Rage

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

T he taxi drops me off at home for double the price an Uber would’ve cost me, but it was worth every penny. If I had to deal with one more second of that mommy and son duo, I was going to set my dinner fork upright, aim it at my eye, and slam my head on the table.

I reach my front door, fumbling around in my purse for my keys, and dread begins to set in when I don’t find them after thirty seconds of searching. I squat down on my porch and frantically check for the keys as I watch the taxi driver pull away.

“No, no, no, no,” I whisper to myself as the darkness closes in. My hair unravels from its bun, and dark curls fall into my eyes. I dump the contents of my purse out onto the ground in pure hope that I see my keys amongst the extra tissues, lipstick, mascara, and other things.

“Who are you talking to out here, Duchess?” a male voice inquires, causing me to stumble forward before two large hands grip my shoulders from behind and steady me.

“Please, I’ll write you a check. I have three hundred dollars in cash as well. Just please, don’t… Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t call the cops. I’ll forget it ever happened,” I plead as I fight back the forming tears.

I hear him tsk from behind me as he squats down and whispers in my ear, “That’s a shame. I don’t want to forget any of it, especially the feeling of you squirming beneath me with my knife pressed to your throat.”

My body goes rigid as his hand comes around, holding out a key ring in front of me—my house and car key.

Duplicates.

My mouth goes dry at the sight.

Slowly, he stands and holds his hand out to me. The left side of my brain tells me to scream for help while the right side tells me to place my hand in his, allowing him to help me stand. I force myself to look at him, but I’m met with his chest. He has to be over six-three against my five-foot-five-inch height. My eyes trail upward until they meet his, behind the mask. We stare at each other for a moment before he quickly unlocks the door, pulls me inside, and disarms my alarm.

MY alarm.

The fact that he knows my passcode sends chills down my spine.

“Upstairs. Now.”

His command has me frozen in place, knowing my bed is upstairs.

“Please, Duchess,” he adds softly.

My legs begin to shuffle toward the stairs and I lean down to kick off my shoes, but instead I’m met by him kneeling to remove them for me. I’m stunned at the sight until he's removed them, and he has to instruct me to keep moving, to walk up the stairs. Once I make it up, I just stand in the hallway until he tells me what he wants.

“Bathroom.”

I draw in a shaky breath—the only bathroom up here is connected to my bedroom. I walk until I reach the correct room and nervously hand-fuck the wall until I find the light switch. I feel his hand on my shoulder, leading me to the bed, and my lips tremble with fear.

“Sit here,” he says before going into the bathroom. I hear rustling, then the knob of the tub turning and water flowing. A few minutes go by before he comes back out and instructs me to go in the bathroom, get undressed, and get in the tub with the water still running.

I can see piles of bubbles from the bubble bath I keep on the ledge, and my body begins to tremble as I peel my dress off, followed by my bra and underwear. Afraid he’s watching me, I quickly step into the tub and slide down into the perfectly heated water.

“Are you in?” he calls from the other room, and I answer.

He saunters in with his hands in the pockets of the same black sweatsuit he wore earlier. “If you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t.”

His husky voice hurls me into a whirlwind, his scent of musk and pine sending me into overdrive as I squeeze my legs together underneath the water. Who have I turned into? A masked man I don’t know has me naked in a bathtub and is asking for permission to touch me. He grabs a washcloth and liquid soap from nearby, holding them up while waiting for my approval. I swallow before I make my decision. It has been months since Ross last touched me intimately, and I’m about to let a stranger give me a bath.

Is this considered cheating? People in hospitals get sponge baths all the time, so this can’t be considered cheating after the night I’ve had.

I gaze at his hands, and the size of them has my mouth popping open as I imagine them wrapped around my neck, choking me until the edges of my vision become black.

“Duchess?” he asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I nod my head.

He stalks over, kneeling next to the bath to begin at the nape of my neck and work his way down my back. “Want to tell me why you left in an Uber but came back in a taxi?” he questions as I turn my head to look at him, his mask illuminated in the dimmed light of the bathroom. I can see slight strokes of grey in the black paint that I missed before.

“I’d rather not be embarrassed twice in one night,” I reply. He pauses before dunking the cloth in the water and raising it to the front of my neck, slowly working it down. Our eyes meet when he stops right above my breasts, and I nod to give him the go-ahead. When he runs the cloth over my right breast, he clears his throat, and I can feel my nipples harden at his touch.

“Tell me what happened. That’s an order, Duchess, not a request.”

After a moment of tense silence, I spill my word vomit about what happened, as if he’s Janna and we’re gossiping about drama at work. I can feel his hands moving as he washes the rest of my body, stopping to glance at me while I speak. But when I finish, I notice his hands resting in the water right above my leg. Our gazes connect again before his fingers slowly move toward my inner thigh.

“And did you end things with him? That family?”

His words cut through me—not because of his language, but because I’m embarrassed to tell him I let them speak to me that way. I let Ross sit there while his mother berated me like I was a worthless piece of trash.

I swallow as his fingers reach the apex of my thighs.

“You haven’t stopped me yet,” he states with a tilt of his head. “If you want me to stop, you need to speak…now.”

Memories of hearing Ross' secretary in the background of our late-night phone calls while he’s at the office briefly play in my head before I realize I don’t give a fuck anymore. Everyone on this earth might think I’m stupid, and it’s partially my fault for following along in their game. But I know what my fiancé does behind my back, and I’m done being the one fucked over. The one being used like cattle in a field to save the hungry.

I’m hungry.

I want the salvation.

My breathing turns rapid as my hand grips his forearm. “Take the mask off,” I say breathlessly, and he shakes his head no. “At least tell me your name,” I plead, and again he declines before beginning to pull his hand away. I grip his forearm once more and pull his hand to hover over the area I know will definitely be considered cheating. “You signed the card with the flowers. Can I call you Z?” I ask, and he nods his head.

We stare at each other for eternity before his opposite hand grabs the back of my neck and the fingers of the other slide down to plunge into my entrance, leaving me stunned as I inhale a sharp breath.

This is definitely considered cheating.

Regardless of my realization, I never open my mouth to tell him to stop. His massive fingers drive into me repeatedly, stopping every so often for him to rub my most sensitive spot before pulling them achingly close to the edge of my entrance and rubbing my clit in perfect time with his thumb.

“Are you ever going to realize what you’re capable of? What a woman like you deserves?” he asks, anger lacing his words. When I don’t answer, his grip on the back of my neck tightens before he forces me underwater with one violent, quick push. I fight to bring my head back above the surface as he thrusts two fingers back inside me, effortlessly driving me to the edge of my release. Then, just as quickly as he started, he stops and pulls me up for air, still gripping the nape of my neck.

I gasp for air as I fight to speak. “Are you fucking crazy?!”

“I can be,” he retorts. “Leave him, Mavis.”

My eyes blow wide at his statement.

“You think I didn’t notice the heavy makeup only below your left eye? When did he hit you? I’ll fucking kill him. Tell me it was him so I can break his neck,” he lashes out. When I don’t answer, he thrusts me back under the water as I claw at his arms.

This time, I’m under for much longer as his thumb makes tiny circles around my clit, adding just the right amount of pressure for me to climb the ladder of my climax. As I flail every extremity and my lungs beg for any amount of air, my vision begins to blur, my limbs slowly going limp.

Just when I thought he was going to let me drift away into the abyss, he plunges three fingers into me and brings me up for air at the same time. “What do you want, Mavis?” he screams from beside me. I know what I want, but I’m afraid to speak life into it. He yells his question again, startling me from my thoughts. “Have it your way then,” he says before preparing to force me underwater again, but my arms fly out, gripping the sides of the tub.

“I want them to burn,” I scream as we both pause, our heavy breathing filling the silent void. I turn to look at those deep, green eyes again, now filled with fire and desire. “I want them all to burn. I want to take control of my life back.”

He nods in understanding before his fingers work their way into my pussy again, a moan escaping before I can stop it. His other hand releases my neck as he begins working my nipples, pinching and releasing them with the perfect amount of pain. The pairing of pain and pleasure is my undoing as I begin to squirm at his touch and his fingers curl inside of me at the perfect angle. I involuntarily arch my back and the orgasm that ripples through every inch of my body is a feeling I’ve never experienced. My ears ring with my screams as I finally teeter over the top and free-fall at his mercy.

Trying to fill my lungs with air while my heart beats out of my chest from the adrenaline of my orgasm has me seeing stars as he effortlessly lifts me from the bathtub, soaking his clothes in the process. He places me on the vanity chair in the bathroom as he wraps a towel around my body to dry me off. My heavily lidded eyes rise to look at the man who just gave me the best orgasm I’ve ever had in my twenty-eight years of life.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

He stops his work before his hard eyes set on me. Raising the towel to wipe underneath my left eye, he reveals the bruise I had worked so hard to hide from the world and curses behind the mask.

“Because that was never my intention. This right here,” he says, while running his thumb over the tender bruise. “This will lead to a much darker place, one without the release at the end.”

Tears fall from my eyes for the twentieth time in one day. Taking the towel, my masked stalker wipes them away before he helps me stand and leads me to the bed, clasping my hand in his. Not once does he ogle my body as I stand naked before him. Instead, he pulls the covers back to let me crawl in and tugs them over me once I’m settled.

Grabbing the tv remote from my dresser, he skims the menu until he finds Hulu and searches for something specific. My breathing catches when he finishes typing in the search bar. I bite my bottom lip to refrain from saying the wrong thing as he hits play and The O.C. blares from the tv speakers.

He kisses the top of my head, sending a wave of shock through me as he turns to leave. Involuntarily, I catch the hem of his sweatshirt before he’s out of reach.

“Could you… Would you mind… I…”

I can’t get the words to form before he turns around to remove my hand and gently place it back on the bed. “Tell me you want me to stay, and I will.”

I stare at him dumbfounded. I can’t register his words quickly enough as they play over and over in my head for a solid minute.

He wants to know I need him, that I can’t get through the night without him, even though I have no idea who he is. He needs me to say that even though he pried his way into my life, I trust him enough to know he won’t murder me in my sleep.

“I want you to stay,” I say shakily as I pull the covers under my chin.

He nods his head. “I’ll stay. But Mavis?”

My eyes connect with his, showing that he has my full attention as my body relaxes with the knowledge that he will stay.

“You’re going to burn that misogynistic army of assholes to the fucking ground starting tomorrow. The fire within you is slowly catching flame, Duchess.”

I blink slowly, trying to process his claim.

“Every fire gets hungry, and I’m just here to provide the gasoline for you to feed its rage.”

His words send a wave of shock through my body, and yet, a flash of hurt comes with it when he leaves the room, choosing to go downstairs instead of staying up here with me.

Why does a man I don’t even know make me feel safer than my fiancé of six years?

And why am I allowing a masked man who has invaded my privacy multiple times to stay here? A man who just almost drowned me.

A man who also gave me an orgasm sent from the gods.

My brain tosses and turns through my questions and morals as I listen to Seth and Summer arguing on the television.

He’s not wrong when it comes to me not knowing who I am. Not only do my fiancé and his family treat me like I’m beneath them, but my entire life my parents have dictated and made all decisions for me. Where I went to college, the sports I played, and what I wore, was decided by them until they bribed me with a place of my own in the city. A bribe with a stipulation of me coming home and switching colleges to get away from the boy they didn’t want me to date at the time. Being able to move away from them was a little slice of joy in a world that was slowly burning around me.

I slowly drift off to sleep as I accept that I’m letting a complete stranger rearrange the life I worked so hard for in less than twenty-four hours.

A life I’m not even sure is right for me.

A life I know deep in my heart would send me six feet under before I reach middle age.

A life that now, for some reason, feels safer with an unknown man willing to hold me underwater until I see the change I need to make within myself.