damn wits.

I run my fingers through my overgrown dark hair. The boyish spikes are a thing of the past and I’ve embraced the wildness of what it’s come to be. Much like myself. No longer stiff and in place, behaving for everyone to see. No, it’s unruly. Unmanageable. Rogue. Like me. I’ve spent months searching for her. Months dealing with more questions than answers. Months missing her so badly, my heart physically aches in my chest.

And while I don’t understand, and quite frankly, am furious about the correspondence she had made, I’d been smart enough to know it was probably under duress.

My Baylee loves me. She always has.

I can’t wait to take her from that motherfucker and hold all of the broken pieces of her. I’ll mend her and heal her. Take the pain away from her. Provide the shoulder she needs to lean on. It’s what we do. Baylee and I are made to weather any storm. If we can get past all of this bullshit, we can do anything.

I stride through her home and make my way into her parents’ room to find what I’m looking for. On her father’s bedside table sits a picture. A picture of her family. The frame long since replaced after having been broken not so long ago.

Baylee—recently turned seventeen in the picture—sits between her parents on the bleachers. It had been baseball season, and she’d forced them to come to one of my games. Tony, for once, was actually smiling. Almost as if he’d grown used to seeing me around and could perhaps stomach the idea of her and I being a couple. Lynn wore a smile of beauty and grace as she side hugged her daughter. It was one of the last times Baylee’s mother had been well enough to leave the house.