Chapter Twenty-Five
………………………….
Ily
I DIDN’T WANT TO CRY.
I’d done everything I could to avoid such a thing.
I’d allowed Henri’s despair to nullify my own, grateful to be strong enough to put another before me. After a lifetime of looking after Krish and placing his needs before mine, I had a good crutch to lean on, convincing me I was okay.
Of course I wasn’t affected by Victor raping me.
It was just sex. Just a body. Just whatever…
Of course I wasn’t dying beneath constant fear of living in this place.
It was just a castle. Just monsters. Just another day…
Of course I wasn’t living in constant stress or misery or panic or horror or pain or worry or, or, or…
Of course not.
Of course—
Lies.
Pretend.
Coping mechanisms.
As Henri slowly climbed out of his ashes and the deadness in his eyes transformed into vicious life, he stole all my distractions. Tore apart all my careful lies and forced me to see just how much I wasn’t okay.
It’d been so long since I felt safe.
So long since I could take off my mask and be honest.
And as his arms came around me, cocooning me in a safe harbour, I folded inward, gave in, and let go.
Victor raped me.
I felt him. Even now. Inside me. Moving.
I cringed away.
I tried to run.
But my mind popped the corks of every moment I’d bottled up. Every horror I’d shrugged off and every sleepless night I’d shoved away.
It was too much.
I wasn’t alright.
I wasn’t.
I was afraid and lonely, lost and dying day by day.
My brave face for Peter and the jewels.
My determination not to let evil win.
I was exhausted.
Barely hanging on.
Drowning…
I hated Henri for showing me that.
Hated that I’d been so alone.
Hated how wonderful it was to suddenly have someone. Someone who threw up a shield between me and horror and kept me hidden just for a moment.
The past weeks unravelled, crushing me into tears.
Victor.
H-He raped me.
I didn’t watch.
But I’d felt it.
My body endured it.
He’d sullied me.
Defiled me.
Fucked me—
Nausea brewed hot in my stomach.
The urge to purge clutched around my throat.
I had a sudden commiseration for Henri and all the moments his system forced him to retch. It made sense. He had a lifetime of nightmares haunting him.
I only had one and it was enough to make me want to scream and scream and scream!
I cried harder.
I couldn’t stop.
God, I couldn’t stop.
“Ah, Ily…I’m sorry. So, so fucking sorry.” He rocked me, cradled me, treated me like spun sugar and gave me the sweetest kisses. He didn’t try to lick my tears. Didn’t growl at me to cease.
His strong arms wrapped tighter. His hard body supported mine.
Never in all my life had I felt so accepted, so cherished, so seen.
Never trusted someone enough to be so ugly and sad.
Just him.
This enemy turned twin flame.
My missing piece of my soul.
Victor’s grunts.
Victor’s thrusts.
Victor—
I couldn’t do it anymore.
Pulling away from Henri’s embrace, I tripped and grabbed his hand.
He arched an eyebrow as I dropped my towel and dragged him back into the shower. Hot water rained as I plastered myself to his perfectly trimmed chest and whispered around my tears. “I need you to erase him. Tonight. Right now.”
He cupped my cheek in worship. “I’ll do anything you want.”
I might love others.
I might need others.
But what I felt for him?
It was different. Just more. Just…everything.
“Tell me what you need.” He kissed me ever so softly.
The moment his lips touched mine, I flung my arms around his shoulders.
How could he make me feel so fragile and fearless at the same time?
How could I forgive him for everything just because he’d trusted me enough to break in front of me?
We’d allowed each other to see past all our defences, peer deep into our truths, and nothing frightened me anymore.
Not his past.
Not his needs.
Nothing.
Because I knew him.
I’d always known him.
And it’d taken me this long to recognise what he meant to me.
“Help me forget, Hen.”
He groaned into my mouth. “Having you call me that...goddammit, Ily.” Picking me up, he pressed me against the tiles and shuddered as I wrapped my legs around his hips.
I didn’t know if his erection was from wanting me or the Viagra, but the little voice in my head forced me to check I wasn’t doing to him what his father had done. “Wait…”
God, my heart ached for him.
For all those evenings when he’d been taken by the hand and delivered into absolute evil. No wonder he was so hung up on monogamy. He’d been forced to love countless women when all he ever wanted was one.
One mother. One lover. One heart.
He paused, his chest rising and falling, the knitted wound on his bicep from Kyle’s stabbing extra bright from the hot water. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trap you. I’ll put you down—”
“It’s not that. I…I want you. I need all traces of him gone. But…only if you want me too. I won’t take from you. I won’t be like him.”
His face scrunched up with absolute awe. Fresh tears clung to his eyelashes. “You think you’re taking me against my will?”
“I’m making sure I don’t.”
He sighed heavily. “Fuck, Ilyana.”
New sadness tracked down my cheeks. I felt so sorry for Rachel. For everything she’d endured. I hated that she’d been forced to sleep with so many men. Despised that Henri had the same experience. Just because he hadn’t been violated in that way, he had been violated.
He’d been raped, over and over again.
Peter and the jewels were slaves here.
They were used and abused on a daily basis, but Henri?
He’d been a child when it started.
A baby of seven years old when he’d been forced to be with a woman in that way.
What did that do to him? How had he survived? All his urges and fetishes were nothing compared to the mess inside him.
A surge of protectiveness rose.
I wanted to slay every nightmare he’d endured.
I wanted to go back in time and slaughter his father.
I wanted to hug that little boy and promise him that eventually, he would be free of that life…only for him to step back into it as an adult.
I brushed his hair back as the shower continued to pummel us. “Do you think your memories came back because of this place? Being here? Reliving the past you repressed?”
He pursed his lips. “Pretty sure it was writing. I started off wanting to write about you and all the things I wanted to do to you. Instead, I ended up falling down a fucked-up rabbit hole.”
“That’s why you deleted everything? You didn’t want Victor to read it?”
“I didn’t want to read it. Or remember.” He huffed, widening his legs. “Pity I now remember everything.”
I slipped a little in his arms. I wriggled closer, trapping his cock between us.
He groaned, his forehead furrowing. “You keep doing that, and I won’t have the ability to talk for much longer.”
My stomach flipped. “Does the Viagra feel different? Less sensitive?”
“You’re still worried that I don’t want to do this?” He kissed me softly. “That I don’t want to do you?”
I kissed him back. “I will never take advantage of you. Regardless of what I need.”
“And that’s why you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met.” His voice roughened. “I love you, Ily. So fucking much.”
Wrapping my arms around him, I hugged him.
He trapped me against the wall, quaking in my hold.
The same words danced on my tongue.
Pulling away, I asked quietly, “Did your brother know? What your father made you do?”
He flinched.
I worried he wouldn’t answer, but then he dropped his eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know. I only saw him a few times when I was dragged through the house. He was never there while it happened. I think…I hope he wasn’t aware. I do know he killed the bastard. I remember that too. I remember him appearing in the quarters where we were kept, holding a gun. The next day, we were all freed.”
“Do you think he would’ve sent you here if he’d known what you endured?”
“I don’t know.” He winced. “Unfortunately, I’ve probably killed him, so the chances of asking him are gone.”
Life seemed to narrow, knotting us together.
All the conversations in the kitchens. Peter’s urging; Rachel’s advice. They’d told me to see if Henri would fight on our side.
After tonight, I had no doubts.
His nostrils flared as he studied my face. “What? What is it?”
Heat throbbed between us, sex hung in the air, but our connection burned hotter.
My mind raced with a new plan.
One that’d begun the moment Victor thought he was helping by making Henri rape Rachel. “You said you were ready to play….You said you’re done with this place and your past, and…if that’s true, I have an idea.”
He wrenched back. Flicking a look at the camera in the corner of the bathroom pointing directly at the shower, he ducked his head by my ear. “We’ve already talked for too long. It’ll start to look suspicious if we don’t either fuck or I do something cruel.” His face scrunched up. “And I can’t hurt you again. Not tonight. To be honest, I’ll probably struggle for the rest of my life—”
“And that’s why you have to. Don’t you see?” I reached between us and grabbed his hard cock.
He hissed between his teeth as I jerked him off. “You want me to hurt you? After everything?”
“Victor thinks he’s helping free you. He expects you to be ‘cured’ from your little love disease. So…let him cure you.”
“What?” He stilled my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine. “You expect me to forget tonight? Forget this? Forget how I feel about you?”
“Not forget…pretend.” I squeezed him.
His eyes snapped shut.
Biting the shell of his ear, I whispered, “Play with me, Hen. Be the worst Master you can be so Victor trusts you. Do whatever it takes to convince him that you’re his.”
His entire body turned to stone. “What are you saying?” He yanked my hand off his erection. “Stop that. I can’t think with you touching me.”
“I’m saying you need to be the Master Victor wants you to be. Distract him. Mislead him. Keep his eyes on you instead of on…other things.”
“Other things?”
“He obviously cares for you. Even Rachel said she’s never seen him be this friendly with another.”
He groaned and closed his eyes. “Please don’t mention her name. I feel sick to my stomach for hurting her. Yet another woman I was forced to—” He pressed his lips together as if fighting his natural inclination to purge. “I—” His lashes flashed up. “I need you, Ily. Promise me. Promise me that it’s just us from now on.” Nuzzling into my neck, he pushed me higher up the wall and notched his cock against my entrance. “Tonight never happened, alright? Victor didn’t happen. Rachel didn’t happen. Only this.” He pushed slowly, carefully. “Only us.”
My lips parted as he filled me.
My eyes rolled back at the exquisite sensation of penetration.
Clinging to him, I panted as he slid all the way in.
We moaned in unison.
So much, so full, so right.
I clenched around him.
He groaned and pressed his forehead to mine, but he didn’t move. He just stayed deep and still, letting our bodies adjust, remember, and reaffirm that this was it.
No one else.
Just us.
Tears trickled over my cheeks as I held his stare. “You’re wrong, you know.”
He scowled. “Wrong about what?”
“That I hate you.”
He froze, his eyes filling with panic. “I don’t expect you to tell me things you don’t mean. Don’t lie to me. I won’t be able to stand it—”
“Mujhe tumase pyaar hai.” Leaning forward, I kissed him. “It means…I love you.”
His legs buckled. He almost dropped me. Slamming a hand against the wall, he staggered sideways before pinning me against the tiles again. His voice cracked. “What?”
I clung to his shoulders. “Je t’aime, Hen.”
“I-It’s not possible.” Fresh tears glossed his eyes; the violence I was used to from him rippled down his arms.
Snatching me close, keeping his cock deep, deep inside me, he wrenched off the shower and tripped onto the bathmat. Dripping wet, he carried me into the bedroom and fell onto the bed, wedging me beneath him, his cock still locked right where it belonged.
“Say it again.” His panic turned to desperation.
“I love you,” I whispered, kissing the tip of his nose.
A tortured noise fell out of him. “Are you sure? I mean…why? Fuck, how—”
“How?”
“God knows I’ve done nothing to deserve it. You should hate me. A large part of me needs you to hate me. I can’t handle anything else. I…I’m not worthy of anything else.”
My heart tore into pieces. “It’s because of your lack of self-worth that I do.” Arching my hips, I rocked against him. “You are worthy. I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t.”
He groaned. “Ily—”
Dragging his head down, I whispered too quietly for the cameras, “Tomorrow, when Victor forces us to do whatever sick game he has planned, we play together, okay? Promise me you’ll hurt me if he makes you. Vow to me you won’t make him suspicious.”
“God, I can’t.” He pressed his lips to my throat. “The thought of ever harming you again turns me into fucking knots. I wouldn’t survive if you broke.”
“But…” My nose wrinkled as I figured out the best way to say something so delicate. “But that’s who you are. You know it yourself. You need to deliver pain—”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ll change. I’ll stop. I don’t want—”
“It’s who you are, Hen. Either because of what you lived through as a boy or what you need as a man…you can’t change something so ingrained. Not now. Not that quickly.”
“I can. Watch me.”
“Don’t hate yourself for what you need.” I ran my fingers down his damp back, making him break out in goosebumps. “You’ll destroy yourself if you do.”
“What I need is you.”
“And what I need is for you to play along with me.”
We were running out of time.
If we were going to hoodwink Victor, it had to seem as if Henri had snapped thanks to Victor’s tutelage tonight.
Dropping my legs and going meek beneath him, it looked as if Henri took me against my will. The moment I surrendered, the truth I still hadn’t accepted shivered through me. Just the act of playing his captive made me wet and needy.
God, it felt so scandalous and dirty and…safe.
Safe now that I trusted him.
Safe now that I knew him.
Safe.
He sucked in a breath as he felt my shift, felt the flush of wetness inside me. “W-What are you doing?”
“Being honest with myself.” I licked my lips and stared at his mouth. “What if…what if I need you to hurt me? What if I’m exactly what you said I was…”
He went very, very still. “You’re not a masochist, Ily. I was seeing what I wanted to see. Trying to convince myself what I was doing wasn’t wrong.”
“It wasn’t wrong…not all of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
I melted beneath him. “You asked what parts of me react at the thought of you punishing me. You asked if I would bow for you—”
“Stop it.” He clamped a hand over my mouth. “Don’t say something that isn’t true.”
Nipping at his palm, I smirked as he ripped his hand away. “The night of Emerald Bruises. When I was high and used you for sex—”
“Fuck.” His cock jerked inside me. “Don’t remind me. And you didn’t use me. Far from it. I felt like a monster for taking you in that condition.”
“I asked you to bite me. I couldn’t come until you did.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does.” I smiled, so grateful I still could after what’d happened tonight. “I’m a Mercerchist. I’m your Mercerchist.”
His forehead furrowed. “I have no idea what that means.”
“It means…I hate pain from others. But with you? I…I like it. I like when you bruise me. When you treat me with violence, I feel your love beneath. Your love is painful. And now I know why.”
“Merde, you’re trying to kill me.” His hips jabbed into mine.
I gasped. “No. I’m just being honest.”
His eyes flashed. “You want honesty? Fine.” His hips rocked again, feeding me his throbbing hardness. “The taste of your tears. The moans of your pleasure. The knowledge that I hold your life in my hands? It turns me the fuck on, and…if you truly want to know the sick monster you’ve let into your bed, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up right now without the Viagra.” His kissed me hard, forcing me to choke on his words. “Being inside you this way is far too gentle and sweet. It’s scrambling my mind. I’m in love with you. You come first in everything, yet this…” He thrust, sharp and savage. “This wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me and that…fuck, that destroys me because you deserve gentle. You deserve sweet.”
“Isn’t that up to me to decide?”
“No. I can’t risk it. I…Christ, I can’t lose you. I refuse to do anything that might break you. I’d never forgive myself.”
“I won’t break, Henri.” I kissed him back. “I trust you not to go that far.”
“But that’s the thing.” He gave me a heartbreaking shrug. “I don’t trust myself.”
My mind scrambled for a way to give him what he needed.
We had to put on a performance for Victor, all while keeping our sanities intact. “You said the connection you felt when we played along when we first arrived frustrated you. That you didn’t like me obeying you, even though I’d agreed not to fight.”
His eyes narrowed. “Where are you going with this?”
“Let’s play a different game.” I shifted beneath him, my body humming for him to move, to take, to thrust. “I’ll fight you back. I’ll give you that fire. I’ll be unbroken all while you do your best to break me.”
“That sounds incredibly dangerous.”
“Khushi.”
“What?”
“It’s the nickname my brother calls me. It means happiness.” I kissed his ear. “I vow I’ll say it if you ever go too far. A safe word only we know. As long as I don’t say it, you need to trust me…just like I trust you. Trust that I can handle what you give me. Trust that I’m with you. Trust that I’m strong enough to play the games Victor expects you to play, and hopefully, if you distract him for long enough, then our plan will work, and we can go home.”
He didn’t say a damn thing.
Time ticked past before he cupped my cheek and stared deep into my eyes. “Vow on your life you will never, ever let me destroy you.”
The warnings came back from the astrologer.
“Destined to destroy each other.”
I nodded. “I vow it.”
“Fine.” He dropped his head and kissed me. His tongue slipped past my lips just as he withdrew and drove punishingly hard inside me.
I moaned into his mouth.
He thrust again, tortuously slow and sweet.
Threading his fingers through my hair, he held me down and took me.
Long, slow, deep, deep thrusts.
I couldn’t fight it.
Each rock wrapped me in warmth and comfort, making my blood sing with gentle arousal instead of burning lust.
Breaking the kiss, he whispered, “I’ll play along, Ily. I’ll do whatever it takes, but for now…I don’t care what the cameras record. I don’t care what Victor thinks. This might be the only time in my life I can have simple, innocent missionary, and I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to make love to you, not fuck you. And I’m going to show you just how much you mean to me instead of making you scream.”
I cried out as his mouth claimed mine again.
He thrust with a worshipping rhythm—relentless and ruthless, full of respect and benediction.
If Victor asked why Henri made love to me like a husband instead of fucked me like a monster, we’d tell him this was goodbye.
Goodbye to the feelings between us.
Goodbye to the love Victor said was such a disease.
Wrapping my legs around his rocking hips, I hugged him ever so close.
We kissed, we moaned, we rocked, and writhed.
And when his lips pulled back and his cock thickened to an unbearable size inside me, he set my heart on fire.
“Come with me.” His hand burrowed between us, finding my clit and stroking me.
I gasped as his length stroked my G-spot, but I didn’t reach those soul-scratching heights. Didn’t tangle fear with lust or drown beneath right and wrong.
For the first time, sex between us was simple instead of savage, and it made me fall in so many other ways.
He rubbed me and made love to me, and when I came, the wakes and ripples felt exactly like a hazy summer’s day.
“I love you,” he groaned, his spine rolling, breath catching, cock rippling with his own summer-sweet release.
This man had driven me to the depths of despair and revealed parts of myself I would never have been brave enough to explore.
But in that bedroom, on that night, I knew we would win.
We would get free.
We would save Peter and Rachel and every jewel.
It was destined.
I stroked his back as he collapsed on top of me. His cock continued to twitch inside me as he whispered, “Are you going to tell me what you, Peter, and Rachel have been up to now?”
I twisted my head, catching his soft grey eyes. “How…?”
He smirked. “I knew you three were up to something.”
“And you didn’t tattle?”
He sighed, rolled onto his side, and ripped the blankets up and over our heads.
In a tent fort hidden from the cameras, he cupped my cheek and ran his thumb beneath my eye. “I told you, little nightmare, I’m loyal. I think I loved you the moment I saw you, so no, I didn’t tattle.” He glowered at my collar. “You might wear that damn thing, but you put an invisible one on me in that club. You’ve made me feel things I’m definitely not strong enough to feel.” He shrugged sadly. “There’s a weight inside me that I can’t shed. A darkness that keeps clawing me back, but I have a purpose now. I have you…somehow.”
Cradling me with his protective arms, he whispered, “I accept your safe word, Ily. Whatever you’re planning with the jewels, I’m in. Tomorrow, I’ll be the worst of the worst all in order to save them. I won’t hold back. I’ll trust that you’re with me. And when the day comes that we can walk the fuck out of here, I’m ripping that damn collar off your throat, then spending a lifetime trying to deserve you.”