I loved the danger. The way he brought me to life.
My fingers rested on my stomach, against the sliver of skin where my shirt rode up, and I glided my hand along it, throbbing between my thighs as my nipples poked through my shirt.
Tears burned my eyes. I hated myself.
Because I wanted him.
He lied so well, didn’t he? That I wanted to feel everything he convinced me of when he was in my bed when I was sixteen.
A tear fell, but I tried not to cry. I wanted to feel him again.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him win.
I heard a heard a car pull up outside, the door open and slam shut, and then the door downstairs slam.
I froze, the pulse pumping in my neck as I listened.
Footfalls on the stairs.
A creak in the floors.
The slow whine in the floorboards getting closer, and I heard Mikhail whine.
I closed my eyes. No.
He jiggled my door handle. When it didn’t give, because it was locked, he did it harder.
The door still didn’t open.
Everything was quiet for a moment, and I clutched the sheet at my sides, waiting, and then…
The door was kicked in.
I sucked in a breath as it flung open, the wood splintering, the handle crashing to the floor, and I heard my chair tip over and hit the wood.
I shot up in bed, shaking my head against the heat rushing my belly and the warmth between my legs. “Don’t,” I begged.
But I wasn’t sure if I was telling myself or him.
I didn’t hear him move, but I knew it was Damon. The cloves drifted off his clothes, and the security would’ve stopped him if it wasn’t.
A light sweat made the silk pajamas stick to my skin, and I pulled off the sheet, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
“Please, don’t,” I whispered. “I can’t think straight.”
His footsteps approached, he stopped in front of me, and I heard ice clink in a glass as he took a drink and cupped my chin.
He ran his fingers over my jaw, possessive.
“You don’t want to want it,” he said in a low, deep voice, “but you do.”
“Please.” Just leave. “Please.”
Don’t touch me. Don’t hold me. Don’t take me in your arms.
He set the glass down on my nightstand, and I heard him remove clothes, his jacket maybe, and throw it off somewhere.
“Lie down,” he told me.
“No,” I mumbled.
I heard buttons go flying as he tore off his shirt and then the jingle of a buckle as he unfastened his belt.
“Lie down, Winter,” he said sternly.
He’s not him. He’s not who I fell in love with.
He was my sister’s husband, and he wanted to make sure I was never happy again.
I put my hands on his stomach, holding in my sobs as he threaded his fingers through my hair, bringing my head in close. Bending down, his breath falling across my lips, he said, “On your back, Winter. Do it.”
And then his lips caught mine, biting, and I kissed him back, letting his tongue sink into my mouth and feeling the need for him course through my body.
But instead of lying down, I pulled back, touched his face, and pleaded with him as he caressed my cheek with his thumb.
“Just let me go,” I told him.
And he growled, throwing me off.
I cried, scooting away from him on the bed as he stalked around my room.
“Let me go,” he mocked me, repeating my words. “Why can’t you shut up? Why can’t you all just shut the fuck up?”
“I will hate you if you do this to me,” I fought. “I’ll despise you and never stop trying to escape you, because I could never love you. Because you’re sick, and I hate the way you make me feel! I could never love you.”
A clutter went crashing to the floor, and I knew he’d shoved everything off my dresser.
But I didn’t stop. “And I hate myself around you,” I told him, saying anything to hurt him. “I hate what I let myself do with you, because the only way I can get you away from me is to get it over with!”
“That’s not true,” he bit out.
I climbed off the bed, facing where his voice was coming from. “You’re such a little boy. A child who can’t control himself. A disease!”
More went crashing to the floor, and I heard my mirror shatter in his little tantrum, but I only grew stronger.
“So come on,” I dared him. “Fuck me. Do the only thing you know how to do, because it’s all you can take from me anyway, and I don’t give a shit about any of it! Take the house. Take the family who left me here with you. Take the fucking clothes off my back and make me walk out of here naked!” Sobs filled my throat, but I refused to let them loose. “I would gladly do it if it meant getting away from you!”
He rushed up to me, grabbing the back of my neck. “You were in love with me.”
“It wasn’t the real you. It was nothing but an act!”
I slapped his hand away and shoved him in the chest.
“You shouldn’t have killed her,” I said, digging deep for the worst fucking things that would ever come out of my mouth. “She was the only one who was ever going to love you. She was the only one who wanted to touch you and take care of you and be around you!”
He breathed hard, labored, like he was struggling for air.
“Everyone else you have to hold prisoner!” I snarled. “You have nothing and no one! No one can stand you!”
“S…s…stop,” he gasped, sucking in air. “Just please stop.”
“I hate you!”
“Winter, please don’t,” he begged, and then I felt him move away, his body hitting the wall and sliding to the floor. “Please stop. Just stop.”
He grunted, like he was in pain, and I stood there, still hot from my fury and tears welled in my eyes, threatening to fall.
He said again, barely a whisper, “Please stop. Please.”
I stood there, my fingers curled into fists. What was wrong with him?
Why wasn’t he storming out or charging for me and throwing me on the bed like he threw me on the floor in the haunted house?
He just sat there, the air pouring in and out of his lungs, turning calm after a few minutes, but I fisted my hands, staying charged.
Who was he? Who the hell was he?
He was a machine. A monster. A liar.
What the fuck was I supposed to do? What did he want from me?
But he didn’t say anything. He just sat there. Quiet.
Until finally I heard his voice again, solemn and calm. “My father had this rottweiler,” he said, “who was pregnant with mutts when I was about seven. He let me have one of them. Not sure what happened to the rest, though.”
I swallowed the tears in my throat, still standing rigid and ready.
“I’d never loved anything so much,” he told me. “That little thing wanted to be wherever I was. He followed me everywhere.” He paused and then continued, “He had this thing, though, about barking. At the drop of a pin. He barked so much, and I couldn’t shut him up, and every time the doorbell rang or a car pulled up to the house or someone knocked on my door, I…I couldn’t get to him in time to settle him down before my father heard him and got angry.”
Dread knotted my stomach, and I pictured seven-year-old Damon and his puppy with their sliver of happiness in that shitty house.
“Even at seven years old, though,” he continued, “I knew the horror of finding my dog hanging from a tree in the woods wasn’t as awful as the realization that my father made no attempt to hide what he’d done.”
My face cracked, but I stayed silent.
“He wanted me to find him.” His voice grew thick with tears. “Even then I understood that the dog wasn’t the one being punished, and that next time he’d make me do the deed. I never asked for another dog after that.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears spilling over. Jesus Christ.
“And I learned, really quick, that life wasn’t going to be pretty. Not until…”
Until…me?