Chapter 6 #2
She stood in my t-shirt. The hem close to her ass. She wasn’t as curvy as she was ten years ago. Age hadn’t stolen that from her. Malnourishment had. I knew all about that.
I knew what starving felt like. . . fucking awful.
“Going somewhere?” I leaned down on her, my dark shadow caging her in.
She spun to face me, her back arched against golden doors. False confidence that would soon disappear.
“You almost look cute. Pretending you’re not fucking terrified of me.” I laughed into her ear, sharp fangs clamping as my teeth bite down on her soft skin, testing whether she’d jump.
And she did, almost a mile into the fucking air.
“Where were you going? Did he not tell you not to run? I thought he’d have warned you,” I whispered still close to her ear. “The little prick has a big mouth for a small boy.”
“He’s a bigger person than you are. A better person.” She forced her gaze on me, just as the doors parted dropping her onto other hotel guests and a hoard of their luggage.
I clutched her arm, grabbing with force, my touch bruising. I yanked her forward, pulling her from those she’d almost bowled over.
Her hair jerked from her face, causing her fiery persona to retreat into hiding as she frantically concealed herself behind her coils. Then behind me.
“Apologies. My wife is a little nervous around strangers. Traumatic past.” I left out the part that I caused it.
I turned, guiding her from behind me. She remained silent. Trained so perfectly to only speak when spoken to.
“Aren’t you, darling?” I couldn’t call her whore in front of this kind of audience—a happy family, parents and two teenagers.
One of which had her eyes lingering a little too long on my cock, which luckily, was no longer peeping out to see the sights of Vegas.
But her stare still managed to make me and my amazing moral compass feel uncomfortable.
Jolie nodded.
Eager to get away, I spread my fingers, weaving them between hers. My eyes invaded her stare fixed on the family in front of me, pleading for help. I dared her with a cocky grin to voice her request.
She chose wisely, bringing a smile to my lips. Her hand tightened around mine as I stepped backwards, pulling her away.
“Sorry, again.” I smiled, fake charm holding on to each pearly white. “And sorry you had to see us messing around in our delicates. It’s our honeymoon.” I turned my attention back to Jolie, my unloving bride. “Let’s go celebrate it.”
I carted Jolie back down towards our room. Her little feet rushed to keep up with my long strides, trying to outrun any punishment that would catch up to her if she disobeyed me in public.
Closing the door, concealing ourselves from the world, she turned to face me as I rested against the entrance.
“I was going for breakfast.” Her growling stomach echoed in the otherwise silent room, begging me to believe her.
“Where did you get money?” My foot kicked back, resting against the wood of the door.
“From Woodrow’s pocket.”
“Woodrow’s pocket. . .” my lips scrunched, then twisted into a snarl. “My pocket?”
“I thought the trousers were Woodrow’s. Woody said—”
“Woody said what exactly?” I kicked off from the door, making the distance she was creating between us smaller as she drifted back farther and farther. “Drop the money, Jolie.”
Unravelling the money notes she’d tucked into the side of her knickers like a cheap whore, she dropped them to the ground, along with the loose change she’d kept tightly clutched in her hand this whole time.
A quarter bounced off my foot as I stepped into her breathing space. A minty puff stole my attention for a second as she took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” she lied to my face, her eyes meeting mine for a split second.
I almost laughed at her defiance as I asked, “Did the little cunt inside me tell you that it was okay to steal from me? Fuck, I can see why those bastards hated him so much.”
The anger I felt talking about my parents brought steam through my nose, ferrying down my nostrils and poisoning the peppermint-coated air around us.
My fingers wrapped around Jolie’s arms, pressing into her delicate skin. My forefingers pressed my thumbs, closing around her small arms.
I didn’t like her new body, and proof showed on my face.
I didn’t like skinny girls, at all. They reminded me of my mother.
“This body is even less appealing than the chubby one.”
Jolie’s nose pointed into the air, but her eyes stayed on the ground, staring at the coins around our toes.
My words hurt her, and I knew they would.
That was why I’d said them.
I enjoyed living in the lie that she meant absolutely fuck all to me, but the truth was, she was everything that made my miserable face smile, even if it was only while I made her heart, eyes, and soul weep.
I looked at her in disgust, like it was all her fault she looked this way. Well, part of me thought it fucking was. If she wasn’t so eager to spread her legs and have them carry her far away from me, she wouldn’t have ended up in that situation.
She could have tried harder to get through to me. . . but she chose to run.
That memory made me evil. I knew why she did it now. I understood, but I still wouldn’t accept it.
With my arm stretched out to guide her, I ordered, “Get into the bathroom, don’t make me drag you.”
The bathroom held the perfect chill, air con blasting away the heat of a sickly hot morning.
Jolie stopped in the center of the room. Her little toes massaging the marble pattern of the cold ceramic tiles. She turned, fronting me as she awaited further instructions.
She no doubt hated wash time with me. Well, she hated me full stop. I could see the vicious emotion swirling in her dark brown eyes. That excited me. She was still alive in there, still fiery and able to feel.
“Are you ready to tell me the truth?” I tested. “You already know how much fun we can have in here.”
“I showed you the money.”
“But you didn’t take it for breakfast. One hundred and fifty-two dollars and however many fucking cents would have gotten you quite a big breakfast.” I shifted around her, moving to the window where the morning sun was tapping for welcome.
“No one spends that on a single breakfast, Jolie. Not even those in desperate need of food, and I’m not saying you’re not fucking starving, because, well, fucking look at you. You look nothing like you used to. . .”
“And whose fault is that!” she snapped, finally, her eyes and their burning rage flicking to me.
Her defiant tone had me growing hard. But I ignored the oncoming throb.
“Yours, my little whore. You are at fault. Who the fuck else would be?” A cocked eyebrow challenged her answer. “You ran.”
“He told me to!”
“And I told you to stop.”
“You were trying to kill me.”
“I should have.”
The force of my glare and the weight of my words lowered her head to the floor; she stared at her toes, bowing to her master.
“Good girl.” My words were kind and sympathetic, my tone the mirror image.
“I really was hungry.,” she dared to speak. A growl from her stomach—this one louder than before—offered backup, demanding I diverted my threatening behavior.
I did the opposite.
“Get out of my shirt. Whores aren’t meant to wear clothes.” I recited the words my father spoke time and time again.
Her mouth opened; her lips moved, but fear was a thief, an accomplice to me, claiming her voice while I stole back her dignity.
Tugging the material, I yanked my tee over her head before she’d even reached for the hem. I caught her flappy ears and shifted her hair from her face with the rapid movement. All her insecurities rushed to the surface of her skin. A million goosebumps trailing close behind.
Her fingers changed direction, rushing to her face to hide the scars I’d placed there. Screams left her lips, carrying words I couldn’t make out to my ears.
I tossed the tee to the ground, calling out her vulnerabilities as she stood before me in nothing but a pair of black lace knickers, that I was almost sure she’d piss with fright, ruining the sexy garment I’d gifted her for my own viewing pleasure, with the rancid stench of urination.
I angered myself by thinking of things that hadn’t even happened.
Her chapped lips, now free of the mocha stain they’d been painted in for her to look pretty for our wedding, screamed that she’d spent years in a state of semi-dehydration.
That was another thing that fucked me off.
But I didn’t know why.
Not that I’d ever needed a reason to be fucking angry.
I lowered, retracting a little intimidation—a false sense of security for her. Lifting her chin with two fingers, I let her see me smile.
“One day you won’t hide these away from the world.” My fingers flicked the thickness of her hair behind her ear.
She didn’t dare to discard my touch, not with my face this close to hers.
I examined her features, my eyes tracing all the individual scars I put on her face; the silver inch hiding in her hairline, that one was accidental.
The small faint line across her throat, that one wasn’t.
Neither was the faint dent below her bottom lip, the imprint of my teeth could still vaguely be made out.
Again, thinking of all those memories, brought the anger back.
With her hair twirled tightly around my fingers, I dragged her to the shower, pulling her like a reluctant animal as she struggled in my hold.
She screamed, the noise loud enough to threaten me with the invading presence of do-gooders.
A single look had her lips sealed. The inferno of my rage burned her sound to cinders before it could seep into the air and amplify my anger.
I tossed her into the glass dome, and I watched her tumble. Her knees creaked like she was double her age as she struggled to rise from the floor. I stepped in behind her.
“Stay on the ground,” I ordered.
I was ready to drown the rage.
Jolie
I listened to him. The perfect slave obeying her master, saving myself the punishment disobeying would bring.
“Take off the underwear.”