Chapter 189
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE
NICOLE
Akio—the skinny, anime-loving geek—lifted me into the air with ease. I wrapped my legs around his torso and my arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer and closer, my lips moving effortlessly against his.
While he might not have been the best kisser, there was need behind his lips, a certain desire that I had never felt before from anyone I had been with. Not Jace. Not Carter. Not even my own father.
It wasn’t uncontrollable desire or lust, but much softer, much needier.
Something that both terrified me and filled me with love.
Love? I don’t even know the meaning of that word.
After walking with me all the way up to his bedroom, Akio placed me down on the bed. He peppered kisses from my mouth to my ear and then down to my neck. I arched my back, my hands gliding across his shoulders.
Akio’s hands found the waistband of my pants, and he pulled them down my legs until he could crawl comfortably between them.
With Akio nestled between my legs, I gently placed my hands on either side of his face and drew him in closer to our kiss.
Our tongues slipped into each other’s mouths, and I wanted more.
More of him in any way that I could get him.
Once he removed his pants, Akio pressed the head of his cock against my entrance. While my pussy was wet, all I could feel was the searing pain that Dad had caused this morning. He had fingered me so hard that … it still stung.
But I didn’t want Akio to stop, so I closed my eyes and wished the pain away.
Akio pushed against my entrance slowly, the pressure building higher inside me.
And not the good kind.
It’ll go away once he’s inside you, Nicole. Just take it.
An inch slipped into my cunt.
“Ow,” I hissed, then immediately bit my tongue.
Akio tensed and stopped immediately. “What is it?”
I rested my head back onto the pillow and arched my back, not wanting him to stop. Because if he stopped, then maybe he’d fall in love with Imani Abara. And I didn’t want him to be in love with anyone but me.
“Akio,” I whispered, “don’t stop.”
“You’re hurting.”
“I can take it.”
“No.” Akio sat back on his heels. “I don’t want you to hurt.”
“I like being hurt,” I said. “Please, don’t stop.”
“You like being hurt?” Akio said.
I stared at him for a long, long time because … I had lied. I didn’t like being hurt, but I had gotten so used to the pain I felt every day that I could take it if it meant that Akio would choose me over someone else.
Akio brushed some hair off my forehead, eyes softening. “Nicole …”
My lips quivered, and suddenly, a shoulder-jerking sob escaped my throat. “No, I don’t like it,” I cried, tears bursting down my cheeks.
I held my hands over my face so he wouldn’t see me cry off all my makeup. So he wouldn’t see the bruises.
But most importantly, so he wouldn’t see through the facade I put up every single day.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m-I’m an idiot,” I said.
While I waited for him to spit on my face, to call me weak—like Hannah had been—to punish me even harder for wailing in the middle of sex, Akio wrapped his arms around my torso, pulled me into his lap, and hugged me.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he whispered. “Please, don’t cry.”
“I deserve it,” I sobbed.
I deserved every punishment that Dad had given me. I deserved the hate that the entire cheer team had for me for the mess my father had roped them into. I deserved to end up just like Hannah for the hell I’d caused everyone at Redwood.
“I deserved it,” I cried, my nails tearing into the skin on my face because I couldn’t deal with all the pain anymore. I wanted to rip out my skin, rip out any ounce of pretty, make myself so ugly that Dad couldn’t even fix me anymore. “I deserved it.”
My nails pierced my skin deeper and deeper, and all I wanted was to stop the pain.
All of it.
How could I go through this for the rest of my life? I had turned eighteen less than two months ago, and I still had no control over my body or my life. I had never had it. But I wanted some—badly. But the only way that I could do that was to …
Hurt myself.
Physically.
Possibly even further than just hurting myself. Maybe even … maybe even kill—
“Nicole!” Akio shouted suddenly, grabbing my hands and attempting to pull them away from my face.
But I sank my nails even deeper because I didn’t want him to see me like this.
“Stop it. You’re tearing the skin off your face.”
“Go away.” I sniffled, body trembling uncontrollably against him. “I’m a mess.”
Akio held me tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I sank my head into the crook of his neck. “B-b-but … look at me.”
Nobody would ever put up with me.
Suddenly, he cupped my face in his hands. “Who’s hurting you?”
My eyes stung, and I wanted to look anywhere but at him. “Nobody.”
“Who, Nicole?”
“Nobody.”
Even if I told Akio, what could he do about it? He was the sweetest guy I knew and didn’t have a bad bone in his body. He couldn’t save me from the torture that Dad and his buddies put me through every night.
“Nicole,” Akio said again.
“Please, drop it.” I sniffled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
While Akio didn’t relax, he didn’t push it any further. Instead, he gripped me tighter and drew his fingers through my hair in soothing circles. I closed my eyes, my face stinging from where I had dragged my nails across it, but it didn’t hurt as bad as my pussy did.
Not even close.
Akio held me and held me and held me until my eyes were so heavy that I couldn’t hold them open any longer.
And the last thing I heard before I drifted off into sleep was, “I’m going to protect you.”