14
Lia
Smack.
“Wake up time.”
“Ow! Asshole!”
I blink my eyes and look around. I’m still wearing my dress, my hands are still tied to the headboard, and I’ve somehow keeled over into a humiliating, head on the ground, ass in the air position.
And from the way the breeze is tickling my folds, I can tell I’m not wearing underwear, either. He definitely got an eyeful.
I quickly sit up, glaring at Logan, who’s lying down on the bed beside me, eyeing the butt cheek that he’s just slapped. Then he tears his eyes away from it to greet me with a wide, wicked grin. My stomach rumbles when I notice that he’s eating a bagel. I didn’t eat last night. I’m starving.
“Is it really morning?” I mumble. “Did you really leave me like this all night long?”
He shrugs. “I went for a walk and when I came back, you were sleeping.”
“And you couldn’t have untied me at least? You couldn’t have brought me to bed?”
“I don’t know, Lia, could I?” He takes a bite from his bagel. “Are you a helpless baby?”
“Well, according to you—”
“You looked far too cute anyway, lying like that with your ass in the air,” he says, finishing his bagel and licking his fingers. “I had a nice nap while watching you.”
“Whatever. Asshole. Where’s Aurora?”
“Asleep in the other room with Everest. Don’t worry, she’s fine. I told you she would be.”
Why does he sound upset that I’d think anything else? He didn’t exactly deny last night that he was going to kill me.
“She’s still sleeping? What time is it?”
He looks at his watch. “Hmm… four a.m.”
“What the fuck?” I blink in confusion. “You let me sleep through the evening and you’re waking me up in the middle of the night?”
“It’s morning.”
“Whatever. Untie me, and let me go to bed. Do you have another bagel? I’m starving.”
He stops in front of me, his towering stature suddenly making me feel very small and helpless.
“You sure have a funny way of talking to your future executioner, Lia.”
I bite my lip, suddenly realizing I’ve fallen straight back into my old way of talking to him.
I guess no matter how strong and deadly he is, part of me will always think of him as the boy I used to know.
It’s hard to rein in the smart talk, even when the rest of me quakes in fear, wondering if this is the moment he kills me.
“I’m not going to kill you right now,” he says, as if he can read my thoughts. He brings his hand to my face, causing me to scurry backward, but it’s only to stroke my cheek. “Let’s try to keep the brattiness to a minimum though, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, as he sits down in front of me.
He pries my legs apart and pulls me into his lap so that I’m straddling him, my arms still uselessly cuffed behind me.
“How’s my ghost girl doing?” he murmurs, unzipping the back of my dress and pulling it over my head.
“Uh…” Very nervous. And scared. And… turned on?
He doesn’t need me to tell him that last part, swiping at my pussy and chuckling. I hide my flaming face against his shoulder, then keep it there, because the warmth and musky smell of him feel nice. And safe. Even though that makes no sense.
“Want your breakfast, brat?”
“It’s not time for breakfast,” I mumble, my voice muffled from the way I’m speaking into his shoulder. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Hmm.” With one hand, he strokes up and down my spine, causing goosebumps to pebble on my skin. The other one, he rests over my stomach, chuckling when he hears it rumble.
“So I guess that means you’re not hungry, right?”
Asshole.
“I got you a bagel with about three inches of cream cheese and salmon. One side is everything, the other onion. Just how you like it. Huh?”
I stare at him, wondering how the hell he knows that.
“Do you want it?”
“Yes,” I mutter, resting my face against his shoulder again.
“Yes what?”
“Yes… sir.”
He lets out a loud laugh. “I was going for please, but sir works too.”
“Fuck you,” I mouth into his shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.”
“You know, ghost girl, I was just about to let you off the hook. I was going to give you that bagel. Even though I took the trouble to go get your exact order, and you’ve been nothing but a brat to me.
Still, you looked so fucking sweet with your ass up in the air.
Even the world’s biggest brat deserves a bagel with an ass like that.
But then you had to swear at me. And now, you look like you’re thinking about biting my head off. Huh?”
I quickly try to rearrange my features into a less angry expression.
“And now, you’re sulking. So I think I am going to make you work for it. How does that sound, pain slut?
“How do I need to… work for it?” I don’t even realize what I’m doing—squirming in his lap—until he snorts.
“You are such a little slut for me, aren’t you, brat?”
He topples me over onto my back and pushes my legs apart.
I tense, wondering if he’s going to torture my nipples again, or smack my ass.
Or finger me, maybe. My mouth waters when he unzips his fly, and I part my lips.
The blow jobs are intense, but I’ve grown to like the way he fucks my mouth, the way he controls my breathing and makes me feel like his fuck toy.
But instead of pressing his cock to my lips, he positions it at my pussy, and a moment later…
“FUCK!”
I fold my body to the side, gasping in pain, my body tensing far more than it did when he fingered me that first time. I roll up into a little ball, barely aware that he’s removed his cock as suddenly as he pushed it in me.
“Lia?”
The way he says my name sounds very different from the way it usually does. It’s all soft. No sharpness. No mocking cruelty.
But I close my eyes, drowning the sound out as he repeats it a few times, because I can’t handle it.
I can’t handle all the emotions, all the pain, the visceral memories that are coursing through me. My body feels broken. Repulsive. I want to die.
I’m barely aware of his hands, working to undo my restraints, or of my own arms, falling limply to the floor. Or of the way he brings me back to his lap, folding himself around me.
“Lia,” he murmurs. “What happened to you?”
I can only shake my head, tears spilling out of the corners of my eyes.
His voice sounds strangely broken when he speaks again. “You’re crying, Lia. You’re crying.”
At that, I sniff loudly. “I thought you liked seeing me cry.”
“Don’t, Lia.”
He starts to stroke up and down my spine.
I can’t understand him. I can’t understand that this man who seems to have no qualms about keeping me captive, or bringing me back to my abusive husband, or even, killing me himself, seems to care about my reaction to sex.
If I hadn’t spent the past two days with him, if I hadn’t been hearing all those things about him for the past three years, I could actually trick myself into thinking he cares.
“Do you need me to leave you alone, Lia?”
Yes. Yes, I would appreciate not being held by a homicidal asshole while dealing with intense rape flashbacks. Yes, please, go. Leave me alone.
“No.”
I really hate myself sometimes.
“No, Logan. Please… stay.”
He lets out a sigh. “Okay. Okay, Lia.”
I feel him dip his face into my hair and take a long whiff, before clutching me to him tighter. Did he just… sniff my hair?
The whole thing feels incredibly strange.
To be comforted by the guy who just labeled himself my executioner, and who is planning to bring me back to the boss’s son—the guy who gave me my trauma to begin with.
If I allow myself to start thinking about it, I’m pretty sure I’ll go crazy.
So instead, I nestle deeper into Logan’s arms, closing my eyes, allowing myself to just… be.
Surely, at some point, reality will come crashing back down.
“Tell me, Lia,” Logan murmurs after a while, his voice still soft. “Why did you react like that? Like no one had ever touched you there before. Like it hurt.”
I groan, pressing my head to his chest. “Do we have to talk about it now?”
“Talk about what, exactly? Did something happen to you, Lia?”
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!
I don’t want him to ever know what happened.
It’s so disgusting. Papa never looked at me the same since then.
Overnight, it seems, I went from being his little princess to something filthy, something tainted.
He told me my marriage to Carmelo was beyond his control.
But I could tell how relieved he was when Carmelo slid the ring on my finger.
How glad he was to have his no longer virginal daughter off his hands.
Logan already hates my guts. I know I can’t sink lower in his esteem. That doesn’t mean I want him to know just how ruined I am. I still have some pride left.
Besides, I don’t even think I’d be able to find the words to tell him what happened.
So I mumble, “It’s just that… Carmelo and I… don’t really have sex.”
It’s not a lie. He hasn’t touched me in two years.
“Really?” Logan lets out yet another shuddering sigh, and this one sounds like pure relief. “I would have expected, him being your husband and all…” He coughs. “But don’t tell me he never did. You’re not the Virgin Mary, are you?”
He snorts at his own joke, and I clench my jaw to keep the memory far away. If you knew what had happened… you wouldn’t be holding me in your lap like this. You wouldn’t touch me ever again.
“We haven’t done anything in a very long time,” I manage at last.
“That means I hurt you.” His voice is tight with guilt, and I’m reminded of what he’d told me before.
I may murder women, but I don’t violate them.
“I guess I thought,” he adds, letting out a dark, bitter laugh, “since you’ve been sleeping around since you were fifteen—what was that you’d said? Slept with half of Oakley?”
“It was a lie,” I say quickly. “I was trying to hurt you. I hadn’t been with anyone back then. I’m sorry, Logan.”
He looks so relieved that I can’t bear to meet his eye. His reaction only seems to confirm my fear.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “I was worried, when I heard about the blood on the mattress… but I guess you wouldn’t have married him, if he’d hurt you…”
I keep my eyes resolutely turned from him, my chest strangling with pain. If you only knew, Logan. If you only knew.
But he misunderstands my reaction, and takes my hands in his. “Would you like me to try again? I’ll be gentle this time.”
I shake my head, and he stiffens.
“Right. Well, I guess I’ll get you your bagel then, and—”
“No,” I cut in. “I want you to be rough. I want you to hurt me.”
He stares at me for a moment, guilt giving way to confusion, which in turn gives way to… pure lust.
Then he growls, “Get on the bed, Lia. On your hands and knees. Get on your fucking hands and knees.”