Chapter 9 #2
Deep down, I knew he wouldn’t…still, fear gripped me painfully tight as my voice shuddered. “Let me shower in privacy.” With one last quick breath, “Please.”
Tense eyes assessed me then an odd emotion flitted through them as his gaze dropped to my lips. “I will, Artemis. I promise…Just give me this one thing, don’t make me take it from you.”
My chest felt tight at the reminder of all he’d taken so far. At the realization that there wasn’t much left remaining.
“What?”
I didn’t want to give anything more, every piece of myself that I had left, I wanted to hold tight and hide from anyone else who would force it away.
“Kiss me.”
That was one thing I wouldn’t give him. “No.”
My head shifted, trying to move away from his gaze, but he moved with me. “Then tell me why you’re still waiting for him…I don’t understand it, Natty. He left you…and then you were traded like a fucking baseball card to a different club, and he still never reclaimed you.”
I turned my face. “Stop.”
His fingers gripped my chin. “Don’t you get it yet, Natty? Silas has his priorities, and you aren’t one of them. He’s been around, watching you, hasn’t he…everywhere you go?”
I glared up at Alec and tried to push, but his body covered mine and he wouldn’t budge.
“Do you know how pathetic it makes you look that you’re willing to play house in another club, pretending to be some baking princess who wouldn’t dare hurt a fly, all while you’re just waiting for your dark prince to come and tell you it’s okay to come home?”
“That’s not how it is.” I pushed again, my hands sliding against his slick skin and getting nowhere.
He drew closer, his erection had mostly died down thankfully as he pressed close. “You’re choosing not to live your life, Natty. You could move on with someone who wants a life with you and yet you’re just frozen.”
He slapped the tile next to my face. “You will always be the runner-up to revenge and the mistress of vengeance. He wants the darkness more than he will ever crave your light.”
Like a soaked piece of paper, Alec had just reduced my life to a limp mass of blurred lines and smeared ink. Fat tears began trailing down my face, and I hated him for bringing his hand up to cradle my trembling jaw.
With his last words, every ounce of fight I had lifted from me like a cloud of steam and in its place was complacency.
“You have others who crave that light. Others who have needed you and all the hope you always saved for him. You have those who would also rip the world from its axis just for a chance to belong to you.”
Alec continued to stare at me as I cried. His thumb came up, swiping at my tears, only to then smear them along his lips, tasting the salt with his tongue.
My head tipped back as I asked, “Does crushing me really bring you so much pleasure?”
“If it’s the only way I’d ever get to keep you, then yes.” Alec’s lips brushed against my jaw.
I stared at the tile, waiting for him to be done with me because the fight had left me years ago when my choices had first started to be stolen from me.
Back when Dirk had begun his obsession with me…
when I’d become a thing instead of a person.
That’s what Alec had reduced me to, and he had no idea how deep his betrayal gutted me.
Alec finally registered I wasn’t engaging with his ministrations, and he released me, shifting under the warm spray.
I moved as well and began washing my hair.
I didn’t care that Alec was watching me, or that he started washing his own body with a bar of soap, a mere few inches from me.
I didn’t care that when he cleaned his cock, he stroked it several times and, in the process, the slick tip touched my thigh.
“Did he ever get branded for you?” His whispered words were followed up with a pleading look, as his hand wrapped around his cock. “Did he get a tattoo anywhere on his body that represents you? Because I did, Artie, all of this is for you.”
His arm flexed, the one he’d connected to me. As if he wanted me to see it every single day.
I rinsed my hair. “Silas only has one tattoo that matters to me.”
Alec only stared at me, stroking himself.
“Does he look at you like this? Does he see the way your back dips just enough to leave a dimple right here?” He brushed his finger over my lower spine, making me flinch.
“Does he think about sinking his tongue into every hole you have, only to prepare it to be filled with his cock?”
His wrist rotated quicker as my skin began to pebble from the cold air. The hot water was gone.
“When’s the last time you were fucked by him?”
I covered myself with my arms. “I’d like to get dressed.”
“You can get dressed, but I’m going to finish first and you’re going to watch me. You’re going to see what you do to me, what you’ve always done to me, and you’re going to remove your arms so I can see those tits while I do it.”
My nostrils flared in anger. Hurt whirling inside me like a tornado.
“And if I don’t?”
His caresses became more insistent, the head of his cock weeping with clear cum. Eyes hooded, he explained, “If you don’t then I’ll have to take a step closer and paint your skin, or I could have you lick it from the tiles once I finish all over the shower floor.”
I set my chin, glaring at him.
“This is sexual assault, Alec. Are you really stooping so low as to take something from me that I’m not willing to give?”
My heart thrashed as I tried to remain stoic and calm.
I thought I knew him.
All these years, I had assumed there was an understanding between us, a clear line that he’d never cross, no matter what or where we landed in life.
His smile was crooked as he stepped closer, turning off the water as he advanced.
“Seems being the good guy holds no bearing with you. Darkness is what gets you off. It’s your kink of choice, so as much as you’re saying you don’t want it, I know if I were to slip my tongue between those silky soft thighs, I’d be able to taste that you do.”
“Don’t do this, Alec.” My whisper cut through the sound of his slick erection being stroked.
He didn’t stop, his hips thrust forward as he fucked his hand, harder and harder until he reached up and roughly placed his hand against the tile near my head.
His groan was like an explosion in my ears, making me slam my eyes shut. I wanted to block him out, the sound, the feel of his sticky cum coating my stomach. All of it.
He shuddered, trying to catch his breath.
“Clean yourself off.”
I looked around, but there were no towels in sight. “Turn the water on—”
He shook his head. “Use your fingers, smear it, then lick them clean.”
Horror washed through me as I glared. “I’m not—”
“I’ll remove your cuffs for the rest of the day,” Alec offered, cutting me off in the process.
The temptation was so intense, so achingly sweet that my fingers twitched near the mess against my skin.
Alec’s hair still dripped, fat water droplets rolling down his face as he watched me with hooded eyes.
I knew deep down if I gave him this, he’d take everything from me.
There would be no line, no standard at all.
He’d see my weakness, and in doing so, he’d use it to control me.
So, I kept my chin raised and I stared.
His left eye twitched. “I said to clean yourself, Artemis.”
“And I won’t touch any part of you, even if your cum has to dry to my skin.”
A moment passed, then another, where he merely stared at me. His erection gone, his scowl in place and finally he let out a low scoff.
“Suit yourself. Let it dry, Artie…stay covered in my cum, it only turns me on.”
Alec finally allowed me to leave the shower, still chained to him through the handcuff. I covered my chest with my free arm, and didn’t ask for a towel, knowing it would be fruitless. Alec dried off, brushed his teeth and then we finally moved to the bedroom.
“Will I be sleeping naked, or will you be giving me clothes?” My skin was freezing, and the drying semen on my stomach began to feel uncomfortable.
Alec didn’t answer, just tossed one of his shirts at me.
I stared at it, knowing I was going to need him to disconnect the cuffs if I wanted my arm inside the sleeve.
He moved away from me, but I yanked his wrist as hard as I could, making him turn to face me with a grimace.
“The fuck, Artie.”
“I need to put my arm through the hole, uncuff me.”
He glared, his gaze dropping to my heaving chest, my pebbled nipples and the white stain he’d left against my stomach. I’d been sunbathing with Laura as often as possible before all this, so my stomach was fairly tan.
“Maybe I should keep you naked, Artie. I do enjoy the view.”
He pulled the small chain between the cuffs, drawing me closer to him. “That’s exactly what will happen to you if you try anything when I unlock these, do you understand?”
Defeat was a soaked thundercloud in my chest. I envisioned fighting him.
I had a beautiful delusion that Rachel had left me a knife, or something to defend myself, but I knew she wouldn’t risk her place here to offer that.
Her kindness to me was attempting to get me out of this room, but it had failed. Just like I had.
With a reluctant nod, I waited as Alec unlocked the cuffs. I slipped the shirt over my head and as soon as I pushed my arm through the hole, he slapped the cuff back on.
He stared at me while I moved with him toward the bed.
“It’s dinner time.”
It sounded as if Alec were suddenly feeling remorse over what he’d said and done to me.
Having more freedom with his proximity, I turned away from him, curling into a ball against the wall.
Memories of a past life rushed through me painfully fast as I ignored Alec’s commentary.
He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore.