Chapter 8
Ember stares down at me as though I hold her whole heart.
Cradling it in my brutish hands as opposed to what I’d really do with it if I did.
Crush it.
Mangle it.
Incinerate it.
Everything I touch burns to ash.
She won’t be any different.
Hands sliding up her legs, I push to stand, keeping her trembling body pinned to the door, I let my own sink in against her. All of my weight pressing into her. The pulsing hard length of me trapped between us. She stiffens as she feels it, like I didn’t just have my face buried inside of her sweet little cunt, blood and cum, hers and mine, and she’s some sort of innocent little virgin.
But just last night, she was.
Never been kissed, never been fucked.
I was her first kiss.
First fuck.
I’m going to be your last fucking everything, Pretty Girl.
I breathe in deep, dragging the air in through my teeth, the earthy taste of her lingering on my tongue, along with the little splinter of glass I bit from her flesh.
Leaning back to look down at her, hips keeping her in place, I roll the sharp sliver across the tip of my tongue. Sapphire blue orbs, big and wide, pupils blown, already stare up at me. Dried blood across her face, flaked off mostly. There’s bruising across the bridge of her nose from where she ran face first into Cole, but it’s not broken. Focussing instead, on that tiny lick of a scar marring her clear skin just beneath her left eye. A matching silvery indent in my own chin. It makes my temples thud with pain.
Skating my hands down her waist, resting on her hips, perfectly cut lines engraved in each bone. Same length, thickness, direction. Such a stark contrast to the ones on the inside of her thighs, ragged, messy, emotional.
Those marks aren’t only there just because of me. What happened between us last night. There are stacks of scars, rough and brutal, too deep. Silver, white, pink, red. They are years of daily abuse. Self-hatred. Maybe something else.
It makes me pissed at her all over again.
How dare you abuse something that is mine.
I want to scream at her, but my eyes find the pale blue indents of my teeth on the back corner of her jaw, skin unbroken, and it settles something feral inside of me.
Primal urges to fight and fuck and kill are all that feed me when I look into these beautiful eyes.
When I see her.
Think of her.
Ten years is too long.
She didn’t even recognise me last night, not for a moment. It did strange things to my insides, the thought of me not always being on her mind.
What happened to you?
Where did you go?
I have so desperately missed you.
Did you ever think of me?
I have thought of you always.
But I suppose, spotting her the night she turned eighteen, in a place she really shouldn’t have been, she’s all I’ve been consumed with since then.
I thought of her often, but after seeing her that night, there, well, it has spiralled into a never-ending form of self-torture.
Watching her.
Monitoring her.
My obsession knows no bounds.
I hate it for myself.
The compulsion of Emberleigh James.
Glass on my tongue, I think about kissing her with it, making her swallow it.
Choke on it.
Instead, I turn my head away, spitting the minuscule splinter of glass to the floor. Instantly turning back and burying my face in the wild ringlets of her blonde hair.
I breathe her in, copper and iron smothering that orange scent of her shampoo, I find I hate it, the mess of her. And I remember what the fuck we were doing in here in the first place.
“Get in the shower,” my deep voice rumbles, something between a growl and a choked sort of lust. “Do not make me tell you again, Pretty Girl.”
I try not to look at her as I step back. Staring down at my feet, but my eyes cast up like a compulsion, locking on the evidence of my failure to protect her. An eight inch scar curving up and across her stomach in some sort of curled franken-stitch style bullshit. Raised and ridged and thick. Butchered. Its mere presence mocking me.
“Emberleigh, Christ,” I say, running my fingers through my hair, directing my gaze back up to hers. “Get under the fucking spray.”
I still, as our eyes meet, hers watery and wide. Cheeks wet with tears, and I swear to fuck, I have the instant urge to beat whatever’s caused this reaction in her over the head with a crowbar.
But it’ll only have been me.
I have a feeling everything I do to this girl is going to end in tears.
Blessing and curse.
You changed my life in so many irreparable ways that night in the stairwell, sometimes I wish I’d never saved you.
“Stop blubbering and get in the poxy shower!”
Her feet move then, at my bark, and I keep my back to her as she climbs into the tub, hissing at what’s likely now ice cold water as I try to calm my rapid breaths.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.
I am in over my fucking head.
Lost.
Spinning.
An endless fucking cycle.
That’s what this life is.
Wives of gang leaders have short, brutalised existences and die hating their husbands.
I roll my dad’s words around in my head and decide I don’t fucking agree.
Besides, he still has Mum.
But Ember isn’t like her, not at all, she’s meek, mild, soft.
So fucking soft.
Staring hard at the door, examining the wood grain as though it holds all the answers, I pray for some semblance of patience. Something, I think, I’m not going to have very much of for this girl.
I reach back, drawing my t-shirt up and over my head, and then I shove my joggers down, kicking them off in a tangle with my socks and trainers.
Turning towards her, pleasantly, I find she’s doing exactly as I told her, even though I know that water must be fucking freezing by now, she hasn’t complained. But I can see it in her. Her teeth chattering, arms curled up tight to her chest. Eyes shut as she tilts her head back beneath the spray, the water straightening out her curls, plastering them down the dip of her spine, over the curve of her arse.
Blood swirls down the drain as I bring my bare feet over the lip of the tub, the water washing away some of her pain, if only for a moment. I reach past her, grabbing the bar of green soap, lathering it in my hands as I dip them under the stream. The gentle mist of the water is ice as it dusts my chest, just like I thought, but I don’t mind the cold much. It helps me think. Water drumming against my skull, numbing me to everything tumbling around inside of it. But I won’t stand like that with her here. Seeing too much.
She always saw too much when we were children.
Blessing and curse.
Ember blinks her eyes open, almost startled to see me in front of her, as though she thought I could possibly ever leave her wet and naked in the shower alone.
You couldn’t even begin to imagine how deep my obsession for you truly runs, Pretty Girl.
Lips trembling, she steps into me, and despite the minus temperature of the water, I freeze for an entirely different reason. Her glacial body sticks to the front of mine, her hands balled up beneath her chin, burying her face into my chest, like she’s seeking comfort.
I’m not sure anyone’s shocked me with their actions in years.
“What are you doing?” it’s almost a stutter as the words spill out of me.
I’m staring straight ahead, her body temperature skipping goosebumps over my skin like flat stones rippling their way across the still surface of a lake.
“Cold,” she mumbles against my chest, I can do nothing but blink.
My arms are limp at my sides, fist crushing the solid bar of soap in the clench of my fingers. Dick rock fucking solid between us, pressing into her belly.
I can feel the raised ridge of her scar against it, a soft, rough friction all rolled into one, and stepping in closer to her, summoned by some impenetrable dark magic, I almost drape my arms around her.
Almost.
And then my brain kickstarts, and I step back, “Get back under the fucking water, Ember,” I growl at her, teeth clenched.
Immediately, she tracks her way back, eyes on mine, wide, frightened.
It’s how I like her.
Soap in hand, I move closer, the water spray just catching parts of me too now. Jesus, it’s fucking cold. Placing the bar back down, I rub my soaped hands over her shoulders, down her arms, watch her face as the water pummels against the top of her head, eyes closed, lips pinched, curly tendrils of cool toned blonde hair sticking to her bruised face.
She looks younger like this. Like the little girl I remember doting on when we were kids. Growing up here together despite me being six years older.
I’ve seen her take her first steps down the hallway on the thirty-ninth floor. All of us little kids lining the walls, clapping our hands in celebration as she stumbled towards her brother. She even learnt to ride on my bike. Those were the days when I was best friends with Danny, her older brother.
Danny James; twenty-nine, criminal defence lawyer, engaged to a stuck-up, wannabe socialite with nothing more than poisoned air drifting around inside her thick skull. Very successful in the right circles, or so I hear, he’s got fingers in more pies than Mrs Lovett and Sweeney fucking Todd.
Oh, and he’s also a traitorous fucking cunt.
My teeth grind, squeaking violently inside my head as I think of him, but my hands are all over Ember’s wet body, and it’s hard to think of anything else as I glide my slick hands down his baby sister’s naked body.
Keeping my eyes on her face, I push two rough fingers inside of her tight little cunt, watching her split lips part on a gasp. Those big blue eyes snap wide open, despite being pounded with the harsh water pressure, she holds my gaze.
I fuck her with my fingers, a little “Oh,” falling from her mouth, drowned out by the thundering water, absentmindedly reaching up, she grips hold of my biceps, cut and sliced fingers curling right over that tattoo.
I saw her trying to eye up my ink. She’ll see what I want her to see when I want her to see it.
“That feel good, Pretty Girl? You captor finger fucking you under duress,” I smirk at her, licking my lips, feeling her tighten around my thrusting digits.
A little flare of anger flits across her eyes, and it makes me want to fucking eat her.
Pressing my thumb to her clit, hooking my fingers inside of her, I yank her forward, forcing her to stumble into me by my grip in her cunt, my fingers locked inside of her.
“Pretty little captive,” I murmur over her mouth, flicking my tongue across the parting of her plump pink lips.
The shower spray hitting the base of her spine, I walk us both into it. Let the water punish my skull. I bite down on my back teeth against the freezing cold, focusing on her pussy sucking on my fingers like I envision her mouth doing to my cock. I’m groaning at the thought, my cock kicking her in the belly. Lost in pleasure, she whimpers. This deep rooted, throaty sound that makes me want to rip her vocal cords out with my teeth, just to shut her the fuck up. She’s not supposed to like it.
Being here.
Doing this.
I’m not supposed to like it.
Emberleigh James ruined my life.
“Turn around,” I order her, ripping my fingers out of her and spinning her to face the wall. “Spread,” I demand, kicking apart her feet as her palms slap flat against the wall.
Lining up with her entrance, I’m thrusting inside of her, fucking her into the chipped wall tiles like a man possessed. She’s making all of these breathy little moans and groans. Half-bitten off cries as my balls slap her and my cock drives into her as deep as it can get.
A punishment.
She feels so good, so tight, and that’s when I start to come, remembering why she’s so goddamn fucking tight, squeezing my release from me like she’s picking away at the inside of my head.
I will never let you see me.
Pistoning my hips, I come with a roar, slamming a hand over one of hers splayed on the wall, my other curled so tightly around her hip I just know I’m leaving bruises, her bone cutting into the soft space between my thumb and forefinger.
I drop my forehead to her nape, hearing the uneven, pounding thud of her erratic heart. She didn’t come. I didn’t let her finish, but it feels like more of a punishment for me than her. So, keeping my head resting on the back of her neck, turning my face to the side so my ear is pressing between her shoulder blades. I glide my palm from her hip to her clit, our other fingers laced against the wall, and strum the little bundle of nerves into a swollen frenzy. Working her until she’s arching her spine, pushing her arse back into me, my cock perking up with the brush of her soft skin. She comes with a choked cry, this tiny, baby animal sound that I feel deep down in my fucking balls. It makes me want to mount her again like a wild fucking beast. Telling her with everything but words that she’s mine.
You’re mine. You’re mine. You’re mine.
She’s breathing harder, heart rate like that of a galloping horse, but she says nothing, even as I feel her sway, and I think of what she said. Hypertension.
High blood pressure.
I know she’s got an irregular heart rate too.
A direct consequence of what they fucking did to her.
Reaching behind me, I switch off the water, loathe to let her go and hating myself for not wanting to but having to. I’m so conflicted when it comes to this girl.
Her fingertips curl tighter into mine, holding onto me, forcing me to shove away from her with a growl.
What is wrong with you?
Wanting to scream it at her, I bite down on my teeth instead, hop out of the tub, dripping water all over the floor. I wasn’t supposed to shower with her, I am so out of control which is scarily unlike me. There are no towels in here, no clean clothes, and I am not dragging her out of here naked for any of our guards to eye her up.
I pull back on my dirty clothes, shoving my hands in my pockets for the cuffs, which is when I feel it.
It freezes me up for a moment, the long, red ribbon I tore from her curls slithers through my rough fingers, the silk snagging over my calloused skin.
I pull the handcuffs from my other pocket, spinning back towards her where she waits silently in the shower, wet, shivering, teeth chattering. She stares at me, and there is so much in that sad blue gaze it could sweep my feet out from under me and drown me in its depths, froth and foam flooding in through my nose and mouth. Choking me.
I snatch up her hands and she doesn’t try to struggle as I wrench them above her head, tossing the chain connecting the cuffs over the shower curtain rail and then snap them over her wrists.
It’s only as I turn my back on her, reaching for the door handle that she stills me once more.
“You’re coming back,” she whispers, not as a question, but she wants reassurance, and I’m not sure if it’s from me she wants it or from someone in general, anyone. “Right, Blaze?” The way she says my name tugs on all of my internal organs, dragging them down into my lower belly. “Please.”
It’s that which drags back the anger, all of my body parts springing back up into their rightful places. The door slams at my back as I fling it closed, leaving her chained to the shower rail.
“Watch that fucking door,” I snarl as I pass three men standing just a few feet back from the front door as I exit the holding flat. “No one goes in, no one gets out.” They all nod in response, and that’s when she starts screaming.
I don’t let go of the ribbon in my pocket the entire way back to home base.