I rolled my eyes and mentally shook my head, annoyed. “I have to pee.”
Not that I needed his assistance anymore, but Paxton helped me to my feet and followed me.
“I’d like for you to start doing things around here again. You can start small, but I can’t do it all, and I’m not paying Tricia to do it anymore. You can drive the girls. You can cook from now on.”
“I cook?”
“Of course you cook. You think you have all this for the hell of it?” Paxton questioned with a harsh tone, making a sweeping motion with his hand. Yes. The house was nice. Very lovely, but it wasn’t a mansion by any means. It was an upper-to middle-class home, maybe. He could shove it all up his ass.
Paxton picked up my toothbrush and brushed his teeth. That didn’t bother me at all. Why would it? He’d just left his poison my mouth the night before. It wasn’t like I was going to catch something from him. Evidently, I had been stupid in my past life.
The sudden flash behind my eyes kept me from speaking for a second. Paxton’s words floated through my ears, but I didn’t hear him. A room with thin, yellow sheers. They hung in front of glass doors and blew lightly in the wind.
“Did you hear me?” Paxton asked in the same angry tone.
What the hell?
“Huh?”
“The house. I just said it was bad enough that I had to pay someone to come in and clean for us. You need to start helping out around here. I don’t need you if you can’t carry your load.”
Without the crutches, I limped toward him. The new boot I’d gotten from the doctor the last time helped a lot. At least I didn’t have a stiff leg anymore. He wanted me to start moving my knee and begin therapy the following Monday.
“I think I carry the load just fine. Never mind the head injury. I don’t know how to cook.” I scoffed, clenched my jaw, and glared at him.
“You have a tablet. Find a recipe, and watch it, or you’ll be holding a load before we leave.” His words were laced with a threat even as his soft lips touched mine. The discovery tested me—how much of my adaptability to Paxton’s bullshit could I endure? One second he would belittle me, and the next he’d have his tongue halfway down my throat. He wouldn’t help me at all. I couldn’t ask him anything about who I’d been before. I got the same thing. Tell me where you were, who you were with, and where you were going. I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t freaking know.
My girls and my neighbors could help to a certain point, but they didn’t know us. Not the real us. They knew a fa?ade. Something that wasn’t real. An illusion. They weren’t there from the beginning. Trisha was my only friend, or neighbor. I wouldn’t call her a friend just yet. I didn’t know if we really did have that status. She said we were friends, and that’s all I had to go on.
“I’m not sure you want me cooking for you, or anyone else. I feel like you kidnapped me and you’re trying to give me this life that’s not really mine. I don’t feel like the type to be controlled.”
Paxton placed a finger over my lips and shushed me with a quiet, “Shhh, hush now. I assure you with everything in me that you are the type to be controlled. That’s why you sucked my dick. That’s why your legs fall apart whenever I come near you. You’re a slut. My slut. I own you,” he said in a dry, sultry tone, fingers gliding down my neck. The arid swallow stuck in my chest when his fingers wrapped gently around my throat. His grip tightened and his lips met mine. “Shhh, don’t talk, baby girl. Turn around and go take a shower like you were told.”
A cowardly emotion washed through me. I dropped my gaze to stare at the floor and submit to him. This was quickly learned, as well. If Paxton didn’t get in the shower with me, he took on the role of spectator. Like this time. He leaned against the counter, feet crossed at the ankles, and stared while I struggled to get my shirt over my head. He stopped me with another order when I bent to remove the boot from my foot.
“Turn around and do that.”
“Seriously?”
Before I could blink an eye, Paxton thrust his fury in my face. Flared nostrils and popping veins. I gasped when he pulled the hair at the nape of my neck with a tight jerk.
“You need to stop, Gabriella. You don’t talk. You shut your fuckhole and do what you’re told. Do you understand me?”
I tried to falter, to back down. But I couldn’t do it. I honestly thought he had me confused with someone else. This wasn’t my life. It couldn’t be. No way would anyone in their right mind put up with this guy.
“And what if I don’t?”