12. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Julianna
T he lightbulb buzzing is pissing me off. I’ve named it God, because like the old man upstairs, it is petty and inconsistent and never answers when I call.
My legs are weak and the lack of gym time is starting to show, but I force myself to pace the room, dragging the blanket behind me like a train.
I catalog every tiny ache in my body, every hunger pang, every spot where the circulation lags or surges.
I’m so fucking bored in here. Sometimes, if I squeeze my eyes shut, I can convince myself the world outside this room is still spinning, that hospital drama and espresso and subway grime still exist, waiting for me to reclaim them.
Then the overhead silence is violated by a single, seismic thump.
Not a footstep. More like a thump.
A beat later: another, louder. Then a string of them, furious and uneven, like someone has lost their fucking mind and is shoving furniture through drywall just for the pleasure of hearing it break.
Adrenaline razors through my chest. I freeze, blanket clutched in both fists, eyes locked on the ceiling. I know what this is. It’s the sound of him losing control.
Creed does not lose control.
Unless he wants to.
A slow smile spreads over my face. Wonder what could have caused that.
By the time the final stomp echoes over the ceiling, I’m standing dead center in the room, heart tap-dancing in my throat. I flatten my palms against my thighs to hide the tremor, but it’s no use. I am vibrating, skin and nerves and all.
The lock slides and then basement door explodes inward, hinges groaning in protest. Creed descends the stairs with the grace of a boulder shot from a catapult, every step a declaration of intent.
His face is locked in a scowl of fury, jaw clamped so tight the bones flex under his skin.
He is shirtless, tattoos standing out angrily against the bronze of his skin, chest heaving like he just sprinted here from hell.
I don’t have time to run. I don’t even have time to think.
He crosses the room in a blur, one hand shooting out to seize my throat, the other slamming me backwards into the wall so hard the air whistles from my lungs. The contact is absolute, fingers digging deep, thumb crushing the windpipe just north of the sternal notch.
There is no foreplay. No words. Just the clamp of flesh and bone and the cold joy of panic.
I claw at his wrist, not to break free (I know better), but to steady myself. My heels scrabble against the concrete, searching for purchase, anything to relieve the pressure, to anchor myself in the geometry of pain.
His eyes bore into mine, dark… furious, but with purpose. He is so close I can taste his anger. I open my mouth to say something clever, something that will remind him who the fuck he is dealing with, but all I manage is a strangled gurgle.
“Why is someone from the hospital here looking for you?” he snarls, and the spit hits my cheek, so hot it burns.
I try to answer, really I do, but there’s nothing in my lungs but vacuum.
His grip tightens and the world narrows to a red-black tunnel.
I feel my pulse jackhammering against his fingers, feel the blood surge and then stutter in my face.
Black spots multiply, dancing across my vision in fractal patterns.
“I, I don’t…” It’s a whisper, barely even a sound. I swallow hard, tongue thick and dumb.
He shakes me once, violently, the back of my head smacking concrete. Pain stabs behind my eyes. I wonder, in a distant, clinical way, if this is how people stroke out on the table. If there is a moment where you know, for sure, that the thing inside you is about to burst.
“Someone tracked you here.” The words come in hot, sharp syllables. “A resident. How?”
I can’t think. My body is a flailing animal, but my mind is ice. The only answer I can offer is the truth as he loosens his grip a fraction. “I don’t know.” The sound is raw, desperate. “I don’t know, Creed, I swear.”
He leans in so close the tips of our noses touch. “Don’t lie to me.” The rage in his face is pure, elemental. I feel it through my skin, a frequency too low for normal hearing. My knees threaten to buckle, but he holds me up, the wall at my back and his hand the only things keeping me vertical.
Somewhere inside the pain, a strange warmth flares up.
The kind that makes your pupils blow wide, the kind that flushes your chest and makes your thighs twitch.
My body is a fucking traitor. Even now, as the oxygen runs out and the panic should be absolute, my hips roll forward, grinding into his.
My arms wrap around his wrist, not to fight, but to pull him closer.
It’s sick, it’s humiliating, but it’s all I have left.
He sees it. Of course he does.
His eyes drop, a flicker of something like amusement splitting the violence. For a second, the grip loosens, just enough to let me suck a gasp of air. The sound is disgusting, a wet, needy gasp, but I drink it in like wine.
“You’re enjoying this,” he whispers. Not a question.
I shake my head, but he’s right and he knows it.
He grins, a slow, wolfish thing. “Of course you are. You can’t help it.”
He shifts his hand, cupping my jaw now, thumb digging into the hinge until my mouth drops open. “I’m sorry, little kitten. Be a good girl, please. Tell me who he is,” he says, softer now, almost tender.
“I don’t know,” I say, and the tears spring up unbidden, hot tracks down my cheeks. “We have a lot of residents.”
He watches them fall. His thumb traces one, collects it, then smears it across my lips. “You don’t get to cry yet,” he says. “Not until I’m done with you.”
He drops his hand, but his body stays pressed to mine, his hard planes against my soft curves. I sag against him, sucking in air, the room spinning and all it does is serve to send the blood rushing between my thighs.
I’m sick. Infected with him. He’s a disease and he’s destroyed every rational part of me.
He cages me with both arms, his fists pressed into the wall on either side of my face. “Tell me why I shouldn’t rip your fucking tongue out,” he says, voice low.
I look up at him through the blur, vision doubled and haloed. “Because you want to hear me scream.”
The line lands, heavy and true.
He laughs, a single bark of sound, then slams his fist into the wall an inch from my ear. The concrete cracks, raining dust into my hair and his knuckles come away bloodied and raw.
“I should kill you,” he says, almost to himself.
I lick my lips, tasting the copper of my own blood. “But you won’t.”
He looks at me then, really looks, and for a moment the fury drains out, replaced by something raw and wretched. His hand comes up again, but this time he strokes my hair, tucks it behind my ear. “You’re fucking poison,” he says. “You know that?”
I nod. “You made me this way.”
He grins, teeth bared, and leans in. His mouth finds mine, brutal and suffocating, the taste of blood and spit and tears all mixing into one.
He kisses me until I am nothing but hunger, until I forget the pain, the fear, the reason he started this in the first place.
When he finally pulls back, I am shaking, not with terror, but with need.
He steps away, leaving me propped against the wall, and stalks to the center of the room. He stands there, arms crossed, staring at me like I am a bomb he has to disarm.
Time stretches thin, then snaps. Minutes pass in the dark, the silence thick and congealed. My breath is still ragged, throat tender where his hand left a necklace of bruises, but the oxygen high is gone, replaced by a slow, steady flame.
I should hate him for this.
I should hate myself more.
“I should punish you for this, Julianna. But I can’t… I can’t…” he growls and the sound shoots straight to my core. “I can’t stay in control anymore.”
My voice is a raspy whisper. “Maybe I don’t want you too.”
He crosses the room, slower this time, movements deliberate. There’s no warning before he grabs me by the shoulders and pins me against the wall, but it’s not a choke, more like he’s holding back.
His face is inches from mine. He doesn’t blink.
“You want to explain what’s so fucking special about you?” he says, voice stripped raw.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’m so tired, and so stupidly, horrifyingly turned on that my brain is a blown fuse.
His eyes flick down to my chest. My breath hitches, and I realize I’m shivering, not from cold, but from the electric potential of what’s about to happen.
He sees it. He always does.
Another low growl vibrates through his body, through mine. He slams me harder into the wall, and a whimper escapes, unbidden. It’s pathetic and soft, a sound I would never admit to making in daylight.
“You like this, don’t you?” he says, voice dark and husky.
I nod, a tiny movement. It’s all I can manage.
He lets go of my shoulders, and for a split second I think he’s leaving again.
But he’s not. He’s just repositioning. One hand tangles in my hair, yanking my head back, exposing my throat.
The other hand slides down my side, slow and sensual, until it finds the hem of the t-shirt and drags it up.
The air is cold, but his palm is hotter than skin should be.
He palms my breast, thumb circling the nipple until it’s a tight ache.
I bite my lip, trying to hold back the sounds, but they leak out anyway. “Please,” I say, not even sure what I’m asking for.
He grins, slow and mean. “Not until I’m done with you.”
He spins me, using my hair as a handle, and shoves me face-down onto the mattress. The motion is so sudden I don’t have time to brace myself, and my knees collapse, leaving my ass up and exposed.
He kneels behind me, hands rough as he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my underwear and yanks them down to my ankles. The motion is brutal, but I don’t resist. I want this. I want to see what happens when he stops pretending to be civilized.
Well, as civilized as he’s been. I want to dance with death.
He slides his hand up the back of my thigh, then higher, fingers digging into the flesh until I gasp. “You’re so fucking wet,” he says, voice thick with hunger.
I whimper again, because it’s true.
He uses his knees to spread mine wider, then lines himself up behind me. I can feel the weight of his cock against my ass, the heat of it branding my skin. He doesn’t push in, not yet. He waits, one hand fisted in my hair, the other running lazy circles over the curve of my hip.
“Say it,” he demands. “Say you want me to break you.”
I hesitate, the words stuck in my throat. He tugs my hair, hard.
“Say it,” he growls, the sound vibrating in my bones.
“I want you to break me,” I whisper, and it feels like truth. Like the only truth left.
He doesn’t hesitate. He pushes in, one hard, perfect thrust, and every last bit of doubt is burned away by the sensation.
I cry out, voice bouncing off concrete, but he just grunts and fucks me deeper.
His hand is tight in my hair, holding my head up so I have to look at the blank, unblinking eye of the camera in the corner.
He uses me, hips pounding out a rhythm that’s half punishment, half promise. I arch back, meeting every thrust, desperate for more. The pleasure is sharp, edged with pain, the kind that makes you want to split in two just to feel it longer.
I lose track of time. Of self. I’m just a series of sensations, each more urgent than the last.
When he finally comes, it’s with a raw, unguarded sound, and he doesn’t pull out. He stays there, bent over me, breathing hard, sweat dripping onto my back.
After a minute, he lets go of my hair. I collapse onto the mattress, face buried in the sheets. My whole body is shaking. I feel empty, and full, and so alive it hurts.
He lies down next to me, arms folded under his head. For a long time, neither of us says anything. The only sound is the slow return of our breathing to normal.
Eventually, he rolls onto his side and traces the line of my spine with one finger. The touch is gentle, almost apologetic.
“I’m going to deal with our guest,” he says. “But when I come back, we’re going to talk.”
I nod, still unable to speak.
He pulls up his pants, then stands. He looks down at me, and for the first time I see something like tenderness in his eyes. “Please… Julianna…”
The sentence trails off. Like he doesn’t know what he’s asking for before he brushes a kiss across my shoulder and stands.
He leaves, and the door slams shut.
I roll onto my back, staring up at the ceiling.
This is what it feels like to be ruined.
This is what it feels like to want it.
I close my eyes and wait for him to come back.