Chapter 20
Helena
This is it. I’ve confessed. I’ve admitted my crimes and now I’m going to pay for them.
I’m more scared than I hoped I would be. Everything is out in the open now, and Daniel is going to do what he’s going to do. I can’t take it back. I can’t undo it. Even if I could go back in time and try to do it all again, I don’t know that I would do things differently.
I can”t deny that the prospect of my death terrifies me. I hoped it would be peaceful. Nobody in their right mind desires a painful, prolonged death. I hoped that if it happened, I wouldn”t be so frightened. I hoped I could simply close my eyes and let go of my life, then slip quietly into the back of my mind where I wouldn”t feel anything... but I”m not that lucky.
My chin wobbles when I look up at him. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to try and keep myself composed. I slowly pull my hands from where they had been covering my face. I expected judgment, or belittling, or anything at all from Daniel. Even sarcasm would have been better than being met with such silence.
Above me, he wears a poker face. I can’t read his expression. No subtle twitch of muscle; no telling emotion in the depths of his eyes. There’s nothing but a cold blankness that makes me feel even more vulnerable and exposed than I already do for telling him my story.
I have the urge to apologize again. It wasn’t even his father that I killed.
“What about Abram?” Daniel asks after a long moment.
Of course, they found out about Abram. I want to cry all over again. He was the one person that I wanted to keep out of this for good. He was retired. I’m the only thing connecting him to that life anymore anyway. I knew he was risking too much by coming here with me. He should have stayed in hiding and let me come here on my own. It’s my life on the line, but he’s such a stubborn old goat.
“What about him?” I hope that he will at least tell me how he knows. I want to ask if he’s okay. He has to be okay. He’s too smart to get caught. But, with his arm… he’s not nearly as fast as he used to be. He’s vulnerable now.
Daniel shuffles backward off of me. He sits back on his heels, and I push myself into a sitting position. His silence tells me that something terrible has happened. Something in my chest breaks. My shoulder lifts as if I can shrug and wake myself up. It’s not possible. I can’t even control the fear for Abram’s wellbeing as I crumple into myself.
“Daniel… What about Abram…?” I ask through my tears. They fall freely down my face, but I can’t wipe them away. I need to know what’s happened to him. I need to hear it. Out loud. I need the words to come out of Daniel’s lips or else I’m never going to believe them.
“He was found dead in the home the two of you shared,” Daniel says without inflection.
My head drops, and my body follows it. I curl forward until my forehead presses into the bedding and my hands curl the fabric into tight fists. I squeeze until it hurts. I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m stuck exhaling a silent scream as my chest threatens to cave in on itself. He was all that I had left. He was my everything—the only family to claim me after my father died. He saved me. He has been with me through thick and thin, and now…
That’s it. He was everything. Now I have nothing left. Nikolai has finally taken everything from me that he could get his hands on. There’s literally nothing left for me now. My heart breaks, and it tears itself into a giant, gaping, black hole that I don’t think will ever be filled again. It’s the sort of despair I felt when my father was taken from me… but this time, I have nobody left to turn to.
I”m hoping it didn”t hurt. I wish I could say it was a quick and painless hit, but I know it wasn”t. Nikolai would have made Abram suffer solely to inflict pain on me. He wanted to make me suffer... he will not be satisfied until he gets his way. Daniel is wasting his time by delaying the inevitable.
“I know he helped you escape. I know he was the one to help you disappear after you almost died,” Daniel adds, confirming everything further. He sounds like he’s speaking at the far end of a tunnel.
If he knows, then Nikolai has to know that too. He’s probably known where we were the whole time… he was just biding his time.
The raw, open wound that’s ripping my chest in two is something I’ve only felt once before when my father died. Only that time, I had enough hate left in me to seek revenge. I was only able to pull myself back into a woman because of Abram and the love that I started to have for Nikolai… but now there’s nothing.
“Did you…” I sniffle, speaking into the bedding. “Did you hurt him?” I am shaking so violently that it’s hard to move. Every muscle is tensed as I lift just enough to look at Daniel. I don’t even realize that I’m throwing myself at him until my hands ball up into his sweater. “Did you kill him?”
He’s unsurprised by the sudden accusation and pushes me off of him easily. I slide past his lap and fall right off of the bed onto the floor. My hip and elbow hit heavily against the carpet. I don’t try to get up. I just lay there. What’s the point anyway? It’s not going to change anything.
Daniel gets off the bed and moves to sit at arm’s length from me on the floor. “I did not have anything to do with it.”
I want him to leave me. I want to curl into a ball right here on the ground until I rot. He wanted to see me broken. Fine. Done. He’s accomplished that goal. He’s taken everything from me. Even if he wasn’t the one who did it, he helped.
“One of your men then…” I mutter.
Daniel shakes his head no. His voice is soft, and it makes me angry. “I am sorry to see you in so much pain, but I swear I had no part in this.”
I hate that I believe him.
“I hate you,” I mutter. My grief bleeds into anger. They won’t let me see him. I don’t even know if there’s anything left of him to see. Did Abram suffer? He didn’t deserve to suffer. He had earned a peaceful death. Something in his sleep maybe. Whatever they did to him, I know it was anything but peaceful. I just keep circling around the same thoughts.
“I hate you,” I say again, and the lump of pain in my throat almost stops it from sounding. Daniel just nods once, like he accepts my hatred and is just fine with it. That only makes me more angry because it implies that no matter how angry or hurt I get, nothing is going to get me out of this room.
With great effort, I push myself up into a sitting position again. I shove at Daniel with both hands. I shove his shoulders twice. Maybe if he gets mad enough, he will choke the life out of me, and then I can be with Abram and my father once more. Then I won’t have to deal with this at all. I’ll be free, like them. “I hate you!” I scream again and shove him once more. “This is all your fault!”
It doesn’t matter anymore if it is or isn’t his fault. I’m going to blame Daniel because I have nobody else to blame. I shove him again and jerk my hand back to slap him right across his face, but he catches my wrist. The momentum of my movement spins me into his lap and my face ends up pressed against his chest.
Daniel’s strong arms surround me, and I struggle to free myself. It’s useless because he’s so much stronger than I am. My muscles burn, and my body hurts when I finally sag into his hold and surrender. Everything pours out of me all at once. I sob for so long in his arms that I don’t think I will ever stop. I’m a leaky, ruined faucet. It just feels so damned good to be held by him. It feels cathartic to just… let everything go.
I expect him to laugh any time now. I expect him to mock me for being such a stupid little idiotic girl, but it doesn’t come.
Westay like this until I”m out of tears. My eyes are red and sore. I”m sure my entire face is swollen and nasty, but he won”t let me go. I curl up into his arms, and he holds me so tightly that it”s as if he”s holding all of my pieces together. If he lets go, I might crumble back into nothingness.
After what feels like forever, when my insides are heavy and numb, I tilt my head up to look at him. I want to forget. I want to stop hurting and there’s only one thing that I can think of that will make it stop. I crane my neck up and kiss him. Softly, at first, and so suddenly I don’t even give him time to react. I unfurl my arms enough to reach up and cup his neck in my hands. I pull him toward me. I kiss him again, insistently moving my lips against his seeking warmth and reaction.
It almost feels like he’s hesitant to react or give me what I need. But I don’t stop. I don’t stop until I feel his arms tighten around me once more, and only then do I kiss him with everything that I have. My eyes clamp shut, and I shift in his arms until I’m sitting in his lap with a bent knee on either side of his hips.
My body moves of its own volition as my hips circle down into his, awaiting his reaction. He doesn’t make me wait long. Soon I can feel him pressing against my bare core, only his clothes between us. The silk of my nightie scrunches up around my waist as my thighs part further. I wrap myself around him, seeking every possible point of contact that I can get as I kiss him.
Daniel’s hand slides up my back, fingers raking against my skin until it’s up in my hair. He finds the base of my skull and takes a fistful of hair there and pulls, breaking our kiss. My lips are swollen, and I can feel the heat in my cheeks. He pulls me back just so I’m a little off-kilter and struggling to stay upright. His other hand flattens over my chest and pushes up between my breasts until he can grasp the low-cut neckline of the nightie. He slides his fingers into the hem and pulls.
It hurts when he rips the fabric away from my chest, but I’m grateful for it. That pain is exactly what I need right now. It’s the only thing that I want to feel. The thin fabric hangs in tatters around me until he pulls again. He takes my breast in his palm and massages the skin painfully. He rolls my peaked nipple between his fingers in admiration. My hands close around his wrist holding my hair to keep myself upright.
Daniel smacks the outside of my thigh with a firm hand, and it helps to snap me back to reality. My eyes lock with his. Neither one of us smiles, but I think that he understands what I need.
“I haven’t forgotten about your punishment, pet.”
I need it.
Daniel uses my hair to yank me forward, and I nearly fall over his lap, leaving my ass halfway sprawled over him. I don’t even try to fight it. He can do anything he wants with me right now, and I don’t think I would lift a finger to stop him. The first spank sent my face into the carpet.
When the second came, I braced myself with my hands splayed out in front of me. The third was the first one I can actually feel. The fourth and fifth spanks sting but because of them, I can breathe again. I inhale before his hands are on my skin and exhale as he hits me.
I focus on the sting in my rear. I think of nothing beyond the burning sensation that he’s causing, and it lessens some of the pain in my chest. Daniel’s hand flattens and rubs the angry skin in a warm circle while I await the next slap, and it only makes me feel better. Who would have thought that pain could make me feel so good? It’s the only thing tethering me to reality.
When his fingers dip between my thighs to feel how wet I am, somehow it doesn’t feel strictly sexual. It doesn’t feel like he’s checking to see if I’m ready for him; it feels like he’s checking to make sure I’m still with him. That I’m still feeling something. If he stops, I might give in to the urge that’s making me want to crawl inside of myself and never resurface again.
I give Daniel full control of my body. I’ve never let a man totally tame me before. The soft, fuzzy place that it’s taking my mind to is something that, under different circumstances, I might be able to get used to.
He moves us to the bed, and I hardly even feel it.
“Stay with me, pet,” I hear Daniel say as a soft series of pinches and slaps register from all over my body. He pulls his sweater over his head, and I get to get a good glimpse at his toned body for the first time. My limbs feel heavy as he slides me up the bed. My thighs part for him, and he places a hand on the underside of my knee, bending it up to press into the bedding beside my ribs. The stretch in my leg hurts, but not nearly as much as the way he pinches my nipple.
I cry out in a mixture of pain and pleasure as he positions himself over me. His free hand finds my neck and holds me pinned in place as he slides inside of me. I can see every inch of him sinking between my legs. I try to strain myself upward against his hand to see better, but that only makes him choke me harder. He wants me to stay put. He wants me to be claimed by him. I can do that.
The burning stretch of him filling me is divine. He releases his other holds and lets his hands find my wrists where he lifts them to pin up and over my head before he slams into me. His lips are so close to mine in this position that I can’t help but kiss him. He pulls away to stop me as his fingers intertwine with my own. He thrusts into me harder as a warning, but the next time that he lets his lips close enough to my face again, I bite him.
Harder. I need harder.
He understands the words that I can’t form. It’s like he accesses my needs from the insides of my mind. His grip on me is bruising. I’m not going to be able to comfortably close my legs tomorrow or sit right from how hard he’s fucking me, and I love it. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Daniel pulls out from me for only a moment to flip me over. Rough hands pull at my hips, and I push my ass into the air for him. He shoves my back forward until my face is crushed by the mattress. He pulls both of my arms behind my back and holds them there as leverage as he sinks into me again. I scream out in pleasure at the deep, full feeling of him.
I surrender to the sensation as my orgasm builds. I don’t know how he seems to understand and read my body so perfectly, but he does. He shifts us once more. This time to where I’m sitting reversed in his lap. One of his arms is wrapped around me and cupping my breast as the other slides down my belly to my clit. My head falls back onto his shoulder as my tired legs move me up and down.
My orgasm comes out of nowhere. The force of it threatens to buck me forward, but Daniel keeps me upright. He holds me back against his strong chest as wave after wave of pleasure rocks through me. Behind me, he groans deep and low as my orgasm brings his on. His heat fills me. I sag back into his arms, boneless and exhausted.
I expect him to dump me sideways onto the bed and leave, but he doesn’t. Slowly, nervously, my arms wrap around his, and I hold him close. Daniel’s lips brush against my bare shoulder, but he makes no effort to move away.
“I know what it’s like to lose the most important person in your whole world,” he whispers softly.
I try to turn in his arms to see him better, but he tightens his hold on me so that I can’t.
“My sister? Henry’s mother? We lost her because of Alek.”