22. Control
TWENTY-TWO
CONTROL
HAVEN
Can you cockblock your own husband?
Of course, that’s assuming that Connor Heyward is my husband. He sure seems to think so, and three months after the August ceremony in the basement, he hasn’t let up on calling me his wife at all. It also depends on whether or not maintaining abstinence after a forced marriage is cockblocking.
One thing for sure: we aren’t fucking, and as August becomes November, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
As for Connor? As long as I stop taking my wedding band off and hiding it, he doesn’t care what we do in the bedroom together so long as I get my rest. Then again, since during the worst of my nightmares, he usually drugs me again and I always, always wake up with the wedding band on my finger no matter how I tried to get rid of it, I eventually stopped bothering.
I mean, seriously? How did he find it after I tried to flush it?
It’s Connor. That’s the answer to everything.
It’s fucking Connor.
He told me he was obsessed from the beginning. I didn’t believe him at first, but he never hid the fact that he thought he was desperately in love with me. The boy I thought barely noticed me except to casually flirt and tease… turns out there’s a reason why he knows so much about me.
He’s been stalking me for a decade. He knows my favorite shows and my favorite meals because he’s been studying me as though I’m a test he needs to pass.
He was able to stock up his bathroom with my preferred products because he’s been sneaking in and out of my apartment for years, getting an idea of what I used for the day that I eventually became his wife.
Now it seems like I am, and his obsession—or, as he calls it, his love—has only seemed to impossibly grow in the months that I’ve been living with him.
It has to be love, too; or, at least, Connor’s version of it.
Any other Owed would have already invoked the clause in the charter that says that an Offering must spend one night every week in her husband’s bed.
And, technically, I have. Ever since that farce of a wedding, Connor has spent every night wherever I sleep.
Either in the sanctuary room, on the floor of the basement, even squeezed on the other side of the couch…
wherever I go, that’s where he is. But despite everyone in Harmony Heights understanding that ‘sleeping in the same bed’ means fucking your husband, Connor hasn’t made a single move to have sex with me other than holding me during the worst of my nightmares and consoling me with gentle kisses to my forehead.
During the daytime hours, he finds excuses to kiss me.
I once thought that he only kissed me to punish me.
Like, I hated kissing him so much, he did it to get me to correct my behaviors.
Either way, he got what he wanted, and now that I’m all but addicted to his kisses…
it doesn’t matter if it’s a punishment or not.
I’m addicted to them—and I’d rather die than Connor figure that out.
But that’s it. For all the times he told me that we would eventually be lovers, and how often I told him that we would never sleep together… so far, I’m winning.
Is it really winning, though, when I kind of, sort of want to sleep with him?
I refuse because it’s expected of me. I refuse because, as much as I’m attracted to Connor, my only recent experiences were with men who brutalized me and took what they wanted.
If only I could feel comfortable and confident enough to let Connor give me affection…
but I can’t. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to, and while I was initially terrified that he would go back on his word and prove that he is as much a monster as those men, three months after he put his ring on my finger, he hasn’t even tried to convince me to do anything but survive another day with him.
And the more he gives me the space I need, the more I wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to get rid of my useless ‘virgin’ label at last by sleeping with Connor.
Is he doing that on purpose? I’ve learned that, behind his charming smile, Connor is one hell of a manipulative bastard. I wouldn’t put it past him to be patient and wait because he knows that, eventually, I’ll give on.
Of course, that makes me even more determined to ignore my growing feelings toward him… until, one night, I can’t.
Connor has been quieter than usual all evening. Considering he loves the sound of his own voice, that’s enough to catch my attention.
He smiled like he always does. In good spirits, he teased me over the meal he prepared for us both for dinner. He grabbed one of the paperbacks he bought for me, reading beside me on the couch while I pretended to focus on my own.
Every now and then, though? I catch him looking at me. That’s pretty usual, too. I’ve gotten used to the way that Connor constantly watches me as though he thinks I’ll suddenly disappear if he looks away for too long.
Right. Six months after he brought me to his house, I’m still here.
I haven’t tried to escape since before our ‘wedding’, and in a way, I’ve just accepted that this is it.
This is my life now. I live with Connor, and if it helps my sanity to consider him more my unwanted roommate than my husband, that’s exactly what I do.
Connor isn’t so sure about that. It doesn’t matter that I stopped plotting ages ago. If I borrow his knife, it’s because I need help opening something rather than trying to stab him. He’s still skeptical, though, and when I catch him looking at me like that… I wonder what he’s thinking now.
Eventually, he stands. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to use your bathroom.”
I wrinkle my nose. Normally, he goes upstairs to use the one on the first floor or the one connected to his bathroom.
I’m not the biggest fan of him announcing he needs to take a shit or something so I ignore him—even if I do notice that he’s walking a little awkwardly as he crosses the basement floor and heads into the bathroom.
Damn. He must really have to go.
Unfortunately for me, about ten minutes later, it’s my turn.
I have to pee. It came on suddenly, and that’s not so unusual. Captivity fucked me up in so many ways. One of them? After the incident with the bedpan, I have a tendency to hold my pee longer than I should. By the time it becomes an emergency, it’s an emergency.
I tiptoe across the floor. I can’t go upstairs. Ever since my escape, Connor has been anal about making sure the door is locked no matter what. And since I won’t pee in the sink, he needs to hurry up and finish what he’s doing in there so that I can go.
He has to be done, right? I can’t imagine what’s taking him so long, but when I give it a minute before I approach the door and there’s still no flush, still no running water that tells me he’s washing his hands, I frown.
I hear something, though. Soft panting sounds, almost like—
I surge forward, forming a fist with my hand.
I had every intention of knocking on the door.
Suddenly, it’s like I can’t speak again so it’s not like I can call out to him.
Knocking should let him know that I’m out here, that I need the bathroom, but the moment my fist connects with the wood, the door flies inward.
It wasn’t locked. Connor didn’t lock this door.
Unable to stop myself, I peek inside.
Um. He’s not taking a shit.
He’s…
He’s…
A lump lodges in my throat. I hurriedly swallow it. The arousal that rises up in side of me, though? Yeah. That’s not going anywhere.
We’ve lived together for six months. The most I’ve seen of Connor Heyward’s body was his chest. I’d had a bit of a meltdown, throwing a plate of spaghetti and sauce at him.
Before he started to clean it up, he removed his stained shirt to add to the growing laundry pile, and I was struck dumb by how gorgeous it was.
He has broad shoulders. Sculpted muscles. No hair on his chest save for a happy trail that disappeared inside of the khaki pants he was wearing that night. He was beautiful, and then he smirked to see that I was staring, and I retreated to my sanctuary.
I should probably do that now. I’m certainly staring at Connor now, only it’s not his chest that I’m seeing for the first time.
It’s his cock.
Connor is standing outside of the shower stall.
One hand is braced against the glass sliding door.
The other is pumping wildly, his fist traveling the length of his cock.
He goes from root to tip repeatedly, stroking himself.
His pants are wide open, shoved down enough that I can see a hint of his underwear and more than that of his ass cheek.
For a second, I stare at the inch-long scar right in the middle of the right one facing me. Shit. I did that. I marked his ass with his knife, and I watched the cheek jiggle from the force of his stroke before my eyes dart up again and I’m fascinated by how forcibly he handles his own flesh.
Does he know I’m here? His eyes are closed, his chin ducked down to his chest. Veins pop out of his neck. His jaw is tight. He’s so completely consumed by the act that… no. I don’t think he knows that I’m a witness to such an intimate act.
I should run away. I should hide in the panic room, pretending like I didn’t catch Connor masturbating.
And that’s when he mutters my name fiercely, the two syllables sounding like a fervent prayer right as his cock spits out thick, ropy jets of semen right on top of the toilet seat, and there’s no fucking way I’m sneaking away unseen as he dazedly blinks his eyes open.
Chest heaving notably, he turns his head in time to catch me gawking at him. His eyes go wide, and I whimper.
That breaks the spell. He moves to take a step toward me. He stumbles, knocking his leg into the toilet bowl thanks to the way his pants are down past his ass. With a curse, he grabs the hem of his jeans, yanking them up all while I stand there like a deer in headlights.
“Haven.” This time my name is a groan. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
Obviously.