Chapter 11 #2
I pressed my hands to my face, my cheeks burning. The smell of ink and graphite seemed to rise from the pages, mixing with the scent of brine and blackberries that was currently fermenting on my own skin.
I squeezed my thighs together, a reflex, but it was the wrong move. The friction sent a jolt of electricity straight to the center of me, finding the tender, swollen ache that Simon had left behind.
My body remembered.
It remembered the fingers, the rhythm, the way the "Graphite One" had leaned over me, whispering into my skin, demanding I break.
I realized they aren't looking at me with pity, I thought, the realization settling over me like a heavy, suffocating blanket.
People looked at "Graduation Girl" with pity. They looked at the viral video and saw a pathetic creature who couldn't control her biology. They saw a victim.
Simon didn't see a victim.
The way he drew the arch of my back, the flush of my chest, the parted slackness of my lips…
He saw a goddess. A messy, broken, leaking goddess, but a divinity nonetheless.
And Anders…
I grabbed the book again, flipping to the very end. A sketch done in haste, maybe while I was sleeping this morning.
It was just my face, asleep on the pillow. But in the background, hovering like a ghost, was a hand brushing a stray hair from my forehead. And on the wrist of that hand was a heavy, expensive watch.
Anders.
The man who dealt in contracts and liability clauses. The man who had cleaned me.
I remembered the feel of the warm cloth and thinking it was a dream at the time. The way he had wiped the shame from my inner thighs with a touch that was clinical but… gentle. Possessive.
They weren't mocking me. They weren't laughing.
"They're hungry," I whispered, the words hanging smoke-like in the cold room.
The realization didn't make me feel safe. Safe was indifference and invisibility. Safe was being the ghostwriter behind the screen who no one wanted to touch.
Hunger was dangerous. Hunger meant they wanted to consume.
And the most terrifying part? The part that made my breath hitch and my nipples harden against the friction of my oversized t-shirt? I wasn't disgusted.
I looked at the drawing of Simon’s hand inside me and touched the rough charcoal paper.
A wetness bloomed between my legs, hot and sudden. It wasn't the heat, not the feverish, sickening crash of yesterday. This was simple, terrifying arousal.
I wanted them to look.
I wanted Daniel’s weight back on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs. I wanted Simon’s ink-stained fingers stretching me open. I wanted Anders to look at me with those cold, assessing blue eyes and decide that I was an asset worth keeping.
Unless you beg.
A sob tore out of my throat, frustrated and confused.
I stood up, unable to sit still with the energy coursing through me. I paced the room, my bare feet silent on the rug.
I was T.L. Rose. I wrote bestsellers about this, about Alphas who were overwhelmed by their instincts, about Omegas who found power in surrender. I wrote the fantasy because I thought I could never have the reality without the humiliation.
But here, in this room, holding this book? Suddenly, the line between humiliation and worship was blurring.
Was it humiliating to be on the floor, or was it humiliating that they saw me?
And if they saw me, really saw me, the way Simon drew me, and still wanted to touch me…
I stopped in front of the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. I looked at myself. Messy hair. Swollen lips. Eyes wide and dark with shock.
I didn't look like a victim. I looked like a woman who had just been ravaged and was debating whether to ask for seconds.
"You are sick," I told my reflection. "They’re the enemy. They broke in."
But my reflection just stared back, flush-cheeked and needy.
I heard a sound from the hallway. A low murmur of voices.
"She's quiet," Simon’s voice. Muffled. Anxious. "Too quiet. What if she's hurting herself?"
"She isn't hurting herself," Anders’ voice. Sharp, but frayed at the edges. "She's processing. Leave her alone."
"I left my bag," Simon whispered. "Anders, my sketchbook is in there. If she opens it…"
"If she opens it, she opens it," Daniel’s rumble cut through the anxiety. "Maybe it’s better she sees it."
"She'll think I'm a creep," Simon sounded devastated. "She'll think I've been stalking her."
"You have been stalking her," Anders pointed out dryly. "digitally, at least."
"Shut up," Simon hissed.
I backed away from the door, clutching the book tighter.
He thought I would think he was a creep. He thought I would be repulsed.
I looked down at the drawing of my own climax one more time. The lines were so dark, so heavy with emotion. It wasn't the work of a creep. It was the work of someone who had been starving for years.
Just like me.
I closed the book. The snap was loud in the quiet room.
I walked to the dresser and shoved the sketchbook into the top drawer, burying it under a stack of grey wool socks. I couldn't look at it anymore. If I kept looking at it, I was going to do something stupid. I was going to unlock the door.
I was going to beg.
And I had sworn I wouldn't.
I turned off the overhead light, plunging the room into the grey gloom of the storm’s aftermath. I crawled back into the bed, pulling the duvet over my head, creating a cave.
It smelled like them in here. The pillow smelled like Anders, while the sheets smelled like Daniel, and the air smelled like Simon’s fear and desire.
I curled my knees to my chest, squeezing my eyes shut.
The narrative had changed. They weren't the villains who laughed. They were the wolves who waited.
And I was trapped in the den with them.
My hand drifted down, unbidden, to the ache between my legs. I gritted my teeth, refusing to touch. Refusing to give them that satisfaction, even in secret.
I won't beg, I told myself again.
But as I lay there in the dark, breathing in their scents, I wondered how long I could hold out against the hunger in the hallway, when the same hunger was already eating me alive from the inside out.