Chapter 13 Bianca #3
“If I was, it wouldn’t matter,” he said with no remorse, and I hated that the flutters in my stomach started. What did I care if I was something to him or not? He was a monster, I reminded myself. “You realize I’m allowed to watch you if I want. I’m allowed to do whatever the fuck I want with you.”
“Doesn’t make it okay. Matter of fact, I won’t allow you to do anything to me ever again. So I hope you enjoyed that time with me in the bathroom.”
He chuckled and shook his head, defiance sparking in his eyes. “You think if I wanted to have you, I couldn’t?” He wiped a hand over his face. “Better question … You think even if I wanted to but you didn’t that I would?” He stared at me like he was waiting for me to respond.
And I took my time considering the question. Would he do what he wanted knowing I didn’t want him to? Would he hurt me? Truly?
When I didn’t answer right away, he rolled his eyes. “Like you haven’t known me most of my life.”
“Well, I don’t know every side of you, Bane. I don’t know the version of you who takes a man’s head at the dinner table.”
“You’ve always known that part of me.” He scoffed as if it was nonsense for me to even bring up. “You fucking love it. I see how your cheeks get pink and how you lick your lips when I’m violent, pretty pink poison.”
“You’re wrong,” I whispered but I felt the blush spreading. I stomped my foot, trying to drive my point home, “I don’t know the side of you that sends gross chicken and pasta up to my room instead of coming here yourself, Bane.”
“Gross? Really?” He acted like I was being spoiled.
I didn’t care if I was. I leaned forward and screamed like the spoiled woman I was, “It is gross when I wanted a damn burger with a bun that’s gluten free!”
“Gluten free? What the fuck for?” he murmured and when I glanced down at where I knew my rash was, he said, “Take your robe off.”
“No,” I told him.
He lunged at me fast, like he’d had enough.
But I was faster. He was drunk anyway. And I was charged from the questions, from him in my room, from the mess of emotions I was feeling. My body moved before my conscience had time to reconsider. I lunged for both the knife and the syringe.
The blade slashed his arm and then was at his neck, biting into his skin, and the syringe was jabbed into his bicep within a second.
He froze, grunted, and then frowned down at me, more offended than pained.
“Pink …” He sighed as if I was a nuisance, and then he literally relaxed into the blade I held at his neck, causing me to push it further into him and nick his skin.
“There’s the venom in that attitude of yours I dream about.
Go ahead and take my life, Pink. If someone’s going to put me out of my misery it might as well be you. ”
“What?” I asked, my breath coming fast, the adrenaline making my hands shake.
“Because you’re the devil to my hell, and I still can’t seem to avoid the sin.”
“You can’t have me now after you turned me away and didn’t want me at dinner,” I told him.
“Is that what you think I’m trying to do?” he asked, tilting his head more slowly. “What’s in the syringe?”
“Lots of sedatives.” I cleared my throat. “That I mixed up myself.”
“You drugged me.” He tilted his head.
“Well … I was stopping you.” It sounded plausible in my head. Out loud, it sounded almost silly. He was a whole head taller than me, and his hands were at his sides like he wasn’t even trying to stop me.
“From what? Figuring out what you’re hiding?” He flicked a glance down at his hands that were undoing the robe knot now. And I wasn’t stopping him. Some part of me knew he’d find out anyway.
I bit my lip as his eyes landed on the redness of my skin, as his hardened, callous hand touched it so gently.
“Bianca,” he murmured.
“Gluten intolerance.” I shrugged.
“Fuck me.” He shook his head and met my gaze with searing anger now. “I didn’t test for that. I missed the most important thing.” He pushed the knife further into this skin. “Slit my throat.”
“No. What?” I jerked the knife away, and he immediately grabbed my wrist to pull the weapon from my hand.
“Careful with that.” His movements were slower but still measured as he set it down like he didn’t want me to hurt myself after I’d just slashed at his arm.
I scoffed and placed my hands on both of his shoulders as I searched his face and then looked at his bicep. “We need to get this bandaged, and you need to sit down.” I tried to keep my tone light.
A rumble escaped from his chest like he was already lightheaded, but he chuckled as he sat on the bed.
“We need to get your phone plugged back in,” he drawled, staring with absurd calm at the blood sliding down his forearm, “but considering I’m bleeding out and about to be high as a motherfucking kite, maybe we should call a medic. ”
“Shit.” This suddenly felt like a master plan gone completely wrong.
I ran to grab a few towels from the bathroom and then sat down beside him to lift his arm and wrap one around the large muscle.
“So”—he dragged the word out—“what exactly did you give me?”
I winced at the question. “In my defense, I thought you were going to have your way with me.”
He managed not to sway then, his whole body going rigid and quiet before he closed his eyes and breathed in deep. “You thought after all the time I’ve known you, after what you know of me that I would let someone in here to rape you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a man in this organization has taken advantage of a woman—” The sentence died because his palm closed around my throat and then he pulled me onto the bed to lay me down next to him.
It didn’t feel like an attack though. It felt like my Bane.
He leaned over me, grip firm—not choking, just insisting—and I hated the small, traitorous sound my body made. He heard it. Of course he did. He heard everything.
“And me? You think I’d do that to you? Have I ever taken advantage of you in a way you didn’t want, Pink?” he murmured.
The nickname was a bruise he kept pressing as I kept my mouth shut.
“Answer me,” he commanded.
“Never … I’ve always wanted it. But … tonight, well, every night here … things are different.” I stumbled over my words as I tipped my chin higher. Even if he was cornering me, I wouldn’t cower. “And I wanted to be ready in case I was going to be taken advantage of.”
My words jarred him. I felt the subtle flinch and saw how his eyes darkened. “Taken advantage of by me?”
He wanted a clear answer. And maybe I should have thought twice, but I retorted, “Yes, you.”
He narrowed his eyes and then moved between my knees and dragged me down the mattress by the throat.
It was a filthy demonstration of his power and of his strength over me.
Heat and hard length pressed against me.
I was naked under my robe and the feeling of him there had my thighs clenching against him.
“Bianca,” he whispered my name. “We both know your pussy is wet right now. The truth is I can have you … I just don’t want you anymore.
” He looked me over like a jeweler evaluating a counterfeit, then clicked his tongue, almost pitying.
“It’s why I stopped what we were doing at dinner, why I didn’t fuck you into oblivion, do you understand?
Let’s be clear, if I did want what’s rightfully mine for now, I could fuck you raw and your little blade wouldn’t stop me. Nothing would.”
“But you just don’t want to then?” I whispered like I needed him to say it again because maybe deep down I wanted him to want me. Maybe deep down, I wanted the guy who wanted me before.
We locked eyes and I swear he read my mind, swear he considered it, swear he wanted to tell me he still wanted me the way he always used to, but he stayed silent.
“I don’t.” Blood dripped slowly from his arm to his wrist, beading at his knuckles. He glanced over at it, as if charmed by the physics, and then he brought those blood-wet fingers slowly to my mouth. “If I wanted something to do with you, I wouldn’t keep you up here away from me, right?”
He smeared his blood against my mouth, and I licked it immediately, wanting to taste any part of him. He watched as if mesmerized. “Sure that’s why you keep me locked away? Or is it because—”
He didn’t want me to finish that question. He pushed his bloodied fingers into my mouth, cutting me off. I tasted copper and him. He shoved deeper until I gagged enough that my throat convulsed, causing me to jerk in his hold.
He was making a point. Like he knew I was more to blame for the desire between us than he was.
And I hated that I let him. Yet, I couldn’t control myself.
I made a noise I’d never admit to and moved against him, my body defying me as my hips rolled into his length.
He pulled his fingers back and then thrust them down my throat again.
A sickening rhythm ensued that I encouraged, rocking into him every single time.
“Such a pretty fucking mess. It’s obscene and filthy the way you want me, pink poison. And so fucking perfect.”
I spread my legs further, hoping he’d keep going but that movement had him yank his hands back and then his weight shifted off me as he rolled over to the side of me. “Fuck.” He dragged the word out long and slow.
I turned to see him wiping away the desire from his face and I knew right then, he was feeling my concoction. His movements were much too sloppy for his usually tightly wound self.
“I’m leaving,” he grumbled and started to sit up.
“Leaving? After gagging me?” I lifted a brow and shoved him back and he plopped back on the bed too easily. The tension in his shoulders went slack in a way I’d never seen them. Bane was never relaxed or malleable.
And the edges of that piercing gaze softened.
“I should be doing more than just gagging you. I should be taking your life. You realize mixing drugs and sticking me with a needle is attempted murder.”