Because my body likes it.
He doesn’t stop. He kisses me instead, right on the mouth, and before I can think to bite down I’m opening my mouth wider, groaning, exploding into a million dying stars. My heart sinks as I clench tightly around him. Pleasure and devastation mark my voice as I weep and come underneath him, crying out into his mouth.
“Good girl,” he says, his grin wicked, his pace quickening. I close my eyes and sob as he pulls out of me, and a moment later I feel hot spurts cover the spot on my torso where he’s excised all the pretty colors and left a giant, weeping mess of blood.
I squeeze my eyes shut and continue to sob brokenly as his weight shifts from the bed, my loud wails tearing through the tiny room.
He waits patiently while I cry and scream, making noise until there’s nothing left. Then, I stare at the low ceiling, at the spider webs and cracks and the dull, flaking paint that someone must have put up a long time ago. He stays still beside me for so long, I almost forget he’s there.
“I thought it was pain that would break you,” he says finally. “But pleasure? What a fucking surprise.”
He reaches down and wipes the tears from my cheeks, then sucks every bit of my blood and my tears from each fingertip.
“And as far as tears go,” he adds darkly, “I think yours taste the best.”
Confucius said, “Before embarking on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
Now I know why.
And now I know, that there is something worse than death.
This.
My arms and legs alternate between fire and numbness, and I can feel my back bleeding from the bed’s springs caught up in my skin. I stopped crying a long time ago, and the blood and semen on my stomach has long turned cold, most of it sliding slowly across my hip and dripping onto the floor underneath the bed frame.
I’ve got nothing left inside. I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want revenge.
I just want to die.
The door opens and I continue to stare at the ceiling impassively, refusing to acknowledge him. I count the cracks in the paint and try not to shake when footsteps approach the bed.
Not that. Not again.
A face comes into view and my eyes widen when I see it’s not Dornan. Nobody else has ever come in here the entire time I’ve been imprisoned in this place. But now, there’s a young Hispanic guy undoing my arms as I stare up at him, his face stirring some vague, faraway memory long buried. I briefly wonder where I’ve seen him before. He must be a club prospect or a Ross cousin, but his eyes are a piercing blue, so if he’s a relative, it’s distant. He’s got a teardrop tattooed just underneath his left eye, and when he moves to the right I can see a tattoo of a gun on his neck. The rest of his visible skin seems pretty unmarked, which will no doubt change if and when he’s initiated. His head is completely clean-shaven, the harsh bulb that dangles from the ceiling making the top of his head shine. He looks young—twenty-five, at the most?— and pretty fucking ferocious. He kind of reminds me of a pit bull. He’s not unattractive - just the opposite, in fact. He’s good-looking, he’s just fierce. Which I guess is the whole point.
“Who are you?” I demand. I thought I’d be more ashamed at the state I’m in, but since he isn’t looking at me, I don’t really care. It’s like I’m not even inside my body. I’m just an onlooker, observing from the sidelines as my body slowly fades away.
He undoes the last rope and I immediately sit up, bringing my knees up to my chest to cover my almost-naked body as much as I can.
His blue eyes swivel to me and I have to fight myself not to cringe. He’s the most intense motherfucker I’ve ever encountered stare-wise, and that includes Dornan, chilling as that sounds.
“I’m your worst fucking nightmare,” he says, smiling like an arrogant bastard. He’s got a slight accent that I guess is Mexican.
“I really doubt that,” I reply deadpan, thinking of Dornan. Nobody could possibly be as evil as him.
I’m about to add some other snide comment when he straightens and pulls his T-shirt up and over his head, throwing it at me. I grab it quickly, wondering that the fuck he’s doing.
“Put that on,” he says. “Unless you want to walk around with your tits out on display. I don’t mind either way.”
I roll my eyes, quickly losing my ruined shirt and bra that Dornan cut open at the chest. I pull the T-shirt over my head, thankful for the warmth. It swims on my frame, almost reaching to my knees. The guy isn’t fat; he’s barely even solid. No, it’s me that’s shrinking to the size of a fucking twelve-year-old from lack of food.