Chapter 12
EVELINA
I don’t know if I quite recognize the face in the mirror that stares back at me.
It’s different.
There’s shock in the eyes. Haggardness and humiliation. Pain and fear. But there’s strength, too. There’s a determination that I’m not sure I saw in them the last time I looked in this mirror. Was that really just earlier today?
I shake slightly as I take a breath, holding it for as long as I dare before slowly, haltingly, letting it out. Then I undo the buttons of the jacket I’m wearing and let it slip from my shoulders and fall to the floor of my bedroom.
Holy God…
I look like I’ve just spent a year as a prisoner of war. Vicious, nasty-looking marks cover my body. Thumb prints on my hips, legs, and torso. Impact bruises on my thighs. When I turn to glance over my shoulder, I choke at the brutality painted in blue, purple and black across my butt.
Bite marks dot my neck, my collarbones, and the slopes of my breasts. And my nipples…Jesus. I look like Bianca after breastfeeding for months.
Raw, swollen and chewed on.
Frankly, I look like someone beat the living hell out of me and left me to die in a ditch. My hair is a tangled mess, with bits of twigs and leaves still caught in it. Scratch marks crisscross my chest and body. God knows when those happened.
There’s blood on my inner thighs, and streaks of clear, dried fluid across my tummy and breasts.
It’s all so violent, especially juxtaposed against the room I’m standing in.
There’s a reason my friends call me a Disney princess and Val makes jokes about me singing to woodland creatures. They all see me as a naive, innocent, sheltered girl.
They’re not wrong, per se. And my fondness for this room doesn’t exactly cast doubt on that opinion.
Pink walls. A fluffy pink and white throw rug. Gauzy pink curtains hanging down from the rail of my white four-poster bed.
And then, reflected in the mirror, in a pink frame complete with a legit cutout of a crown at the top, is me, in my current state.
Broken. Savaged.
Defiled.
Naked, battered and bruised, and covered in blood and cum.
For a second it’s all too much, and my eyes blur with hot tears as I shake on my legs, pressing my hand to the glass.
What the hell did I just do?
You’re not supposed to lose your virginity that way, not to a man like him.
You’re not supposed to like things like that.
Brutality.
Humiliation.
Pain.
Being pushed to your breaking point, and then shoved right past it.
Part of me wants to scream and yell and break things.
I want to smash this glass with its reflection of the perfect little princess doll, all smashed and broken.
That part wants to be so freaking angry that I went twenty-three years, barely having a boyfriend, hardly doing anything beyond groping and making out, and then being plunged headfirst into Vaughn’s madness.
Complete, unhinged, madness.
And yet, at the same time…
I take another shaky breath and close my eyes, pressing my fingers against the glass.
I’m not.
Angry, that is.
I want to be. I want so badly to hate Vaughn and the things he did to me. I want to call it assault, or rape, or something just as vile to match the vileness he inflicted on me.
So why didn’t you stop it?
I go still in the silence of the room, standing naked and broken as I lean my head on my hand against the mirror.
Because I could have. I could have stopped it at any point, and I damn well know it. Oh, I could use the excuse that it was the only way to save my dad, and now my brother and Val too.
But deep down, I know there were other options.
Roman and I might not see eye to eye regarding Dad, but he’s still my big brother, and a wildly overprotective one at that.
He also happens to run one of the biggest bratva families in the country.
So yeah, there were other ways out of my predicament that didn’t involve going to Blackbriar Hall tonight.
Ways that didn’t involve letting Vaughn inflict all that humiliation and savagery on me.
I could have come clean to Roman. I could have told him about my meeting with Vaughn, and Andrés, and about Diego’s threats.
It might have caused utter chaos and maybe even started a war, but it would have meant not going tonight.
I knew that.
I still went.
Still looked the monster in the eye.
Still spread my legs for him and let him take me any way he wanted.
And the worst part isn’t even that I let that all happen.
It’s that I liked it.
Maybe there’s still part of me that’s angry about how I lost my virginity tonight, and what he did to me. But it’s like claiming not to like horror movies, even as you snuggle into the couch with wide, eager eyes, watching the opening credits roll with a fistful of popcorn.
The part of me that wants to be angry is rational, day-to-day survival Evie. Don’t walk into traffic. Don’t run with scissors.
Don’t lose your virginity to a masked psychopath in a graveyard.
But a different part of me is in the driver’s seat right now. The part that thrills at the scary movie, or shrieks on the rollercoaster.
It’s the part of me that dances, and craves the rush that only a defiance of physical limitations and gravity can bring.
Finally I force myself to open my eyes and look at my reflection again.
I still look exhausted beyond belief. Still look like I might fall over at any moment. Still look like an assault victim, with bruises and scrapes and blood and cum all over my naked body.
I also look like I just got ravaged.
No, not ravaged. Not “bedded”, either, or “swept off my feet”, or any other stupid, G-rated, princess-coded euphemism.
Heat creeps into my cheeks.
I look like I just got fucked.
Like a cheap whore.
Like a little cock slut.
And I look like I loved every second of it.
I swallow heavily as the heat in my face spreads down my neck, teases over my battered, bruised skin and creeps over my breasts. My sore nipples tighten to aching points, and a fluttering sensation ripples through my belly before heat pools slickly between my thighs.
You just got fucked.
Such a slut.
A little whimper tumbles from my throat, and before I know it, I slide my hand to my breast. I cup it, feeling the sore nipple stiffen against my palm before I twist my hand and pinch the throbbing bud between my thumb and finger.
Pain and pleasure zap like an electric current through my core. I do it again, and a broken, gasped cry escapes my lips.
It’s the first few pebbles of an avalanche. Once they start to tumble, the whole mountain comes crashing down.
With a moan, I let my hand drift between my thighs.
My fingers push between my sore, swollen lips, ignoring or maybe actually welcoming the sharp sting that accompanies the rush of endorphins.
My body trembles as I push a finger inside, and I fog the glass of the mirror with my breath when I drop my forehead to it.
My inner walls feel tight around the single finger. Then I remember how big Vaughn is, how much he stretched me and filled me, and the sheer pressure I could feel from his massive size, and a fresh wave of arousal coats my hand.
I drag my slick finger to my swollen clit, still tender and sore. I roll it under the pad of my finger, my eyes half closing as I replay the madness of the night.
My moaning, whimpering voice cracks as I roll my clit and bring my other hand up to pinch and pull mercilessly at my aching nipples. The finger on my clit rubs faster and harder, and when my hand smacks my own breast, my sharp mewl fogs the mirror again.
I do it over and over, desperately thirsty and starving for the rush I felt when he inflicted that pain on me. I tug and pinch viciously at my nipples until my legs are shaking and my thighs are slick with my arousal.
Little slut.
Dirty cum whore.
Oh, shit.
I rub harder and faster, feeling myself careening closer to the edge as I seek out every bruise on my body and press into it, drowning in the rush of pain and pleasure and humiliation until I can barely stand.
That’s when I wrap my hand around my throat.
I squeeze as hard as I dare, choking and shaking and gasping broken, shattered moans as my jaw goes slack and the cyclone tears through me, leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
I bite down hard on my lip to stop from screaming when the orgasm smashes its way through my broken, bruised body as I sag against the mirror.
The taste of copper explodes across my tongue and I let the droplets of blood from my bitten lip dribble down my chin to my chest, then trickle down my stomach as my core clenches and shatters before breaking apart at the seams.
When it’s over, I can barely stand. I stumble back to my bed, staring in a daze at my reflection in the smeared and smudged mirror.
Now, standing in the pink room surrounded by crowns and gauze and sparkles, I don’t see the good girl anymore.
I see someone raw and wild.
Someone that scares the hell out of me.
And it feels great.