Yes.
“No.”
“Then what?” he asks softly with worry etched in the lines of his face.
Trying to relieve whatever is running through his head, I wrap my arms around his neck, hug him close, and tell him, “You’re just really intense, and I guess . . . yeah . . . maybe you scared me a little.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, shifting his forehead to rest against mine. “Look at me.”
When I open my eyes, his are peering into mine, noses together, so close.
“I never want to scare you. I never want to hurt you. I only want to be close with you, but this is the only way I know how to be.”
“You don’t have to apologize for who you are,” I faintly breathe. “This. Being here in your arms. I’ve never felt more safe. So just hold me, okay?”
And he does, for a long time, while I try to get my head straight. We just hold each other, and then after a while, he takes my hand, and licks my palm before kissing it and then presses it to his chest.
“You consume me, you know that?”
I shake my head, saying, “I assumed I annoy you most of the time.”
“You do,” he laughs. “Your smart mouth irritates me, but it’s also something I love about you. You don’t take my shit, and I like that. But at the same time, I need you to be able to take my shit. I’m demanding and stubborn; that’s not something I’m willing to change because I thrive on control.”
“Why?”
He releases a deep breath, telling me, “Let’s not talk about why. Not tonight.”
“One day?”
“One day, darling,” he says as he pulls me in closer to his naked body. “Can you stay with me tonight?”
“Mmm hmm. Bennett’s in Miami for a few days. I’m yours until he gets back.”
Leaning his head back to look me dead on, his voice is acid when he says, “No.”
“No?”
“You’re mine regardless of where he is. Here or not. I don’t play well with others.”
I hesitate for a second and then say, “It’s not that simple. He’s not like he appears, Declan.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just . . . It’s not easy.”
When he shakes his head in confusion, I repeat on a hush, “It’s just not that easy.”
His lips lightly brush over mine in a sweeping kiss, and I can taste the ice of his breath when he whispers, “I don’t expect anything with you to be easy, but that’s not enough to stop me from having you.”
And with those words, I kiss him, allowing him to feast on my sugary poison. He may have a power over me in bed, one that will no doubt cause me suffering, but in the end, I’ll take the pain because I know I’ll be able to destroy him enough to save myself, to give me everything that was stolen from me when I was five years old.
WAKING UP IN Declan’s bed the following day was peaceful. Peaceful in every morbid way. His hands were all over me while his face made its home between my legs before he pulled me on top of his lap. He had my arms crossed behind my back while he held each of my hands, locking my arms from moving as I fucked him. And again, he held my hands while I came. If I’m being honest, I feel like I need that support from him, because what he makes me feel during sex is sheer torment and anxiety. I don’t want sex to feel good. It shouldn’t feel good. But he doesn’t give me any other choice, so I lied to him, telling him that Clara was going to be at my place and that I needed to be there so she wouldn’t worry or question my whereabouts. I just needed to get away from him.
As soon as I get home, I take a scalding hot shower, washing every part of me, but nothing can clean me the way Pike can. I feel myself breaking and stop the fight long enough to let it out. Never in my life have I ever wanted to feel what Declan makes me feel. As images from last night and this morning run through my head, the tears surface as my stomach convulses in bubbles of putrid disgust. Unable to hold it down, I quickly step out of the shower, fall to my knees over the toilet, and vomit uncontrollably. It’s a painful mixture of saliva, puke, and tears. Visions of Declan, Carl, leather, flesh, cum, that filthy mattress, the smell of that basement, the smell of Declan, my vicious hate for Bennett, my loneliness of missing Pike, my father’s headstone. Everything consumes me. I hear it, smell it, see it, feel it, and then another forceful expulsion barrels its way up my throat and into the toilet.
In this moment, I hate my life. I hate everything about this shithole of a life I so desperately want to free myself from. Sobs achingly rip out of me, and as I fall back onto the cold slate floor, I lie there, wet and naked, the smell of my vomit filling the room. And when I close my eyes, I see my dad.
“Princess, what are you doing?” he mumbles in a sleepy voice as I crawl under the covers with him.
“I’m scared.”
He helps me pull the blanket over myself and then cuddles me in his arms, saying, “Nothing will ever hurt you. I’ll always protect you. Now, tell me what scared you.”
“I can’t remember. I just woke up and I was scared.”